Morning Thoughts

Morning Thoughts

I am hoping to get a chance to travel into Manhattan today. I would like to visit the Strand Bookstore. Not far from the Strand Bookstore is Forbidden Planet, so I should be able to get a chance to go to both a bookstore and a comic book shop today.

I will be heading through Grand Central station. They have Posman books there. It is one of the best organized and cleanest bookstores I have ever seen. Everything always seems to be in its place there. I occassionally pick up a paperback science fiction book from there. They don't have the hugest selection, but a lot of what they do select for the customer is well chosen.

I took the train into grand central after doing some morning chores. It was pleasant going into Manhattan. I just sat this time and didn't read. Sometimes it is soothing listening to the clicking of the wheels.

I got to the village and got off the fourteenth street stop. First I went to Forbidden Planet. It has a very different feel than it used to have. They now have an open upstairs where they sell games and manga. It was fun going upstairs because it was kind of nostalgic looking at all the different dice and games.

I looked around downstairs as well. They had quite a few different comic books with a very large alternative comic books. I noticed that the large format collected graphic novels for DC are called Showcase Presents. I also took a look at the science fiction paperbacks. They have an awful lot of series paperbacks like Star Trek, Star Wars, Iron Man, and quite a few superhero novels.

They even had a superhero mass market paperback called The Judge Dredd Omnibus. I used to love reading Judge Dredd before Sylvester Stallone took the role of the main character for the movie and and nearly wrecked the franchise completely with his terrible acting.

After I went to Forbidden Planet, I went to the Strand Bookstore. The Strand Bookstore has changed and improved itself. It bought the second story of the building it was in and expanded the art books to the second floor as well as the childrens books. There is also a nice new elevator to all four floors in the bookstore. I remember when they had a tiny little unisex bathroom that was always filled with graffiti. They put in two new clean bathrooms.

I was not impressed with the selection of science fiction books. It did not have that good of a selection. However, they had a very nice selection of graphic novels, focusing mainly on comics literature and alternative comics. I bought a copy of a graphic novel, In Odd We Trust written by Queenie Chan and Dean Koontz, illustrations by Queenie Chan. It looks interesting, it was also very affordable, $5.50, half the cover price of $11.00. Their graphic novel section seems to not compete that much with Forbidden Planet because it does not have the same focus.

I also looked through the fantasy art section of the Strand and bought a large oversized book called Fantasy of the 20th Century, An Illustrated History, By Randy Broecker for $11.95, the price on the cover is $19.95. They seem to be able to sell many of their books at a deep discount. At one time, they even sold reviewers copies mass market paperbacks at half cover price. I noticed that they stopped doing this, except for in specific sections. Now, they sell trade paperback and hardcover reviewers copies at half price. This is quite a good deal.

If you look around the store, you can find interesting bargains. I bought two copies of journals with Cat In The Hat covers for $3.95 each. I also bought a copy of Best Loved Tales of Beatrix Potter for $7.95 which contains four Beatrix Potter books. It seems like I went on a brief spending spree.

When I walked down the block to see if the Astor Place Barnes and Nobles was still there, I noticed that it had closed its doors. I asked someone when this had happened. They told me "about three months ago."

After going into the newly renovated Strand, I can see why other local bookstores could not compete with it. I also noticed that they had renovated the bag check area so it was easier to take and give back bags as well as added a whole new set of merchandies with the store logo. Their website is pretty well done as well. http://www.strandbooks.com/

After I was done going to the Strand, I walked down to 7th Avenue and 14th Street in Manhattan. I wanted to go to Rogerst Time Tunnel. If you look up on the second floor on 7th Avenue there is an awning which says Rogers Time Tunnel, Nostalgia. I hadn't been there for two years. When I went inside, it looked as if nothing had changed.

It was like stepping back in time two years. Roger, the owner of the store, asked me if I still new about the store in New Utrecht which had old magazines for sale. I said I didn't. It really didn't matter. It was pure nostalgia for me. He also said, except for my taking care of the paperbacks to make sure they were priced and in order, nothing had changed. I used to pick up collectible paperbacks for trade for him as well as old magazines. I haven't done this for a very long time.

I took a few minutes to go through the ground level comic books. I picked out four copies of Andromeda which is a science fiction comic book from the 1980's. No. 1 features James Tiptree's The Man Who Walked Home, No. 2 features A. E. Van Vogt's Process, No. 3 features Arthur C. Clarke's Exile of the Aeons, and No. 4 features Jack Vance's Narrow Land. Narrow Land was my favorite story of all four of these. It tells the story of conflict between different groups of amphibious egg laying bipeds with different head crests. I read these on the train coming home.

There was also a free sample comic preview of The Stand by Stephen King which is coming out in comic book form soon. I enjoyed my brief visit to Manhattan.

Right next to Roger's is a small donut cafe called The Donut Pub. It has been at its location since 1964. The donuts and coffee really are quite good. The clientele is a bit shabby, but I still like to sit and read comic books there sometimes and sip coffee. I got a blueberry crumb cruller and a cup of coffee and sat and read the sample comic preview of The Stand.

Thoughts for the Day, Blog Promotion (Entrecard, Fuelmyblog, Blogcatalog)

Today, I walked down to my local library in my neighborhood. It is nice being in a neighborhood, living in a house, not a giant an apartment building. Houses are much more livable than giant apartment buildings. Like many neighborhoods, my home neighborhood has a library, but not a bookstore. I am not sure if there ever was a neighborhood bookstore. If there was, it was here long before my time. If you want to go to a bookstore, you have to get in your car or take a bus a decent distance to the local mall. There is a Barnes & Noble there but no independent bookstore.

