Last night I read Steinbeck, this morning I listened to IDLES

plus Degarmo & Key's BOGO ministry and a Little Engines shipping center update

Can’t give a reason, but IDLES never grabbed me. Surely I’m the target audience. All boxes are checked and from what I see in live videos, I’m twins with 70% of the fans. I tried many times and don’t know what made me go again, but yesterday it hit. This morning, I’m back in again, playing on random across the catalog. Very sick to fall for an artist with a bunch of records to absorb, all new to you. I thought the band lacked melody, but I was wrong.

I’m still on my Steinbender, about to wrap up Tortilla Flat, a novel about buddies. These homies are DRINKING. The book is packed with humor, but the paisanos’ silly and charming moves belie what’s become the heart of the book for me as I near the end: their CONTENTMENT.

Also reading Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters. While working on the first draft of what he was sure would become his masterpiece, Steinbeck wrote longhand in pencil on the right-hand page of a notebook gifted to him by his editor, Pascal Covici. To begin each session, he wrote a letter to Covici on the left-hand page. The letters are short, simple, and repetitive, but a rare window on Steinbeck’s plan, process, and aim for what he calls an old fashioned novel. Peeping reviews of East of Eden after finishing a few weeks back, a common critique is the allegory is blunt and lacks surprise. My favorite bits in Journal are when Steinbeck writes to Covici like: “Working on the brothers today. I don’t know if readers will see what I’m doing, it’s very subtle…” and he’ll be talking about characters with names like Blain and Fable.

from my fellow Christian Rock ghetto survivor Scott Hatch in reference to this post.

Packing your copies of The Walk Book and dropping heaps at USPS in waves. It will take all week to get ‘em out to readers, but I’m down with the tedium. There’s an unmatched romance in DIY boxing & shipping. All zinesters and small-time label owners from the tail end of the last century will tell you the same.

• Place book on sheet of newsprint packing paper

• Crude wrapping job, paper cuts abound

• Little Engines sticker to hold it together

• Wrapped book, Little Engines Issue Ten, crouching STC photo sticker, and loose Little Engines sticker onto flat box

• Fold and tape box, give up a little skin each and every time

• Pirate Ship to buy and print shipping label

• Place label and another damn sticker on the box

• Stack ready boxes in plastic tub

• Load brimming tub into Honda Pilot

• Off to Green Hills Post Office, who hates to see me coming until they see the shit is pre-stamped