Starting on the week of November 18, 2018, I will be posting regular lists of ebook deals that I have discovered recently.
If you are an author and would like to make readers of this blog aware of your under $2 ebook titles (or are just an enthusiastic reader wishing to alert people to a great deal), I welcome your comments below the blog posts about these titles. Here are some guidelines.
Even though this blog has been fairly dormant for the last two years, starting now I’m going to be doing a lot more reviews about ebooks.
Let me explain.
I continue to write fiction and produce ebooks for Personville Press. That keeps me busy. In the past decade or so, I’ve said that I just haven’t had time for book reviews — although I have always kept a detailed list of books I’m reading (here’s the 2018 list and goodreads list of recent reads).
Even though books are the center of my life (and always have been), I haven’t felt particularly inclined to write book reviews. First, although I’m a “good” book critic, I wouldn’t call myself a great one — and more importantly, I am not a particularly fast one. It’s true that in the early 2000s I posted over a 100 reviews on Amazon.com, but a lot of them were IT/technology nonfiction books, and often I needed only to skim them to form an interesting opinion.
Book reviews are so …. forgettable. I’ve published some great book reviews, but I’m too slow and careful; also, my memory for details isn’t that good. I’m no James Wood or Michael Barrett orDaniel Green or Dan Schneider or Michael Dirda or Steve Moore. At the same time I have been writing a fair number of essays for the Personville titles, and although they are analytical and carefully written, they have an explicitly promotional purpose.
In the early 1990s I used to write reviews for the Houston Post and maybe other small publications, but it was a thankless task. It can take 10 hours just to read the damn book, and 4 hours to write about it; who has that sort of time? My literary/film critic Michael Barrett can dash these things off, but for me, I’m not as glib about it. Also, I can get sidetracked by deeper issues of aesthetics and storytelling. For most of my life, it’s very hard to write a 500 word or even a 1000 word review. I can do it, I can even enjoy doing it, but others can do it much better.
Over the last decade or two, some strange things have happened. Indie publishing and ebooks exploded, and the quality of book reviewers have declined. There are bloggers to take up the slack, but not entirely. For one thing, the “advance review copy” distribution apparatus has been extremely favorable to the NY publishing world. I have nothing against authors like George Saunders or Celeste Ng or Min Jin Lee, but individual books by these author have been reviewed THOUSANDS of times. Frankly, I tire of critics and bloggers who claim to have high literary standards and then review only titles available on Net Galley or Amazon Vine. I used to think NYTBR or Washington Book Review had daring book reviews, but that is not really the case; the reviewers themselves may be distinguished authors, but the books they review are often the same old books from Random House and FSG
A Cost-Conscious Approach to Ebooks
As a literary cheapskate, I pay a lot more attention to the freebie and 99 cent titles by authors that nobody has ever heard of. This year (and maybe part of last year) I have rediscovered pleasure reading — and to my dismay I am noting the dearth of reviews about high quality indie or self-published titles. I just started reading — for example — a nice story collection by an Irish author living in Thailand and all kinds of special interest books which are lucky to receive more than 5 reviews. Yes, if an indie title has 5 reviews, 2 or 3 are by friends who rave about it, one is a random person eager to dump over a random author, and one is a shallow 2 sentence review by a reader with juvenile standards.
I’m not saying that a book review needs to be long or in-depth. Sometimes just a paragraph is enough to convey the gist, but often we’re not even getting that. In August I was finding remarkable 99 cent titles from Simon & Schuster (i.e., a major publisher), and I was horrified to see how many titles weren’t being reviewed.
One of the problems is related to reduced prices and reduced marketing budgets of indie authors. The bigger problem is the glut of titles and the declining demand for books in general. This may be an oversimplification; casual readers may simply be unaware of how many cheap ebooks are now available, so they end up paying $10 for a title with ample word of mouth.
