A few years ago I bought a used copy of Eudora Welty’s Collected Stories from a bookstore in Knoxville. When I got it home and cracked it open, I found this letter, all folded up and tucked away somewhere in the pages of “Keela, The Outcast Indian Maiden.”
It should go without saying that I think this is cool as heck. I love finding stuff like this and wondering what it meant to the people who’ve lost it. And I wish I had the rest of this letter, but alas it’s only the first page. Still, I’d like to know if the writer ever dropped the hopped-up faux-Kerouac prose style or just continued to be-bop his/her way through the whole missive. In fact, I kind of imagine that this letter was about 50 pages long, and that’s why the recipient didn’t notice when a sheet went missing here or there.
Other odd “found” moments: bought a copy of Madison Smartt Bell’s Soldier’s Joy at the same bookstore and found a picture of a friend’s wife; apparently he’d still been using it as a bookmark when he traded it in. Also, I recently ordered a copy of Jack Butler’s Dreamer from a used bookstore in Santa Fe; it came autographed by Butler for Dave Smith, a poet who used to live in town here.
Also, if you haven’t read “Keela, the Outcast Indian Maiden,” you really should. Story will mess you up, man.
BONUS! The contents of the shopping cart of the woman in line behind us at Wal-Mart last week:
Six (6) Boxes of Vagistat
One (1) Coconut Cream Pie
Holy SHIT that is a LOT of vagistat.
And page one of this letter, she is AWESOME! I never find shit like that!!
I suppose if we could figure out the area code for that part of NY in 1965, we could use the phone number to find out who this person was. Then we can contact the person and tell them about the letter, and it will inspire them to share the secret tale of the winter that they managed to afford presents for the kids by harvesting hobo kidneys.
Awesome! I love “found items” like that. That rocks.
That letter is SO. AWEXXOME!! “I wondered how much it would take to drink the Christ out of Christmas . . . .” I keep reading that part over and over. I want to start a BOOK with that line. How beautiful and perfect and, just, exciting! You can feel the city just thrumming throughout that crackled page.
I am salivating. I love this.
Look!
Oddly enough, when i purchased Lone Star Rising by Robert Dallek off the shelf, it was signed. this was a few years ago, and the book wasn’t newly published at the time. the signature is smallish, but not overly so and done in blue, cheap, ballpoint pen.
This was is in Books-A-Million about 3-4 years ago. BAM is a south eastern states book chain and they RARELY have signings…especially by authors of LBJ Presidential Biographies from 1991.
Despite that, who in the hell would specifically go to THAT book and sign it (falsely)? bizarre.
I love other people’s makeshift bookmarks in used books. i like the ones that seem more like clues as to where this book has been.
Hee. Big Gray & Dr. Wagner used to fake-sign rock posters at the radio station. I’m pretty sure one of them did a mean Thurston Moore.
I did the HELL outta that Thurston Moore. It was better than his REAL signature. That shit was awesome. I wish I had that poster.
I have a Built To Spill poster signed by Doug Martsch…he signed it “Dug” in a 2nd-grader scrawl. Its awesome.
Hey! That’s a v. cool map/webcam/spy thing—thanks, Sally!
Three days ago, the old lady in front of me at Wal-Mart was buying pads for her bunyons and a case of Old Milwaukee Light.
i leave letters and post cards in books i am reading at the time on purpose. that way, i get to “find” the letters and give myself a little surprise years later. although, i lost my favorite picture of my grandmother that way when i loaned out bastard out of carolina.
my purchase at the walgreens this morning was kind of weird:
a six pack of white out and a toothbrush.
I once bought a vial of Bob Dylan’s pubic hair.
eudora welty used to buy a 6pack of old Milwaukee (or was it Milwaukee’s best?) when she shopped at the Jitney 14. she’d get this first, crack one open and drink it as she walked around the store shopping. i still find this amazing.
I can’t decide which of the previous two comments I’d rather believe. Because I know my head only has room for one.
Well, I know the one about Eudora is, too!
I sometimes make a fake shopping list to leave in the cart just so some sweety like the people who write in this thread will find it and marvel at the wonderful strangeness of some stranger’s shopping list and maybe go on to make a short and wretchedly maudlin little movie based on the finding.
and speaking of eudora and signed books: my grandmother was eudora’s roomie at colombia and evidently stole a lot of her books. So, now my mother has all these aldous huxley books signed by both aldous and eudora. and, what’s so cute is that eudora signed her books over and over and over like a schoolgirl practicing her signature. I’ve made sure that those are in the will for me.
Diplo- that is awesome. You should scan some of those in so we can see. How cool is that? ROck on.
Happy 3-0, Prof.!
Thanks, Calla! Stories to come, I’m sure.