Ideas, and More Ideas

Rock on!

All about knots

Everyone is busy. Me, too. Wrapping and shipping and still finding time for reading (book review coming soon) and drawing (my morning meditations) and getting outdoors with Sarah, so I won't have much, if anything, to say here today. I'll just show you pictures of a few books, some new, some used. Maybe someone on your holiday gift list would connect with something here -- or maybe there's something you want for yourself and that's okay, too, Santa.

used classic

new and lovely

bright and gently used for Civil War buff

Everyone's been asking for it

New translation

More poetry

Albert Camus titles

various new books

Leelanau history here

Up North collection must-have

This poetry anthology is an art anthology, too

For your inner farmer or someone else's

Indoors and outdoors in Michigan

Cool Michigan posters for dorm rooms

To Rest or Not (Yet) to Rest?

On one's laurels, that is. The question does not admit of a universal answer. Everyone must come up with a personal response. There are different ways to ask the question, too. Perhaps, “Have I earned the right to ...?” or “Am I now comfortable with the decision to ...?” This post is about dreams, about making them come true, and about putting them back on the shelf.

Throughout my adolescence, I dreamed of a career on the stage. Sometimes I planned to become a serious actor, other times a folk singer or a blues singer, and occasionally I imagined myself combining singing and acting on the musical comedy stage. As a young girl, whenever I was alone I was almost never not singing. I would sing my way (very dramatically) down the sidewalks between my high school and downtown after my half-day finished up at 12:30 or so with orchestra practice, only closing my mouth when another pedestrian came within hearing range.

Because here’s the dirty little secret about dreams: They’re easy to have. They cost nothing and involve no risk of public exposure. Making dreams come true – daring to make dreams come true – ah, that’s another matter!

Well, eventually, butterflies in stomach and heart in mouth, I went public with the performance dream. My sister and I, she in her first year of high school when I was in my last, made a couple of appearances as a folk duo, granny dresses and all. I tried out for plays and landed parts. Then in my 20s, first with a jazz quartet and later with a honky-tonk piano player, I sang at parties and in clubs in Lansing, Traverse City, and Kalamazoo. There was never a time I wasn’t nervous beforehand, but as long as I didn’t have to talk to the audience (I’d warned my piano player ahead of time that he would have to provide all the patter) I got through those evenings just fine. Enjoyed them. Felt “in my element.” Where I belonged.

When I decided to take a break from performing, that’s really all I had in mind – a little break – but I never did go back. What surprised me in later years was that I had no regrets. The thing is, I had those gigs. Had I never gone public, only harbored a secret, unfulfilled dream, I’m sure I’d have regrets aplenty. But no. At this stage of life, I’m resting on my vocalist laurels, content with having, for a while, dared to make that dream come true.

Another dream took me away from the drudgery of office work and into another world altogether. I came to philosophy late in life but did not keep that dream hidden in a closet, either. It took years, but I finished my undergraduate and then my graduate degrees and subsequently taught part-time, off and on, at Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City. College teaching was no more a lifetime career for me than singing, but I’m proud of having achieved at least a modest reality for that dream, and so yes, I rest on my teaching laurels, too.

Years ago, when we lived in Kalamazoo, David and I made regular weekend trips out to the nearby village of Paw Paw. From late spring to early fall, the flea markets were a main attraction, but we had friends in Paw Paw, we made many paddle and float trips down the little Paw Paw River, and always we dreamed of having a bookshop downtown. Paw Paw would be perfect, we told each other – less expensive rents than Kalamazoo but close enough to the city attract faculty and students from Western Michigan University and Kalamazoo College. Fast forward (through a long, winding, complicated history that has no place here) to 1993 and the birth of Dog Ears Books on Waukazoo Street in Northport. Another dream come true! A dream now in its twenty-first year of life (and don’t think that fact doesn’t still amaze me).

No independent bookseller, however, can afford to rest on her laurels and keep her business alive. Every year a bookseller learns many new things, and every year the business changes and there are more new things to be learned. Being the only bookstore in a small village is no guarantee of a local clientele, either, because it’s easy for people in cars to drive by the same businesses day after day without stopping. They need reasons to stop, reasons to visit, reasons to come back, and it’s up to the bookseller, i.e., the bookstore owner, to be constantly generating new reasons for people to come in.

