Rebecca By The Water

Under Construction

2009-11-05T00:40:00.039-07:00

THIS PAGE IS CURRENTLY UNDERGOING CONSTRUCTION

Towers of Cans For a Good Cause

2009-09-22T18:59:00.001-06:00

Towers of Cans For a Good Cause

”Painting and sculpture are very archaic forms. It's the only thing left in our industrial society where an individual alone can make something with not just his own hands, but brains, imagination, heart maybe.”

-Philip Guston-

Charity: Canstruction for the Utah Food Bank
Event: Display of sculptures constructed out of cans of food
Start Date: 9/21/2009
End Date: 10/02/2009
Location: The Salt lake City Main Library
Getting there: Take the University Trax to the Library Station and cross the street
Phone: Utah Food Bank - (801) 978-2452, Canstruction – none provided
Web URL: Utah Food Bank – https://www.utahfoodbank.org, Canstruction - http://www.canstruction.org
Other: There will be an awards Galla on Tuesday the 29th (September, 2009) at 6 pm to announce the winning sculpture.

Towers of Cans For a Good Cause

I was going to write a product review for you today – but when I got to the library there were these amazing statues constructed out of cans of food and Jello cups. I went to investigate and found these were statues constructed by a group called 'Canstruction' a charity comprised of artists who build sculptures to raise awareness for for different causes. The statues, which can be seen on the main level of the library, have been can-structed by by local artistic volunteers in cities around the world who compete against each other for a good cause.

These displays, I am told, will be donated to the Utah Food Bank after the exhibit is over. Each exhibit has a display board next to it telling a little about the sculpture including the number of cans used. According to the canstruction website each statue takes anywhere from 8-12 weeks to initially construct and are can include thousands of cans. Also provided is information about the charity the display is intended for, giving information why that particular charity is important.

Of course September is Hunger Action Month in the United States but the food bank needs volunteers, donations and contributions year round to feed the hungry population. According to the Utah food bank, Utah has the fourth highest rate of food insecurity in the nation. That means that one in every seven Utah children don't get enough to eat because their parents can't afford to provide it. But the real problem may be in the number of Utahans applying for help. Apparently only half those eligible in the state of Utah applied for food stamps in the year 2005 according to the U.S. Department of agriculture.

Various church groups provide food to those in need but even they don't receive requests from the true number of people in need of their help. As unemployment continues to rise the need is expected to grow. The Utah food bank states that one in every ten Utahans is living below the poverty line. Many need food but most either don't know where to ask or are to embarrassed by their citation to do so. All that is needed is a call to the 211 service but many do not even know that. Canned and non perishable foods are collected throughout the year through various food drives run by various businesses, groups, neighborhoods, clubs, athletics groups and so forth across the state. The food is sorted in the Utah food Bank Warehouse and distributed by way of emergency food pantries, local churches, agencies, the food box program and the kids café program. If someone wishes to donate but can not send food they welcome cash donations and service hours as well. The virtual food drive shows some of the most needed foods and allows you to 'purchase' them for the Utah Food Bank right from your computer.

Disclaimer: Rebecca By the Water is not associated in anyway with Canstruction or the Utah Food Bank. This article is provided on a purely volunteer basis and neither group is providing compensation for the writing of it.

If you liked this article please share it through the fun buttons below.

If you want me to cover your Local Utah charity please contact me at rebecca@rebeccabythewater.com. Thank you for reading!

Introduction to Riding the Uta Bus and Trax System

2009-09-21T20:27:00.000-06:00

Introduction to Riding the UTA Bus and Trax System

The Side of a Trax Train

An Approaching Trax Train

The Inside of a Trax car

Looking out the window on a Trax car

Sculptures at the 9th South Trax Station

Sculpture at the Courthouse Trax Station

Sculpture at the Library Trax Station

The Library Trax Station

"The only way of catching a train I have ever discovered is to miss the train before."

- Gilbert K. Chesterton-

(http://www.useful-information.info/quotations/trains.html)

If you are a tourist visiting the Salt Lake Valley or even just a regular resident there is a great chance that you will be taking the trax at some point at least. Very few people can afford to go entirely without the train and often times even they opt to ride UTA in order to save money or avoid the congestion of the roads. This article will be mainly for the benefit of the tourist as the residents have ridden the trax system and have no need for it.

In my not so humble opinion the Trax system is one of the best things that has come to the Salt Lake Valley, it has increased accessibility to different areas of the valley in ways that the bus system alone could not do. Future, and very much needed lines, are planned as well but will not be completed for several years.

Before the Trax was build the cities elderly citizens would reminisce about the old Trolley system that used to run about the city and which was used by everyone – unfortunately this had been stopped and pulled up long before some of us younger people were even born. For several years people talked about how useful such a system would be if we still had one but nothing was done about it until fairly recently.

