Dangerous bookstores

Dangerous bookstores can be defined in several ways and I don’t think that they’re the same for every person. But today I went to one.

This one was characterised by the black and red garter belt. It cost me $150.

People in marketing are fuckwits. They think of little gimmicks like putting a garter belt on a book somehow makes it more appealing. The last time I saw a book display with a bunch of garter belts around the mid-drift of a bunch of blushing paperbacks (one of those pulp fiction romance novels) was in February. Around Valentine’s day.

Most of the books had clearly been purchased sans leg-decoration as there was a little crumpled pile of them on the bookbin shelf and someone had begun removing a few off the books so to allow for better browsing. Cheap nasty tight things they were. They looked tight. I wasn’t game enough to try one on. At least not in the aisle of the store.

This particular garter belt didn’t seem to have a coy book to cover though. As I scanned the nearby shelves (‘New Release – Non-Fiction’) I couldn’t find a single book that had a matching frilly decoration. There wasn’t anything that appeared to require it (no new biography on Christine Keeler, nothing with Fabio on the fluro covers) and I wondered if perhaps the one book that came with it had been purchased, leaving this orphaned lingerie item behind.

Because I had about forty minutes to kill before the author of ‘The Arrival’… arrived… by the way, he’s leaving this month to go to Melbourne to live and the irony wasn’t lost on him… I decided to see if perhaps the belt belonged to a book in another section and that it perhaps got mislaid somehow next to Hawking’s ‘God Created the Integers’ or Dawkin’s ‘The God Delusion’ (the only copy left in this city – now in my possession! Ha, take that Amazon.com!).

It certainly didn’t seem to be designed for those two books, although from what I recall of Dawkin’s banter with Douglas Adams, I think perhaps he would have found a certain amount of charm in having a frilly around his mid-drift. His time-lord missus could wear it as a memento when he’s on tour. It didn’t seem to suit the new hardcover Peter Cook memoirs or the ‘Letters from a Portuguese Nun’ (its cover was too… austere… although I was tempted to try) or even ‘Seven Million Years – The Story of Human Evolution ‘ by Douglas Palmer. Their loss, perhaps.

Anyway, I started with the ‘Theatre’ section and had no luck. Although I did find that Stoppard has ‘Pirandello’s Henry IV’ in print and I’ve been meaning to see ‘Six Characters in Search of an Author’, so perhaps this was a good time to read his interpretation. Apparently his ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll’ was inspired in some part by the Czech-set classic ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ (or at least in the name of the main character Tomas) but I don’t think that it was designed with a stocking elastic decoration in mind. About then I discovered the ‘cult book’ section.

This is where they keep Dunn’s ‘Geek Love’ and all the Palahniuk novels. I found ‘The Curse of Lono’ by Hunter S Thompson (illustrated naturally by Ralph Steadman) and thought that I found the niche for this bit of tat. But ‘Curse’ was a big fat glossy hardcover and any garter binding on that would only suit those who have the thigh girth of an out-of-work actress posing as a incestuous-lesbian-ice-addicted-regular on a Jerry Springer show.

It didn’t suit Neal Stephenson’s joint novel with Frederick George in ‘Cobweb’ (I’d only read ‘Interface’ before) and although tucking it around the ‘ Daedalus Book of Finnish Fantasy’ (a quick scan of the contents gave me the words ‘bogs’, farmers’, ‘trousers’ and ‘the train station Zubotica’ so I don’t quite know if the standard of fantasy in Finland really needs additional frills with that sort of excitement between their pages) was really really alluring, I eventually decided that the likes of the ‘Call of Cthulhu’ and ‘Slaughterhouse 5′ would be better off unmolested by black elastic and red satin.

About now I was juggling quite a few books but hadn’t gone to the graphic novel section. In that section there a lady wearing a really really nice black corset and featuring breasts that from the side view could only be described as ‘being like a balcony’ (balconetty? balconised?) – well, she was checking out the Dave Sims although I suggested that she look at the Grant Morrison’s or the early work of Alan Moore (‘D.R and Quinch’). She suggested that perhaps the garter could (she looked even better from the front as she had this sort of V-neck-cum-scoop-C-neck design that just really lifted and separated… where was I?)

I’m sorry, I have no idea what she suggested. None whatsoever. Balcony.

