Northport, Michigan, Friday, Holiday Weekend

Another Friday farm market this morning was a big item on my to-do list. This week I was smart and brought a cooler.


There were cherries!


There were beautiful lettuces!


There was local honey!


Here's my haul: cherries, strawberries, salad mix, Northport Promise cookies and a decadent, delicious almond croissant to go with my Eat Spot coffee.

Another holiday weekend don't-miss feature is Rolland Charpentier's sale of beautiful ceramic pottery, right across from the Depot (in other words, on your way to or from the farm market and/or marina).



The summer sunshine has arrived, and the weather is absolute perfection. I may need to turn on the fan today at the Painted Horse Gallery/Dog Ears Books building.

Where Do My Stories Come From? Where Do They Go?

(Today's pictures are all from home rather than bookstore. Yes, my personal trainer and I actually got out in the woods yesterday! The beautiful peonies, Festiva Maxima, are from a friend's garden.)


When I reveal to friends that I wrote ten short stories over the winter, the questions that immediately follow are, “What are you doing with them?” and “Are you still writing?” The answers, respectively, are “Nothing” (or “Not much”) and “Not right now.” Here’s why.

In January I woke up on our first morning in Aripeka with a character taking shape in my head and bits of sentences pulling me out of sleep. Many mornings were like that. There was nowhere I had to be, nothing much I had to do other than explore my own emerging fictional world. Oh, I had to cook and clean a little and get Sarah outdoors, but those activities were pleasant breaks from the writing. The fallow ground of that miraculously unencumbered time was almost instantly fertile.

My “real” life is very different. I love my home and love my bookstore, but my mind here, at home and at Dog Ears Books, is much more occupied and preoccupied. Its contents are not fictional; they are much more mundane. I wake to thoughts like this:

The garden needs watering before I go to work. Are the beans up yet?* What date is graduation? Elizabeth Buzzelli’s appearance at the bookstore is set (June 11), but I still need to schedule Don Lystra and Stephanie Mills, coordinate a double-header with Anne-Marie Oomen and Benjamin Busch, and figure out when Al Bona’s book of poetry will finally come back from the printer so we can plan his book party. My back order of Brad Hirschfield’s book arrived—what a relief! The Belko Peace Lecture is much earlier this year, though, so how will the turnout be?

That’s not all.



Woody and I urgently need to get a Packing and Shipping Department set up and organized for the Painted Horse Gallery! Supplies! Organization! Did I answer the last set of e-mailed questions from my mentee in Missouri? What is eating my strawberries in the garden, just as they ripen?** Can I afford to buy a few more peonies this year? Should I worry about ticks? If I even think about ticks, I become paranoid! When will our first summer visitors arrive? Should David and I mow again now or wait, and who can we get to mow the big meadow, and what will the weather be for St. John’s Eve this year, and will we find time before snow flies again to get our canoe in the water at least once?

It goes on--.

I need to update my Dog Ears Books site, with summer event dates and the theme of this year’s dog parade! The old tribute to Nikki has been good on the site, but Sarah is 2-1/2 years old now and really deserves a feature page of her own. We really, really need a painted sign on the south side of the building, saying ART AND BOOKS with a big arrow circling around to the front door. It would be so cool! And people would see it when they drive into town! And do people even know that I have tickets at the bookstore for the Leelanau Children’s Choir spring concert?

There are more new books to order, status of back orders to check, displays to change often enough so that everything doesn't look "the same" when people come into the shop. No, summer is not my season for writing fiction or trying to write fiction or worrying about not writing fiction. I’m doing well to keep up with bookstore, garden and blogs, family and friends and local events, and still find time to read a few books.

Here are some dates coming up soon:

Saturday, June 4, 7 p.m. Northport graduation in the small gym. Only 10 graduates this year, but they deserve a big send-off!

Sunday, June 6, 7 p.m. Brad Hirschfield will give this year’s Belko Peace Lecture at Trinity Congregational Church. His title is “Faith Without Fanaticism.” At the reception following his talk, I will have copies of his book available for purchase. They are in the store already for those who want to read him before hearing him.

Friday, June 11, 5-7 p.m. Elizabeth Buzzelli will be at Dog Ears Books to meet her fans and sign copies of her latest Emily Kincaid mystery novel, Dead Sleeping Shaman. She is so much fun! Don’t miss her!

Saturday, June 19 – Northport Lighthouse and Marina Festival, including famous Northport Fish Boil, at Haserot and Marina Parks, down by the water.

