wow, New York, just like I pictured it....

NYC was stupendous, exhausting, remarkable, invigorating, etc. etc. The BookExpo was equally so, held in a Javits Center that was struggling with air conditioning and a sea of humanity that put lie to the notion that the book is dead. I had to ship home fifty pounds of books and must have carried almost that much around on my back. Among the people I got to see: Garry Trudeau, Joe Hill, Leo & Diane Dillon, Terry Moore, Julianne Moore, Adrian Tomine, Lou Anders, Alison Bechdel, Elizabeth Hand, and of course, Gavin Grant and Kelly Link. And dozens of publishers, distributors, fellow librarians, authors, reviewers, yada.

I'm especialy proud of my wife Sheila, who I thought would be overwhelmed by the City, but she moved thru it like a pro. On Saturday, she took a Grey Line bus around and took scores of pictures, many of which I biasedly say are of professional quality. Who knew, really? I think she has a great eye and should even pursue it a little more seriously down the road. (I'm not posting too many of them here because she would get embarassed and I don't want people saying what is he talking about, but the few I've shown them to agree with me so far.)

Two places I must recommend, and thanks to Mark at :nook for pointing me to them: here and here, excellent, off-the-path places for shopping and imbibing.

Back to some business: here's a few playlists for some upcoming SRs:


6/11: Electrelane, the National, Immaculate Machine
6/18: Cocorosie, Los Campesinos!, Coltrane Motion
6/25: The Icicles, The Phonemes, music magazines
7/2: All-Americana w/ Robbie Fulks, Tarnation, Amy Millan (well, kinda), Sonny Smith, John Doe


Our annual mid-year review won't be occuring until the end of July, since we are off to Myrtle Beach the week before, and I really didn't want to struggle with review-writing while gone. And of course, surprises keep rolling in, filling some slots over the next few weeks and shuffling around others.


Meantime, I want to get back to reviewing a few books here and there, particularly one I promised in the previous entry, so I'm hoping to get off the pot and get some in by the end of this week. Perhaps a looming deadline will push me in a more positive direction.


One more pic from my wife (see if you can guess what she snapped):





One more thing, and I know I'm in the minority, but I thought the Sopranos finale ruled. See ya in a few.