Miscellany: Poetry in the Mail, Workshop Offering, and Back to the Movies

Mystery Poet Strikes Again – and Again!

When the post office started cracking down on mail addressed incorrectly, I feared I would never again receive a missive from the mystery poet. After all, he (I’m guessing at the gender) always used the street address of the bookstore, rather than the post office box number, and he never uses a return address, so it the mail did not get delivered to me, how would he even know? Well, somehow he figured it out. And I’m guessing he’s a regular reader of “Books in Northport,” too, or how would he have known to send mail in the winter using an old Gadsden Purchase stamp? The friend picking up our mail in Northport got that one to me in southern Arizona. Nice surprise! The second arrived in late May.

These two poems are similar in length and subject matter. Here they are:

Thank you, mystery poet.

Will My Workshop Be a “Go”?

In graduate philosophy classes, we students ran into one philosopher after another who claimed to be going back, for a fresh starting point, to self-evident truths, and we often commented to each other that it wasn’t always evident what was self-evident. This observation extends beyond philosophy. What’s “obvious" to one person isn’t necessarily obvious to another, so when it comes to being “clueless,” about whatever the topic may be, we who are clueless haven’t a clue that we are so. And it’s a cinch that every single one of us has some area of cluelessness. (What’s mine? You tell me!)

Most recently I’ve been mulling over, yet again, the business of self-publishing. It’s so “easy” to do these days. That is, it’s easy to pay someone to print and bind your words and sentences and paragraphs into a book. Then what? My message is this: Self-publishing is publishing. Publishing is a business. The decision to self-publish is a decision to go into business. Are you ready?

Because the decision is not one to make lightly or impulsively or without information, I developed a hands-on, practical workshop, which will be offered for the first time on June 10 through Continuing Education at Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City. “Is Self-Publishing for You? A Bookseller’s Perspective,” EECO 341, will bring to those who enroll my 20 years of practical experience in the form of short written exercises, class discussion, and Q&A. The workshop will meet for one evening only, from 6 to 9 p.m. – That’s if (and only if) enough people sign up.

The need exists. I have seen it again and again. Tell your friends.

Back to Willcox Once More

I found my little brochure with the map of the historic downtown, so now I can tell you the name of the street at the beginning of the car-train sequence in “Red Rock West.” It’s Stewart Street. Nicholas Cage is driving east (west is at the top of the map) on Stewart Street, and we see his car at the intersection of Stewart Street and Railroad Avenue. He goes straight, toward the tracks. A train is speeding toward the intersection from the south (right end of the map). Cage swerves at the last minute, and his car runs along parallel to the tracks, at last overtaking the train and jumping the tracks in front of the train where Maley Street crosses the tracks. Look quickly at this point of the movie sequence, and you’ll see the sign for the feed store. That’s Maid-Rite Feeds, Willcox, Arizona. Yep, we were there.