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08 March 2008

Yeah, I'm back. Pinky wont have to chow down on my Buster Browns. And quite a bit happened while I was away. [More:]The other day, one of my co-workers found a silver liquor flask shaped like a cellphone in a box of books he was unloading. Today, the same thing happened to me, only it was a live cockroach. Not the same. The lady did tip me $3 though. I guess she felt bad.

Yesterday though, I met RICHARD PRICE! He did a stock signing in our rare book room on the third floor. My manager, knowing what a fanboy I am, sent me up there on the pretense of getting a signature for him. I went up and we shot the breeze for about twenty minutes. He was an incredibly cool and friendly guy. He was impressed with where pips teaches school and seeing my Dictators t-shirt, gave me the inside dope on the Price/Dictators connection* and a host of other topics, and a personalized inscription on my copy of his latest**. He'll be at the Union Square B&N April 3. I'll be there, maybe some of you guys will be too.

The same day, one of our periodic regulars came in with a load of arcane math and engineering textbooks. We bought them for around $3000. She's a generous tipper, so when she put a bill in my palm, I thanked her, expecting a ten or twenty. It was a fifty. I had already made about $9 in tips that day and I made another twelve today, so I'm rewarding myself with some stinky cheese from Murray's on Bleeker and a big bottle of Brooklyn Local 1.

*Apparently Price's little brother Randy was in the same homeroom as Dictators bassist Andy Shernoff and they were invited to a gig, where he was introduced not as 'mr. famous bigshot author' but as 'Randy's brother.' They did name an album after Price's second novel and take the cover photo in the playground of the Parkside Houses, the Bronx housing project where Price grew up.

**it's really good, you should read it
Also, while I was gone I updated the Absurdist for the first time in a year with some JFJ-related stuff.
posted by jonmc 08 March | 20:40
*does happy dance*
posted by bunnyfire 08 March | 20:54
We are so screwed.

oops... wrong thread...
posted by wendell 08 March | 21:05
Welcome back! I quite enjoy your work-related posts. They're always interesting. Let us know how the cheese and beer is!
posted by CitrusFreak12 08 March | 21:10
The beer is excellent, I've had it before and the cheese (especially the Stilton) is exquisite. I got some taramosalata, too.

(also, I actually became a fan of Price and the Dictators around the same time-late teens-independently of eachother, without knowing the connection until much, much later.)
posted by jonmc 08 March | 21:25
I ALWAYS KNEW you'd be back.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero 08 March | 21:29
hi.
posted by rainbaby 08 March | 21:43
Hi Jon. That is so cool that you met Richard Price!
posted by LoriFLA 08 March | 21:46
YAY! Goodie goodie goodie!
posted by chewatadistance 08 March | 21:57
(I'm still staying off the blue for awhile, though)
posted by jonmc 08 March | 22:09
Bah. Screw the blue. That's for other, lesser Astro Zombies.
posted by Astro Zombie 4 08 March | 22:40
Good to see you back, jon. The blue is easy to forget.
posted by Ardiril 08 March | 22:46
Queens represent!
posted by caddis 08 March | 23:07
Yeah, I think we are gonna pick up the Price book tomorrow. Awesome that you got to meet him.
posted by gaspode 08 March | 23:38
Come to B&N on the third, pode, you can meet him, too. Homeboy loves to talk to people.
posted by jonmc 08 March | 23:39
(((missed you)))

How's Pips doing?
posted by hadjiboy 08 March | 23:54
Hi .. good to see you and as always, I enjoy your tales about my favorite book store. $3000 for math and engineering textbooks? Wow. And I also love a good Stilton, or really any fine stinky cheese. Enjoy!
posted by Kangaroo 09 March | 01:50
Hiya Jon. Glad you're back around!
posted by flapjax at midnite 09 March | 03:23
And Jon, I know you're off the blue for awhile, but stay away from the brown acid, too.
posted by flapjax at midnite 09 March | 03:25
Woot! I'd love to meet Richard Price. Very cool. Welcome back!
posted by goo 09 March | 06:08
It's always good when a crap job working with cool stuff reminds you of why you enjoy doing it. I would say I'm really pleased to see my favourite New Yorker back too, but as there has been no sign of box yet, I'm afraid I can't.
posted by GeckoDundee 09 March | 08:12
Congrats on meeting Richard Price. And very glad to see you back, AlexReynolds.

