While at Barnes & Noble, I saw what was set up to be a book signing. It was kind of sad really. The author was sitting behind a small table, on which was a stack of his books. There were no fans or interested readers at the table or talking to the author. There was no apparent interest in the set up at all. This is why I would never want to do a book signing. I’d be embarrassed to sit there.

The books stacked on the table were standard-size paperbacks — the cover was just a woman’s face, but the title font suggested a science fiction novel. Unfortunately, the words on the cover were illegible from ten feet away. I didn’t want to approach the table to see what the book was, because I didn’t want to insult the author by not buying his book.

I was in the B&N on a specific buying mission, and I didn’t have time or inclination right then to investigate anything else. So I would have just approached the author’s table, said, “Hi,” picked up the book to read the title, put it back down, and said, “Bye.” I would have been embarrassed for him.

I don’t buy books just because I meet the author — unless the author is actually a personal friend. I guess I probably should “support a local,” but really, I don’t even patronize a nearby restaurant just because it’s owned and run by a local. If I hear the book or food is good, then I might buy in on a recommendation. But there’s nothing inherently better about “local” stuff — books or food. I don’t expect my neighbors to read my blog just because I’m their neighbor. (Hell, I’m happily surprised anyone beyond my mother, father, and brother reads this.)

The author’s table was just 15 feet inside the front door, and there were a few shoppers walking around him — the store was busy for 1:00 in the afternoon on Thursday. While I was in the store, I did notice that at least two people talked with him. One apparently knew him personally. But otherwise he just sat in his chair smiling at people as they walked in the door.

If I ever publish a book, please, God, don’t let me get hooked into doing any book signings. If my work gets amazingly popular, and people would actually line up to see me and have me sign books, it might be fun. But as an unknown author, sitting in a small-to-medium-size town book store would just be a bit sad.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

With the trailer for the upcoming Watchmen movie, I decided I look into the graphic novel. I had heard of Watchmen back in the 80s when it was first published (1986), and I had heard it was good, but I just never saw it in a comic or book store.

After hearing about the movie, I looked Watchmen up on Wikipedia, and the information there made me very interested in reading it immediately. I found it pretty easily — a stack of them were displayed in the front of the local B&N.

Well, I have it now, and after reading the review blurbs on the back cover:

A masterwork representing the apex of artistry…
— Entertainment Weekly

The greatest piece of popular fiction ever produced.
— Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof

I’m excited to experience it. I’ve read the first dozen pages or so, and I’m hooked.

The graphic novel, as a literary art, is terribly under-appreciated by the mass public. It’s the middle ground between a book and a movie. Too many people think of them as “mere comic books” without ever realizing that many are nothing at all like the super hero genre they think of when they say “comic book.”

As for the experience of a graphic novel, you can read one faster than an equally detailed novel, and they usually have a much broader and deeper story than a movie. With the illustrations (the “graphic” part of the name), the reader can see immediately what everything looks like, just like in a movie. You don’t have to read through long passages of description like in a regular novel.

I have come to appreciate graphic novels even more as an entertainment medium in my later years, because I just don’t have all the free time I used to have. I can experience a full, deep, and detailed story in a fraction of the time it would take to read an equally detailed novel. And the stories are much more fulfilling than anything you can get out of a 60-, 90-, or even 120-minute movie.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

The boys and I were out walking around the block. Calfgrit3 was a dinosaur stalking the neighborhood, and Calfgrit7 was an explorer. On our trek we saw a dog wandering around. The dog was loose but not a stray — it had a collar.

We watched it run around ahead of us for a while, but it kept going the same direction we were going, so we weren’t catching up to it. It strolled back and forth across the road, and I was afraid it would be hit by a car. The road isn’t heavily traveled, but it is a thoroughfare between the neighborhoods, so the cars that do drive down it go fairly fast. (It’s posted as 35, but everyone drives 45.)

The boys and I set about trying to catch up to the dog. I had my cell phone with me, so we thought we could call its owner after we caught it and checked its tag. We ended up following it for about 50 yards before we finally got close enough to get its attention. But then it ran through some bushes and got away.

Oh well, we couldn’t help it. Then a minute later it appeared 50 more yards ahead of us, back out on the sidewalk. We tried to catch up to it again, and this time I got it to approach me. I held out my fist to let it smell me. It took a couple of sniffs and before I could get ahold of its collar, it bolted away.

It ran fast and far, back the direction we had just come. Then it ran across the street into the other neighborhood. Oh well, again. The boys were excited about trying to help it, and I would love to have rescued it. We used to have a dog, and she got out of the yard and wondered through the neighborhood once or twice, too.

If I was alone, I would have followed this dog and tried again to catch it. But with the boys, I couldn’t. Calfgrit7 could have kept up with me and he knows safety, but Calfgrit3 is too young to be running with me along a road like that.

I hope the dog eventually found his way back home. He was a pretty dog, obviously well cared for and probably loved by a family. But he was just so flighty, and fast he could get a long distance quickly without realizing it, and he may never get back home.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

World War II. You’ve probably heard the phrase or title “A Bridge Too Far.” The titles of the book and movie were taken from the words spoken by British Lt. General Frederick Browning — the full quote is actually, “I think we may be going a bridge too far,” in reference to the objectives to capture several bridges in German-occupied Netherlands, in September 1944.

The battle at Arnhem Bridge was fierce: British paratroopers against German SS troops. [For those not familiar with WWII: SS troops were special units, separate/different than standard Wermacht soldiers. The SS were indoctrinated in the Nazi culture — they were the true Nazis of the armed forces.]

The [British] Battalion Headquarters building, still defiantly holding out, was also ablaze. In its basement the wounded, British and German, lay so tightly packed that there was barely room for the orderlies to move between them. The heat became intense and the cellar began filling with smoke. Since it was now simply a matter of time before the building caved in on top of them, a medical officer requested a ceasefire, which the enemy granted. Together, at great risk, both sides removed the wounded to safety. The task took about an hour and no sooner had it been completed than the structure collapsed into a heap of smoking rubble. The means no longer existed by which the small remnant of Frost’s battalion could continue the battle. [The British paratroopers were captured.]

Members of the Dutch Resistance who had joined the British were shot out of hand. So, too, was one paratrooper who resisted a body search. These incidents apart, the SS behaved correctly and even decently, many of them handing out cigarettes and portions of their own rations, as well as arranging transportation of the wounded to hospital.

Last Stand!, by Bryan Perrett.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com