That being said, if you are going to be riding the trax it is best to know a few basic things first.

Be aware that unlike the buses the Trax Trains are usually on time. They only wait for about a minute at each station so make sure you get to the station a little early.
There is no smoking allowed on the platform or in the train, you can be ticketed and fined for doing so - the same is true of carrying open containers of alcohol.
Make sure you purchase your tickets before you board – if you do not have them the fine is quite expensive – and it's a bit embarrassing to find your self led off the train because you didn't pay your fare
Know which stations you need to get on and off at before you go – go to www.rideuta.com and use the trip planner there.
Be aware that the Trax runs much later than the buses so if you need to catch a bus as well be aware of it's schedule as well.
There is not a single platform that has a drinking fountain on it. Utah Summers can be hot and dehydrating – I recommend bringing along drinking water and lotion on your trip especially if you have small children. Some platforms are close to restaurants or other buildings where you can grab a drink or a bite to eat but the majority are not.
There is not a single platform with a restroom on it – while some are within walking distance of buildings which have restrooms not all are public, many close long before Trax stops running and most don't have them within a fifteen minute walk at all.
The platforms may have roofs over them but they provide almost no protection from the elements – check the weather report before you go and be prepared.
Bicycles are allowed on Trax trains but may only board at the very front and very back of the cars, only two are allowed at each end door or four per car, riding bikes on the platform is not allowed, bicyclist must stand with their bikes at all times, bikes are not allowed on the wheelchair access ramps.
Small electric vehicles (ie small scooters, motor chair and bikes) are allowed but gas powered ones are not because of the possible danger they present to the Trax and the passengers riding.
The ramps are only for wheelchairs and people who have trouble climbing stairs – some very kind engineers will let you use it to take a baby carriage on the train but expect to have to carry yours up and down the stairs.
The steps are a bit steep – if you have small children they will need help getting up and down them.
The yellow line at the stations is the safety line – while one can wander beyond it when there is no train at the station, or when boarding or exiting a train, it is required that everyone stand behind it when a train is approaching to avoid injuries.
As with any other public transit system there are dangers involved – mainly from other riders – if you see anything amiss you should report it. There a signs on every station providing the number to call. UTA has their own police force but read emergencies should still be directed immediately to 911.
There are buttons on the train which read 'request stop' these should be disregarded – the trains are required to stop at each and every station regardless of whether or not there are passengers to take on or let off and they are required to only allow passengers on and off at the stations - if the train stops and it is not at a station it is probably waiting for a light or something. I have seen tourists become angry when the train did not stop exactly in front of their hotel when they pushed the 'request stop button'. The same buttons will however open the door for you when you want to get off at the station.
Seating at the stations is limited – be prepared to have to stand as you wait.

There is of course much more to know about riding the train but I hope that gives you some ideas. I hope your trip is a safe one and an enjoyable one.

In My Life

2009-09-19T16:04:00.000-06:00

In My Life

This section is in lieu of the about me section. Here you can learn a little about me and my passions.

I Love A Good Storm

I Love A Good Storm!

2009-09-19T15:53:00.005-06:00

I Love A Good Storm!

A gorgeous rainbow

The sky above the rainbow

The storm rolling in

An other-worldly cloud

Look at how beautiful these clouds are

It's a stegosaurus

Never go anywhere without your best friend

Ruby-throated hummingbird in Japanese Foil

“I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship.”

-Loisa May Alcott-

(http://thinkexist.com)

When I left for the bus this morning I noticed the sky was clear and blue from horizon to horizon. Most would call this beautiful – I am inclined to disagree. There is nothing more depressing, monotonous or drab as a cloudless sky. Even a single bit of white fluff provides a great improvement to the dreary blueness of a clear sky.

Last night, now that was beautiful! I managed to capture some amazing pictures of the sky too – but I just barely missed some lightening over the mountain. Oh well I guess I need a faster camera. Best time of day for a storm too – the sunset gave the clouds a mystical almost other worldly look; though one just looked like a stegosaurus. Yesterday was one of those days when I wish I had a wider lens as well – the whole sky was just amazing! Best of all was the rainbow, one of the thickest single rainbows I have ever seen, it was so large I was surprised it wasn't a double.

Unfortunately the storm was gone far too quickly. I suppose that's the problem with Utah weather it never stays around for long.

I was lucky enough to meet JJ Rolle at the Gallivan Trax Station when the storm was first blowing in. This man has an amazing voice it was wonderful to hear him sing. Salt Lake needs more street performers. Before all the construction started they were more common and I personally would love to see them back again – the good ones that is, those with talent.

