paper

There's an old saying in the editorial business: If it's June, it must be Christmas. That's because monthly magazines work on their issues at least 4-6 months ahead of time. For me, if it's Thanksgiving, it's next year.

During the Thanksgiving weekend for the past few years, I have gotten my photo calendars done. One features traditional digital photographs (is that ironic?); the other is full of photos taken with my iPhone and the Hipstamatic App.^{1, 2}

Choosing takes weeks, even without a full-time job. My Hipstamatic folder holds over 2,000 photos—and that's after discarding at least three-quarters of them. My real camera was neglected for a good part of the year; that calendar was easier.

Last year, strangers, friends, and wannabe lovers bought about 80 calendars. I sold them on my blog, on Etsy, in person (always a stash in my car), and at the Red Canoe³ (I'm doing their personal calendar this year, too!). Some lovely people (Monica, Lynne) bought them in bulk.

Aren't you a sucker for a good calendar? I used to buy at least six irresistible beauties (kitchen, office, three bedrooms, Marty's work, wherever) at Daedalus Books and put them everywhere. (Desk calendars are fab, too, though I rarely crack them open because of iCal, which now, sadly, syncs to life's every nook and cranny.)

Paper is brilliant—maybe even more so because its mother, the tree, is god. Books should have spines, not be wimpy and hide behind a screen, where they can't get into the bathtub with you. I like to write in books—underline the poetry, discuss with the author in the margins. I like when writers sign their books; I bought five a couple weeks ago got them signed. Steve Almond signed my own book—next to the signature of his man crush, Bob Schneider.

Oh! Joy! Notebook paper with college-ruled lines! Moleskines! Spiral-bound journals and colorful hardbound blank books from the dollar store! Stationery and notebooks from Levenger. Those black-covered, hardbound sketchbooks we used to need for art class. This is an ode to printing things out with the brightest, heaviest, freshest paper. My printer enjoys it all—three different kinds of photo paper, brochure paper, card stock, paper for labels, vellum and scrapbook papers and kraft paper—by the sheet and the roll.

My beautiful young friend, Grace Macfarlane, gave me 1,000 paper cranes, a confetti of memories of my grandfather, king of paper cranes.

This morning, I'm touching last year's calendar, flipping through the pages, hoping the new ones, calendars and year, hold as much promise. I want to fill the dates with things like Bob Schneider at 8x10, School of Rock FUNK show at Recher, Chuck Prophet!!!! at SoundStage, rather than reminders about CT scans and doctors' appointments and my father's number in the hospital.

I hope all of our calendars are full of good things: new babies, dogs' birthdays, dinner with friends, big birthday parties, music, love.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Calendar Orders
I have placed an order for 10 each, due to arrive by the second week of December. (Before ordering more, I want to make sure they are perfect.) If you'd like to put some on hold, please drop me a line at lesliefmiller@yahoo.com; specify how many you'd like of which calendar and where they should be sent when the time comes. Before I ship, I'll send you a request for payment via PayPal or that new company, Dwolla. Calendars are $15. Shipping is free for locals, if we can catch up somewhere; $2.50 domestic for the first, $1.00 each additional; $4.00 overseas for the first, $2.00 each additional. (I'm trying to be fair, but I really don't know the shipping cost yet.)

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

¹ I hate using app as a word. I'm sorry I did it.

² I love the Hipstamatic company. Not only do they make a delicious product (called an app), but they have excellent customer service. They make me proud to be a fan. If you have an iPhone, buy the app. It's 99 cents, for heaven's sake. If you don't, visit Hipstamart for some goodies, like that cool Black Keys t-shirt.

³ Get down to the Red Canoe—or the stores in your 'hood—today for Small Business Saturday. I won't lecture you about how you should be supporting the independent booksellers every day, but you should remember that the extra money you spend not getting a deal on that book goes directly back into your pocket by giving you a better quality of life and steady property values, not to mention a hug or a smile or both from the shop owner.

*The large signature on The Book is from Bob Schneider. The heart with SA + BS was drawn by Steve Almond, author and fellow fan of both Bob and BS. I can only hope the inscription below, "Lets here it for," is followed by "good grammer" and is meant as a joke. Truth be told, I'm afraid to look.

Re: re: re: re: The Book

I live in the city’s best middle-class neighborhood. Restaurants; ice cream parlors; knitting, book, and liquor stores; and a beautiful hairdid are all within walking distance, and the purveyors are friends—if not before, certainly now.

Like any resourceful community, we have our own discussion group on the interwebs. Some people use the forum a little too much, forwarding emails about virus hoaxes and warnings to “NEVER LICK AN ENVELOPE.” (Messages from those special senders go right in my spam folder.) Sometimes subject lines contain misspellings or typos, which survive through repeated Replies To All, even after I reply with the correction and beg it be adopted. Most often neighbors ask if anyone knows what was going on at such-and-such intersection or what crime involved police on their block last night. We also have plenty of warnings about daytime burglars and teens casing houses.

My favorite emails involve bird and wildlife sightings (we've had owls and deer, and I found a flicker on my phone pole the other day.) This is one of the best parts of our community. But one of the worst parts is the increase in crime. This morning's email informed us that a beloved café was burglarized last night.

