Cuparius.com

Behold, an update within one week of the last! Could this be a good omen? Is this a sign of good tidings to come for the Cuparium? Mmm could be...

Having had two job interviews at two different bookshops last week, I am happy to say that I am once again employed in the book industry. I now have two jobs, both of which are in Toledo and within a block of one another, and between the two I should manage to get 40 or more hours a week. One, of course, is with the arts & crafts store, and the other is with the bookshop. If bookshop chains could be compared to soda companies, you might say I moved from Pepsi to Coca-Cola. That may not be the most palatable analogy, but I think it's accurate.

The new job starts at the end of the month, and I am really eager to start. Being out of the book industry loop is not a good state of being for Yours Truly. Can anyone honestly imagine me not working in a bookshop, not doing shipping & receiving, and also not drinking coffee in months? At last, I am drinking coffee, doing some shipping & receiving, and will soon be working in a bookshop again. My life is approaching the relative equivalent of near normalcy. I must say, if you ever work in a bookshop for any significant length of time, you will never feel whole unless you are connected with the book business in some way.

What, you may ask, is the meaning of the title of today's update? Sure, it is the title of a song popularized by Perry Como, but more to the point, I wanted to relate a brief anecdote that slipped my mind last week. 'Twas Friday morning between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m. on the 30th of September as I was opening the door of my car, when I looked up at the night sky. I had to pause and gaze, because the sky is rarely so beautifully ablaze with stars when viewed from city limits, and as I stood there, I saw the longest, most brilliant streak of silver shoot across the sky I have ever seen. I've seen a few meteors in my time (at unsettlingly propitious moments in my life on several occasions), but this particular shooting star was breathtaking. It reminds one of how ancient peoples might have felt, witnessing such phenomena in the heavens when astrology and astronomy were one, the planets were gods, and the constellations were the immortal records of mythology. Someday I need to buy a good telescope.

If you read the update last week, you may recall that I wondered whether La Patisserie, my favorite coffeehouse in Portland, still exists. I looked it up. It doesn't. It changed hands in 2002. It makes me wish I had spent more time there when I lived in Portland. I'll always have good memories of the time I spent there, drinking coffee, writing, looking out the second storey window at the neighborhood of Old Town/China Town or chatting with a friend. It was perfect.

5 October A.D. 2005: "Read in order to live."