In Utah when the wind blows it really blows. Broken tree limbs are not uncommon and from time to time a tornado will touch down. As one woman I talked to a few months back said “I moved to Utah from the mid west, trying to get away from the tornadoes, but only three days after I got here a mini twister ripped all the windows out of my house!” Okay so maybe Tornadoes are beautiful from a distance – I'm just glad ours aren't big enough to pick up a house.

While on the train I met a homeless man and his dog T-Ko. Everything he had was for the dog, blankets, pillows, a dog house he had made himself out of a ten gallon plastic box. With all the trouble going on with the economy it's nice to see some people still take the time to care about their best friends. I wonder if there is a charity that helps homeless people keep the pets they love.

As some of you may know I love origami – the complicated realistic looking models that require more than ten steps. I found a few books by Robert Lang that I am going through. In the pictures you can see the ruby throated humming bird of his that I folded. It was created using an 6in x 6in sheet of green Japanese foil. I spend entirely too much on origami paper but there are so many kinds out there to tempt me – no wonder I've been obsessed since the age of seven.

Here's an interesting fact about me - at the age of ten I folded 1,000 paper cranes. What I didn't realize was that they are supposed to be as tiny as they possibly can be, folded all at once and folded while meditating. I think I'm going to try that again sometime – the proper way.

Well it's Saturday the library closes early and the bus stops running early as well. That means I have precious little time to work on my blog. I really like the new post layout I've created for the Wild Grape New West Bistro. I think I'm going to be changing all my posts to that layout. This will allow me to write posts that could stand on their own without pictures so that they can be submitted to E-zines while at the same time allowing me to post the pictures my readers enjoy seeing.

Speaking of pictures. After seeing my sisters Flicker account I was very impressed with the site – so I signed up for an account and am in the process of moving all my photos to there. But bear with me it will take me some time in the mean time my flicker name is rebeccabythewater. Tomorrow is Sunday so there won't be a post as I won't have Internet access up but I will be working on one to put in the Ride UTA section on Monday.

The Wild Grape New West Bistro

2009-09-18T15:41:00.012-06:00

The Wild Grape New West Bistro

The Front Sign of the Wild Grape Bistro

One of the patio Tables

A refreshing glass of Blue-Berry Lemonade

Grilled Calamari

A planter in front of the Wild Grape

Always eat grapes downward - that is eat the best grapes first; in this way there will be none better left on the bunch, and each grape will seem good down to the last.

If you eat the other way, you will not have a good grape in the lot.

-Samuel Butler -

The Wild Grape New West Bistro

Type of business: Restaurant

Specialty: A new take on western grilled foods

Est: Unknown

Founder: Troy Greenhawt

Current Owner: Troy Greenhawt

Address: 481 E South Temple, Salt Lake City, UT 84111

Phone Number: (801)746-5565

Email: Not Provided

Website: http://www.wildgrapebistro.com/index.php

Hours:

Lunch: Mon-Fri 11am-3pm
In Between Menu: 3pm-5pm
Brunch: Sat-Sun 9am-3pm
Dinner: Sun-Thur 5pm-10pm, Fri & Sat 5pm-10:30pm
Late: Wed-Sat 10:00pm-Till Close (11:00 – Midnight)

Getting there: The #3 and #209 buses go right past it

Earlier this week I received a message from Twitter telling me that I was being followed by The Wild Grape. I had never heard of this place so I looked it up on line and browsed through their website. After reading I knew I had to write a report on them – after all that's what I do in this blog, I write about small businesses in the salt lake valley. So yesterday I hoped on the bus and headed over to try them out. I wasn't very hungry, just wanted something small.

The restaurant shares a building with a bagel shop and is by far the better looking of the two – perhaps that's because when you see one Einstein's Bagels you've seen them all. Perhaps that's the problem with chain restaurants – they all look the same. Even the franchises are replicas – We need to stop all the debate about whether or not cloning ought to be allowed and figure out how to stop it.

But on to the Bistro! The restaurant is small but not tiny. They claim they are trying to reproduce the old west café feeling with a modern touch. I've never been in an old west cafe as far as I know so I'll take their word for it – but what ever the style was I liked it. Elegant but down to earth. The décor was beautiful and simple adding to the dinning experience rather than taking it away. I opted to eat outside on the patio, a lovely shaded area surrounded by lush green plants that reminded me a bit of grape vines after they have been harvested. An excellent touch for a restaurant who's main focus is grapes.

The Service was wonderful and fast. When the waitress said she was going to have the cook start my Calamari I thought I would be waiting for it for at least half an hour but it was out much sooner than that. Ten minutes I think. Very efficient and very friendly.

I started out with a glass of Blueberry-Lemonade which I can only describe as tasting like a sweet light grape juice. It was even dark purplish red like grape juice. Light, refreshing and left a pleasant aftertaste. It was garnished with a lemon.