So I went to look at the John Mortimer’s to calm myself down. I really should have given her the garter, I’m certain she would have found a fine use for it. Keep her warmer at least.

Then I realised that there were six books alone on Mozart. And that the Pet Shop Boys had a big illustrated volume on all of their album artwork in a shiny foil book which revealed that they once wanted to do a musical based on Graham Greene’s ‘Brighton Rock’. And that someone left a big coffee cup stain on a pile of Robert Jordans. And that I was never going to find a damned owner for this bloody garter belt unless I stopped browsing and started looking in some sensible sections of the bookstore that really required some cheap titillating action to get themselves sold.

I mean, the latest edition of ‘The Princess Bride’ looks bloody awful. Like a five year old decided to scribble what they thought a pirate would look like if they were holding a cattle-prod. And no one was buying anything from the pile of ‘History’s Greatest Scandals – Shocking Stories of Powerful People’, much to author Ed Wright’s dismay, I’m certain. Boring cover that made it look like a daily planner.

”Butterflies of the World’ had a great cover, but no one was going to notice it behind the puppy training books. And how many people remember Abbott’s classic ‘Flatland’? You could do your own inspired experiments in 3-D space with a garter-belt if you pinged it about the bedroom. Not that I think A. Square would have really enjoyed a two-dimensional experience of a pole-dance. Even Balcony-boobs would have seemed far less erotic if you were a polygon.

I was deciding between Suskind’s ‘Perfume’ or Lemony Snicket’s ‘The End’ (which is actually quite a funny esoteric in-joke but this email has gone on far too long enough) when the author of ‘The Arrival’ turned up and people started handing out little bottles of champagne to celebrate that this was the first bookstore signing since last night’s ‘official’ launch.

By this point I had about ten books and I just wrapped the garter-belt around my copy of Apuleius’ ‘Eros and Psyche’ (Penguin Epics have released a bunch of little Classics readers, not unlike their Penguin 60s series back in ’95 where they sold itty-bitty books with itty-bitty prices featuring selected chapters or short stories and so I got that and ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’, ‘Adventures of Alexander the Great’ and Herodotus’ ‘Xerxes Invades Greece’) and asked if they minded.

The guy shrugged and took my money.

So now I have too many books and a garter belt.

I think I’ll use it as a scrunchy and wear it in my hair when I go to the Skeptics conference in Melbourne. So you’ll be the only people who know that I’m actually wearing a frilly tarty leg-circulation inhibitor in my curls when I’m swanning about pretending to be a toff.

I’m finishing off the champagne now, as the bottle only fills one glass and I can’t seem to get to sleep.

Cheers!

K.

Don’t Tell

Some things just shouldn’t be repeated.

Those stories that don’t actually say a damned thing about humanity for example. Or remember to include a moral. Punchlines are quite important too.

The tales that neglect to critique and question the way we see the arts or sciences. Those ones that don’t contribute somehow to mature reflections upon the successes or failures of society and how we can learn from them.

Especially unappreciated are those yarns by wankers regaling us with exactly how much they drank and how fast they drove with their dumb-as-fuck friends, putting those with less tendency to be so selfish at risk. The only punchline I want from those pig-ignorant bastards is the permanent loss of a license or a unlisted, unmourned Darwin Award.

To this we should include the ones told by the ancient relics which exist only to make the youthful protagonist quietly eat the inside of their own face off with their molars.

We all have them. These are the ones that cycle and recycle in the family homes – eventually developing many legs, hairy arms, exposed pulsing innards, red flaming anal flush and then proceed to regularly metahumanly knuckle their way across the yearly gatherings in a hideous crippled parody of the best-forgotten past.

Put them out of their misery, please. Such is the legend of Bali Bob.

I’ve forgotten how many times I’ve heard The Ballad of Bali Bob. Every year there’s another embossing of the magic lamp of a tale because, unlike their contemporaries, my parents’ memory for insignificant detail from a century ago continues to grow.

This story isn’t just loved, it’s adored. Especially at funerals, family weddings and random strangers at bowling clubs. They tell the story and I cock an ear in their direction – it’s one of the few comforts I afford them in their latter years.
According to my parents, and backed up by strangely-fire-resistant incriminating snapshots, at the age of four I became Bali Bob.