This blog has more than one purpose. It’s a quiet little avenue of self-expression, a place for me to try out thoughts and ideas, as well as a bulletin board of sorts for local events and somewhat of an online diary, but it’s also an attempt to keep my little Up North bookstore from fading out of customers’ consciousness when they are elsewhere. Long ago someone said to me mournfully, “You just can’t compete with Borders, can you?” He didn’t get it. Borders was a chain, and Dog Ears Books was and is unique. That’s what I thought at the time, and then, when Borders stores closed all across the U.S., my first thought was, I’m still standing. I’m still here.

Life comes with no guarantees. Each of us, one by one, we make our choices, and we take our chances. We keep dreaming, keep learning, keep daring, keep moving -- or we’re not alive at all.

So when it comes to bookselling, I’m not resting on my laurels. Things are going to be quieter at the bookstore for a few months, that’s all. Glenn Wolff was our big December event star, and now we won’t be doing events until spring, but the bookstore will be open, five days a week through the end of the year, closed Sundays and Mondays. (In January we’ll decelerate, going on a four-day schedule, Wednesdays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.) And this blog will continue through the winter, too, wandering through book reviews, snowy dog walks in the woods, news from my authors and  reading groups and the art world and the local community and, well, whatever other camels get their noses under the tent.

Making a dream come true and then keeping it alive takes much more than simply “having” it. Actualizing and sustaining a dream takes continued attention and dedication. You have to want it, yes, but you have to do more than just want it. Cost can be measured in countless ways -- in hours of sleep lost, for instance.

It’s too soon to know if I’ll someday rest on my bookseller laurels (there is that chicken dream, after all) or simply die in harness. All I know right now is that the time of resting has not yet come.

For all of us, there are always more leaps off the cliff to be made, as long as life and health hold out, but it’s good to stop from time to time and pat ourselves on the back for what we’ve accomplished, too. What about you? What dreams are you proud of having dared to make true? Which ones are still going strong ones, and which have you retired, accepting for your accomplishment a laurel crown?

Guest Blogger: December Report from Thailand

Thailand Report

John Mitchell

When my wife Ann Marie and I left Leelanau nearly three weeks ago, I was suffering from an extreme case of sensory underload, bouncing off the walls of our spacious Omena home as if it were a six-by-nine-foot prison cell. We were heading for Bangkok, Thailand, where eight months ago our youngest son Drew landed a job as an English teacher in one of the country’s best universities. I was praying for an adventure vacation, one that would stimulate and recharge my imagination before settling into a winter of writing. As the old saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for.”

On the morning of December 2^nd, the lead story in the Bangkok Post read: “Parts of inner Bangkok were yesterday plunged into chaos as anti-government protesters tried to seize key state offices but faced strong resistance from police. Protesters tried to seize the offices since the morning but by evening had still not pushed through the barriers erected by police, who fired tear gas and water cannon. ”

For three years, while writing my most recent book, Grand Traverse The Civil War Era, I studied the escalating violence that led to catastrophic war in mid-19^th century America, and I followed this work with my regular Civil War column in the Leelanau Enterprise; however, it is one thing to document a civil war in the distant past, quite another to face civil unrest live and halfway around the world from home.

The scenario here in Thailand seems altogether surreal. We are thoroughly enjoying the beautiful and historic country of Thailand and the proud and friendly people who have embraced my son and given him meaningful work. The pace and crush of humanity in Bangkok makes New York City seem tranquil, but I have yet to see a single scrap of paper or spray of graffiti anywhere on the metro system. Dare I mention that the night/day temperatures ranges from 70 to 85 degrees, the ancient temples and palaces are inspiring, the food is outstanding, and the daily, hour-long massages Ann Marie and I are enjoying cost only $6 to $9? But the potential gravity of the situation struck home when Drew, who had been downplaying the downward spiral of events, accepted an envelope I handed him containing Thai baht and US dollars, just in case.  

Ongoing Thai newspaper editorials addressing the country’s comparatively new experiment in democracy often refer to our 237-year-old nation as the world’s best example of government by the people, where unpopular leaders lose elections but are not overthrown. Though we are certainly suffering through a terribly divisive time back in the States, almost all of us accept the concept of change through the ballot box rather than the mob. I hoped that sentiment would prevail here in Thailand, too.

On December 3, Ann Marie and I both flew out of Bangkok, she on her scheduled day-long fight back home, I to the northern city of Chiang Mai to pursue leads on a story I am writing and to attend a noted Thai cooking school. Before she left, Ann Marie transferred enough money to Drew’s credit card should he need to book a flight to join me in Chiang Mai -- again, just in case.

