Collage: How Long Since You Wrote To Your Mother? / Crazy man in the shop / Yes I No second print run.

RTomens, 2021

Tues afternoon - collage, fags, coffee, Jaffa Cakes.

Yesterday afternoon, whilst I ate cake, drank coffee, listened to the Art Ensemble of Chicago and sold some books in the shop, I thought: 'A job doesn't get any better than this.'

I worked in the Finchley shop on Saturday for the first time. Nothing much of interest happened. The woman who'd bought a huge book on Italian art came in to pick it up and looked at me as if I was handing her a lump of shit when I suggested a recycled bag to carry it in - eccentric? Crazy coloured hair, very old and frail of body, if not mind. A man came in, saying there's a lot of discussion about Darwin at the moment. Mad man radar went to work. No, I couldn't find any books about him. Then he told me there was a 'lot of talk' about atomic energy, or something. I thought 'there'll be a lot of talk about a murder in a bookshop if you keep this up'. He finally buggered off. Later I found a section containing quite a few books on Darwin but I don't think Crazy Man's thinking had evolved as far as actually buying books. Here's a shot of the shop window...

Life magazine ad, 1942

As mentioned before, my book of visual poetry, Yes I No, is actually selling in the bookshop. All remaining copies have now gone so I've ordered another print run. Yes, I'm still amazed that anyone who hasn't come across it via Vispo or Concrete Poetry circles walks in, looks and buys. No, I didn't think it's chances of selling were very good at all!