No, not just became, I was Bali Bob. Somehow the snatches of holiday destinations on television adverts and parental sighs on rainy days about distant lands seized my imagination and thus sprung forth from my forehead a bastard notion of a swashbuckling rapscallion that wore leaves, swung from a vine, was the forbidden lovechild offspring of a shipwrecked princess and a pirate king, raised by orangutangs and oddly had a rather keen working knowledge of American Wild West-era gunplay with a smattering of Indian levitation techniques (aka: jumping off the chicken shed shouting incomprehensible mantras).

I answered to no one, at least, no one who called me by name. I only answered to Bali Bob. This always causes my parents great mirth because it lasted several years longer than it should have, by their recollection, into the early stages of adulthood and possibly a near-inclusion on my graduation certificate.

Apparently it was the six-shooter. It is recalled as clearly as if I were still wielding it to save Princess Leia (who was on a Con Tiki junket off the coast of Indonesia at the time and forgot to include Han Solo in on the package tour) or Xena the Warrior Princess (who somehow got her Frisbee stolen by the Amazonian Men’s Movement and needed a backup partner when Gabrielle was attending the knitting circle my mother ran).

It was a black plastic Toyworld regular handgun. I treasured that fine weapon; it was always by my side.
In the middle of the night, it would guard me against the oppressive forces that hid under the bed. Of course, in these modern times, the anti-joy agents of safety would have it destroyed as a potential example of child abuse of the worst degree. The finest attribute of the revolver was its lengthy barrel. Here, a phallic instrument became so much more than a warning to potential villains. It was a definite invitation to prod, poke and investigate with a quasi-penile appendage that could flip, whip and tip a wide variety of items.

No cake bowl was safe. Icing found itself dotted with both marzipan roses and barrel circles that were tasted at my leisure behind the kitchen door. Anyone near the washing basket would find themselves smarting from an invisible pistol-whipping as a strange yowling in the distance that… just… might… be mistaken for the mating cries of the pre-adolescent orangutang-swinging wild child, indicating that the culprit had fled the scene.

Apparently, according to my father, it was my mother that fed my fixation. She counters with the claim that she was an unwilling participant, forced at plastic pistol-point to fashion Bali Bob’s famous costume.

The disguise was the remains of dad’s old army-patterned Y-fronts and a lengthy fringe of Hessian looping over and around, serving as a utility-belt and an over-the-shoulder banner (for additional storage of bananas and fruit roll-ups). To this day I regret not having a real pith helmet and mourn the loss of the treasured plastic binoculars down the back of the potting shed out of the reach of a broom handle (when I was doing a reconnaissance of the possible terrorist actions of my younger siblings).

The way they tell it, the freshly asphalted suburbs bore an uncanny resemblance to the harsh terrain of Sumatra. It was here Bali Bob fought tyranny and injustice, traversing the lawn on the faithful tiger-shaped broom as they challenged… whateveritwasthatfeaturedasthebadguysonearlymorningTVshows.

They were dangerous days. Bali Bob almost lost their life once, in a mall, when the banner was slowly devoured by an escalator.

Over the years I managed to drag all the members of my family, their friends and some of our more gullible relatives into my unhealthy obsession. We lived in a world where everyone was a friend or foe of Bali Bob. Bali Bob was my infantile Quixote and over time I even transformed my parents into a stereophonic, bi-gendered ape mentor who would tut over the war-wounds with a kindly eye.

Assorted brothers and sisters took on multiple roles with surprisingly generous attitudes considering how often they felt the sting of a well-aimed butt-beating for being on the side of the pirates / merchant navy / monkey-poachers / Evil Empire / Dick Dastardly and Muttley that week.

We laugh about it now.

Well, to be completely honest, they laugh about it.

But I listen. I’ll always listen.

Go away, I don’t want to think about it anymore without the medication.

Hello World!

This is more of a test post than anything else.

In fact, with the remains of at least two blogs out there, I ponder the wisdom of starting another. Actually, three. One wasn’t ‘mine’. I should reuse some of those ones – I quite liked them. Will save me a little time.

I do like this wordpress thing though, much easier than Blogspot. I recently made a big mess of my blogspot one.

OOoo, you can upload video here!!

Okay, that’s enough for the day.

Here’s your link: http://www.infinitecat.com