The Bookstore Cat

"The Bookstore Cat"

On a recent trip to Gulf Shores, Alabama my family and I took a detour into the town of Fairhope. This is the place that Southern author Sonny Brewer (The Poet of Tolstoy Park, The Widow and the Tree, Don't Quit Your Day Job) calls home. It is also the home of The Fairhope Center for the Writing Arts, a writer's colony that has played an integral part in the writing lives of authors Winston Groom, WEB Griffin, and Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Bragg. 

Unfortunately Over the Transom book store, the shop that Sonny owns, was closed on Sundays. So before heading over to the Page and Palette book store, I hopped out of the car to take some photos of the little white book mecca that draws so many people to this quaint coastal community. There were no people around...apparently, like most Southern small towns, the city rolls up its streets on Sundays. Just as I walked up the sidewalk, camera in hand, I was greeted by a gentle Calico cat that had a lot to say. I have never heard a cat "talk" quite the same way as this one did. It was fascinating and was almost as if he or she (I didn't bother to do an anatomy check) was letting me know that the book store was closed and that I could come back on Tuesday. I said hi to the little kitty and as I kept strolling along the sidewalk, it scampered along side me, chatting like we had been friends for years and years. Or maybe he was telling me what titles were available in the fiction section inside Over the Transom. I patted its belly a few times and I was certain that it would have jumped in the car and kept right on gabbing had I not outrun it. I don't know who the cat belonged to, however the business beside the book store had a food and water dish near its door. I just refer to it as "The Bookstore Cat".

Ray Bradbury: Music To My Ears

When I was a freshmen in college, I had the opportunity to meet legendary science fiction writer Ray Bradbury. Well, not meet, per say. He was up on the auditorium stage and I sat about three rows away gripping my mom's hand in excitement. Even then he had thick white hair and the thickest black-rimmed glasses I had ever seen. If he had had on a white lab coat I might possibly have mistook him for a professor from the science department. He told stories for what seemed like hours on end to a crowd that appeared not quite as enthusiastic as I had expected (it was north Alabama, not New York). I don't remember any of the stories he told that night...a lot has happened in life since then, but I do remember coming home with a massive hardback anthology of his greatest stories and I quickly tracked down and purchased a copy of almost every novel he had written from eBay. His short stories were my favorite and I probably read Quicker Than the Eye more than a few times.

A few weeks ago my husband, an aspiring DJ, introduced me to a deadmau5 song called The Veldt. I was immediately in love with it, even more so a couple of days later when I heard on XM radio that it was inspired by a story by Ray Bradbury. (msn article) Why I hadn't heard of this story is beyond me, being such a fan. Apparently it was originally titled The World the Children Made and was written in 1950. It is about a family living in a smart house where the children can project "television" walls in whatever scene they please. Much to their mother's chagrin, the children turn the walls of the nursery into an African veldt (a grazing area) with lions going about their predatory business. I won't spoil the ending, but it is definitely one of Bradbury's weirder stories...and that says a lot considering that all of his writings are weird in some form or fashion. In true Ray Bradbury form, however, it seemed as if the release of the deadmau5 single somehow predicted the author's death. (washington post article) Just a couple of weeks after I had heard the song The Veldt, I was brokenhearted to learn that the master of science fiction had passed away.(obituary) He was an author who had wriggled his way into my heart while I was very young and quietly inspired my passion for reading, and who knows, possibly my ability to write.