Print: Bridge / Yes I No booklet / Frank Dunlop drum solo

RTomens, 2017

Bridge is so old that looking at it now I can't even remember how I did it - ha-ha! True. Although, if I stared hard and long enough the method might come back to me...

LJ has a theory that simply by moving books, adjusting their position a little, you can spark a sale. She might be right. She does work in the shop sometimes and can testify to her theory. I know what she means. It's as if by activating the book you send out...er...vibrations through the book-buying universe, ma-a-an, and attract people. Another way, of course, is to actually put the bloody book on the shelf! Last week I was rummaging around in the back room when I spied Cervantes' Don Quixote on the top shelf. The top shelf! No copies out in the shop. So I grabbed the pincers, reached up and prised it from its place, put it where it belonged and, yes, it sold about half an hour later. That made my day. I felt I'd done some good in the world.

Yesterday I rescued one of my own books, Yes I No (pictured above) from where it lay, sandwiched between other Art books, which is where the person working after me had put it. And from where it would never sell in a million years, being a little thing amongst big volumes on Henry Moore or whoever. I slipped a strip of card inside, on top of which I wrote 'Concrete Poetry', then I stood it facing out in front of Byron (ha-ha). Well, it amused me, as did the idea that anyone might know what the hell Concrete Poetry is. I got on with my work, which is distributing kulchur to the masses, which includes refraining from saying "Do you know what the hell you're getting involved with?" when they buy William Burroughs' Naked Lunch (as they frequently do, actually). 

It got to about twenty minutes from closing time when a girl placed a book called Jazz Poems on the counter along with Yes I No! Whoopee! I told her it was my work. She said she thought it looked 'cool' or something, smiling; then asked if I'd sign it, which I did. I hope she enjoys it. Fitting, I thought, that my work should be paired with Jazz poetry. Not that she would have known that I'm partial to Jazz. One commentator even suggested that Jazz informs my work somehow. I don't think he was wrong. Just how it does is a matter for another day, perhaps. 

Talking of Jazz, if you don't like drum solos, look away now. I discovered this fantastic clip of  Frank Dunlop this morning. The art of building a great solo right here...