Also Saturday, June 19, at 7:30 p.m. Leelanau Children’s Choir and Youth Ensemble spring concert, “Simply Sondheim,” at the NCAC. Tickets available at Dog Ears Books and at the NCAC. $15 adult/$5 under 18 years of age


More announcements will come in the near future, but here’s a tip in advance for the August dog parade: the theme this year (think New Orleans) is “I Want To Be in That Number When the Dogs Come Barking In.” Feeling inspired? Angels? Saints? Musicians? Let your imagination soar!

*Beans are up. Everything is up.
**Birds are eating strawberries.

All Manner of Goings-On

It was the day of the Farm Market down by the harbor parking lot. Woodruff Palmer, artist and owner of the Painted Horse Gallery, came in to sign his new paintings, and his wife, Bonnie Marris, brought “Baby” Shane, Sarah’s new puppy friend, for a visit. Dusty (the collie) came, too, of course.





Besides dogs, more new books arrived today and yesterday at Dog Ears: Jim Harrison’s new book of poetry, In Search of Small Gods; Planet Backpacker: Across Europe on a Mountain Bike & Backpacking on Through Egypt, India & Southeast, by Robert Downes of Traverse City; Insects of the Great Lakes Region; and, in keeping with expansion of the homesteading section, Backyard Poultry Keeping. A new book on raising goats will be coming soon.

Tomorrow, the Lighthouse and Maritime Festival and Fish Boil! All here in Northport!

Turning Leaves

The images are all on my camera. Can't get them up here at present, alas! Sumac is flaming red, pin cherry orange-red, black walnut and basswood golden yellow, and ash every color from butterscotch to deep plum. Beautiful fall so far.

Without images, a few notes:

First, deep and heartfelt thanks to Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli, who came all the way from Kalkaska to Northport on Saturday to entertain Dog Ears Books customers and visitors with a fascinating and humorous talk, touching upon everything from the magic and mystery of Up North to how she came to live in the pine woods, how pieces of her life translate into fiction and especially to the role of crows in that process. To meet with such talent and generosity in one and the same person leaves me almost speechless with gratitude. Those who missed the chance to hear and meet Elizabeth can still buy a signed copy of her book, DEAD DANCING WOMEN, at Dog Ears Books--while they last! I have to warn that my supply of signed copies is rapidly dwindling.

Another extended opportunity--to contribute to the restoration of the old lighthouse on South Fox Island and to acquire beautiful art at the same time--is being offered at the Painted Horse Gallery, our neighbor at 106 Waukazoo Street. Most people at the Friday reception were having such a good time ("It was a great party!" all agreed) that the fund-raising aspect of the event slipped out of focus. So, a reminder: A portion of the proceeds from sales of all photographs and paintings in the show (prices range from $5 to $2,800) goes to FILA, Fox Island Lighthouse Association, to restore this historic old northern Lake Michigan landmark. That was the whole reason for the artists' trip to the island in June and for this October's show in Northport, so please come back for another look. This show is worth looking at more than once, anyway.

David and I made a change in our lives recently, liberating ourselves from TV. It was his idea, and I provided the applause. When asked on the phone (when he called to cancel) why he wanted to stop the service, David told the representative he wanted to read more, talk to his wife more, listen to music, play music "and pet my dog." Already we are reading aloud more to each other in the evenings, and it's great. Whoever is the listener for the evening does most of the dog-petting. All three of us benefit, and the pack bond is strengthened.

Show Time

The show opens today at 4 p.m. Due to heavy rain and exhaustion, I did not come back to Northport, after all, yesterday evening but instead came in early today. Last night and this morning, along with David and Sarah, Kurt Gödel and company (Einstein et al.) were my soothing companions, but logic and math must wait for another today, because today is all about art. These images are from yesterday. I’m not putting up pictures of the show as it is today because I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

Featured artists for this show are, in alphabetical order: Mary Fuscaldo, David Grath, Woodruff Palmer and Gene Rantz.

Another Opening, Another Show

We’ve been so busy around the gallery getting ready for “Leelanau Landscapes: A Four Artist Perspective” (no, Woody didn’t want a hyphen in there) that I have neglected to announce the show here. The opening is tomorrow, Friday, 11 July, 4-9 p.m. The Wright Gallery on Mill Street and Tamarack in Omena are also having openings, so we cast our net wide with that five-hour time slot, thinking lots of people would want to attend all three shows.

