My body refuses to completely adapt to the time change and persists in being jet-lagged. It’s a familiar pattern for me to be up alone in the early morning quiet. Despite being temporarily  uprooted from my normal environs, I am pathetically  replicating my usual routline of coffee, Greek study, reading poetry (retaining the authors I have been reading by finding their work online: Wendell  Berry and Chaucer).

I didn’t bring any McCulloch with me to read but found a charming interview with him online this morning.

I did bring Hindmarsh’s The Evangelical Conversion Narrative which I continue to find weirdly compelling in the way it is helping me understand my upbringing in a “conversion” Christian church. Besides it’s a library copy of the book that I am not planning on purchasing only reading and taking notes on.

Yesterday we drove into Los Angeles and visited The Last Bookshop. It is a charmingly defiant  creation of a store. Self consciously post-Internet it combines experiences that cannot be accessed via screens in a manner that I found relaxing and enjoyable. These experiences include many whimsical three dimensional abstract collages of book related themes, used books priced reasonably mixed with new books, and scattered old wire paperback racks full of treasures of worn recognizable titles that tempt one to purchase them if only to hold them in your hands once again, all housed in a labrythian site that has many rooms some of which seem to be ancient vaults.

Then there is the second floor which is an Alice-in-Wonderland adventure with an art gallery, a dyed wool shop and a zillion used books all a dollar each.

Before going upstairs, I found a rare old copy of Anthony Burgess’s book on James Joyce called Here Comes Everybody, a collection of Raymond Carver’s short stories and a 2007 book on Kafka illustrated by R.  Crumb.

We were just about to go back downstairs when Eileen discovered two shelves of sheet music in pristine shape. Nicholas and I went a little nuts and went through it as quickly as possible. We found treasures which I will write about later. Now it’s time to stop blogging and do some serious goofing off.