Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Te, Morris, and Weston began a step in one place and ended it in another. Suddenly they found themselves in a marketplace full of people -- or, not. People don't have cat ears or gossamer wings or bluish complexions or gold eyes, or any of the other myriad strange features found on these denizens.

“Where are we now?” Te asked.
“Fäerie market,” Weston answered.
“You got any pertinent information?” Morris asked.
“Hmm… I’ve read some books that deal with this kind of thing, and I think I attended a lecture on elves once. But I might’ve imagined that. Lemme think… OH we have to be polite. Definitely polite, yes. Don’t insult nobody. Unfortunately, it’ll be hard to gauge what the elves will take as an insult.”
“…anything else?”
“Um, there’ll be some wacked-out arbitrary rules that none of us will be able to predict. Silly stuff that deals with positions of the moon, day of the week, how long your toenails are… Elves are like that. Silly, self-indulgent creatures, if you ask me. And that whole ‘stick to the path’ thing. We stay on the path and we’re safe. And something else. Hmm… hmm… hmm-hm… Ah well, it’ll come to me.”
“Why do you keep calling them elves?” Te asked, “Didn’t you say this was a fairy market?”
“One: not ‘fairy,’ but Fäerie. Two: Fäerie is a plane of existence, or, really, a mode of existence, a specific energy configuration, not the creatures that inhabit it. They’re called elves in English, from the Anglo-Saxon Ylf, plural Ylfum. Alternatively, in Gaelic they’re called the Sidhe.”
“She?”
“No, sidhe. S-I-D-H-E. For some reason, in Gaelic, S’s get to be pronounced like SH’s a lot, and in this case the D, H, & E are almost silent but not quite. They’re pronounced as a certain breathiness combined with a faint V. Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? I’ve never been able to really grasp Gaelic pronunciation. Like, from what I understand, CH is close to X, but not quite X, and W is kinda like OO in ‘hook.’”
“So it’s pronounced like sheevhe.”
“Close, but no. Look, forget I ever mentioned the word sidhe. Let’s stick with elf, shall we?”
“Elf keeps making me think of toy-makers at the North Pole.”
“Well, stop, that’s silly. Or just call them the Fair Folk.”
“Okay, recap for me,” Morris said, “We’re at a market of elves, in Fäerie.”
“Yes. Or you could call it Down Under Hill, or the Dandelion Side of the Mountain. There’s probably more names for it too. But it doesn’t matter, they’re just metaphors. It’s all metaphor.”
“Will you cut that out?” Te said, dizzied, “You’re making me dizzy with all these damn words and concepts and meta-whatsits.”

By this time, they had wandered deep into the market. A goblin wearing a hand-knitted red scarf walked past, a scarf that Te found quite lovely. The goblin seemed to notice this.

“Good day to ye, milady,” the goblin said in a high, raspy voice.
“Um, good day, kind sir.”
“Excuse me if I’m mistaken, and ol’ Red Cole’s never mistaken, but you seem to have taken a likin’ to me loverly scarf, am I right?”
“Well, yes, it’s quite a lovely scarf.”
“Would you like to own it?” Red Cole asked, taking off the scarf. He extended it toward Te. “A gift, from Red Cole to the lass in the orange sweater.”
“Why, thank you.”

Suddenly something clicked in Weston’s head. Everything went slow motion in his mind as he dove to stop Te from taking the scarf, shouting out “Nooooooooooo” in a bass slow-mo voice.

But he was too late. He missed Te’s hand and fell on the ground between her and Red Cole.

“Weston, what are you doing?” Te demanded.
“That was the thing I forgot,” he said, hammering the ground with his fist in frustration.
“What? What did you forget?”
“We’re not supposed to take any gifts…” He muttered several swear words. “Now you’re indebted to him and you’ll be unable to leave without repaying him.”
“WHAT?”
“He’s right, milady,” Red Cole said. “You’re as good as my servant, unless you’ve got something worth that scarf to trade.”
“That’s ridiculous. You gave me the scarf. If you expected something in return, then it can’t be a gift. That’s what gift means.”
“Bah! Your nonsense human rules mean nothing to me.”
“Well, I’m not a goddam fairy so your rules mean nothing to me.”
“No,” Weston said defeatedly as he pulled himself up, “He’s right. We’re in Fäerie, we have to play by Fäerie rules.”
“Well, I don’t have anything to trade.”
“You have a few things I might consider taking,” Red Cole said, “Such as the colour of your eyes, or the cadence of your speech, or all the dances you’ve ever danced.”
“Bullshit. I’m not giving you anything. That’s my stuff. And so’s this scarf.”
“Te,” Weston warned, “You’ve hardly got this polite thing down…”
“Well, dammit Weston, you’re the one who knew about the gifts and didn’t tell me. Help me or something.”
“…oh. Right, um… Okay, Red Cole, I will give you something to repay you for the scarf.”
“Nonsense,” Red Cole said, “She owes me. Not you. This is none of your business.”
“This girl is under my protection. Therefore her business is my business.”
“Protection? Who are you to protect her from the Fair Folk, mortal?”
“I am a Wizard. And you know what they say about wizards. ‘Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.’”
Red Cole narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Who says that?”
“Who? Um, I think it was Tolkien.”
“You don’t look like a wizard. Where’s your robes? And your wand?”
“I am an American wizard.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I got here, didn’t I?”
Red Cole sneered. “Bah. Be that as it may, I am as old as the horseradish that shares my name. America is a young nation with young traditions. I do not fear you.”
“It may be a young nation, but it is not a young land. Tell me, have you ever experienced The Eternal Loneliness of the Great American Night?”

Weston, using his left eye, glaring into Red Cole’s right eye. Both of Weston’s eyes were open, but he was using his left eye. Both were shining, as usual, but there was something extra about that left eye. For a second, Red Cole was paralysed with an expression of terror on his face.

“Now. I’m not in the mood for a skirmish right now, so I’m going to make you an offer, and you’re going to take it. I will offer you one of my names. I have many, and they are all great.” Weston produced a pad of paper from his jacket and drew a symbol upon a blank page. The symbol exploded into a set of names. In addition to Weston, the names included Robin, Pendleton, Marlowe, Bancroft, Redcliffe, Sunderton, Lewis, Wade, Thurston, Crane, Tenwell, Stanford, Wooldridge, Joyce, and Cavendish.
This made Te and Morris uneasy. They remembered what Weston had once said about names having great power.

Red Cole studied the list. Red Cole was a shrewd one, and had his suspicions about this list of names. In particular, he suspected that only one name on the list was real, and that the others were all decoys. So he slowly perused the list, marking his place with his long fingernail, trying to read Weston’s response at each name. When he reached “Lewis,” Weston winced, almost imperceptibly, but Red Cole still noticed.
“That one. I will take that one.” Red Cole chuckled inside.
“Well then, it is decided,” and he cleared the list. “Nice doing business with you.” Then he whispered sharply to Te and Morris, “Let’s get the hell out of here. Quick.”

They walked toward the exit of the market. Suddenly, Red Cole called out, “Lewis! I call you by your true name! You will return here and be my slave or be destroyed!”

Weston just kept walking.
Red Cole’s eyes opened wide in surprise, then narrowed in anger. “Stop him!” He cried, “He has cheated me! I must have restitution! Where is the warden?”

Old Glory, warden of the market, moved toward Weston. Weston took a cigarette from his cigarette case and put it in his mouth. “Run,” he said calmly to Te and Morris. They looked at him. “Run,” he reiterated. This time they ran.

Red Cole was leading a mob toward Weston, who calmly stopped in his tracks, back to the mob, and lit his cigarette. He took one drag, then held the cigarette between his middle finger and thumb, pulled them inward to his palm, and let his other fingers extend naturally. He then flicked the cigarette over his shoulder and resumed walking. It sailed through the air in a graceful arc as the flame spread from the tip of the cigarette over the rest of it, then continued growing. As it hit the ground, it exploded into a twisting inferno. The blaze stretched for yards. A flame licked the heel of Weston’s boot as he walked out the gate.

Weston ran to catch up to Te and Morris. He pulled out the map. “We’ve got to find a way out of here, and fast. Word of that is gonna get around fast. And this whole stinking forest is crawling with them.”
“How did you do that?” Morris asked.
“The blaze? Simple enough, just an extension of the already burning cigarette. Simple but still dangerous. That sort of magic is always dangerous. I came close to being destroyed from the inside out. And the moment we find a safe place to rest, I expect I’ll sleep for a day and a half.”
“Did you… kill them?” Te asked with trepidation.
“Kill? Hell, I doubt I even injured more than a few of them. But I'm sure they'll make a big to-do out of it 'He nearly killed me, I demand restitution, blah blah blah.'”
“What about the name?”
“You know the story of Brer Rabbit?”
“…Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Well, I can’t really remember it, but Brer Rabbit was accustomed to the briar patch, see, and one time he was captured by someone, I don’t remember who, and they decided to do something awful to him. After horrible idea they thought up aloud, Brer Rabbit would cry out, ‘yes, yes, anything, just don’t throw me in the briar patch,’ thus tricking his captor into thinking that the briar patch was the worst thing that could happen to Brer Rabbit. So the guy threw Brer Rabbit into the briar patch, and Brer Rabbit was quite at home.”
“So what’s the connection?”
“Lewis was a fake name. I acted like I didn’t want to part with it, and Red Cole fell for it.”
“But what if he hadn’t?”
“Well, that’s the risk, isn’t it? Anyway, none of those were my true name, the one that holds power. It’s unpronounceable,” he said with a smile, and showed them the symbol he had drawn earlier.
“Your name is an unpronounceable symbol?”
“Yep. And no one ever suspects it.”
“What, are you Prince or something?”
Weston cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah, that’s right, I’m fuckin’ Prince.”

“Where does this path go?” Morris asked after a pause.
“Wherever it wants us to go,” Weston answered, “Which is unfortunate, ‘cause that’s where we’re going. Fäerie is the kingdom of Queen Califerne, or Titania, whichever name you like better, and thus all paths are her paths. And if we step off the path we are as good as dead. And meeting with Califerne won’t be much better. She might not care about the incident at the market, but still she’s a sly and deceitful creature. So we’re gonna have to take the first way out of here we can find before we get to Califerne’s palace. Any way out, which means we’re probably going to go way off course.”
“What about the elves chasing us?” Morris asked. “Should we be worried?”
“Their path won’t be the same as ours. Once we got out of their sight we were safe. I think.”

“Weston,” Te said after quite a distance, “You told us your true name.”
“Yeah.”
“…That’s quite a gesture.”
Weston looked up from the map and at Te in surprise.

Through the process of verbalization, this statement lost most of its impact and really sounded quite silly. However, it was true, and it was a statement that Te felt down through beyond her bones. Weston could tell. What surprised him was the fact that Te realized the fact, and so deeply.

awesome

The Eternal Loneliness of the Great American Night

No where have I ever felt it more than in a river of llights rolling from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The sweet solitude and anonymity of being on the road. I used to use the CB handle Tarbaby on Litkicks, but he got deleted. I suppose Brer Rabbit had met his match.

you are truly a wizard to me
thanks

I agree, a wizard with words. ibleive

the festival begin in glen rock, pa. the first weekend in may, talk about a trip!!!!!!!!!!

thanks, guys :)

For some reason I still feel uneasy about this piece. I'm not sure what it is. It's probably the light-heartedness. I don't do light-hearted very often so I'm not as confident about it, not like I am with the dark, gritty, and usually violent Rustbelt stories

I'm not sure about the characterizations either. Weston comes across pretty much as I picture him, but I don't know about Te and Morris.
Dealing with magical principles is also difficult. It's hard to make them sound compelling and convincing, and not just silly or pretentious. I like to mix in strange and/or disparate elements, like Brer Rabbit for example, to dispel the pretentiousness.

This is part of a series called "(Mis)Adventures in Nowhere." Te is (ostensibly) the central character, but I'm having difficulty making her as interesting as the events that happen to her. Her role is extremely similar to that of Alice from "Alice in Wonderland" and Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz," but I don't want her to be as flat as they were. To try to help give her depth, I wrote a background piece about her, but I'm not quite sure about it either. It goes like this:

Te moved into the City after graduating high school. Before that, she lived in a small town called Grandville, thirty miles outside the City. Her parents wanted her to go to college, but Te couldn’t see any point in it. School had always been something of a joke to her, especially high school. And since college was optional, she was going to exercise her option to simply not go. “I don’t see any point in school at all,” she would say, “Real learning is learning from people.” Which is why she moved into the City.

When Te was six, a gnome lived in her backyard. He never talked, but he gathered mushrooms constantly and lived in a nice tree. He gathered mushrooms because he liked to carve sculptures from them. Little grey-white carvings of animals. All sorts of animals. Zebras and oxen and emus, wallabies and squids and capybaras. He based his sculptures on the pictures in his Funk & Wagnall’s encyclopedia. When he finished with the carving, he would accent the sculptures with seeds, then he would hang the finished product from the branches of his tree. On a folding chair on a platform midway up the branches, he would sit with a shotgun and wait for the birds to come and try to peck at the sculptures. Every morning the gnome would pile the corpses into a wheelbarrow and wheel them into his tree through a crack that widened when he snapped his fingers, then closed when he snapped again. Te never knew what he did with them until the night when they escaped.

The moon was a crescent, tilted to one side as though it were about to fall from the edge of a cliff. The gnome’s tree split open and a big mass of bird bones rolled out. It rolled around the yard for a while with the gnome chasing it, and finally it took off into the sky. The gnome got his shotgun and tried to shoot it down, but it was far out of range before long. Te never saw the gnome or his aberration again.

Te used to wonder why no one else ever noticed the gnome, or why his shotgun never awoke anyone in the neighborhood that night, but she didn’t ponder about it too long. And as she grew older, she didn’t even remember the gnome. That part of her memory was dumped to make room for social survival, self-importance, “facing facts,” and “being responsible” (although she rejected most of the latter two).


When she was twelve, a coffee shop was opened down by the corner. The proprietor was an old man named Max, and he spent most of his time on the porch of the coffee shop playing chess while his wife and the shy waitress in the blue dress named Mary who was always writing little poems on napkins ran the place. Te watched as various people would come to challenge Max to a game. Max never lost, less’n he wanted to fer some reason. Which he didn’t.

Finally, Te challenged him.
“Do you even know how to play, little girl?”
“I think I’ve picked up the gist of it. And my name’s Te.”
“Well then, Te, I suppose we could play. But don’t expect me to take it easy on you.”
“I won’t,” she returned confidently.

So they played. At first, Max did take it easy on her. Then he discovered that it wasn’t necessary. Te had definitely picked up more than the mere gist of the game. He barely managed to scramble back to a victory.
“Dad gum, girl, you nearly had me. But nearly isn’t nearly enough.”
Te looked a bit sullen at this, and crossed her arms. Max noticed this, and felt a little bad about it. She was, after all, only twelve years old. So he offered to teach her. Te was reluctant to be “taught” anything, but she came around after a few days and a few more losing matches.

Max had no plan to his lessons, instead showing her whatever the moment touched him to show her.
“Your queen is by far your most powerful piece, and you should take full advantage of her abilities,” he would say, while demonstrating with his own queen, annihilating Te’s forces.
Next game, Te would decide to get her own queen out as early as possible to do some annihilation of her own.
Max moved an unnoticed bishop.
“Checkmate,” he said, and so it was. “Never move your queen, ‘cause that leaves your king vulnerable.”
Max never lost, less’n he wanted to fer some reason. Which he didn’t.

In summer of the next year, Te was not quite thirteen when old man Max fell ill and had to stay in the hospital. Te visited him whenever she had the chance, and, in Max’s more lucid moments, they played chess.

Eventually, Max died, and with him the coffee shop. Max’s widow couldn’t bear to continue running it. The whole thing was his idea, after all, and without him it could naught but succumb to oblivion. One day Te came by and discovered the “Out of Business” sign hanging in the window. No lights on, no one inside.

The building stayed empty, and Te walked past it every day on the way to the bus stop for school, and again on her way home, until she was old enough to drive. Then she took a different route.


When she was seventeen, one of her classmates lived across the street. His name was Joey. He had blue hair and played the guitar. His guitar was an electric twelve-string, and he never played chords on it. He didn’t know any chords. When she felt like it, Te would come over, and Joey would play guitar in a minor key and she would sing in a different minor key, and then they’d make out in his room. She never slept with him, and he never dared do anything she didn’t invite.