As I had never had Calamari before I decided to try it. The waitress warned me that it was not breaded and explained that people had complained about that – I don't see why, in my opinion excess breading ruins seafood. If I wanted bread I would have order a sandwich. She also warned me that the dish wasn't very much food and she was right. It is a good thing I wasn't very hungry. As for the taste – well I can't compare it to any other calamari dishes because I've never had any. Calamari seems to be one of those foods that has very little flavor of its own but takes on the flavors of the foods around it. So I will describe the rest of the dish to you. The Calamari, which was grilled to perfection, rested in a reddish sauce that I think was made of cheese and tomatoes it was garnished with avocado's, Roma tomatoes, what I think were green peppers and herbs. My waitress offered to bring me some bread to eat the sauce with and if I had been more hungry I would have accepted. All in all a delicious and well cooked dish. My compliments to the Chef, especially if all the dished prepared at the Wild Grape are that well made.

The pricing at the restaurant was a bit higher than the median range but not overly expensive. I would recommend it for a nice date, a family meal if you have children who are well behaved, a girls night out or just to enjoy a meal by yourself. Despite being in the middle of the city it has an out of the way feeling about it allowing it's customers to enjoy their experience without being bothered or distracted. Apparently they change their menu from time to time. It will be interesting to see what they have in the future.

I don't drink alcohol but I think I should mention that I overheard a waitress telling some other patrons that fresh wine is brought in every Wednesday and that the wine menu changes from time to time as well.

Would I recommend it? Oh yes, most certainly. Will I go again? I plan on it.

But next time I think I'll try the lamb sandwhich.

....Oh great, NOW I'm hungry...

Want me to cover your small business? Leave me a message in the comments, or through email. I'll be happy to cover you.

All small businesses must

Be located in the Salt Lake Valley
Be independently owned and operated
Meet the SBA's requirements for qualifying as a small business
Not be part of a larger chain
Not be owned by a religion
Not be owned by a political party
Not be a subsidiary of another company
Be legal
Be accessible by bus or trax

All reviews are neutral and honest.

I'd Like To Thank

2009-09-18T11:18:00.000-06:00

I'd Like To Thank

Of course there are lots of people I am thankful for but some people just deserve extra special thanks!

Thank You to My Readers.

Thank You to My Readers

2009-09-18T11:13:00.001-06:00

Thank You to My Readers

When I look at my FeedBurner widget at the side of my blog I see that I have 4 subscribers. That's not many but it's enough to get me excited. I don't know who any of you are but thank you thank you thank you so much for subscribing to my blog! That lets me know that at least someone is interested in reading my work – and that makes all the hard work worth it.

I hope one day to look at that box and see thousands of people subscribed to me but I am happy to be read by even one other person.

Thank you as well for putting up with me while I work on the site – I promise it will all be worth it in the end. I hope to have my page easier and more fun to navigate with less clutter but plenty of options.

Again you guys are the best. I hope everyone has enjoyed reading my site but it's a great compliment to be added to someone's RSS feed.

I hope that my readers will start leaving comments and interact on the site – I need your help to keep this site going. I'd love to know your opinion of the site. Which parts do you like? Which parts do you not like? Is there something I should be reporting on? Did I make a mistake in one of my posts? All these are things that will help me to make the site more enjoyable to you, my readers.

But most of all thank you just for reading. You are what keeps me going, keeps me hoping, keeps me working. Without readers I would be writing for no one but myself and that isn't a very attractive thought. So I will cherish my readers no matter how few or many they may be.

I would love to know of ways that I can thank you for reading. I'm not rich, I can't send you money or prizes for reading. I'm not powerful either. But I would like to make my readers feel appreciated. Please if there is anything I can do let me know.

Once again I thank you just for subscribing. Even if you don't read all of my articles I know you read some of them and that makes me happy. I hope you will continue to enjoy the site and return again and again. I hope as well that you will contribute and add your own voice to what is written here. Did you know you can even comment with a video if you want? Just click on the 'add media' link in the comments area (comments must be expanded for the link to be displayed.

Here's one way you can help me out – LEAVE COMMENTS! (not very subtle am I?) M- does the link at the bottom say the post you are reading has 0 comments? Do you have an opinion about the post? Do you have an experience having to do with the article that you would like to relate? Please click that comments link and add your comment! At the side you will notice that I have added a new widget for you where you can see the latest comments, find out which threads have the most comments and see who is commenting. I hope you enjoy it! You can also subscribe to my comments feed either by email or by joining my Disqus community which sadly is currently empty except for myself.

Again Thank you. I hope to see more and more people here but to those who have already come thank you.

Hugs to All!

Rebecca

Follow Me

2009-09-18T10:33:00.000-06:00

Follow Me

Can't get enough? Into stalking? Here are some ways to make it easier for you to keep track of me.

