As We Walk in Fields of Gold

Feb 28, 2010 04:18

Apologies for the delay on this entry, and for repurposing Sting lyrics for the title, but I've been minorly swamped and, in a perhaps related matter, less blog-inspired recently.

But let's go to, then, shall we? The day began promisingly, with a pint of Anchor Steam, America's best beer, on draft at 10 a.m. luagha and I had arrived at Polk Street in San Francisco an hour early, so we decided to do seafood for breakfast instead of lunch. Specifically, Swan Oyster Depot. Which serves beer. On tap. At 10 a.m. Just so we're clear. After said beer, a cup of chowder, a dozen and a half oysters (the Steamboat was spectacular), half a crab Louis (which, since the crab was fresh-caught, hardly needed the Louis), and a calamari salad (on the house) apiece we considered ourselves fortified for our annual assault on Fields Book Store, pound for pound the finest occult bookstore in America. You could even call it the Anchor Steam of occult bookstores.

By now, the process has become slightly metronomic, even liturgical -- like a Roadrunner cartoon. Prince of Cairo, Sooper Genius, assembles his Acme Guaranteed Book Pile Suitable For Getting Out of Fields Alive. Then the rocket boots go off, and he finds himself in the Pantheacon dealers' room surrounded by twinkling stars and colored all burned-like, blinking his eyes to a Carl Stallings piano riff. And, in this case, the proud possessor of Witches, Druids And King Arthur by Ronald Hutton, a veritable name to conjure with (and a book I've coveted ever since I didn't buy the British hardback edition in Fields in 2006), and Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic: A Materia Magica of African-American Conjure by the amazing Cat Yronwode. (Seriously, if you haven't hit her magnificent, scholarly, honest, brilliant, respectful website, you obviously care nothing for hoodoo.) That was enough for the Fieldsman to count coup on me once more. Little did it matter that I'd carefully assembled a stack of used books that included Walking with the Night (a thin but robust work on Cuban Santeria), Arthur's Britain: History and Archaeology: A.D. 367-634 (a Penguin history from way back when real history-and-archaeology books could still use the word "Arthur" in the title), Guy Debord: Revolutionary (a biography of the Situationist impresario from Feral House that seems to take a properly superficial -- dare I say spectacular -- view of its subject), The Marian Conspiracy: The Hidden Truth About the Holy Grail, the Real Father of Christ and the Tomb of the Virgin Mary (Yes, yes, I know, but I remind the jury it was used. Oh, and "Mary's Womb, Herod's son Antipater, and Glastonbury Tor." Drat, now I've given it away.), The Knights Templar in Britain (a solid-looking work of secondary scholarship breaking down just what and who the Templars owned in Britain), The "Chymick Bookes" of Sir Owen Wynne of Gwydir: An Annotated Catalogue (the actual catalog of an actual alchemical library from the actual 17th century ... score!), and finally Against His-Story, Against Leviathan (a self-published rant from back when that still meant something, illustrated with Blake prints for extra foaminess).

Did I buy Byzantine Magic, a key collection on a critically under-studied subject? No. Did I buy The Traveller's Guide to Sacred England which promised to put all of John Michell's mad and beautiful geomantic insights into one colorful gazetteer? No. Did I buy Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History, or even finally snap and pick up a copy of Pow-Wows or Long Lost Friend to get my hex magic on? No I did not. And it doesn't matter, any more than it matters that Wile E. Coyote doesn't chase after Tweety Bird or Jerry the Mouse. He still winds up flat on his back, smelling of burnt Acme cordite, watching the rock plummet toward him.

Beep! Beep!

book review, fields book store, travel, eliptony, food

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