Uyen Tran-Gjerde, Night Festival, 2018

QUESTION

When you're looking to buy a book—in the real world with your body and a bookstore and paper pages—how do you know the book is for you? (I mean FOR-you-for-you and not just a book that looks like it might be good.)

Me, I have a thing that happens sometimes

w h e r e i t ’ l l f e e l l i k e I ’ m

f a l l i n g t h r o u g h t h e t e x t

to a bright clear place just beneath where the writer’s genius lives. The text itself might not look like anything special—it might look as plain as an IKEA kitchen—but  

f l o o o o f

  I fall right in. When that happens, I always buy it.  The other thing happens, too, where I pick up a book and the writing is objectively good or even great, but it’s like the letters imperceptibly band together and block me from falling in. I’m just sitting there on top. I’ll flip and flip looking for a hole to fall into but if I don’t fall in right away the best that’s probably going to happen is a bit of spongy ground that my feet will sink into a half-inch or so. Sometimes I’ll buy that book anyway if my eyes and brain are trying to tell me it’s good, but I usually regret it.

The same kind of thing can happen when you go to the theater and an actor comes on and barely has a chance to do anything but you can still immediately tell that you're in good hands: WHEW   it's extra good in the theater because you're not likely to stand up and say NOPE and walk out on the spot if it's not there the way you can with a book

"-how was the book? -mmm. I walked out."

A book I fell into and devoured = PACHINKO A book I fell into hard* a few days ago and bought but haven't read yet = SMALL GREAT THINGS  *so hard it sparked this very topic

This just came out and it looks wonderful.

I don't think a person can fall into a reference book exactly.  Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style

But it does indeed look like a bangin' reference book.

NON BOOK THINGS

(Uyen Tran-Gjerde again but I don't know the title of this rabbit)

THIS SHOP holy crap  Sphere + Sundry

We are deep into Diagon Alley territory with this shop. I don't like saying "I'm obsessed" because all the flavor has been chewed out of those two words but it's not a lie.   They peddle astrological magical sundries.   Self-select yourselves in or out right there.

I ordered myself the Jupiter's Archer perfume and whenever I put a dot* on I want to cheat on Dave with myself (I'm not referring to self-pleasure; I'M INDICATING A WHOLE AFFAIR)   And Dave smells great! He's the best-smelling person I ever knew! "Jupiter's Archer" smells as good or better than love-of-my-life pheromones. So.

*Dotting on a tiny bit is the only good way to wear perfume. It should be a surprise treat for people who are invited deep into your neck or wherever. More is bad. This is true. I can give you more rules for things if you like rules.

 And a bit farther down Diagon Alley

  wait

  A bit further down Diagon Alley?

I don't have Dreyer's English yet, I only have Google  

  It's not a real alley here so we're further? But we're talking about an alley so farther?

fuck it

A bit forther down Diagon Alley

 Phytognosis

If you clicked the link to that Jupiter's Archer perfume and read the description you'll see they gave a shout-out to this fella's shop.  Maybe you too are a practitioner of leechcraft and wortcunning, unable to find authentic ingredients for your workings, like he was.

I keep thinking about Turkish coffee.

That's all. I want to drink it and think about it all the time.

I don't have a cezve    but I'm not going to stop imagining that I'm going to make Turkish coffee one of these days just because I don't. I'll imagine it all I want and so can you.  

HOW TO MAKE AND SERVE TURKISH COFFEE

        memory

*15 years old *spring break *touring colleges in California *a cloudy morning in Santa Monica *My parents drop me off at the apartment of my granny's friend Shafica Karagulla *We sit at her formica kitchen table and she serves me my first Turkish coffee *I'd only just started drinking coffee but I was drinking instant Taster's Choice after school and nothing like

 THIS GLORIOUS SWEET CARDAMOM-Y MUD          

*Shafica's kind face nodding, asking questions, listening respectfully to the answers *Me feeling awkward and elegant all at once

Me, a permed + brace-faced seed of a person, received in this kitchen like I was Madeleine Albright. Who does that? A special person does that. Someone who doesn't erase who you are or pretend you're somebody else but zeroes in on your innate dignity, however visible it is or isn't in your current form. Some people are born for this but maybe it can be cultivated. If you know someone who has this quality, do not take that person for granted.

*Shafica brought out bags and bags of costume jewelry and let me take whatever caught my eye  (something red, something green, something opalescent)

Shafica is the spirit of Turkish coffee for me

This is Shafica

She died a year later. I'm lucky I made it in or Turkish Coffee could have been anybody for me or worse, nobody at all. We wouldn't even be talking about it.

You can hang out with Shafica as well because she left books behind for us all:

  that one's here

this one she wrote with my granny and it's here

Maybe the authors who write the books I fall into immediately have something like Taksu

I just heard about Taksu

probably also true on other days besides December 17th, 2016   and since it's a unique Balinese concept that doesn't even apply to writing NO, THEY DON'T, THEY CAN HAVE SOMETHING ELSE

     but Taksu's still cool Here is a discussion of Taksu featuring some Balinese dancers who have it

BUT MY POINT REGARDING TEXT A PERSON CAN FALL INTO  

is that along with (non-taksu-based) genius

a nice typeset can't hurt