My Writing.com profile: womanwithaquil

By: Twitter Buttons

Reader Supplied News

2009-09-18T10:16:00.000-06:00

Reader Supplied News

This is an idea I heard about and I thought I'd try it out. This section is open to you, my readers, as a place to republish any article you may have written. I encourage anyone who wants to to submit articles for view. I will review each article before I republish it here.

If you wish to submit your article please leave me a comment in this post with a short description of the article and a link to the original article - This is so that I can link the republished post to the original post so that you can get that wonderful traffic of people heading back to your site to see what else you have written. If you have not published the article online before

Each article

Must not contain hateful and or derogatory content
Must not contain religious opinion
is the property of it's original author and may only be reused with their permision
May contain political opinion so long as it is presented in an educated and non discriminatory manner
Must be written in English - though articles originally written in a different language and then translated to English are permitted.
May be in written or video form
Must use proper spelling and grammar
Must be at least 500 words long
Must not be the plagiarized work of another - When you submit the article you certify that it is your own original work, that you have the legal right to redistribute the article and that you are giving me permission to republish it here
Will not be altered from their original form
Must contain an MLA style Bibliography if it references any other works including those of its own author - please note if you fail to provide a bibliography I will not be held responsible for any legal ramifications that may result
Is not necessarily my own opinion is republished here to help encourage the exposure of the original writer not to make any sort of statement.
Will as always have comments moderated

When you submit your article please let me know which category it fits into or if I should create a new one for it.

Categories

Animals

Business

Celebrities

Charity

Exercise

Family

Fashion

Health

Nature

Military

Music

Original Fiction

Pets

Photography

Political Opinion

Poetry

Safety

Science

Service

Theater

Travel

Comments

2009-09-16T18:31:00.001-06:00

Contact Me

2009-09-16T14:08:00.021-06:00

Contact Me

If you would like to get a hold of me please email me at rebecca@rebeccabythewater.com.

Thank you

Other Sites I Recommend

2009-09-16T13:54:00.002-06:00

Other Sites I recommend

If you would like to have your site added to this list please contact me at rebecca@rebeccabythewater.com

My Poetry

2009-09-16T13:44:00.003-06:00

My Poetry

Legal Stuff

2009-09-16T13:28:00.003-06:00

Here is a list of the articles I have written so far to cover the legal aspect of my blog

Local Small Businesses in Salt Lake City

2009-09-16T13:15:00.004-06:00

Here is the list of local small businesses in the Salt Lake Area that I have written reports on.

Restaurants

The Wild Grape New West Bistro

Retail Shops

Sam Wellers Zion Bookstore

If something is missing I haven't done a report on it yet. If you know of such a place please let me know. you can leave a comment or you can email me at rebecca@rebeccabythewater.com

-------------

Want me to cover your small business? Leave me a message in the comments, or through email. I'll be happy to cover you - and I won't say no to a free meal if you offer ;)

All small businesses must

Be located in the Salt Lake Valley
Be independently owned and operated
Meet the SBA's requirements for qualifying as a small business
Not be part of a larger chain
Not be owned by a religion
Not be owned by a political party
Not be a subsidiary of another company
Be legal
Be accessible by bus or trax

All reviews are neutral and honest.

Places To Visit For Free in Salt Lake City

2009-09-16T10:18:00.015-06:00

Amazing historical and cultural sites in the Salt Lake Valley with no entrance fees!

That's right! Even if the hotel and the restaurants eat up most of your cash you can still tour the city without spending a penny on entrance fees.

If something is missing I haven't done a report on it yet. If you know of such a place please let me know. you can leave a comment or you can email me at rebecca@rebeccabythewater.com

Sam Weller's Zion Bookstore

2009-09-15T11:48:00.006-06:00

SAM WELLER'S ZION BOOKSTORE

The main floor of Sam Weller's Zion Bookstore

Books! Books! Glorious Books!

Down the stairs to the Basement

The basement lounge

Shelf upon shelf of used books on every subject

Up on the mezzanine (rare out of print books)

Inside the cage (the rarest and most valuable of the out of print books)

“The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.”

-Samuel Butler-

Sam Weller's Zion BookStore

Type of business: Bookstore

Specialty: Used and Rare Books

Est: Aug 11, 1929

Founder: Gustav Weller

Current Owner: Tony Weller

Address: 254 South Main Street, Salt Lake City, Ut 84101 (they plan to be moving around Christmastime)

Phone Number: (801)328-2586

Email: books@samwellers.com

Website: www.samwellers.com

Hours: Monday – Saturday, 10 am to 7 pm.

Getting There: The Trax goes right by it - get off at Gallivan Station and cross the street

Thank you again for coming. Todays report will be the first in the section I promised to create on local businesses. In this section I will be covering small businesses, groups and charities that are owned and operated right here in the Salt Lake Valley.

