Got to give props to my friend Brian for pulling this off. $5,000 was raised for Invisible Children. By selling hair!
It was a brilliant fundraiser, and I want to thank any of my readers that were able to contribute.
For those of you not familiar with the terrible atrocities done against child soldiers (the children that Invisible Children will be helping with this money), I would recommend 2 books:
One Day The Soldiers Came by Charles London.
a long way gone by Ishmael Beah
Me as an undead monk. Harleween 2008. Shawn of the Dead and Rock Band on XBox 360.
Talk about one hell-ish of a Friday night…
What is the booksale?
Glorious.
This time around, I spoke with an interesting woman while waiting in line, she was looking for history books. We laughed about our book obsession (though inwardly I was grateful she’d be hunting for her books away from mine).
My hunt went well. Here were some of the better finds.
-An epic poem about werewolves in Los Angeles. Toby Barlow (the author) is very creative, and I would highly recommend you check out his website (make sure to watch “Public Service Announcement“).
Paid $1
-The author is Orson Scott Card, some of you may know him for his book, Ender’s Game. If you haven’t read it (Ender’s Game), you should. Immediately.
Paid $1
-I have been wanting to read the story after watching the movie. Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary (the screenwriters) did create an interesting spin on the classic tale with “sins of the fathers,” but they achieved this with great sacrifice, in my opinion, by ripping out the story’s Christian heart. Of course, they would argue that the Beowulf story was pre-Christ, and I would say,
“you guys are free to take as much creative license with original works as you like, in fact, Gaiman often does.”
Paid $4
-This book (and yes, it is 1 book) was an “ace in the hole,” according to the cashier. On one side is the story, Demons’ World, and when you flip it over there is the story, I Want the Stars. I have no idea if either of these stories are any good (my suspicion is no), but it’s still pretty cool.
Paid $3
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Those were my finds, along with 21 others. Spent $35, got 25 books. Not too shabby.
I leave you with 3 questions:
1) Were you there? Any great finds?
2) If you weren’t there, what was the last book you paid too much money for, simply because you had to have it?
(Sequoia National Forest – me on the car, Sammy on the tree)
The road trip is over. And what an enormous success!
11 days
11 hours (the number of hours on Joe Hill’s Heart-Shaped Box audio book)
3,350 miles
1,627 pictures
209 novel-related audio clips
1 hellava good time with my friend Sammy
I haven’t had time to process everything yet, but I did want to share one SMALL part of the trip via audio (I apologize in advance for the window-hopping, I wasn’t able to get the audio files directly into the blog; just click the LISTEN icon down the middle third of the page):
And here’s the novel-related insight that ensued
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What’s next?
Well, I bought a whole bunch of books, research related stuff, and I am giving myself a self-induced deadline of 6 months to finish off the first draft of Blood Children, the working title of the book.
Also, I believe Sammy and I are planning on sorting through the pictures this Sunday – I’m hoping to put the best ones on Facebook. I’ll try to give a heads-up once the pics are ready.
*sigh*
Tomorrow it’s back to the daily grind, or as Craddock James McDermott puts it,
“the dead pull the living down”
While visiting the Mormon Temple Square in Salt Lake City, we had about a 30 minute conversation with a Sister Nock about movies, books, and music; NOT the kind of conversation I expected to have with a Mormon missionary just completing her 3rd month on assignment at the international headquarters.
Her assignment was to explain the historical significance of this.
It’s a scaled model of Jerusalem from 33 A.D.
We were in for an even greater surprise when Sister Nock explained that the little metal plates next to the illustrations could be pressed, activating a spotlight that hovered over the part of the map corresponding to the teaching.
Of course, if you move quickly from plate to plate, you get some nice light switch rays, which she demonstrated with Sammy.
DJ Sammy & DJ Sister Nock
Host
Jerusalem Dance Party 2008
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Of course, no dance party is complete without the infamous after-party.