I took it easy last night after dinner and finished SARAH’S QUILT, by Nancy E. Turner. A blurb on the cover compares the story to McMurtry’s LONESOME DOVE, and it certainly struck me as cinematic, but (like McMurtry’s novels and any book worth its salt) it’s much more than a movie script. This is Sarah Prine, after all, the same character we grew to love in THESE IS MY WORDS, the first book about her life in the Arizona Territories. In SARAH’S QUILT, a severe, cattle-killing drought is only the first in a fearsome chain of calamities. Serious troubles within the extended family and hideous sabotage from without call on all Sarah’s strength, and the fact that three men are in love with her seems only to complicate further the hard-scrabble life of the Widow Elliott. “What are you going to do?” she is asked by one of the agents of her troubles. “Keep going. All I can do. Living is getting knocked down time and time again, then standing up time and time again, and once more.” Even the climax is multiple rather than singular, but I wouldn’t reveal the outcomes for the world, even had I the time to write more. When you're tired and feeling overworked and overwhelmed, an evening in Sarah's life puts your own in perspective.

It’s a foggy morning, heavy with dew and the chance of rain for the orchards. Not too much, though—we don’t want so much that the cherries swell and split their skins.

Hurryin' By

The days and evenings flow along quickly and busily at this time of year. So much is happening, in every aspect of life. Of course, it is Cherry Festival time in Traverse City, but we are too busy out in Northport to get very far from home these days.
Friday evening’s book signing reception for Robert Underhill was a noteworthy event at Dog Ears Books. I had ordered a substantial number of copies of STRAWBERRY MOON, Bob’s first Leelanau murder mystery, as well as his newly released CATHEAD BAY, and while he was busy signing and I was busy selling, his wife Trudy was the evening’s gracious hostess. They both commented on the beautiful atmosphere provided by the Painted Horse Gallery, the lovely paintings making the area feel like someone’s home. Weather was perfect, too.

Closing time on Saturday took me down the street to a memorial picnic for Sigrid von Bremen Thomas, author of GOODBYE STALIN. Sigrid hadn’t been interested in having a memorial, her husband Rich said. She wanted a party. The family arranged for both, but when I expressed doubt about being able to attend both, Rich insisted I come to the party.

Later, at home, my dog and I got out for a ramble. Cherries are beginning to shout with color. North Manitou Island beckoned from the horizon. Cow-vetch and St. John’s-wort triggered half a memory of a poem. “Purple and gold” is the key phrase. Any ideas, anyone?



P.S. on the vetch and vort: "Very Like a Whale," by Ogden Nash at http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/854.html is what was in the back of my mind. A more literary mind would no doubt have gone to the original....

Happy Birthday to Us

It’s almost here. July 4, 2008, will mark the 15th anniversary of Dog Ears Books in Northport, Michigan, but I’m posting the story early, since our country’s birthday is the more important reason to celebrate the Fourth, and I’ll probably be too busy that day to get anything new online. Following, then, is my essay on the history of Dog Ears Books that will appear in the August-September issue of the BookWomen journal out of St. Paul, Minnesota:

--

“You’re living my dream!” people sometimes exclaim. “When I retire, I want to open a bookstore!” That is a sensible approach. Have a career first, arrange for reliable retirement income, then open a bookstore as a hobby. I didn’t do it that way.

I worked in offices for two decades, and when my son turned 18, I was the one who went away to school. Returning to northern Michigan to complete my doctoral dissertation away from the distractions of teaching, I needed work, and—no surprise here--my husband and I had too many books for our small house. “We have to be ruthless,” he said to me, attacking his bookshelves while I pawed through my boxes. “Everything we’re not going to re-read has to go!” Soon the living room floor was filled with stacks of boxes of very good books.

We had enough books, clearly, to open a small shop, and someone we knew had a vacant shed we could rent for the season in Northport. No business plan, no research, no retail experience. Swim or sink!

Ours were used books. We had a dog. Dog Ears! I can tell much of its story in a series of partial lists.

Here are some things I remember from that summer of 1993: putting up our homemade shelves in June, feeling like a real, working part of the community getting ready for the tourist season… sweeping the sidewalk every morning in July, nervous about meeting “strangers” again that day…overhearing passers-by repeat the name of our shop, “Dog Ears,” over and over again in delight… feeling gratified every time someone asked, “Do you have a poetry section?” Some evenings we opened the shop again after dinner, and as darkness fell, the little lighted shed looked and felt cozier and cozier. I remember meeting for the first time people who are still my friends today, and I remember also the first books they bought from me that summer 15 years ago.

There were lessons to learn: how to identify first editions; how important dust jackets are to value; how easy it is to buy too many books and to pay too much for them; that it’s never a good idea to store books in a basement; that books in storage don’t pay their rent; that even free books can be costly to store; that sometimes “No, thank you” is the best answer you can give; that the majority of Americans consider themselves shy; that most people are not as shy with strange dogs as they are with strange human beings; that almost everyone who loves books thinks that “No one reads books any more.”

