Future home of The Neat Little Bookshop29 Talbot Rd. at the intersection (stoplight) of Cayuga Street.

Familiar Bookshop colours ~ Painting almost complete

Stage 2 ~ Position the shelving

Many of you have come by already ~ please feel welcome.

29 Talbot Rd (at the stoplight) corner of Cayuga Street.

Smile for Today:

Humorist, Robert Benchley, tells a story about his friend Ernie (Ernest Hemingway):

'He took my first edition of A Farewell to Arms and filled in each blank in the text where Scribner's had blushed and put a dash instead of the original word. I think that he supplied the original word in every case. In fact, I am sure of it."

On the fly-leaf of this he wrote:

To R. (G). B from E. ( --- ), H.
Corrected edition. Filled-in blanks.
Very valuable. Sell quick.
~Essay 1934

Smile for Today:

"There is much satisfaction in work well done but there can be no happiness equal to the joy of finding a heart that understands."

~ Victor Robinson

HARVEST TIME by Pauline Johnson

Pillowed and hushed on the silent plain,
Wrapped in her mantle of golden grain,

Wearied of pleasuring weeks away,
Summer is lying asleep to-day, ~

Where winds come sweet from the wild-rose briers
And the smoke of the far-off prairie fires;

Yellow her hair as the goldenrod,
And brown her cheeks as the prairie sod;

Purple her eyes as the mists that dream
At the edge of some laggard sun-drowned stream;

But over their depths the lashes sweep,
For Summer is lying to-day asleep.

The north wind kisses her rosy mouth,
His rival frowns in the far-off south,

And comes caressing her sunburnt cheek,
And Summer awakes for one short week,~

Awakes and gathers her wealth of grain,
Then sleeps and dreams for a year again.

~ Flint and Feather The Complete Poems of E. Pauline Johnson
Native Mohawk Indian (1861 - 1913) Hodder and Stoughton Ltd., 1912.

The Fish Quill Poetry Boat will set out today from Elora for a ten-day canoeing/camping trip on the Grand River. Comprised of eight poets from Toronto and Quebec, the group will hold poetry readings each evening at 7:00 p.m. Stops in Kitchener, Cambridge, Paris and Brantford.
Honouring the 150th anniversary of Pauline Johnson's birth, the flotilla will end the journey at Chiefswood, the home of the famous Canadian poet.
~ Pauline Johnson (1861 - 1913) Canadian writer and performer

Photo: Wikipedia

Thought for Today ~

With the upheaval of moving the bookshop the last two weeks, an essay titled "Unpacking My Library" naturally caught my eye. Add a few paint rags ~ and the following by Walter Benjamin describes the bookshop.

"I am unpacking my library. Yes, I am. The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order. I cannot march up and down their ranks to pass them in review before a friendly audience. You need not fear any of that. Instead, I must ask you to join me in the disorder of crates that have been wrenched open, the air saturated with the dust of wood, the floor covered with torn paper, to join me among piles of volumes that are seeing daylight again after two years of darkness, so that you may be ready to share with me a bit of the mood ~ it is certainly not an elegiac mood but, rather, one of anticipation ~ which these books arouse in a genuine collector."

A Passion for Books edited by Harold Rabinowitz & Rob Kaplan,
Three Rivers Press, 1999