Friday, August 10, 2012

Friday, August 10, 2012

Glenwood Coffee & Books is located at 1310 Glenwood Avenue, Greensboro, NC 27403. We have an email address, mainly used for correspondence to do with events: Glenwoodcoffeeandbooks@gmail.com.
     Maureen "Mo" Kessler and I are partners in this (ad)venture. I'm "Al," Alan Brilliant, a bookseller, publisher, bookmaker, bookman all my life. (A long life as I'm 76.)
     My friend, Charlie Headington, says I should do a bookshop blog. Charlie says this because I'm forever writing and publishing journals. For example, I just pubished Book Shop Journal. And, in the next few weeks, I'll be bringing out my Occupy Journal and my Publishing Journal. Meanwhile, I'm hard at work on two new journals, for 2013 publication: The Co-op Journal and The Nice Journal.
     My first journal, published in '09, was The Bus Journal. And it's had a lot of success, since it is used as a text book in several colleges and universities and even Greensboro's Dudley High School. After Bus Journal, I published Bike Journal. But a fellow I "dissed" in one of the paragraphs in this 150-page book, threatened to sue me, so I immediately withdrew that title from circulation. I'll be issuing it again in an edited, abridged version that removes the lawsuit threat. (Ironically, the threater was for all his life a professor of creative writing for MFA fools. I'm not saying he's a fool . . . God forbid! He'll sue me again! I believe anyone who spends good money to get their MFA, believing it will make them an (ugh) writer is a fool. As for the people who make money teaching these fools, I have no opinion about them.
     However, here in the South, grouchy writing like I just did is severely frowned upon, so I take it all back. That's why I'm writing my Nice Journal. It's a really nice journal, full of nice things I say about people and places and, well, e v e r y t h i n g. Everythng's nice. Everything's swell. Get it?
     Anyone complains my journals are bitter or at least not sweet, I hand them a copy of . . . The Nice Journal. "Wow," they say, "Al's a really nice guy. Look how nice he is!"
     If you're thinking South in these hard times, reflect on what I just said . . .

So that's what this here b l o g  b l o g  b l o g will be about or not. Just so you know what you're gettin' into. And what I'm getting into. What we're getting into! Good luck. God bless you. Good-night.
     I say, "Good night," because it's 11 p.m. and a pop punk rock band is playing in the back room of the bookshop. Pretty loud amplified music. But, not bad. Just kind of, like, noisy.Last word today is about this here "bad" economy. You see, the economy isn't bad. It's bad for you. But not for everyone. It's just we're not part of the one per cent! Yeah. Think about that!


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