We moved Dog Ears Books to nearby Traverse City the following spring, but when the two-year lease ran out I was ready to come back to Northport. A booklet I made up for our tenth anniversary noted various milestones in that decade: creation of a garden outside the shop on the corner of Mill and Nagonaba; our old dog Nikki’s participation in the Northport Dog Parade; adding the first new books to my shop inventory; moving to a larger, more comfortable building (with plumbing and heat!) next door; completing my Ph.D. in philosophy; shifting from community college instruction in Traverse City to tutoring part-time in the local public school.

Because the truth is (and this will not surprise BookWomen readers, I’m sure) that making a living with an independent bookstore is not an easy gig. I won’t list the sacrifices (hint: one is health insurance), and I’m certainly not saying the joys don’t outweigh the agonies, but I’ve supplemented bookstore income over the years in a variety of ways: teaching, tutoring, freelance editing, garden maintenance and orchard work. Also, anyone in the book world can attest to how much that world has changed in the last 15 years. Just when I thought I had it figured out, “it” would change, and that’s been true of book searches and online selling and library book sales. It’s also been true of the economy in general, not only in northern Michigan but across the country. Again, swim or sink!

A couple of years ago, midway through a discouraging winter, a great piece of good fortune came my way. An architectural designer from Grand Rapids, married to a well-established artist and preparing a career change of his own from architecture to fine art, bought an old building in downtown Northport, the old Ford dealership showroom and garage from the second decade of the twentieth century. Woody Palmer wanted to launch an art gallery and needed someone to do sales. We first danced cautiously around the idea of a business collaboration at a friend’s winter place in Suwanee, Florida, and by the following December I had a crew of volunteers helping me move my bookstore back to the street where it had been born. Dog Ears Books and the Painted Horse Gallery—our own fancy dog and pony show on Waukazoo Street! It was exciting. It was nerve-wracking. It was a leap of faith. When I reflect on the 15-year history of Dog Ears Books, though, I realize all those things can be said of every step along the way. It helps to have a dream and to be independent in spirit. It also helps to be as stubborn as a mule.

Our little village is at the end of a peninsula, and the regional economy is mixed, agriculture and tourism, both seasonal in nature. Declining public school enrollment led to community crisis a few years back when one faction thought the high school should be closed for good. (It’s still open.) The town’s first-ever sewer system is now almost completed, and real estate transfers and remodeling projects are finally going forward downtown, but when we invited the public into our remodeled space at 106 Waukazoo for our Grand Opening last year, one of the feelings most often expressed by enthusiastic visitors and clientele was gratitude. Residents were thrilled that the bookstore hadn’t left town or gone out of business, and they were grateful to Woody for buying and remodeling the building to house Dog Ears Books and his own beautiful new gallery. Waukazoo Revival, I call it.

Contingency over time becomes necessity. You wouldn’t miss the person you love after decades together if you’d never met in the first place. It was just chance that David and I found the first bare-bones, no-frills shed in Northport when our personal home library threatened to bury us alive, but now Northport is part of Dog Ears Books, as the bookstore is part of the village. I could have been something other than a bookseller, but along came a choice of roads, and this is the direction I took.

We have a new, young dog now. Old Nikki and I (younger then) both had to overcome our shyness in the bookstore, which was good for both of us. Nowadays, although Sarah and I sometimes chafe at the long hours indoors, she’s a terrific after-hours companion in woods and field. David’s enthusiasm for schlepping boxes of books has waned; on the other hand, he's still brimming with ideas for the bookstore and very satisfied, as am I, with all the wonderful people we continue to meet, thanks to Dog Ears Books.

So after 105 dog years in the book business, I can say, “It’s a hard way to make a living, but it’s a good life.”

(Thanks to Mollie at BookWomen for allowing this sneak preview to their late summer issue.)

Time Flying

Last night's kick-off to the summer library series drew an excellent crowd. The speaker, Porter Abbott, held the audience with every word, and afterward everyone agreed we were off to a great start, promising an excellent series of events.

It's the first cutting of hay around our place, and the air is full of that lovely aroma: new-mown hay in the morning sun. Too bad this is strictly a visual medium.

Halfway through MERLE'S DOOR, with lots to say about it that will keep until I finish the wonderful, wonderful book.

Today is furniture-moving day at the gallery. Dog Ears Books, which had spread out into Painted Horse Gallery space over the winter, needs to be brought back into its own corral so we can get everything ready for Friday evening's Gallery Walk. Lots of work to do....

