DRUNK WITH YOUTH

I loved taverns 

what’s not to love but

I don’t drink anymore so

I only walk past them now 

on my way to get some ice cream most nights.

I just passed Plug Uglies’ outside bar

where maybe 30 youngish people were huddled close in 

different groups eating pizza slices and drinking pints as if

it were a year ago.

Slainte’ I thought worriedly as I went by them.

A Library of Congress conversation between Robert Caro who’s at work on another volume of his monumental LBJ biography and Robert Gottlieb his longtime editor at Knopf. They’ve worked with each other forever, arguments notwithstanding. It’s good stuff: 

https://youtu.be/WRsl8TspI-g

‘What is the future of independent bookstores?’ An NPR video talk with Emily Powell manager of the famous Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon. They have a huge main store and various branches around the city. Most are closed for now. Most of the 500 employees are not working now. You’ll like her, and pull for her.

https://youtu.be/dVB2YCYtMbo

 

2000 PEOPLE WAS ALL

In my small hometown 

you couldn’t buy a hit record 

or a hardback book

or a Wilson baseball glove

there was no McDonald’s but 

you could buy a huge can of Charles Chips

at the gas station

what we did have was a library 

in a white house like you’d imagine

a small town might have.

 

‘I'd read it already, but I wanted to read certain parts over again.’

               ― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye