Rememberist

@rememberist.bsky.social

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Owner/bookseller at Berkeley Books of Paris (2005-2019). Veteran of St. Mark's Bookshop and Posman's in NYC, and Serendipity Books in Berkeley.

A march through a plaza in San Sebastián in solidarity with the people of Palestine.
An issue of Marie France from the winter of 1946 and a bunch of interesting-to-me books rest upon a wooden table in my kitchen.
Front page of the Parisian daily newspaper Libération from August 2003. Depicts a tower of ice cubes with the headline "it's cool inside."
A Hermes Baby typewriter, circa 1950s.
A few keepers among the stacks, and cat toys.
Dusty, leaning piles of books smack dab in the middle of a tiny French village.
A little free library lurks in the shadow of an outbuilding in southern France.
A bend in the road in a tiny French village. The building to the left is the town hall.
A poster with an image of Fantômas with a quote from de Sade.
The Citizen Game, a poem by Harley Elliott
First generation Ford Mustang in midnight blue.
Two volumes of The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes resting on a wooden table. In the background is a Lego set of 221b Baker Street. Not pictured, me, a very happy nerd.
Cover of Hans Fallada's book Alone in Berlin (translated by Michael Hofmann)
Mom in her favorite stripey shirt.
A medieval village in France. Someone has shaped the ivy attached to their house into a big ol' heart.
A used bookshop/restaurant in a tiny French village.
A backyard in France with (L to R) a pine tree, the south end of a northbound cat, some grass, a lavender plant, my handsome black cat named Bébé, a lavender plant, another beautiful black cat who's kinda feral, and another lavender plant.
A handsome blue White Sox baseball cap.
Rain Light a poem by W. S. Merwin
Concrete poem by Seiichi Niikuni, published in 101 Poems Against War (Faber and Faber, 2003)
A poem by Hayden Carruth entitled "On Being Asked to Write a Poem Against the War in Vietnam" published in 101 Poems Against War (Faber and Faber, 2003)
1st edition hardcover of John D. MacDonald's The House Guests depicts a profile photo of the head and front paws of a handsome, sleepy cat.
Pocketbook fiction resting comfortably on my makeshift bookshelves.
Cover of a Dell pocketbook from 1952. The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham
In Those Years, a poem by Adrienne Rich
A mustachioed Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert in a publicity still for their show Sneak Previews.
Berkeley Books of Paris, an old anarchist bookshop, depicted in LEGO. Art and photo credit Jena Pham Selle.
LEGO Batmobile set with tiny Batman figurine and a display card.
A smiling Count Basie at his piano.
Eagle Valor, Chicken Mind, a poem by Robinson Jeffers
Massive pots of food provided by a local chef to farmers who are out protesting on Christmas eve.
Candles in front of a cathedral placed there by angry farmers in memory of 3500 culled cattle.
French motocross champ Arnaud Zoldos, dressed as Santa, jumping over tractors during a farmers' protest.
A metal sculpture that somehow reminds me of Walter Benjamin's angel of history. The backdrop is the center of a town in France. It's a stylish little free library.
Four chonky young cats await breakfast on a doorstep. One stripey, one full grey, and two black ones, all beautiful and all looking expectantly at me.
Cover of the NYRB reprint of In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes.
A suave cat named Bébé sits on a table made of books. The windows are open but he's elected to stay put.
In Those Years, a poem by Adrienne Rich
A fire in the woodstove, a fleece on the reading chair, and a house full of books.
Issue #33 of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern. It's in newspaper format and it is glorious.
If only this eyewash could work to unsee what I just saw.
Classic Penguin and Dell pocketbooks upon a wooden table.
Photo taken in November 2015. Fluctuat nec mergitur, a motto of the city of Paris. Roughly translated into "rocked by waves, and/but does not sink."
Four cats having lunch al fresco. Their feral mom left them at my doorstep when they were about 2 months old.
A young Jewish soldier in the US Army writes home from Germany in April 1945. "You've probably read about these Germans. You can't find a Nazi among them. They keep saying "not me" and giving out with that sob stuff "allus kapoot" and their attics are filled with Nazi literature and pictures of big wigs."
A page from Fannie Flagg's book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. My copy was once owned by a French-speaking person who looked up words they didn't understand and wrote the definitions in pencil. On this page, the French reader encountered the word "twinkle" and defined it as "scintiller."
Four young cats have lunch al fresco.
A sweet trio of black cats hang out in the shade of a carport in rural France.
A bookshelf in a provincial French kitchen. A small alcove above the bookshelf contains books by Mike Royko, one of the greatest Chicagoans who ever Chicagoed.
A brown and white owl perched on a branch accompanies a news story from France about owls in New Jersey who have learned to hunt around traffic lights. They use the stopped cars as cover while they swoop undetected on their prey. This is amazing but the thing is, in French, it's called "le New Jersey."
PicSol anti-mosquito stuff sold in France.
A small black cat sits on a kitchen windowsill and surveys his kingdom. A big patch of grass and a row of trees is visible through the open window. Over the cat's left shoulder, the sky is the color of sunrise.
A small orchestra warms up before a concert while a 16th century cathedral looms in the background.
Cover of today's edition of the Parisian daily newspaper Libération shows the new pope on a balcony. The headline reads "Léon au Balcon."
Names and birth dates of my father's aunt and three cousins inscribed in the Wall of Remembrance for victims of the Holocaust in Paris.
"...the false Peace Declaration, Hitler's and Mussolini's death, and the return of the first big loads of refugees.It cost me a lot of francs for donations of all sorts. If I wanted to write some of the stories that were told to me, it would sound like something between a nightmare and a nut house. They should take a committee of congressmen into Brussels and have them add that to the story of Buchenwald and Ohrdruf. I don't see how these countries that have been overrun can ever be built up. I mean morally as well as financially."
"The Germans really took care of Belgium. It's been stripped of everything. Whatever there is to be bought is on the black market. In order to live, the people have to resort to the oldest profession. They have an inner pride tho, and all share a fierce hatred for the Germans. I was there for their May Day celebrations..."
"VE Day Germany. Hello Wifie. Hello to everybody home. Well here I am cooling my heels in Der Fourth Reich and congratulating myself on the good job done by me keeping myself alive, well fed and chaste. Pronounced chaste."
View from my kitchen window. Two kittens on a stone terrace look back at me. To their left is a massive lavender plant.
Classic French mariners shirt.