St. John's Eve, Day, Feast

With the cool spring we had, everything is blooming slightly behind schedule, but I did find a large patch of St.-John’swort up on Novotny Road in front of North Fork Ranch. Yesterday afternoon, when our grandson and a couple of his friends arrived to surprise us at the bookstore, one of the boys picked up a book on wildflowers, and it fell open to the page listing 'Hypericum perforatum,' and there was a dried example pressed between the leaves of the book. On St. John’s Eve, yet! Or is today the Eve and tomorrow the Feast? Close, anyway.

Some of my friends raise their eyebrows when I mention the Feast of St. John and St. John’s Eve. “What’s it to ya?” they want to know. What it is to me is a bonfire in front of the old Trinité Church in Paris and fireworks elsewhere in the city. It’s Latvians in Kalamazoo jumping over bonfires all night long. It’s a picture in my mind of medieval villages on European hills lighting fires that can be seen by people in other villages on distant hills. It’s the latitude that joins us, from North America to Europe, and it’s a flower that came along for the ride with immigrants to the New World. It’s beautiful June, just past the solistice but not by much. Isn’t that enough to celebrate?

NORTHPORT CALENDAR:

Tuesday, June 24, 7:30 p.m., Leelanau Township Library. First presentation of the summer series will be “Introduction to Story-Telling,” by Porter Abbott. Punch and cookies served afterwards. Come one, come all!

Friday, July 27, 5-9 p.m. Northport Gallery Walk. Participating art galleries are: Joppich Bay Street Gallery, Rantz Gallery, David Grath Fine Arts, Wright Gallery, By the Bight Gallery, Quiet Dove Gallery, Painted Horse Gallery, and the North Cove Gallery. Refreshments will be served. You can have a pleasant stroll around town and then relax down in the harbor for “Music in the Park,” listening to Hugh Willey and the Reunion Jazz Band, or picnic with music first and then do the galleries.

It's summer, and we're off and running!

Surrounded by Art (and Books)

I'll wait until next Friday (Gallery Walk Day) to post photographs of the Painted Horse Gallery, but it is pretty much open for the season, as of this morning, thanks to Woodruff Palmer, artist and gallery owner, who painted up a storm this spring and worked this past week to hang his own paintings and the beautiful abstract watercolors of his father, Donn Palmer. Mary Beth Acosta has new paper collage work on exhibit, and David Grath (who also has his own gallery over on Mill Street) has new paintings. Bonnie Marris and Mary Fuscaldo will be bringing in new paintings very soon. We still have work to do in the gallery, but by a week from today (Friday, June 27) we’ll be ready for the first Northport Gallery Walk of the season. All this work, and the solstice, too!

The bookstore has its own art wall. True to the “You never know” nature of bookstore life, today has been full of surprises, and one of the nicest was a visit from Donna Wilson, sixth-grade teacher at Northport School, who brought a couple of small story quilts done by her students. She and I hung them on the bookstore wall. She will bring others from time to time, so we will be changing this ongoing display, giving all the kids in this project a chance to have their work on display.



The story quilt idea comes from Faith Ringgold, African-American artist and Caldecott honor book author. Each of her art quilts combines painting, quilting and story-telling. In the process of creating their own story quilts, Northport students (working with their art teacher) learned how to sew and wrote their own stories to incorporate into their quilts. The viewer can read each story right from the quilt.





Donna Wilson arrived at Dog Ears Books today just as Helen Sica and I were deep in appreciative discussion of the doors project down at the harbor, which Helen (grandmother of one current Northport student and one recent graduate) had just seen for the first time. The students at our small school add to the life of this community out of all proportion to the size of their classes. What would we be without them?

A late afternoon customer came all the way from Williamsburg for a used paperback copy of STILL LIFE WITH WOODPECKER, by Tom Robbins, after calling to see (1) if I had the book, paperback, used, and (2) if it had the right cover illustration. “It’s gift,” he said, “and I bought a brand-new copy at [large chain store to remain nameless here] but it just didn’t feel right. This is perfect!” To clarify: he hadn’t made the trip from Williamsburg for the book but had called and made the trip from Traverse City, so it wasn’t as crazy as it sounds. Anyway, it was a gift--clearly from the heart.

I've left music out of the title of this post but am hoping "French Road Connections" will soon do justice to last night's dream concert, the 15th anniversary performance of the Leelanau Children's Choir and Youth Ensemble. David and I had front row seats. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Margaret Bell, director for 15 years, said the first choir had only eight students. Since then, over 300 have passed through its ranks. What an achievement! What good fortune for Leelanau County!