It is my belief that the best way for us to save our economy is to put more into our locally owned businesses rather than continuing to send our hard earned money to out of state and even out of country markets. I suppose I could write a whole blog about such a subject, berating myself and others for their visits to national chains and lecture on how that is damaging the economy – and I suppose several others have – but I think I would prefer to instead become part of the solution by helping to bring to the lime light those stores and manufacturers based right here, to educate myself and others on how to find those elusive gems hidden just beyond the tips of our fingers. As I write I hope my local readers will be helpful in pointing out to me any local businesses that I may not be aware of that would benefit from being featured in my blog.

I am pleased to be able to open this section with a fond memory of my childhood – Sam Weller's Zion Book store – known to the locals here as Sam Weller's, Sam's, Weller's or simply Zion's. Unfortunately Sam himself died earlier this year (2009) in June. I remember buying books from him, how disappointed he was when he didn't have the book you wanted and how excited he would get when he finally found that book for you – no matter how long it took.

Like his father Gustav, Sam was a true gift to the book world he is sorely missed. I can say with assurance that one of the most influential used bookstores in the world is Sam Weller's – as Utahans we are very lucky to have such a wonderful store in our community. If someone were to ask me what that most important bookstore I knew of in the world was I would be lying if I did not tell them it was Weller's. Sam Weller's Zion Book Store has no other physical location other than the store on Salt Lake City's Main Street but it's influence is known world wide. If you bought an old rare book on-line there is a very good chance that at some point it passed through the hands of someone at Sam Weller's Zion Bookstore – and if it has not, well then perhaps it will end up on the shelves there, just waiting to be cherished again.

Sam's son Tony has taken over ownership of the store and he seems to be doing his best to keep the dreams of Gus Weller alive. He has been kind enough to let me interview him about the bookstore and his own personal take on the modern book market.

I would like to take the time to give you a little history, but the history of what it's founder often referred to as 'just a country bookstore' has been told and retold several times. So instead I will refer you to their website at http://www.samwellers.com/store_history where you can read about the store in the words of Tony Weller, grandson of Gus Weller, Son of Sam Weller and current owner of the store.

I will confess that the history of a store as important as Sam Weller's Zion Bookstore is relevant but in this report I hope to shed light on the current bookstore as it is today. Stepping into Sam Wellers is like stepping through a portal. On the main level you are greeted by the cashier who checks your bag for you if you are carrying one. To your left you find the coffee garden which, if you like coffee, or even hot chocolate, you are sure to find yourself sitting at – just as soon as you secure ownership of that perfect book. The focus of this level is new books, mostly the latest publications but mixed with new printings of old classics.

On the main level you will see two sets of stairs – one going up and one going down. Descend down into the basement and you find yourself transported back a few years and surrounded by shelf upon shelf of used novels. It is mainly paperbacks down here, anything from a cheaply printed classic that was read and then sold to a penny or dime novel originally that as originally sold at some supermarket or other. Here you will also find a comfortable lounge in which to sit and relax as you browse through the piles of books trying to decide which one to take home.

Go up the stairs instead and you will find yourself transported even further back in time, perhaps as far back as one can be transported by a book store. Inhale deeply, smell the leather, the old paper and the ink. Here is the Mezzanine and what I come to know as 'the cage'. Trust me, if you are as much of a bibliophile as I am that cage is where you want to be. In here you will find ancient treasures embossed with gold leaf and tempting you from the shelves on which they sit. These are the rare books, first editions of famous novels and histories, rare picture books and rare limited editions of books published long ago.

I must confess I am not immune to the lure of this area. I sometimes go up there and read the spines of the books and dream about reading them. Currently I have my eye on a three volume set of 'The Conquest of Peru' – I don't know if I will ever own them but I can dream. At home I have a set of books, called the Harvard classics – 200, volumes of classics republished for a reading club back in the mid 1900's – that once resided in the cage. Treasures each and everyone of them. I was once told by someone who did not read as much as I did that I was crazy for loving the smell of old books. Perhaps I am – but if that is the case sanity holds no interest for me.

Sam Wellers has an old world charm about it, making one feel as if were transported straight from a previous era, with it's tall ladders, its bookshelves packed from floor to ceiling, it's rustic staircases and mezzanine, it's delightful smells, the old fashioned covers that grace its stacks and stacks of books and all the other things that make it what it is. Unfortunately the store will be moving, probably around Christmas. It is that anticipated move that is the focus of my interview with Tony Weller.

Interview With Tony Weller

September, 3 2009

Rebecca: Let's start with the move. Why is Sam Weller's moving?

Tony Weller: Because downtown is no longer a good shopping district, the book market is grossly over saturated, people do not read as much as they used to and I've really given up on this being a viable retail district.

