Today is Scout's Honor Pet Adoption Event in the Heights, so Pixie is on an outing. If you're in Houston, go by and see all their wonderful animals available for adoption. This is a great photo Lindsey took of Pixie sleeping on top of her BFF, Sugar. These two have such a fantastic time playing together. Lindsey hopes that Pixie's forever family will want to set up play dates for the two of them.

Going to your local brick-and-mortar store would be a great way to celebrate National Bookstore Day. Remember to be kind to your booksellers, who provide the best links between you, writers, and the nourishment of your imagination.

It's a good day to post a photo of your favorite local bookstore or tell a story about why it's special to you. My favorite Houston independent bookseller, Murder By the Book, will be hosting Greg Herren's signing for Murder in the Garden District at 4:30 today. That's where The Compounders and The Brides will be. Join us!

We've recently switched our thermostat from air conditioning to heat. A couple of times since, I've heard this odd, part musical, part moaning sound late at night and tried to determine if it's coming from the furnace.

In looking through my photos, I found one of several stuffed owls (cropped to a single owl in the above photo). It occurred to me that maybe what I'm hearing is an owl. Tom said he's seen one recently near The Compound. Of course, now that I want to hear the noise, I haven't heard a damn thing.

This window display reminded me of another book I think might be interesting: The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse. Because, as certain characters in a novel called The Deal could tell you, mocking bad poetry is a good time.

Apparently, for me, Halloween was all about the tricks. I tried for hours to upload my Halloween photo set to Flickr--a photo set I've been working on for several weeks just for the holiday, including costuming and setting--with help from Tom on enhancements to The Compound.

Belatedly, from our coven to yours:

Happy Halloween!

If you're interested in a closer look at the models, including all twelve Birthstone Barbies, four horses, a banshee, and representations of Greg Herren, Famous Author Rob Byrnes, Timothy J. Lambert, and me--or as we affectionately call each other: Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death--the full set may be here, depending on the whims of Flickr and Live Journal.

Sorry for being late.

Current Photo Friday theme: Well Groomed

Beginning my own new photo series with a theme of windows. This photo:

has led me to this book, which I think I really must own: Eating Her Wedding Dress: A Collection of Clothing Poems, edited by Vasiliki Katsarou, Ruth O'Toole, and Ellen Foos. Description: One hundred contemporary poets—local stars and literary luminaries such as Kim Addonizio, Margaret Atwood, Billy Collins, Elaine Equi, Jorie Graham, Maxine Kumin, Paul Muldoon, and Charles Simic—join together in this anthology to celebrate clothing in its many forms and functions: as desire, as ghost, as body, as poetry, as talisman, as transformer of the soul.

Current Photo Friday theme: Autumn 2009

Houston doesn't get autumn's riot of color found in cooler climates.
So Mother Nature gets dressed with a little help from her friends.

Once a woman's shared memories of her tender teenage years in a post, the only thing she can do next is...

Post pictures of gigantic presidents' heads!


Marika, your two favorites...TOGETHER! Presidents Andrew Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt.

My personal favorite of the photos, President Gerald "Chia Pet" Ford:


To see more of David Adickes' presidential sculptures and to name the presidents that I'm too tired to Google and identify, you can check out my full Flicker set. C'mon--you KNOW you want to see Richard Nixon's nose.

Meanwhile, if you comment with a page number between 1 and 611, and another number between 1 and 25, Candidate Snoopy promises to find you something to be happy about.

Today I found some dudes for our mannequins to date!



And Galleria security didn't appear and threaten to eighty-six me from Macy's for using my camera. So shhhh, don't tell!

September 26 - October 3, 2009 is Banned Books Week.

You get two buttons today, because this issue rates high on the Becky List of Importance. It should rate high on anyone's list. Not every book is for everybody, but once we allow a group to dictate what we can't read, the next book on their list may take YOUR intellectual freedom away. Thank every librarian, teacher, parent, citizen, attorney, publisher, bookseller, and organization who has protected your precious right to choose your own reading. Please understand that every time a "crazy liberal" speaks out to protect And Tango Makes Three, that effort stems from the same passion that protects some of the books pictured below in a display from the Montrose location of Half Price Books in Houston, Texas.