Frankly, I am spending a lot of time searching/uncovering and promoting interesting-sounding books which I haven’t yet read. For the Simon & Schuster sale items, I did this because I wanted to let people know about the titles before they returned to their regular prices. But over this year I’ve become extremely comfortable recommending books that I’ve only read a chapter or two from. First, I’ve already researched these titles to know that I would like them and read enough to confirm this suspicion. I’m reasonably confident that my high opinion will be confirmed when I finally read them from start to finish. Consider the titles below:
EXAMPLE: Nearly complete works of Donald Harington Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli Nothing remains the same by Wendy Lesser Life in the Lion’s Mouth by James Dubbs Love and Other Afflictions by Jonathan Finch Catastrophist by Ronan Bennett Broken Places by Susan Perabo New and Selected Poems by Charles Simic Marlene and Sofia by Pedro Barrento Soil by Jamie Kornegay Favorites by Mary Yukari Waters Museum of Abandoned Secrets by Oksana Zabuzhko My Last Continent by Midge Raymond South Street by David Bradley Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky White Tiger on Snow Mountain by David Gordon
Aside from the Simic and Dobelli title, I’ve only read one or two chapters from each title, and yet I’m pretty sure that all of them are going to be terrific! (I obtained almost all of these for 99 cents each!)
About half of these titles (the ones published by Simon and Schuster) are currently priced at $12 or so (ugh!), but if you set up a price alert (on ereaderiq), you can almost certainly buy every title for under $3.
The amazing thing about publishing today is that many high quality ebooks are very cheap. Seriously, if I had enough time, I could make a list that is 3 times as long.
My methods of finding good cheap ebooks are not esoteric. I subscribe to 20+ ebook deal newsletters (and actually read them every day!) but really the only ones that matter (from the standpoint of indie publishing) are bookgorilla, bargainbooksy and booksends. For midlist titles from the bigger publishers, earlybirdbooks and bookbub will give you more low-cost ebooks than you know what to do with.
Also: I have included my most useful ebook deal links on my blogroll to the right.
As if that weren’t enough, Smashwords publishes a lot of low cost/free titles that for some reason don’t make it to Amazon. Often titles are on both Smashwords and Amazon
Certainly an ebook’s price is not the primary consideration when deciding on an ebook to read or buy. Some library enthusiasts say that the price of an ebook should be irrelevant to the consideration of the book’s value because …. can’t you find it for free from the public library?
This indifference to the price of ebooks can be infuriating.
First, I have library cards with three public libraries (two of which are well-stocked and well-funded). I can safely say that these libraries fail to buy about 80% of the new titles out there, and probably 95-97% of the new indie titles.
Second, although I strongly endorse lending services like Lendle which facilitate the lending of Kindle ebooks, publishers of most commercial titles have turned OFF the lending feature for the Kindle version of their ebooks. (To its credit, lendle has been outstanding for sharing and borrowing titles by indie authors on Amazon).
Third, public library systems have their own priorities about what ebooks they acquire. They remain susceptible to the promotions of the Big 5. Also, they have social and community goals (literacy, inclusiveness, political diversity) that doesn’t always result in the smartest of acquisitions. If you don’t believe me, go to your library’s ebook system and look up how many ebooks the library possesses of these authors: 1)Donald Harington, 2)Jack Matthews, 3)Ronan Bennett and 4)Barry Yourgrau.
Next go to your library ebook’s system and look up books by these authors: 1)Ann Coulter, 2)Bill Oreilly, 3)Suzie Orman and 4)Stephanie Meyer.
After you have recovered, taken a shower and (hopefully) gone to confession, you should understand how public libraries can fall short.
For this reason, I’m going to invest more time in publicizing and talking about overlooked books (even if I haven’t actually read them!) Usually this will take the form of book reviews, capsule reviews and roundups. For the last year or two I have been posting announcements about ebook sales on reddit, teleread and social media. Now though I’m going to try to put as much original stuff on my blog (and then copy them to other places).
First, I am participating in Smashwords’ affiliate marketing program and would love to find a way to monetize this blog AND help other indie authors. (PS, Amazon’s affiliate marketing officially sucks!)
Second, Smashwords is really the best alternative to Amazon.com at the moment.
Third, Smashwords offers coupon codes and lets you price things temporarily for free. These are things not easily done on the Amazon site.
Fourth, Smashwords offers DRM free ebooks — and EPUBs! Horray for ebook standards!
I don’t want to sound anti-Amazon. Amazon is awesome to authors and publishers and readers. But so is Smashwords, and there is no reason why the quality of Smashwords catalog cannot be as high as or higher than Amazon.
Finally and perhaps least importantly, when talking about ebooks on this blog, I’m not going to include an image of the cover of every ebook I talk about. Sounds easy, but actually it’s a chore to do — especially when you’re book blogging. Also, I like my home page to contain full articles (not just the first paragraph or two). If I include a ton of ebook covers, that will just cause the website to load more slowly.
Friday, you said on the floor of the US Senate: “We will not be bullied by the screams of paid protesters and name-calling by the mob.”
To my knowledge, it is not illegal for people to be paid to protest. I know that lobbyists are paid to make their opinion known to you. I know that political organizations provide grants and scholarships for research and opinion pieces. I also know that the overwhelming majority of people who participate in rallies are doing it not primarily for financial reasons but to express their political values. I’m generally fine with that. I know many people who protest without receiving any form of compensation. I also know that political activism is often organized by political groups, which requires some expenses (for signs, etc.) From my limited experience, I know that large donors have deep pockets, while the smaller organizations they support are often run on very little money. And the volunteers they solicit are certainly not paid at all (except through T-shirts and buttons and that sort of thing).
Referring specifically to the Kavanaugh protests, I suspect that the overwhelming majority of protesters were not paid in any fashion. I have googled around and I have seen no supporting information about this claim (except for a gofundme set up to help defray Ms. Blasey Ford’s expenses — which seems reasonable under the circumstances).
Yet you feel comfortable making this poisonous claim without evidence.
Recently, I saw the above photo which is hilarious/disturbing on so many levels.
First, the men outnumber the women here! Second, these signs weren’t hand made; somebody paid for the t-shirts, signs and even the bus. Update: The 501(c)(3) “Concerned Women For America” which has a 2 score on Charity Navigator, is funded by the Koch Brothers network including Freedom Partners, the Center To Protect Patient Rights, Tc4 Trust, and DonorsTrust. (Source).
Personally, I’m more bothered by these polite but well-funded activists funded by fossil fuel billionaires than the rowdy people who probably had minimal access to this kind of funding.
I have never voted for you, but it so happens that you and I both graduated from Trinity University (which I was able to attend only because of an academic scholarship).
In early 2004, after a Republican Administration supported by you launched a needless war in Iraq on the flimsiest of evidence, there was a Trinity alumni event which both you and I attended. It was an event intended to help new alumni to do job networking. Your appearance was added to the agenda at the last minute.
I’m guessing that at least half of the Trinity alumns attending had no idea that you were coming — much less who you were. Yet I certainly looked forward to the opportunity to shake your hand and express in a minute or so my concerns about what the US was doing in Iraq.
As you know, some Trinity alumni are politically-minded, but we are generally middle of the road and follow a certain decorum at alumni functions. It was extremely unlikely for anyone to turn it into a protest or shouting match.
To my dismay, when you showed up at the event (where 100 alumni already were present at), you promptly moved to a part of the house which prevented people from talking to you. Talking to you was not the MAIN reason I was there, but I kept an eye out for an opportunity to have a minute of your time. This event was for job networking — talking to strangers for 1 or 2 minutes was PRECISELY THE POINT of this event.
As far as I know, during that event, you talked to NOBODY. You didn’t shake hands with anyone but the event’s organizer; all you did was come up to the front when you were introduced.
At that point, you talked for 4-5 minutes about returning from a trip you had just made to Iraq and what great things the US government was doing there. You talked about how proud we should be of US soldiers in Iraq. At that point, you left.
Your hasty departure left me speechless. Was the whole point of your visit to lecture Trinity alumni about how great the war effort was?
Perhaps on that particular day you were feeling unwell, or had personal business to attend to. But I was always struck by your rushed exit. You didn’t even make a minimal effort to meet with and talk to people who basically had no axe to grind or message to deliver. Trinity alumni are not necessarily representative of Texas demographics; to be frank, many are affluent and Republican-leaning. Yet I was a loss to understand why you were so unwilling to talk to any of them. Do you treat your constituents merely as people to lecture at rather than to listen to?
Personally I’m outraged about the Kavanaugh hearings for a variety of reasons.
First, on substantive grounds I thought Kavanaugh’s rulings on environmental cases was crazy and dangerous. I was concerned that Kavanaugh was involved in numerous partisan activities that was unbecoming for a judge.
Second, I think the Senate and White House blocked the releases of a lot of records related to Kavanaugh’s past.
Third, I thought Kavanaugh’s testimony about the accusations was belligerent and immoderate; some of his answers bordered on the risible. This is not the desired temperament for a Supreme Court justice.
Fourth, the way the Senate and White House attacked the accusers was pretty awful. I thought Ms. Swetnick’s claims were very credible. Even if they didn’t implicate Kavanaugh directly, they came from one of many eyewitnesses who say that Mr. Kavanaugh engaged in a considerable amount of drinking and boorish behavior in high school and college. They suggest a pattern of youthful behavior which I found disturbing. I am Kavanaugh’s age and like him attended an all-boys Jesuit high school — and yet I never drank. Most of the smart and responsible people I knew at Strake Jesuit in Houston rarely or never drank. As much as I would like to say that people outgrow their excesses of high school and college, I have to wonder whether Mr. Kavanaugh has properly owned up to his past and whether other judges with less excessive pasts are out there.
Fifth, I was really disturbed by the way Senate Republicans released sensitive sexual history information of Ms. Swetnick, a witness who made a very serious claim about Kavanaugh’s behavior in high school. The National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic violence condemned this practice:
We are appalled and outraged that the Senate Judiciary Committee leadership has released a statement about comments of a sexual nature allegedly made by Julie Swetnick. Such a statement is unacceptable in all events, but particularly because it attempts to smear someone who has not had the opportunity to be interviewed by the FBI. The release of this statement violates the intent of the Rape Shield Rule drafted by the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991 and voted into law by Congress in the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) of 1994. This federal rule is meant to safeguard the victim against the invasion of privacy, potential embarrassment and sexual stereotyping that is associated with public disclosure of intimate sexual details and the infusion of sexual innuendo into the factfinding process. The Senate Judiciary Committee has posted this statement on its website, in violation of the spirit of its own Rule.
In a sworn statement, Ms. Swetnick states she was sexually assaulted. Yet to date, she has not been interviewed by the FBI. Nevertheless, Senate leadership has engaged in a no-holds-barred personal attack on her. It is not unusual for a survivor to describe an experience of sexual violence in ways that do not reveal the full reality of the experience or to try and normalize the experience. However, even aside from these very common reactions, it is unthinkable that the Senate Judiciary Committee would have released this statement publicly and attacked her in this way.
I have written you in the past about climate change and health care and possibly other issues. In general, your position have upheld corporate interests and showed a lack of concern for the underclass.
Perhaps you have been listening to the wrong kinds of people.
Robert Nagle is a Houston writer and blogger who dreams one day of being paid to protest — or being paid in general. He runs the ebook press, Personville Press.
Print Editions: Used copies are available, but with ebooks so cheap, why bother?
Summary: Critical look at movies with cats in them. The book is a real hoot to read — great insights and erudite movie snark.
Recommended if you like: Quirky film references, anything catty, Disney movies, horror movies.