Recently a debate erupted over fines for loose dogs and then the issue of roaming cats, and it seemed to go on for weeks. Every time I woke up in the morning, I had five emails with “Re: re: re: re: Roaming Cats.” (What? Erase the extraneous Res?) The debate went something like this: Cats should not be allowed to roam. Cats roam; it’s what they do. You control your cat; he doesn’t control you. Cats roam; it’s what they do. Well, if you love your cat, you’ll keep him inside. My cat wants to roam; keeping him in is tantamount to torture.

Yesterday I found one of those roaming cats. His coat was shiny, and he was beautiful and all lovey-dovey—obviously someone’s pet. He was in my front yard for an hour, and I almost sent an email to the list about the Roaming Cat, but I couldn’t make myself stir that debate again. I just wanted to say that pet roaming cats need a collar, because this one was going to join my family. (I would give him a collar and let him go out!)

Last week, a neighbor I know wrote to the list against a new topic du jour but retitled her subject: “Speed Cameras NOT kitty cats.” She ended with some PR for me: “We all should be talking about Leslie's new book, anyway!” The debate continued, sans Book, even after my friend’s second attempt and my own reply (against speed cameras but pro The Book).

And speaking of neighbors and The Book: if you want the greatest muffin in the free world, you’ll find it at the Red Canoe on Harford Road. I talk about that muffin in the introduction to The Book, which is featured in twentiplicate on a table in the front. Grab one before it's gone!

autographs

I recently sold some gigantic (18" x 18") enlargements of birds on a wire—three different shots. While I was signing one of them, my extra-fine Pilot Razor Point ran out of ink. It’s about time, really; I think Pilot stopped making them ten years ago. Finding a pen compatible with my personality (the Razor Point was perfect for my former sharp tongue) became a priority, even on a day when my daughter and I were both home with pinkeye.

So I took Serena to a makeup girls’ lunch at her favorite pizza joint. I usually pick her up before mass on the last day of school before Christmas, Easter, and summer breaks and take her to Mamma Lucia, but this Christmas, I was indisposed. We wiped our seeping eyes, donned our dark sunglasses, and went out for a slice.

My ulterior motive was Office Depot across the street, where I could get a new box of black extra-fine-point markers. They’re imperative, as I’m expecting a giant carton of 35 copies of The Book to arrive sometime in the next week or so, and I have to send them, signed, to a few of the people who helped me. Forget those boring black and blue felt tips! Sharpies now come in every color, in every nib size.

We returned from lunch with several of them in a few colors: The Book pink, The Book blue, black, and a single lime green of my daughter’s choosing. Signs that she’d been practicing her own autograph remain on the kitchen sideboard. (Her generation might actually need to practice it, now that they pay bills online and don’t have the exercise of signing a slew of checks every month.)

Now comes the question of what to write, besides my name. No one will even be able to read the scrawl that represents Leslie F. Miller. So what pithy slogan can I make my own? “Thank you” is not sweet enough. “Cake or Death” belongs to another. “Mmm…Cake!” another. “Did someone say cake?” is Mr. Ratburn's line and too long anyway. Pie’s easy: “Semper Pie” would be my motto. Or “Pie’s the limit.” But cake? “Leslie F. Miller eats cake and leaves”? That’s nuts.

I have collected a few autographs, mostly from musicians: handwritten notes from Ivan Kral (Patti Smith’s bassist), Rick Nielsen, and Jane Siberry. I have the names of all the members of Cheap Trick on a wrinkled piece of paper. Bob Schneider and his band, Willy Porter, and Natalia Zukerman have signed my copies of their CDs. And when I met Richard Butler of the Psychedelic Furs at the Marble Bar in the early eighties, I had him sign a painting I made of him, complete with a blue car potato print stamp. ("Blue cars, big beat, dead on my feet.") He wrote "Into you like a train," misleading unless you know it's a Furs song.

Most of the time, those names remind me of a meeting with them, like when Kip Winger stole my notebook at Rock & Roll Fantasy Camp to write “Rock on!” Right now, my fridge wears an autograph—just a name, no frills—from Victor Wooten, who spoke to the kids at Serena’s school. She stood in line to get it and the reminder of the time their presence was graced by the king of bass.

In two weeks, I head to Philadelphia to tape an interview for “A Chef’s Table”; afterwards, I’m supposed to go to bookstores to sign stock. My husband wants to know who would buy a book just because it’s signed. But that’s how I came to read The Frog King, a fabulous book by Adam Davies. And it’s why I had finally picked up a book on my list, Diane Ackerman’s The Zookeeper’s Wife. My mom has a whole collection of first-edition, signed Edward Gorey books.

Marty wouldn’t stand in line for an autograph, but he wouldn’t take a picture, either. Most of the time, his memory suffices—he smiles when he remembers shaking Nelson Mandela’s hand at Bill Clinton’s first inauguration, and he talked guitar with Willy Porter while I was snapping away and getting a signature.

But maybe an autograph represents something else entirely—not just proof of a meeting or a desire to increase the value of a work of art. Isn’t it the artist’s seal? Sometimes I ask people not to use my name when I’m not fond of what I was forced to create. But a signature on The Book would say: I’m Leslie F. Miller, and I approve this publication—despite the mistakes I’ve made and my persistent battles with The Suck Voice.

Maybe my signature slogan should be a reminder to myself, just as much as it is a message to the reader.