2. Doug Miller books at the end of the street is having a one year anniversary sale. (One year at their present location. They've been in in business 26.) I don't *need* more books, and the place is narrow and the shelves blocked by piles of yet-more-books, and I was wearing my new lens that means I can't read anything without glasses. But luck was either for or against me, and I copped two unsuspected GK Chestertons for a couple of twoonies. Have read The Paradoxes of Mr Pond, which is Chesterton being far too clever for his own good.
It's not exactly that the Suck Fairy has suddenly visited Chesterton because there always was that oogey side to him. But I'm beginning to wonder if the Suck Fairy was why I could happily read and love The Man Who Was Thursday when I was twelve and not be able to get into it at all forty-five years later. Have always wanted to reread The Napoleon of Notting Hill and now, maybe I shouldn't?
3. Speaking of Doug Miller Books, this is why I must live in a city. Three good used bookstores within walking distance (four if you count the overpriced Willow Books); five or six libraries within reasonable bicycling distance; and a fairly good independent bookstore, though I liked Book City much better when it was on two floors.
4. Speaking of the Suck Fairy, I got a thick volume of Terry and the Pirates from the library, intending to return to those thrilling days of yesteryear (1934-1935 in that volume) when the Orient was Mysterious and don't you forget it. Made it through thirty coloured Sunday episodes of same, feeling an overwhelming oppression of spirits, and now I can't any more. I just can't. Not even to observe the myth of the Mysterious Orient in its native habitat. Evidently if I want to see mysterious romantic ahistorical China and not be a) embarrassed and b) bored rigid, I must confine myself to HK films and what mainland historical dramas I can find. Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, here I come. (If mainland historical *movies* would just stop harrowing my soul with the wrongs of women, I might watch them too. But they won't.)