Joey was not her boyfriend. Te never had any boyfriends after elementary school. She had a certain air of detachment and independence that made her unapproachable. This same air made her able to pick up and discard boys in a matter of minutes without any complaint on their part. They just felt lucky to have been the object of her attention for whatever duration. You could’ve asked any boy at that school if he liked her, and he would answer “yes.” But he would not be able to explain why. Te was never the prettiest girl in school, or even in the top ten. But she was the only one that no one could have, and she did it without being directly mean or spiteful. So naturally everyone wanted her.


When Te moved to the City, she gravitated naturally to the coffee shop down the block from her apartment. Her apartment was on the corner, and the coffee shop was more-or-less in the middle of the block.

This coffee shop lacked chess tables or shy waitresses in blue dresses. What it did have was a collection of people who were either anorexically skinny or lazily chubby, all dressed in black turtlenecks, a few of them wearing matching berets and/or angular black sunglasses that Te found rather silly. This strange clan, Te observed, had a penchant for snapping their fingers a lot and reading pointless poetry in silly affected voices. Te sat at the bar snorting into her coffee as someone fumbled with bongos or acoustic guitar while their partner performed a painful interpretive dance to her own poetry as she held aloft an empty birdcage. The sour looks they shot at Te only made her snort more.

Occasionally a warmer spirit would wander into the coffee shop (which Te had been recently informed was a café, with an accent mark, not a coffee shop. Te promptly “forgot” this information, and continued to “forget” every time it was repeated to her), wearing faded jeans with bright yellow and pink polka dot shoes, or a three-piece tweed suit or a big red hat. Te found that she found the company of these types more enjoyable, and felt vindicated in this feeling by the sour looks the black-clad patrons also shot at these colorful interlopers. They didn’t come into the café often because they had better things to do. Te wondered why she didn’t have better things to do.

One of these more colorful characters was Sagebrush Johnny Lutwidge Daws, who would walk in wearing trailworn jeans, hiking boots, and flannels, carrying a rucksack, apparently back from a climb in the mountains not far off from the City. Te thought he was cute, and so planned to ignore him until the point was reached where the simplest attention from her would make him a giddy slave. So naturally she was shocked when he sat right next to her, ordered coffee, black, nothing in it, and immediately struck up a conversation with her, completely unabashed, unafraid, undaunted, unflappable. Her magic was useless. It bounced right off of him.
This never happened before…

Recovering from her shock, Te managed to hold up her end of the conversation fairly well, although Sagebrush Johnny did most of the talking. His energy seemed inexhaustible. “It’s the strength of the mountain, I’ve always got this rush after I come off the peak back into civilization.”

Somehow the conversation turned to this Zen master who lived nearby. Apparently “under the river.” At least that’s what Te could gather from his name, “The Master-Who-Lives-Under-The-River.” Sagebrush Johnny was one of his students, and he talked for what seemed like hours but was probably much much shorter about the “burning-eyed wizard” or, alternately, “crazy old fart.” Then Sagebrush Johnny suggested that Te go see him. Te blushed at the suggestion, although she wasn’t sure exactly why.

After a while, Sagebrush Johnny departed to go look up some friends who were partying that night. Te’s normal action at this point would’ve been to invite herself to the party presently, but she found herself unable, and remained silent. As Sagebrush Johnny walked out, she realized how all her hapless victims in Grandville must have felt.

Te went home to watch a documentary about the Mayans. Then she got out of her day clothes and put on her Thundercats pyjamas and laid down on her mattress. The springs creaked underneath her. The darkness of the room was broken by moonlight seeping in through the window. Frayed curtains caught silver, shafts fell on the green shag floor. The tree outside cast a shadow like a dog. In the moonlight, Te could notice subtleties in the white paint of the ceiling that were invisible in bright light. She thought quietly about what Johnny’s lips probably taste like until she drifted off to sleep. She dreamed of a pack of dachshunds and an enormous chocolate milkshake.



Te first moved to the city from the suburbs near Grandville after graduating from high school. She never could figure out what high school was all about. They said it was for an education, but she couldn't think of anything that she ever learned inside a school since like the 4th grade. After that, she learned from people.

Like the blue-haired boy from across the street who played guitar. His guitar was an electric 12-string, but he never played chords on it. He didn't know any chords. Te would come over, and the blue-haired boy would play guitar in a minor key & she would sing in a different minor key, then they'd make out in his room.

