I suppose it is no accident that Bedlam Farm is populated with what I call Comeback Creatures. It is somewhat accidental – or perhaps it isn’t – that there are so many here. Red is a Comeback Creature, he was in big trouble on his farm in Ireland, Dr. Karen Thompson took care of him and fought to get him to me. Minnie is surely a Comeback Cat, still struggling for balance and movement after losing her leg a month ago. Simon is a Poster Child Comeback Creature, he was minutes from death when he was rescued by the police and brought to Bedlam Farm, he is a happy and much loved animal.
Zelda was on her way to market, we took her literally off of the truck taking her there. Flo too, is a Comeback Cat, she hid in the woodshed and under the porch for months before she came out and showed herself to Maria – a smart move, and is the Queen of the farm. These animals are symbols to me, fairy tales in a way, powerful affirmations of the drive to live and survive, each has challenged me in a different way to be a better human, and isn’t that the wonder of animals, to love them well requires us to be better humans.
Katz’s Law: To Have The Dog You Want, You Will Have To Be A Better Human, There Is No Other Way. No Angry Person Has A Great Dog Or A Well-Trained Dog, If You Look Around, You Will See That This Is So,
The new book tour is very different, the new book tour is sometimes the same. On a normal book tour, I will travel to as many as a dozen bookstores, doing talks, readings and signings. In the area where I love, bookstores are not disappearing, they are increasing in number. Last night I went to Saratoga Springs to do a reading at Northshire Book’s sparkling new store there. Saratoga Springs is a rarity, a booming upstate New York City, increasingly populated by wealthy refugees from New York City and its suburbs. It is a hot restaurant town, a condo town, a racetrack and tourist town.
We had another full house, about 55 people, a good reading, good questions, the feeling of a conversation. Joan, a long-time fan and reader of my blog and Maria’s, showed up and was wearing gloves knitted from Tess’s wool (the ewe who died last week) and Maria was very happy to see that.
There was a long book line, a rarity in the age of the Kindle. Many people came from the blog, some were new to me, they wanted to hear the story of Frieda. It is a very personal book, but I don’t usually talk about the personal stuff at readings, and people don’t generally ask me about it, everybody wants to hear about Frieda and it is a good story to tell. Maria sits quietly in the back, listening, sketching, thinking. She is making a Frieda potholder to give away to one of the people who are ordering books from Battenkill Books.
Battenkill ran out of books today, another huge shipment is arriving Friday from Random House. The store has sold more than 600 copies of “Second Chance Dog,” we are heading for a thousand. I hope to keep it going. You can order the book from Battenkill’s website, or you can call the store at 518 677-2515. The orders keep coming in, we will hit a thousand, Maria and I will sign every one of thej.
I am entering the next phase of the book tour, daily topics on the book, give-aways of photos, books, potholders, real time review threads on Facebook and then, podcasts and videos. I am not sure how far I can push this book on the blog. It is being discovered as a good Plaid Friday purchase, as a good Christmas present, so I am going in that direction. Sometimes at night I wonder if I’m not just plain mad, abandoning the warm embrace of my publisher, letting them send me around the country to waiting bookstores and readers.
But I believe in this new book tour, it is the future, I wish to remain relevant as a writer. In Saratoga, I explained that my blog had become my new book, my living memoir, and I believe it will help me talk about my book and sell it. This seems already to be happening, but it is early in the game, competition is ferocious, people’s attention spans short. I do feel a bit alone sometimes, on my own, it is what I wanted, but clearly, there is no place to hide.
Saratoga was just about my last physical stop on the book tour, the last real remnant of the other tours. Red was absolutely stellar at Northshire, he greeted just about everyone, lay down and slept while I talked. Some people brought their dogs, and that always makes me a bit uncomfortable, it is distracting, but Red handled it beautifully, I am so glad I didn’t try and bring Frieda.
I will be in Chester Vermont on November 24 as part of the Vermont Writer’s Series, organized by the Misty Valley Book Tour and at the Chatham Public Library in January. That’s it for the old way. My new book tour is beginning to draw some attention, not all of it happy. A couple of writers have e-mailed me, puzzled and troubled by this new direction, but that is both understandable and to be expected. I’m don’t exactly live in the bosom of the literary establishment, I think I am just one of those outside-the-tent people.