CATS ON FILM gives a delightful and irreverent tour through world cinema from the standpoint of the cats who appear in it. This book grew out of a blog with the same name and does not take itself too seriously. The book introduces various cat archetypes: CATAGONIST, HEROPUSS, CAPANION, CATZILLA, PUSILLA, CATRIFICE, CATGUFFIN and many more. To be honest, I am not particularly a cat lover (they’re ok, but…), and I had hardly given a second thought about cats in film until picking up this book. Probably the only movie I could think of with a cat theme would be CAT PEOPLE, and this book doesn’t talk about it at all except parenthetically. What a shock it was to see discussions of so many movies with significant cat cameos. THIRD MAN, NYMPHOMANIAC (!), Kieslowski’s BLUE, the GODFATHER, the original POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, the original FLY, LA DOLCE VITA, STRAW DOGS, CLOCKWORK ORANGE (!) 1900, PROOF, TRUE GRIT, DAY FOR NIGHT, AWFUL TRUTH, GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S (!), THE LEOPARD, and many, many more. My first reaction was, wow, there are cats in all these movies? Aside from HARRY AND TONTO, I had hardly noticed them!
This is a logical and well-organized work — you can find a list of film discussed at the logical Table of Contents at the beginning (though it would have been better to have hyperlinks). It can be fun to stumble upon the unexpected, and the book itself has glorious color photographs and helpful labels like “Major Cat Movie.” Clearly Ms. Billson writes with an encyclopedic knowledge of cinema (she has also published severalmovie guides and writes about movies regularly for the “Guardian”). I found new insights about movies I thought I already knew (or at least, I thought I did!) I now know about a lot of obscure films simply because of the odd fact that it has a cat in it.
Because Billson already is an accomplished novelist (specifically in horror, mystery, vampires and other things), the book has unexpected bonuses. For the movie ALIEN she does a brilliant interior monologue of the same story from the cat’s point of view. (You remembered that there was a cat in that movie, right? I didn’t!) For the movie INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS, the book has a nice extended piece (The Moggyssey) teasing out the Homeric aspects to the plot. (By the way, I totally did not remember the movie having a cat in it!) For STUART LITTLE, she makes a tongue-in-cheek proposal to change the title of the movie to “Snowbell” (because the cat character is more interesting and complex). Billson writes:
Since Hollywood is largely run by dog people, cats are often relegated to secondary characters with bad attitudes, typified by animated propaganda such as LADY AND THE TRAMP, CINDERELLA, TOM AND JERRY or MERRY MELODIES shorts featuring Tweetie Pie and Sylvester, which try to brainwash children into thinking cats are evil or stupid, while dogs, rodents and birds are virtuous and should be given carte blanche to torment the felines.
These creative takes are fun, clever and interesting.
The book spends a lot of time on cats in genres like horror, James Bond and kid’s movies (which is to be expected). I particularly appreciated Billson’s speculation about the cats themselves as opposed to the role they are expected to play in the movie. She guesses when more than one cat is used for the same cat character in a movie (like THIRD MAN) and provides horrifying backstory about how cats were actually mistreated during the shooting of the film (as in ADVENTURES OF MILO AND OTIS).
This clever book is based on a conceit that cats are more than story props. It’s an intriguing (though now obvious) idea. Fake soliloquys notwithstanding, I don’t get the impression that the book is trying to anthropomorphize the cat characters; it is just suggesting an alternate and yes, a more compassionate way to read movies. The book is a celebration of cats for what they naturally are in mainstream movies; At the same time, there’s more than enough obscure Japanese, European, animation and old genre movies described here to make the ardent film buff happy.
(I performed this story at the Houston Liars’ Contest about 6 months ago).
Last Friday I was taking a walk through my neighborhood when I happened to lean against a stop sign.
To my surprise, the sign started tilting, and before I could do anything, it fell into the street.
“You idiot!” a voice cried. “Look what you’ve done.”
I looked around but saw nobody except the cars passing. To be honest, I didn’t know what to do. Should I report it?
“Get me up!” the same voice cried.
“What?”
“Why did you push me on the ground?”
As strange as that seemed, the voice seemed to come from the stop sign — or a tiny speaker attached to it.
“Get me up! If I get run over by one of these cars, you’re going to get in big trouble!”
