Be Good to Emmett
I once met a man traveling to Saint Ives.
He had a little satchel, and he was downright unpleasant to talk to. First off, he wouldn't make eye contact with me.
And I was trying. It had been a long day, and I'd been working on my latest sculpture; which was a former pine tree, and was slowly, very slowly becoming a miniaturized replica of the new mall in Athlone. This sort of thing takes dedication. Well, it also takes someone making a big mistake when they were attempting to make a wood carving of a man in the woods out of a pine tree with a few inopportune slips of the knife, rendering the man considerably... blockier... and shorter, than one might like. And thus was borne the scale replica of the mall in the middle of Ireland. I was thinking back on it, resting against a different pine tree stump that I wound up carving into a pine tree stump after a few too many slips of the knife along the way in a carving journey from statue of a man in the woods to scale replica of a drive through burger joint to a jewelry box to a pebble to a tree stump. Upon further review, I could have carved a clam or oyster shell more easily than a scale replica of the mall, considering my callow carving skills. But I was too far down the road with the mall to turn back now.
The person walking down the road seemed a perfect opportunity to occupy my thoughts with something other than the sculpture before me.
When I finally did get his attention, by holding the knife under his downcast eyes, he looked fearful. Which is fair, I suppose, as I'm guessing he thought he was being mugged.
But he stopped, sat on my tree stump, which I kindly vacated for him. He sat there because it was a choice of the tree stump or a rock... and I waved the knife at the stump, so I guess he felt a certain pressure to sit on the tree/former sculpture.
At any rate, that stuff out of the way, we had a nice enough conversation, most of which centered around his satchel, which had started moving. Which makes a good conversation piece, I noted for myself, for the future, should I be stuck for conversation.
It turns out he'd stolen a cat from some guy and his wife... he said wives, but that can't have been, and wound up leaving it with me. Not because I demanded it while brandishing the knife, I might add. I'd put that away, at that stage. He just offered it in exchange for getting back on the road to Saint Ives before it got too dark.
disclaimer:
And here you go. This is a pretty big week for us here at the Sane Magazine office. Further Fenway Fiction is out this week, the follow up to the 2005 smash hit Fenway Fiction. And the founder of Sane Magazine has yet another story in this one, entitled "The Curious Case of Doctor Belly and Mister Itcher." Which surely is worth the price of the book alone.
But, just in case this thrilling title and very fetching cover aren't enough to convince you to hand over some cash to the fine folks at Amazon.com or your favorite local independent book shop, we'll be sorting something out in the next few weeks to make it even more worth your while. Much like good old Seth Mnookin with Feeding the Monster. We're not calling him old, mind. Not in a derogatory sense. More like in a faux comfortable sense like the friend who was appearing at Book Ends, the book shop down the street, and we failed to meet him there, but we read his name on the posters in the window, so that's close enough for horseshoes to call him "good old Seth," like we went to school together at Eton or something.
Anyway, so we're copying him. And he's copying the Freakonomics guys. We'll be sorting out signed bookplates to paste into your copy of Further Fenway Fiction. But we promise to attempt to inject a little originality into the process by... I don't know. Doing something special. I told you we're sorting something out. Which implies that we're still working it out. So just be patient, man! Back off, all right!
Okay, that said, go exhibit that same fervor and tenacity with your web browser or feet and get down to your local book shop and get buying the book!
Umm, thanks.
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