I have to go into Manhattan to go to the big bookstores. I rather like going to the Strand. I also like going to Housing Works Used Book Cafe. The store is very beautiful with tall ceilings and a wooden balustrade. All of the proceeds go to help keep homeless people with AIDS off the streets. Some of the local publishing houses donate their review copies to be sold there. Their selection is very good. http://www.housingworks.org/usedbookcafe/

If I am going to the Strand in Manhattan, I will also stop off at Forbidden Planet to look at the science fiction, fantasy, and comic art books. I haven't been in a while. If I have time after that, I might wander down to Roger's Time Tunnel, a very old school comic book shop. I like looking at the movie stills in Roger's shop, not just the old paperbacks and old comic books.

I could also go online and order a book from Amazon or Powell's but it still wouldn't be my local bookstore. I miss the small neighborhood bookstores. There are still small neighborhood libraries which I am glad exist. Some people claim that the neighborhood library is not necessary, but if there are no longer neighborhood bookstores in many small American communities where are community members going to go to read or get books if there is neither a library or a bookstore. Are they going to go online and order a book from one of the giant commodity bookstores?

Anyways, I first went in the morning, the library was closed before one o'clock so I dropped my books in the book slot and peered through the window. Sometimes if the book cart is positioned wrong, the books slide off the cart onto the floor. Most of the time this doesn't happen. My books were on top of the cart.

Later in the day, I came back and went inside. I looked around and asked for the seven books on the Mythopoeic awards list. They did not have a single one of them. It was a slight disappointment. I'll get some of them tomorrow.

Everything these days is merchandised in todays library. They break portions of the collection into little shelving units, humor, biography, graphic novels, new books, new travel books, and many different categories. The main advantage of this is that it becomes easier for patrons to find categories of books they want. The disadvantage is the people shelving the books have a dozen different places to put the books and it is much easier to misshelve items.

I had today off because of Martin Luther King's Birthday, I usually get Monday off when I work on Saturdays, but Monday we were closed so I got Tuesday off as well. This is one of the benefits of being a government worker. I know Wall Street was open on Martin Luther King's birthday. In a way, it would be better if it was a national holiday for everyone because of what it represents, but the United States still holds to a certain views that don't match with how many people are acting.

On Wednesday of last week, someone asked for the speech, "I Have A Dream," by Martin Luther King on tape or video. We had the audiocasette of the speech, but it was part of a nine hour long collection of audiotapes, none of the tapes were labelled with what was on each tape. So, searching for a one and a half minute speech would not have been practical. It was rather odd.

A lot of audiocasette and cd companies that make nonfiction audios don't label what is on each individual tape. Imagine if you would, that you were listening to the unabridge bible on audiocasette, there were 66 tapes, and you wanted to find a specific passage or book of the bible. It would be incredibly hard. I imagine with nonfiction MP3s, it would be much easier, because you can check each track of the MP3.

We pulled the speech off of Youtube. The teacher was going to play the audio of the "I Have A Dream" speech over the loudspeakers at the local schools in the morning.

There really wasn't anything which I wanted to pick up to read at my local library today. I am pretty picky about what I want to read. This is why I place so many books on reserve and wait for things.

I still am taking some time to read selections from Rumi. I have been flipping back and forth in the book, reading a poem or two every day.

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I focus on three sites for blog promotion, Entrecard, Blogcatalog, and Fuelmyblog. I am going to make a few suggestions and thoughts about each one.

Entrecard is basically a business card network, where you display a small picture on your blog for advertising purposes. I try and focus on specific categories in entrecard. This means, I focus on relevant categories in the ad network for my blog; books. writing and literature, and the environment mostly.

My Entrecard page: http://entrecard.com/user/922/

With entrecard, one of the first things I do is make sure my ads are going to be running. I cancel any advertisers who don't choose to run my ad within three days. This keeps my ad list clean. I also check each blog which is going to advertise on my blog for objectionable content. I feel it is best to click each day on the blogs which are going to advertise on my blog, as well as the blogs who have visited my blog. I generally advertise in the Books Category and Writing and Literature Categories first. I spend all of my points on these two categories.

My page on blog catalog: http://www.blogcatalog.com/user/wehireu

With blogcatalog, I join groups focused on my interests, I am a member of 10 groups, Writers and Writing, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Popular Science, Book Readers, English Literature, Eco Friends, Dialogue Raises Consciousness, Comics and Graphic Novels, Anime and Manga, and Entrecard Group. These are not general groups, they are groups focused on what my blog is writing about. They are not generic groups designed to ask for reviews.

Every day I check to see who is reading my blog. I don't just randomly add websites to my friends list. I also checked the directory in my categories, Art & Entertainment-- Books, Art & Entertainment-- Comics, and Writing. I added many of the blogs which were the top blogs in their categories to my friends list. If I find a blog which I like in the directory, I will look to see who is friends on their blog and add the blogs which I like from their list.

Fuelmyblog:

I don't get as much traffic from fuelmyblog. But, one of the first thing I do everyday is check to see who has recommended my blog, then give them a positive recommendation in turn. This has let me build up a recommendation list of 31 blogs. It has also put me in the top category position. Once again, I focus on checking three categories, Books/Writers, Entertainment, Art/Design. I try to look through a blog category each day and make a recommendation for one blog. This adds up quickly.