The Stop sign was tall and heavy. I lifted the sign and the pole onto the grass, but it was too big and heavy to return to the upright position. The stop sign itself was barely hanging from the bracket.
“Well, aren’t you going to apologize?”
“Sorry,” I said.
“I can’t believe you broke my bracket. You owe me!”
“What do you want from me then?” I asked.
“Well … I hear the new Star Wars movie is out.”
“What?”
“Rogue One. All the kids are talking about it.”
I didn’t know what to say. “So you want to watch the Star Wars movie?”
“That’s right.”
“Can’t you just wait until it comes out on DVD?”
“No, it’s always better at the theater.”
Just then a bird came over and landed on the sign sign.
“Stop that!” the sign yelled. “Get him off me please!”
I swung my hand in the general direction, and the bird flew away.
“Stupid birds!” the sign yelled. “They never obey street signs. All they do is flutter around, sing those annoying songs and land on your head when you’re trying to take a nap.”
“Don’t worry; the movie theater is indoors — no birds.”
I felt self-conscious about carrying the stop sign into my car. But once we were driving, that stop sign became a chatterbox.
“Can you turn the radio louder? I love that Lady Gaga! Why don’t you ever clean your windows? Look — Detour ahead!”
My stop sign buddy had an annoying habit of reciting the words on every single sign he noticed. “Speed Limit 35 mph. Hey, there’s no parking there between 4 and 6. Stop! What time does the movie start? Yield! Stupid human drivers.”
We were at the movie theatre. I carried the stop sign to the ticket booth. “One please,” I said.
The teenage worker looked confused. “Sir, are you bringing that inside?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Hey, you forgot to buy me a ticket,” the stop sign said.
“You don’t need one.”
“But that’s not fair! I deserve my own seat.”
“Fine, you want a ticket? I’ll get one. But no more complaining. Two tickets please.”
We entered the movie theater, ignoring the stares from people around me. As I passed the concession stand, I said, “I suppose you expect me to buy you popcorn too.”
“Of course not,” the stop sign said. “Who ever heard of a stop sign eating pop corn?”
The theater was fairly crowded, but there were still good seats. The stop sign, I am sorry to report, kept bugging me with questions.
“Which one is Darth Vader? Who is that guy? Is this supposed to be the best episode? Why are there no stop signs on that planet?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe they don’t like stop signs.”
“Barbarism! No wonder the Imperial Force is beating them.”
At the end the audience applauded, and the stop sign rattled a bit too.
As I brought him to the car, the stop sign said, “What’s next?”
“What do you mean, ‘What’s next?’ I fulfilled my end of the bargain, so I’m bringing you back to the intersection.”
“But it’s early.”
“Too bad!”
“I didn’t want to bring this up, but as a talking sign sign, I do have some special abilities. If you agree to be my chaperone for the rest of the day, I have the power to grant you 3 wishes.”
I thought about it a moment and said, “Ok, what would you like to do?”
“I’d like to see a game.”
“What kind of game? Like a game at a stadium?”
“Let’s just go to a park or something where we can watch people play basketball or volleyball.”
“Fine,” I said.
We went driving to a nearby park, and the stop sign says, “I’ve heard a lot about this thing called Bowling. Also, the people are always talking about Frappucinos. Can you find one for me?”
“I suppose.”
“Branson — is that close to here?”
“Not at all.”
“Hey, yield!” the stop sign shouted.
“Yes, sir,” I said. “By the way, my name is not “Hey.” It’s Robert.”
“Robert?” the stop sign repeated. “I guess you want to know my name too.”
“What is it?”
“It’s Stoppy McStoperson.”
“Really?”
“No, just kidding. My name is “Fleetwood Mac.” Like the 70s rock band. Really, that’s my name. What can I say? I’m a product of the 70s. My parents call me Fleet. Oh, stop there! Stop! Stop!”
“What is it?”
“That stop sign we just passed — she’s a knockout! Did you see her angles? They’re a perfect 45 degrees.”
“They all look the same to me,” I said.
“You have to turn around and introduce us.”