Rebecca: Do you have any idea where you are moving?

Tony Weller: We have ideas. We don't have a specific location selected but we intend to stay in the downtown area. We presently occupy 37,000 square feet in this building and we are looking for buildings that range between 12,000 and 18,000 square feet. This won't feel as dramatic as it sounds because the customers don't see the 17,000 square feet we occupy in storage and office space. So our new store will be smaller than this for sure – but it won't feel that much smaller because most of our shrinkage is going to come out of back room areas and storage because we've decided we just don't want to store things the way we used to. We do want to stay downtown. We'd like to be near the convention center, or the temple; those are both things that are very high on our list of being close to because we do a lot of traffic with travelers who go out of their way to come see us if they like books a lot.

On a secondary level we have identified the areas of either of the downtown malls. I don't have a lot of affection for downtown malls but I recognize that they have foot traffic. So either somewhere near Gateway, or the City Creek Center, or near the Public Library or Pioneer Park, because each of these we believe will be very viable districts in the future. What are really important are the convention center and the temple grounds because we believe that those will be the most enduring.

So we want to be downtown. We intend to buy a building; we're not going to deal with any leases or landlords. One reason we survived for so long on Main Street is because my parents bought half of this building in the late 70's and it's kept our overhead considerably lower than most businesses today. So we'll take the money that we get by selling this building and find another building.

[There are some] improvements that we expect to realize with this move aside from the downsizing and a total re-conception of what the bookstore is because the world has change a lot. Big stores like ours were destinations in the pre-Internet days – and bibliophiles still go out of their way to find bookstores. I'll be the first to say that there is no real comparison between browsing a bunch of books and browsing a bunch of data about books on a computer screen. I mean it's different - so the book world is evolving very rapidly and we think that we are very well suite to interpret the changes to interpret them accurately and re-conceive of our store in a new location.

In addition to a whole different inventory and service philosophy we will buy a building that has dedicated parking that we own. So in the future I hope to be able to say to my customers, as I've never been able to say to my customers, “free parking, you can stay as long as you like and you don't get a ticket or a fine, just free parking”. We've looked at buildings that are very attractive in the downtown area – none have parking – and they are not on my list of considerations. In fact one of them is a real heat breaker. There's one building, I just loved it. but I was so broken-hearted when I found out it had no parking. So with a few tears in my eyes I walked away from that building and said “well, no parking. It's not even worth my time.”

We also will be able to put to rest ADA issues, American Disabilities Act, because you probably haven't had to think about it but if you were here with someone in a wheelchair you would quickly discover that we have a hard time getting a wheelchair up to this mezzanine.

Rebecca: And also the ladders on the selves downstairs.

Tony Weller: Well this Mezzanine period. There's no elevator that gets you to the level we are sitting on now. So our new store will either be a single level or, if it has multiple levels, we will make sure it has an elevator so that anyone with mobility issues can still get around because we have discovered that people who have mobility handicaps read more than most people. I mean they're not out playing tennis and so reading is a very popular activity and it makes me feel terrible every time I have to tell a person in a wheelchair that I can't get them to this level. I just feel awful about it. We've carried a few bold ones up here. If they are determined we are equally determined. We have carried wheelchairs, with a person on each side, just to get them up here - but it's not a good situation.

So these are somethings we will fix in our new location - but we really hope to not be too distant from our present site. We have two buildings that we are still considering. They are both between 2^nd and 5^th east and between 2^nd and 4^th south. They're just slightly east of where we are but these are buildings that we can afford and that come with parking. Each of them has some flaws and so we're not ready to make a decision yet but truthfully until we sell this building we won't have the money to make a purchase. We don't have much money in the bank. All we have is a building and a whole lot of books.

Rebecca: You mentioned that this area is no longer a viable retail district. Can you expound upon that.

Tony Weller: Well the malls have sucked business off main street from coast to coast and there are too many malls. The whole retail world has been over saturated. It's been over built. The profit center of a publicly traded retail shifted in the 90's. Previously the profit center was the sales or the service that the company offered but the new profit center became stock. And so to put it in another way every [store in a national chain] is a great ad for [that national chain's] stock. And most of their money comes from the stock market not from selling books. And I'd say the same thing about most publicly traded companies. How else could [a national restaurant chain] have ever sold you a hamburger for a dollar. There's no way that they could pay their staff, pay their rent, pay their utilities and buy that little hunk of meat and that bun for enough less than a dollar that's profitable. It's profitable because it sells stock not because the burger makes money. And the same thing has gone on in the book industry.

