Cyber Monday

My friend Kim's ears must be ringing. I no sooner mentioned the word schnecken and one of these buttery loving hand-crafted sweet dough cinnamon raisin breads appear.

Thanks to the folks at the Virginia Bakery downstate for baking up these beauties.

This kind treat given to us by Kim and wrapped with his imaginative collage of color and black and white portraits of Sidney Greenstreet, Jack Johnson , Otto Graham ,Don Mossi, A Mexican masked wrestler, Sonny Liston in a hoodie , 'Harmonica' Frank Floyd, Willie Pep, Lou Groza ,Luke Easter, Humphrey Bogart , Tris Speaker , Peter Lorre , The famous ' dingus' , Joe Perry, 'Senor' Al Lopez ,Early Wynn , Rocky Marciano , Herb Score , Archie Moore , Roy Campanella , Cookie Gilchrist , Joe Nuxhall , and a few more figures inclusive of a spitting mad desert rodent whose resemblance to a middle-linebacker is uncanny.

Kim pasted all of these images on one very colorful and entertaining gift wrap box which inside contains his gift of a wax paper wrapped schnecken from Virginia Bakery.

A kind human being, Kim is old-school humble, and a decent family man who enjoys life and a few unique hobbies.

What surprises me more often than not upon receiving a kind parcel from Kim is that I recognize most of the people he has chosen to travel with as kind craft paper hitchhikers to guard the bakery, book or disc that he sends.

Very entertaining and easy on the eye.

I never discard one of Kim's unique wrapper art works, though if you were to ask Kim if he was an artist he would more likely than not demur.

I was so surprised at receiving the mail today, after not picking up any mail since before Thanksgiving, and finding a schnencken aboard that I chuckled aloud with glee at the serendipity of the universe is capable of. Write about something one day, shows up the next.

Food for thought?

Kim included on his wrapper art an old comic bookmark image that we used to advertise Old Erie Street Bookstore some years ago, prior to the advent of Cyber Monday and Black Friday.

Black Friday was simply referred to as the day after Thanksgiving for the majority of my life, and always a great retail day for sales at our book store.

This comic image shows the glowing face of anticipation of a customer inside OESB his palms open and face smiling looking at a glowing book amid a stack of volumes.
Serendipity!

No longer am I witness to this retail activity within our closed downtown bookstore.

Nobody comes to downtown Cleveland to shop any longer, and those daily workers that are able to take off, never work the day after Thanksgiving.

I did attempt to visit down town to retrieve the mail on Black Friday, though found the mail drop locked at noon.

So it goes in today's inclement climate and hostile workplace known as downtown Cleveland, Ohio 2007!

The post Thanksgiving Friday was always a favorite for the good run of years we enjoyed at Old Erie Street Book store from 1976 to 2001. Realizing that other cities might provide a better environment for an open book store such as ours, I keep an ear to the ground, and no longer entertain any false illusions concerning any positive reform occurring in downtown Cleveland.

Yet another season of lager louts, insipid suburban trash vomit creatures, not to mention the usual corrupt self interest gangs of suits letting what’s left of Cleveland's downtown go to hell in a hand cart.

We had a great run!

Old Erie Street Book Store did not leave. The City of Cleveland did a vanishing act instead, and the fat lady has yet to yodel! Last one out please turn out the lights.

Cyber Monday however is a different story.

A gray gulag vision greets dawn. I close my eyes and click on the Brasiliana tape of warm Portuguese voiced Brazilian music, roll over and go back to sleep.

The mambo and samba beats are the only musical cure for these cold rainy seasons of autumn and winter in the post industrial hitherlands of Ohio.

120 days of darkness are upon us, and let the warm psychedelic samba riffs that leap with a glow from Os Mutantes rule the airwaves.

Bossa Nova rules!

'Bat Macumba eh', eh' Bat Macumba Ola'.

The five albums released by Os Mutantes, from 1968 to 1972 remain among my all-time favorites, and we do not need to go into anything further concerning the underwear drawer emptied into I.M. Pei’s joke on our lakefront, just know that I have magic markered a nice round rock with the words OS MUTANTES, and they are getting into the rock n' roll hall of fame via catapult or sling shot this coming spring!

So bring on the mighty fecundity of cyber Monday, the internet version of black Friday.

Oh boy, can't wait to get downtown and check the e-mails for orders. Er, one order alas is all to be found. Such is the fickle business of bookselling in the year 2007.

We list near 20,000 fairly interesting titles for sale on three internet sites, and we receive but one order on cyber Monday. Should have stayed in bed!

Schnecken worth the show, and now is the time to return home for a warm cup of cafe noir and a slice of the schnecken.

Bookselling Time!

Slim's old sage M.F.K. Fisher is more forgotten today than remembered in this testosterone fueled era of competitive cooking.

We offer a sure fire cure for any of the ills cyber Monday may deal you in her WITH BOLD KNIFE & FORK. 318 great pages, including 140 plus recipes. Unfortunately no recipe for Schnecken. Better ask Kim for that one, or get lucky and find the location of the Virginia Bakery.

Thanks to all!

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