(I kid, I kid. You and Blazecock Pileon are two of my favorite contributors here. And there's nothing wrong with taking an occasional break.)

And actually, I'm even gladder to see you back, because I was thinking of you yesterday. I happened to hear the song "Modern Times Rock and Roll." It sounds like an early (1973) forebear of punk, in its sound, its looking back to 1950s rock as an inspiration, and in some of the wild behavior in the lyrics... but it's not the most likely band for that sort of thing. What's the deal? Any thoughts?
posted by ibmcginty 09 March | 10:54
Richard Price interview with Terri Gross if you haven't heard it already. I've think I've heard it at least five times. They keep repeating it on satellite NPR.
posted by LoriFLA 09 March | 11:01
Lori, he talks like taht all the time. When I told him that Pips taught high school in his neck of the woods, he said 'oh, yeah? Where?' '[name of school]' I answered. His jaw literally dropped. "My relatives went there in the 40's and 50's' he said 'it wasn't so bad then, but these days it always makes the Greatest Hits." I also mentioned that I had acquired the issue of the Paris Review with the first chapter of his latest novel in it. One of our homeless guys came in with a batch of stuff including that. I told him that we didn't buy periodicals. Then I noticed Price's name and said "Oh, cool.' The guy said 'you want it?' I said sure. As he was leaving with his money, he asked me for a smoke. I gave him three. "For the magazine,' I said. When I told Price he looked at me agog for a second then said 'you probably coulda gotten it for two.'
posted by jonmc 09 March | 11:08
I am having to google who Richard Price is.

That's all I have to add to this thread aside from Welcome Back.
posted by danf 09 March | 11:26
danf: read him, you'll love him. He's probably my biggest influence as a writer (if you call fiddling around on the internet 'writing.')
posted by jonmc 09 March | 11:58
Yay, jonmc!! Oh, I missed you. And I love your work stories, too!
posted by redvixen 09 March | 12:06
Welcome back, jon!

Unfortunatly, all of my favorite, life-changing authors have passed away in the last few years (Hunter Thompson and Vonnegut). It sort of sucks. Although I suppose I could still run into Aimee Bender or Annie Proulx... And I suppose my chances of actually running into either Thompson or Vonnegut were pretty small BEFORE they died...
posted by muddgirl 09 March | 12:22
mudgirl: what's weird is that on the elevator ride up to meet hime, I was silently praying 'don't be a dick, don't be a dick,' both to him and to myself. Thankfully he wasn't a dick, since if he was that would've cast a pall over my enjoyment of his writing and if I had come off like a dick in front of him that would've been humiliating, since I was kind of intimidated by his presence. But he inscribed my book 'Jon, a Pleasure talking to you, Richard Price.' So I guess I did OK.
posted by jonmc 09 March | 12:32
Welcome back man. I was sad to see you leave, happy to see you back.
posted by tr33hggr 09 March | 14:19
OMG I just heard him on NPR. I could have listened to him forever.

I DO plan to pick up Lush Life, in that he made the LES really attractive as a place to explore, history-wise.

And, you are a motherfucker of a writer. A book or many will pop out of you before you die, and the world will be better for it.
posted by danf 09 March | 19:23
danf, Lush Life is great, but get Ladies Man first. From your comment's I can tell that it'll blow your mind sky high.
posted by jonmc 09 March | 19:43
Very glad to see you back on the blue, too.
posted by ibmcginty 09 March | 22:00
Seriously, $3000? Can I unload my old math and engineering texts on you guys too?
posted by casarkos 10 March | 00:25
Bitchcakes || Best. Bird. Ever.

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