Sugar recommended “A Winter’s Tale” by Mark Helprin to me in the comments to this post. Since today was a surprise day off, before heading back home from the office I went to the British Bookshop in Vienna’s First District to look for the book.
I took the tram and subway to the first district, getting off the U3 line in front of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, stopping briefly at a Body Shop to get some massage oil because I enjoy giving massages as much as getting them, and then walked several blocks to the book store, which is a fine establishment staffed by many competent and kind people, as I would soon find out.
Well, more than a few blocks.
And it’s like this with my memory, I can’t remember too many things, short-term, at the same time. Especially if I’m tired, and I’m quite tired this week and stressed out, as you know if you’ve been reading my posts over at Raising Hell.
So the result is, I forgot the title of the book. If I could just remember the author’s name, I figured, I’d be okay. So I was walking around Vienna on a cold rainy day today repeating “Mark Helprin, Mark Helprin, Mark Helprin,” to myself. I held a cell phone to my ear so people wouldn’t think I was talking to myself.
Then I got out of the subway station, going “Mark Helprin, Mark Helprin, oh, wait, Body Shop Ayurveda Massage oil this way, uh, Mark, Mark, Mark something with an E in it. Mark… something with an E in it.”
On the way to the bookstore, I cheered myself up with the thought that, even if I totally forgot the name and title, it was here in the comments on my blog! And the store has a website, I believe, and all these fancy computers sitting around, they’ll surely have an internet connection… And even if they don’t, I could always dash out to an internet caf
hrm.
Helprin…like hairpin only not quite, but it’s how I remember it lol. Great story…thank you :)
Yes, there should be a service like that. And not just for people who want to publish their own books, but also for people who want to print out etexts that are on the web. Why aren’t there decent versions of the Project Gutenberg books in PDFs or something?
Undermine publishing now!
Or something.
Oh and one more thing. I don’t know if Moveable Type supports it, but having a search box on your blog is the best thing since sliced bread. It’s amazing how great it is to look up some link you wrote a year ago, just by remembering some particular phrase. It’s fun.
Yeah, Mig, get a frickin’ search feature up here.
Sugar is the name of the protagonist in that book I loved but hated. Crimson Petal and the White. For next time you need a book to buy.
Who knows how to add a search feature to MT blogs?
There’s one here Miguel:
http://www.jayallen.org/mt-search/
I’ve never tried it myself (I just use ‘rogi+weblog+whateverimlookingfor’ on Google which is just as effective) but I think the above tool is pretty popular.
Cheers. :)
thanks rogi, i’ll check that from work next week. i’m at home and so tired i can’t focus my eyes, yet so busy i… i…
we had indian food today. i cooked. sauces out of a jar. chicken. fresh papadums, which gamma liked, while beta said she “prefers krupuk.” the diva.