I spent most of the day preparing for an interview with 86-year-old Thai art collector James E. Bogle, an American who stayed on in Bangkok after his service in the Korean War and built a distinguished career as a Southeast Asia city planner.  Bogle is one of the last surviving friends of another American expatriate named Jim Thompson, a hero in Thailand, who is credited with rebuilding the country’s silk industry after World War II. Thompson’s mysterious disappearance in the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia in 1967 is still unsolved, and my three-hour conversation with Bogle shed light on that event, which I’ll cover in my upcoming book of nonfiction short stories.

I didn’t catch the news until late that evening, by which time the tide of events in Thailand had turned for the better.  The police had torn down their own barriers and welcomed the demonstrators into various government compounds, instantly diffusing the escalating violence. There were pictures of demonstrators and police laughing, embracing, and sharing tea together.  As the lead story in the December 4^th Bangkok Post explained:

The upcoming celebrations for His Majesty the King’s birthday are behind the Metropolitan Police Bureau’s decision to allow anti-government into their headquarters and Government House. The military asked the government to allow protesters inside as a symbolic gesture to end the violence. 

The military was keen to avoid clashes during the King’s birthday tomorrow. Police Lt. General Kamronwit said he had been summoned for an audience with a royal family member at the palace. He was told Thais must not fight each other.

The long-serving King is revered in Thailand, wielding influence of the kind George Washington would have if he were to reappear in the present and ask Americans to behave in a certain way. Drew told us a story of a friend visiting from the States who dropped a coin on a busy sidewalk, and as it began to roll away on its edge, stomped on it with his foot in order to stop it. Thais who witnessed the scene gasped in horror and disbelief, for one side of the coin featured a bust of the King.

Fathers Day in Thailand is a moveable feast pegged to the King’s birthday, which is today, December 5^th.  My Fathers Day present this year is the truce and at least a day of peace on the streets and the knowledge my son won’t be compelled by events to join me today in Chiang Mai.

As I advance in age, I sometimes have fleeting doubts as to whether the fortune I have spent on travel over a lifetime would have been better put aside for retirement, but just as quickly I answer myself, “No way.” If my last words turn out to be “paper or plastic,” so be it, for every time I experience other countries and their distinct cultures I am awed by the beauty and diversity of our world. Never has that been truer than on this rollercoaster ride of a month-long- trip to Thailand. As a bonus, the more I see of the world, the more I am convinced there is no better place on the planet to live than Leelanau County, Michigan, USA.

- John Mitchell, 12/5/2013

[John Mitchell's most recent book is a best-selling northern Michigan work of history, Grand Traverse: The Civil War Era.]

Do Artists and Musicians and Writers Have More Fun?

Concert poster

Our weekend got off to the best possible start on Friday, with the annual Madrigal Christmas concert by the Leelanau Children's Choir and Youth Ensemble. I didn't take my camera to the concert this year, so all you get to see (if you weren't there) is the poster at left. The costumes and staging are beautiful, too. But of course the focus is on the singing. All hearts in the audience were lifted by the young voices. The Christmas concert is director Margaret Bell's "skill-building set" for her singers, with largely the same traditional English and French carols every year, solos and ensembles with different personnel, of course, from one season to the next. With what they learn from preparing this concert, they go on in the spring to put together a new program each year. (I'll let you know in plenty of time, so if you're close enough to Northport you won't miss it.) If musicians do have more fun, they certainly work hard for it.

Saturday evening I spent baking cookies with a friend. One kind of dough, chocolate added to some portions, colored sugar and sprinkles to a few -- and here is the result, all ready on Sunday for our bookstore event:

I told you there would be cookies!

Here's what I was thinking off and on during Glenn Wolff's book signing. Glenn is an artist. He's also a musician. We had many other artists and writers in the room today. So do these people have more fun? Artists' and writers' work is often solitary, but they seem to enjoy getting together and comparing notes, and their appreciation of each other's work is heart-warming. I wonder if you can tell from the pictures below which people are artists, which are writers, which are musicians, and which are fortunate benefactors of the work of the artists, writers, and musicians.

Add caption

We all had fun at Dog Ears on Sunday! Thank you, Glenn!

What Title to Give This Posting about Holiday Gift Ideas?

