I can't shake this guy

I saw Lee Henderson again tonight.
I was on Carrall Street, taking the first part of the dinner break of my last nightshift. I missed most of the art, but there was still some lingering around, mixing in with the panhandlers, nightclubbers and other Gastown regulars. He was in a closed circle of conversation. I was eating streetza (which has mysteriously dropped back down to a dollar a slice, after rising to $1.25 last January and then peaking at $1.50 this summer). I thought about going over and introducing myself, but then I saw some coworkers and decided to make awkward smalltalk with them instead.
It's the second time Henderson crept into my life today. I woke up sometime before noon to Jian Ghomeshi promoting tomorrow's episode of Q, where Henderson will argue the relevancy of The Catcher In The Rye.
I first read Catcher in the ninth grade, during my one-year stint at Evan Hardy. Henderson was in Grade 12 that year, and was one of the editors of Crampl, the school's literary and art annual that published at least one of my poems and a pencil drawing of Sting(who I had seen in concert the summer before) I may have traced. Probably not though, as I was drawing a lot that year, mostly copying off Keith Giffen's Legion of Super-Heroes art. I borrowed the book from the school library, which makes it entirely possible that Henderson and I both read The Catcher In The Rye for the first time from the same volume. Which is interesting and isn't. I dunno, it's interesting to me.
Henderson's got a new book out called The Man Game. It looks good. It looks real good. My current moratorium on new books is really hard to uphold. I reviewed his book of short stories, The Broken Record Technique, for the P-Dog way back when. And also interviewed him via email, which is more like exchanging emails and less like interviewing.
On Sunday, I saw him read at the Word on the Street fair downtown. I laughed a little at a part no one else laughed at, more an appreciative laugh at a fine turn of words than a laugh-at-a-joke laugh. I think he looked at me, but I was way in the back.
About a month ago, co-worker Ryan--the man I've spent nearly every single night with for the last year--told me that I look just like Neal Henderson, "you know, the writer?"
What did he write?
"The Man Game."
This was before the book had even been reviewed by the Globe & Mail.
Oh, you mean Lee Henderson.
"Yeah, whatever. You look just like him. We were riding the bus the other day, and this girl was had his book, and she was talking on her cell. She was saying that the book was kind of boring, but she had to read it for a class or something. And Neal I mean Lee was right there. I asked him how that made him feel, and he...."
And then Ryan shrugged his shoulders.
When I got back from my walkabout tonight, I looked in the mirror. I tried to see what Ryan was talking about. Sure, both Henderson and I wear glasses. And we are both wearing checked button-up shirts tonight, just as we both were on Sunday. That's when I noticed a small patch of stubble I missed when I shaved this afternoon. I looked at the shadows under my eyes, the result of two years of working nights. Two years of being underslept and malnourished and missing out on spending time with my wife (who's only been my wife for two months, but, y'know). That all comes to an end tonight. This is my last night shift. I should be commemorating it somehow, but instead I'm thinking about how close Lee Henderson's shave looked tonight. I'm thinking that he doesn't drowsily scrub his face with an electric razor once every couple of days like some character in a Rebus novel. I'm thinking that he takes the time, uses a hot towel and everything. Maybe even eucalyptus. I bet he uses a straightblade, an antique, with something ruggedly arcane on the celluloid handle. Something like a lighthouse with a sea serpent wrapped around it, or well, probably something that looks like an early Marcel Dzama drawing. (Dzama illustrated The Broken Record Technique, so, like, go figure.)

video: "Shiver" by Giant Sand

Another Reason to Stick To TV

One of the few things I get to have an active role in during this magical time of expectancy is clearing out my playroom--er, home office--so we can turn it into a baby room. Or a nursery. One or the other. I'm not sure which. I don't even know what the difference is. I think a nursery is supposed to have trees. Or tree-themed wallpaper?

Speaking of trees, mainly what I'm doing is getting rid of books. I love books. I love buying them, I love reading them, I love looking at 'em. Some of my fondest childhood memories are spending what felt like entire afternoons scouring the shelves of the Mayfair Branch of the Saskatoon Public Library, or on special occasions the awesome main branch downtown--whose children's section was the stuff of legend, especially Pooh Corner, which I remember as being accessible only by a tunnel too small for adults to fit. Mainly I was interested in the Hardy Boys series, the old blue hardcovers, which had a strange smell about them I would come to associate with books. For my birthday, maybe my 6th or 7th, I got The Hardy Boys Detective Handbook, which was the most mind-bending piece of literature I'd seen since The Empire Strikes Back Book-on-Record.

A few times, my ambition would get the better of my reading level. I once checked out an Albert Einstein biography that was beyond me, but luckily my mom took a break from the Narnia and Madeleine L'Engle books that were the staples of bedtime to read it to me. Whatever I gleaned from having the book read to me is now forever intermingled with dim memories of the Yahoo Serious movie. Einstein's afterlife, however, I'm much more clear on.

Anyway, the baby room. My books. I've got too many. I need to get rid of some. Right. Because supposedly a baby and a mountain of books can't co-exist. So this afternoon I filled my biggest backpack full of books and trudged over to my favourite used book store on Main Street. It's the place I would go to find the books I have to get rid of if I hadn't already read them. It's curious the way the dynamic changes when the clerk realizes you're in there to get rid of books rather than buy them. When I'm buying books there, there's plenty of chat and small talk, what we in the business like to call relationship-building. When I'm trying to lighten my literary load, on the other hand, it's polite but terse. No small talk. At all.

So the clerk is going through my pile of books. He examines the books and divides them into two piles. With every new volume he rifles through, I have to resist a growing urge to snatch the books back and run down the street screaming, "NEVER! You'll never get my books! They're mine! All mine!"

But really, rationally, what do I need with my old copy of Kerouac's Big Sur? Am I going to read it again? Not a chance. I'd sooner reread Desolation Angels or Dr. Sax anyday. Which is why I'm keeping them. Just in case. I have an unreasonable fantasy that I'm going to reread all my favourite books--not when I'm old, but, like, this weekend. Yeah, fat chance. I get it. So let them take my books. Let someone else carry that weight.

The clerk takes a second look at my run of early 00s Best American Crime Writing anthologies, and suddenly I decide that those are the most indispensible books I've ever owned. Now they're going to be gone forever! I can feel a panic attack coming. The clerk shifts them over to the pile closest to me. "These ones," he says, pointing at that pile of books, "thanks, but no thanks." A wave of relief. Although I'm shocked and a little saddened he didn't want my copy of The Last Honest Man.

The clerk makes me a very reasonable offer on store credit for a little over half the books I lugged in, and I take it. I should take cash, but you get less, and who am I kidding, I'm going to buy more books. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but Friday. Friday, I'm definitely going to buy more books. I've already eyed-up a copy of the recent Houdini biography on the shelf at the front of the store. Sorry, Nicole.

mp3: "Television" by Robyn Hitchcock
mp3: "Television Man" by Man...Or Astro-man?