It is good to see readers and look in their eyes and meet them face to face. I miss that part of the book tour, it is was always wonderful to do. But I am not wallowing in the past, I know what I need to do, I love what I need to do. I have the chance to step out and meet the future, to embrace it and come out the other side, and so far, I have a wonderful community taking the trip with me. How exciting. Thank you, all of you. Much more to come, we are just getting started. Next goals are to sell 1,000 books at Battenkill, then to trigger a third printing. That would be pretty awesome for me and my blog.
Mickey’s World is not available to me, the inside of his head is closed off to me. We meet at the same corner, I always ask him if I can take his picture, he always says sure. For several hours each day, the boundary of his world is a storefront where he sits quietly,drinking coffee, smoking his cigarettes. Everybody knows him, he is quiet and gentle, clean and alert. He is George’s Forss’s stepbrother, and he lives with George in the top floor of an apartment.
At night, he watches TV, sometimes talks to the set, when he is done sitting and watching the world he goes to a convenience store nearby for coffee. Our arrangement is this, I photograph him, talk to him for a short while, give him money for coffee, he nods and then crosses the street and gets his coffee black. He heads towards home in the late, cold afternoon, Mickey is from New York City, he says he loves where he lives, he doesn’t want to go back. Everyone in town looks out for him, makes sure he has clothes, has coffee, a sandwich sometimes. He feels safe here, he is safe here.
Every day, there are treasures in my Post Office Box (Post Office Box 205, Cambridge, N .Y., 12816). Most are for me, some are for Maria, some addressed to us both. Some have crisp new bills or small checks enclosed (people with little money trying to pay for their subscriptions), some are just surprising, like Jane’s letter from Talashal, Portugal, where I would not expect to have readers of the blog.
“I thought I’d surprise you with a few lines from Talashal,” she wrote, “a centuries-old stone village in the mountains of central Portugal, where some friends and I have a very old house. I read your blog every day – it usually arrives in e-mail early morning and I read it while sipping my breakfast green smoothie.”
I paused on that paragraph, savoring the image of Jane in that old village reading my blog with her morning green smoothie. It’s a beautiful image for me. “I grew up in Central African with a lot of animals,” writes Jane, “my mother rescued them – I have almost had four-footed creatures in my life, although not necessarily my own. There is a colony of feral cats here in the village, history/origin unknown. There’s a very fine line to walk with regard to one’s relationship with them.”
There is a lot of truth in that, it is so gently put, it reminds me of the barn cats, in America we to not let things live unknown lives, we think we have to fix every problem and save every animal from the natural world. Jane’s writing suggests a more philosophical approach.
“What intrigues and inspires me most about your blog is the way that you have come to view it as your work,” she writes, “your book also and how you view the rapidly changing world of pre-digital publishing. It inspires me to think about a blog of my own, I come from a creative/arts/photography background but have been a busy homeopath for many years. I know I need to get back to something more inherently creative but what/how was eluded me. However, your blog and photos are lights along the path.”
My Post Office Box brings me magic and mystery, from the small bills people enclose to the magical messages like Jane’s. She has given me yet another wonderful reason – I have so many – to get up in the morning, to think of my work inspiring some gifted human in Portugal.
Jane, I love your letter to me, it touched me deeply, and I thank you for it. I want to say to you from the heart that the first step for you is to start your own blog, especially if you love mine, there is no reason to shut down the creative part of yourself, it can grow and prosper along with the rest of your life, which has an enchanted quality to it, at least from your letter. I love the notion of my photos and words being lights along the path, your words evoke a lot of feeling and grace, they ought to be shared with the world. You would not regret a blog, it would widen and enrich the spirit that wants to come out, the creative spark.
I would love to have a longer conversation with you one day, I would love to stay in touch and I so look forward to the day your e-mail me and tell me about your new blog, your lights along the path from the other side of the ocean. Good luck with the cats, you know to be careful. Best wishes back to you.
Our back porch has become a revolving window into our life at the farm, it is a never-ending source of comforting, surprising and interesting images of our life here, today the gray hen (we have kept to our resolve not to name our chickens) decided to take up position with Flo, the two of them getting warm on the slate tiles. I love the cat/chicken gatherings, they seem solemn, even regal to me.