First, the reminder that Sunday afternoon is our bookstore event with Traverse City artist Glenn Wolff. Again, that's from noon to 2 p.m. Books, notecards, posters, and a gift to each Wolff book purchaser. See right-hand column for details, if you’ve somehow missed the blitz of publicity on my blog recently. As Northporters and 2013 bookstore visitors know, I don’t have quite the space up front for holiday decorating that I’ve had in years past, so this year my “tree” (thanks, Mom!) is not quite 11 inches tall. It does light up though (from the inside), and the even light changes color. (Don't ask me how.) I’ll try to make up for the absence of a real tree on Sunday (and that good spicy fir tree smell) with the presence of home-baked cookies. (Blogger, what is it with you and the parentheses today, anyway?)

Looking at another bookseller’s blog earlier today, I realized I’ve been rather neglecting the historic nature of my larger collection, so that’s where I want to put the focus today. Old books. To me, they're treasures, and sometimes I don’t do enough to showcase them to casual browsers. I mean, a lot of these  are classics!  To begin under a fairly broad umbrella of what constitutes a classic, for example, how about the two children’s books below?

You remember Eloise, don’t you? She lives -- by herself, mind you -- in the Plaza Hotel in New York City.

Book cover

Detail of book illustration

The Eloise book is pretty pricey, but The Littlest Christmas Tree can be taken home, tax included, for under $10. And can you believe no child has yet written his or her name inside this 1954 Wonder Book by popular children's author Thornton W. Burgess?

Book cover

Illustrated endpapers

Book slides in and out of slipcase

Moving on to more adult fare (and staying with bargains), here's the kind of books I love to find under my tree (or wherever!). First, Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s A Gift From the Sea, illustrated and in a slipcase. I love slipcases! Tucking the book into own little bed is a delicious thing to do.

Chapter illustration

Then a sweet old volume of essays by the incomparable Charles Lamb. Book spines and covers just don't look like this any more, more's the pity.

Pretty spine

Ordinary old book cover

Or any of the little Peter Pauper Press editions shown below, all with original dust jackets. Yes, I do have a thing for small books, as well as for slipcases....

Books from Peter Pauper Press

But my big excitement earlier this week was taking delivery of a mammoth box of old books on Michigan. Unpacking, pricing, shelving -- such are the joys of a seller of used books, and great her satisfaction as she stands back to admire newly restocked shelves.

Partial view of overflowing Michigan section

Small AND local!

There are three of the Great Lakes series (Michigan, Superior, Huron – i.e., our western lakes), several titles on early days when timber was Michigan’s main attraction, and many books, large and small, on various Michigan cities and villages and islands.

David and I were saying only this morning how fortunate we feel not to have workplace politics as part of our lives. Neither of us -- he, the artist, and I, the bookseller – have either bosses to please or employees to oversee. Sometimes, though, I sigh over the concept of retirement. Yes, it’s only a concept, as far as my life is concerned, but I would love to spend a year reading in a more focused and continuous way, being transported back 50 or 75 or 100 years to Michigan’s past.

I live on my own little Treasure Island!

Bringing Color to the Holiday Season -- Yes, Books!

Snow blown from the east

Snow plastered on the side of the big silver maple tree is not an altogether unusual winter sight. What makes it different this morning is the placement of the accumulated snow, on the east side of the tree rather than the west or north. When the wind is out of the east, in my country experience, that’s when we get strange weather. And so today, we have wet, heavy snow that’s expected to turn to rain in the course of the day. Good old Up North holiday season rain.

With grey, dismal weather on hand, my attention turns happily to my coming bookstore event, Sunday afternoon’s visit from artist Glenn Wolff. Just looking today at the books he’s illustrated (books he’ll happily sign for purchasers on Sunday, throwing in a free surprise gift at the same time), along with his beautiful notecards and posters, gives me the same happy feeling I get from looking at an open fire. There’s nothing like warm color on a grey day.

Three books illustrated by Glenn Wolff

A few of the Glenn Wolff notecards available at Dog Ears Books

One of many colorful Glenn Wolff posters

And while I’m on the subject of colorful books, I might as well put in a plug here for Ashley Bryan, a Maine artist-author [this is a correction: I earlier identified him as from Michigan] I only learned about recently. Here are three of his gorgeous children’s books.

Three Ashley Bryan books

And since a lot of people are looking at (and for) Christmas books these December days, let's give a closer look at Bryan's Who Built the Stable? A Nativity Poem. 

Beautiful endpapers of STABLE book

Little shepherd boy building cradle in stable

David Grath, resident Master of Color, has been working hard in his studio recently. Stop in to see the latest work. No photograph I can take would do it justice.