“Ok,” I said, parking the car. I carried Fleet to the stop sign at the corner. Immediately Fleet starts conversing with her.
“Comment se va?”
“Bien merci.“
“Are you speaking French?” I asked.
“Of course!”
Then he whispers, “Hey, Robert, I think we’re really hitting it off. Maybe you could bring her along to the park?”
“Even if I wanted to,” I said, “I don’t have tools to remove the sign.”
“At least can you tilt me over so that our corners can touch?”
“Ok.”
I move the sign over until one of his corners touches with one of hers. I hear giggling and random bursts of “Je ‘t’aime.”“Tu es belle.” …“Tu me manques.”
“Time to go,” I said.
We find a park two blocks away. The basketball courts are empty, but I see a small baseball game played by boys who looked like they were in 7th or 8th grade.
“That looks like a good game,” Fleet says.
“Sure,” I say, carrying the sign over to the field.
At first the boys pay no attention, but it doesn’t take long for one of them to notice me there.
“What are you doing with the stop sign?” the boy asked.
“Long story,” I said.
The stop sign peppered me with questions. “Why are you out after 3 strikes? What happens if the catcher doesn’t catch the ball? Why do they call that guy the short stop? He doesn’t look like a real stop sign to me — and he’s very tall.”
Finally, the stop sign said, “Maybe you can ask them if I can play too.”
“You gotta be kidding me.”
“They have the home plate — they let him play. Why can’t I take his place?”
“Home plates have to be a certain size,” I explain. “Plus, you’re red!”
“Oh, sure, bring that up again! People are always discriminating because of your color. Can’t you just ask them? And remember, if you can’t persuade them, don’t expect to get your 3 wishes.”
Now, I’ll be honest with you. I wasn’t entirely confident that this stop sign had the power to grant wishes. I gave it a 50% chance. But I had already figured out my three wishes. One involved a new home. The other involved solving climate change. The third involved a weekend getaway in the Canary Islands with movie star Parker Posey.
I called out to the teenagers.
“I got a strange proposition, ” I said. “If you’d play baseball and use this stop sign for home plate, I’d give you –” I opened my wallet, “One hundred — and sixty — dollars.”
All of them look quizzically at me. Finally the pitcher says, “Is this some kind of YouTube prank?”
“No, it’s legit… The money is yours — it’s easy money.”
The pitcher calls a huddle. Finally, the pitcher turns to me and asks, “Can you pay us in advance?”
“Sure.”
“Play ball then.”
I put Fleet down where home plate is supposed to be and watch them play. Before the pitcher starts his windup, I hear, “Hey, Batter, hey batter batter, Swing.”
Either I’m the only one who hears Fleet’s chattering or the rest of the players were ignoring him on purpose.
One team got a batter on third. The score was tied, so everybody was on their guard.
The next batter hit a fly ball into center field. The outfielder caught it, but noticed that the runner was rounding third and charging to home. The catcher stood guarding home plate with the ferocity of a bulldog. The outfielder hurled the ball, but it was too high! The catcher could not reach it, and the runner rushed to touch home plate.
But then the stop sign stood upright and started running – at first randomly and then in the general direction of first base. For a while, the runner was confused, but as the catcher tried to tag him out, the runner realized that he still needed to touch home plate for the score to count.
So he ran after Fleet, and so did the catcher and pretty much the whole team. Then I realized something. If this stop sign got away, I wouldn’t get my wishes. I wouldn’t get my dream vacation with Parker Posey.
“Stop!” I called out. “What are you doing?”
But Fleet paid no attention.
“Fleet! Stop! Come back!”
Fleet paused for a moment, then announced melodramatically, “All of you guys look at me and say, he’s just a stop sign, but I’m different from all of you!
“I Don’t Stop Thinking about tomorrow
Don’t stop, it’ll soon be here
It’s be better than before.
Yesterday’s gone, yesterdays gone.”
After that dramatic speech, he dashed away, probably in search of a Frappuccino. And I never got those 3 wishes!