	Some titles seen in these photos: The Secret History of the English Language The English Illustrated Dictionary Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Brave New World English Literature Sayings Usual and Unusual New Pet Vocabulary Builder The Adventures of Tom Sawyer The Great Gatsby Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Uncle Tom's Cabin To Kill a Mockingbird The Pearl The Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Rings The Two Towers Catch-22 A Farewell to Arms Harry Potter (series) The World in a Phrase The Koran Song of Solomon The Color Purple The Holy Bible Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's English Dictionary The Da Vinci Code Angels and Demons The Catcher in the Rye Lord of the Flies Ginsberg's Journals The Red Badge of Courage The Poetry and Life of Allen Ginsburg Some banned books not pictured here: 1984 A Clockwork Orange A Separate Peace A Wrinkle in Time All the King's Men Always Running An American Tragedy Animal Farm Annie On My Mind Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret Arizona Kid Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture As I Lay Dying Beloved Blubber Boys and Sex Brideshead Revisited Bridge to Terebithia Cat's Cradle Charlotte's Web Crazy Lady Cujo Daddy's Roommate Earth's Children (series) Fade Final Exit For Whom the Bell Tolls Forever Girls and Sex Go Ask Alice Go Tell It On the Mountain Gone With The Wind Goosebumps (series) Gossip Girl Halloween ABC Heart of Darkness Heather Has Two Mommies I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings In Cold Blood In the Night Kitchen Invisible Man It’s So Amazing! A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families James and the Giant Peach Julie of the Wolves Killing Mr. Griffin Lady Chatterly's Lover Lolita Naked Lunch Native Son Of Mice and Men On My Honor On the Road One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Ordinary People Pillars of the Earth Private Parts Rabbit, Run Rebecca Satanic Verses Scary Stories (series) Schindler's List Slaughterhouse Five Sons and Lovers Sophie's Choice Summer of My German Soldier Taming the Star Runner That Was Then, This Is Now The Bluest Eye The Boy Who Lost His Face The Call of the Wild The Chocolate Lover The Dead Zone The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things The Face on the Milk Carton The Goats The Grapes of Wrath The Handmaid's Tale The House of Spirits The Jungle The Kite Runner The Naked and the Dead The Old Man and the Sea The Outsiders The Perks of Being a Wallflower The Sound and the Fury The Stupids The Sun Also Rises The Wish Giver The Witches The Wonderful Wizard of Oz The World According to Garp Their Eyes Were Watching God Tropic of Cancer Ulysses We All Fall Down Whale Talk Winnie-the-Pooh Where's Waldo? Women in Love
Here lies originality and thought, loving progenitors of imagination.
RIP Invention, Ideas, Progress, Imagination, Originality, and Thought

It was different from all the other stores in the Bookstop chain. The people who worked there had a certain attitude--not quite as "customer-friendly" as the one trained into Bookstop employees in different stores. The attitude came with the neighborhood. Their customers seemed to expect and even like the rudeness, much as tourists crave the same from NYC cab drivers or the French. Such attitude gives us stories that usually end with a shake of the head and a slow smile of acceptance that we've joined a community of the skillfully insulted.

When Barnes & Noble bought the chain, only the Alabama Theater Bookstop got to keep its name, as if to reassure customers that nothing important to them would change--and the exterior, with its blazing marquee and art deco facade, rated high on the list of importance.




Over time, Bookstop's next-door-neighbor, Cactus Records, disappeared, but Whole Earth Provision Company expanded to fill the empty space. Another neighbor, Whole Foods, moved to a new location across from the Borders down the street, but was replaced by a Petsmart. The copy place turned into a restaurant, then a different restaurant, but Bookstop stayed, lighting up the night, luring customers with the promise of multi-levels of book browsing, a magazine off the stand in the mezzanine, a cup of coffee or tea from the barista in the balcony, an impromptu conversation with a fellow shopper, and beautifully preserved walls and ceiling.

Now B&N has been lured to a tonier address in a new development a few blocks away--across from the River Oaks Theater, also a beloved landmark. No one knows what will become of the Alabama Theater Bookstop, but we all know this is a city that loves to level and rebuild. So we wait and see what an improving economy will bring and hope developers are listening--the chatter seems to have made them back off a plan to tear down the River Oaks theater, at least for now.

On the night when I took these photos, the doors of the Alabama Theater Bookstop closed for the last time not just on a store, but on a piece of my history. It was here I met a person who would reshape my personal and political landscape in ways I never imagined. I miss him.

And I will miss this place.