The Monkey King's Used Primate Emporium and Book Reviews

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David Lapham, �Daredevil vs. Punisher: Means and Ends�

Started May 22 � Finished May 22, 2006; 144 pages. Posted 12 June 2006

When I first planning my move to Hawaii I looked at my furniture, trying to figure out if there was any possible way to work out something feasible and cost effective to bring some of the stuff along with me. I had six bookcases lining three walls in my room, along with two others that lined my entryway. Two of these were seven feet tall and built for people who like big heavy books.*

Though I loved those huge bookcases, the pride and joy of joy was one I claimed from the bookstore which was built to look more like cubbyholes, which just happened to be the perfect size to house my record collection. As much of a fan as I am of vinyl, they�re heavy and of an awkward size, so finding suitable housing for them was always a pain in the ass � at least until I got this case.

I had to ship some of my stuff over on a slow boat, so I started to consider whether I should try to include this particular piece of furniture. I told my father what I was thinking.

�No, you don�t want to ship any furniture,� he said, �you can pick up whatever you need here. People just set things out in the street.�

I was skeptical. After all, my father�s house looks like he lives in a student dorm, complete with a bookcase made out of cinderblocks, plywood and cardboard. Hell, the guy was sleeping on various foam padding of mismatched size until about six months ago. But the practical side of me realized that I didn�t know what the size of my new room would be (which turned out to be tiny), and I didn�t know how I would be able to pick up anything bulky and transport it to my new home. With a heavy heart I left all the good furniture I had collected over nearly 20 years of living on my own.

I was also making serious hard decisions on what to bring with me. The first thing I needed to cull were the books. Books are great, but they�re heavy and they take a lot of room. I was keeping a very detailed list of how many books I sold, how many I gave to other people, and what I threw in the garbage so that no one else would be unfortunate enough to have to read them. I forgot to pack the list, however, so I can�t tell you the number. Sorry. I got rid of a lot of books, though, that�s for sure.

But I kept a lot as well. I couldn�t help it. Some were things that I�ve just spent too much time building for my collection, such as my hardbacks from Stienbeck, Vonnegut, and Hunter Thompson. Others were things that were a little too obscure, and I knew I would have a hard time replacing. All told, I probably shipped slightly above 350 books to keep with me.

That doesn�t sound like much, but when I moved into the cubbyhole with the lesbians (See entries around September 2005 for more on this), I had to stack all these books along the side wall, and kicked myself for not being more discerning in terms of what to keep.

After about a month passed, I happened upon a beautiful seven-foot bookcase at a Goodwill store near my father�s house and in a rare stroke of luck, I walked in on a day where everything was selling for 50 percent off the sale price. I walked away with a great bookcase for thirty-five bucks, a total score. Still, like I said, books are heavy and they take a lot of room. I was double stacking my collection, and I still didn�t have enough room once you factored in the DVD and Playstation collection.

Then I moved into the place I�m in now, and the room is bigger that what I lived in back in California. The previous tenant left behind a corner decorative bookcase, which isn�t all that functional due to the design, but suitably took care of all the electronic media. And my father was right, it�s easy enough to come across other things that people ditch in the street when they move. If you�re lucky, you find them before the rain eats away at the wood, or more likely, kids discover and smash it to pieces. I got as dresser, a computer desk and a small bookcase that perfectly fit my record collection (though it wouldn�t have if I hadn�t sold off two crates worth of vinyl before I left).

And now my room is set up rather nicely. I�m not blocking any of the windows, and I have five of them. There�s room to move about. I don�t know if you could call it fung shui, but you can call it functional. More important, when people do visit, they don�t immediately go slack-jawed looking at all the books, which usually made them start stammering about how they�ve been meaning to read more often so as to not appear like an illiterate philistine. In other words, my bibliophilea doesn�t seem so overwhelming anymore.

Then tonight, I got to work and stopped over at the dive bar next door to have a beer and read my Murakami book. As I was walking toward the entrance I saw a bunch of furniture stacked along the alleyway. Among the pile was a seven-foot bookcase, in great shape.

It.

Begins.

Again.

Good thing I�m coming to visit California again in August. I�m hoping my bookstore will let me work again for a day or two. After all, I have some bookshelves to fill.

---

*When I visited California back in November, I say that the new roommate at my old place had appropriated one of these bookcases to make a display out of his baseball hats, which was the saddest thing I�ve ever seen.


Rating: Worth putting on my bookshelf.

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