Or the old man at the coffeeshop on the corner who taught Te to play chess. Black and white soldiers warred on that table outside the coffeeshop on the corner. Bloody, bloody battles were battled. The old man never lost, less'n he wanted to fer some reason. Which he didn't.

"You can capture every one of your opponent's pieces with your queen," he told her, then he exampled it to her, wreaking havoc on her forces. So next game, Te got her queen out early to try to wreak some havoc of her own. The old man moved a bishop.

"Checkmate," he said. And sure enough it was. Then he told her, "Never move your queen 'cause that leaves your king open."
The old man never lost.

Then there was the gnome that Te found in her backyard. He never talked, but he gathered mushrooms a lot and lived in a nice tree. He gathered mushrooms because he liked to carve sculptures from them. Little grey-white carvings of all kinds of animals that he had seen pictures of in his encyclopedia. Then he would attach strings to them and hang them from the branches of his tree. He set up a folding chair on a platform midway up the branches where he would sit with a shotgun and wait for the birds to come try and eat the sculptures. No one but Te and the gnome ever saw the corpses, 'cause the gnome would pile them into a wheelbarrow and wheel them into his tree. Te never knew what he did with them until one night when it escaped.

The moon was in a crescent, tilted to one side as though it were about to fall off a cliff. The gnome's tree split open and this big mass of bird bones rolled out. It rolled around the yard for a while with the gnome chasing it, and finally it took off into the sky. The gnome got his shotgun and tried to shoot it down. He woke up everyone in the neighbourhood but never hit it. Te never saw the gnome or his aberration again.

So the first thing Te did when she got to the city was look for people to learn from. She started hanging out at this cafe full of pretentious people in black berets and black turtlenecks who performed bad poetry and snapped their fingers a lot. Occasionally a warmer spirit would come in, wearing faded jeans and a flannel shirt or a 3-piece tweed suit or a big red hat. These types were into better literature & music and they were more fun to hang around. They didn't come to the cafe often because they had better things to do. One of them, named Sagebrush Johnny Lutwidge Daws, who wore the faded jeans & flannel shirt & had a mountainclimbing rucksack with him, told her about this one old man who was real Zen & she should go learn from him. In fact, this guy was SO Zen that he either learned to live without oxygen or how to breathe water, 'cause he lives in a house underneath the river.

Te & Johnny began talking about all sorts of things. They talked about stars & dogs & trees & rivers & buildings. They talked for a long time, and eventually Te had to go, because it was dark outside and she wanted to go sleep. As she left, Johnny made her promise to go see the Master Who Lives Under the River.

Te made it home without incident. She got out of her day clothes & put on her nightgown and laid down on her spring mattress. The springs creaked. The darkness of the room was broken by moonlight seeping in through the window. Frayed curtains caught silver, shafts fell on the green shag floor. The tree outside cast a shadow. In the moonlight, Te could notice subtleties in the white paint of the ceiling that were invisible in bright light. She thought quietly about what Johnny's lips probably taste like until she went to sleep. In her sleep she dreamed about dachsunds & an enormous milkshake.


~-~

Hmm. I got off on a tangent somewhere while writing this post. What I mean to say is thanks for reading



I feel the Eternal Loneliness of the Great American Night everytime the night wind blows over the pastures here.

"Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys. They'll never be home and they're always alone, even with someone they love."

I liked Te and Winston but Morris kind of came out of the blue. I thought "who the heck is Morris" I had to go back and start from the begining again to find him again.

Cowboys are special with their own brand of misery,
From being alone too long.
You could die from the cold in the arms of a nightmare,
Knowin' well that your best days are gone.

I remember reading you as FP, I was astonished at how young you are. I thought you were much older.

you say thanks for reading
I say thanks for writting
you are a wiz with words

Te sounds beautiful

I hardly read much fiction anymore. Except for around here.
I love tangents, makes me want to tango.

Somehow I posted the current version of the Te background piece and its older version (posted to LitKicks as "Learning from People"). I'm not sure how I managed that

Morris is ostensibly going to be important in the long run. Hopefully I'll be able to pull it off

I've been reading tons of fiction lately. It started with reading all JK Rowling's books in about a week, and from then on I've been at the library two or three times a week getting more books. The cold weather has slowed me down considerably, though, 'cause I like to read outside, sitting on the porch, smoking expensive cigarettes. It's too cold here to do that and enjoy any of it.