The sad part of that, at least in my opinion, is that malls are not friendly to local merchants. What tends to happen is that the old Main Street businesses that every community had were typically run by local citizens but when they are replaced by mall stores they are usually replaced by national chains. This has a very detrimental affect on the local economy because even if I were the greediest business guy in the city all the money that we earn here is pretty much recirculated in this community aside from what we send to publishers in other states. The publicly traded corporation extracts revenue from the community in order to pay for their business. So a non local business is not nearly as beneficial to the community as a local business is. It also, I think, has a detrimental affect on diversity. That in the old days you had just thousands of different stores run by people with different personalities and ideas. Now you have a bunch of stores that are basically run like cookie cutter operations. It hurts diversity, it hurts the local economy and it hurts Main Streets because there's only so much money in the citizens pockets. Just because they build more stores or build another mall does not put more money in anybodies pocket. They spend what they can afford to spend and no more.

Rebecca: So you are vying for a return of more mom and pop stores?

Tony Weller: I detest the term 'Mom and Pop' because cause it portrays the idea that they are outdated so I would prefer the term locally owned.

Rebecca: You mentioned earlier that with the move would come new policies. Can you describe what changes we should expect to see besides the new store?

Tony Weller: I wouldn't exactly say new policies but we are sort of adopting a new perspective on the readers and on books. Some of these things are not really developed enough to announce yet but I will tell you that I have thought of this place as a destination, as a noun, in the past and in the future I will think a verb – more of an activity than an object. I will describe what is going on in my sense of the evolution of the book. This is a theory I've nursed along since the 80's and I see more evidence of it's accuracy all the time and that is. I have to leap back a century to make this make sense because it is easier to make a point with something that has already happened than with something that is happening now.

When the camera was first invented contemporary thinkers said, “this is the death of painting”. They were just certain that there would be no roll for painters now that they had camera's because until the camera painters generally had one of two specific jobs – either they were to paint something as it looked, maybe a portrait of the queen or the castle or the estate of the rich fellow, or they did symbolic art which tended to exist in primitive cultures or in ritualistic situations. Egyptian art was symbolic not representative. So humanity didn't really conceive of a different role for painters. But the camera came along and, what do you know, painting did not die painting changed. Following the invention of the camera we got pointillism, expressionism, impressionism, dotism, surrealism, modernism, minimalism, all of these modern arts very specifically followed the invention of the camera. They would not have come about if the camera had not altered the traditional roles of painters.

I see the exact same thing going on with books and computers. Books have been the primary way information was stored and transmitted between peoples minds for the last thousand years. Suddenly we have computers now and we have another means of transporting information that is so compelling that it is sort of taking functionality away from books. And this is neither good not bad – it's just one of those things – but it does have bearing on anyone in the book trade who is now kind of back pedaling to figure out 'where can we park here'. It's troubling in someways if you are in the industry. But my sense is that what happened with cameras and paining was that painting prior to the camera was really only a craft. It really wasn't that much different, except for maybe the Renaissance is a notable exception, than hiring a carpenter or a stone mason to build something for you.

It's no secret to an art historian that most paintings were not signed by their artists in the old days. They had no problem with having one guy draw the sketch, and then some other guy would come along and he would do all the red paint, then they'd have some other guy come along and add the blue... It was just a craft that they did, like people building a house. But following the invention of the camera, suddenly we entered the period of the artist – where now just the name Picasso or Matisse makes everyone go 'oh my!' So the personality of the painter became as painting moved from being a paltry country craft to being high art. I think the same thing is going to happen and is happening with books and I've got a lot of evidence of that.

If you look at book making – the times ending at the end of the 1930's and the 1990's when computers became common in our world. For sixty years there was a giant dearth of creativity in bookmaking. Most books were set to exactly the same standards – they chose the same paper, they laid them out in exactly the same way, they'd chose the same font, they did very little creative things to bindings, they did very little creative things on the outside of the books, the materials were all the same – nothing was creative in bookmaking except the writing and maybe the pictures between the 30's and the 1990's. Suddenly in the mid to late 1990's we started to see that change. Where book design, especially and first exemplified by children's books, art books and even things like cookbooks; you started to see a rapid change in the conceptualization of how you make a book. They started to get different shapes. The design just took off like crazy. And this has nothing to do with the computer as a design tool. This has to do with the computer displacing the books former utility. There were several companies that led the way, Chronicle Books was one of the first. Do you remember Griffin and Sabine?

Rebecca: I do remember Griffin and Sabine.

Tony Weller: It is my theory that book will go down in history as a very important cultural artifact because before Griffin and Sabine what we call the 'artist book' was made one of a kind, displayed in art galleries and sold to rich people because nobody else could afford stuff like that.

Griffin and Sabine, two things happened with that book. First is that it was compelling enough and the second was with how the publishers minds had been changed – that a publisher decided to mass produce this book with these little glued in envelopes and these little things you could take in and out of the envelopes. But what is more important than its significance as a mass produced book is that it actually became a best seller. This is a great example of the books content being augmented by some almost fetishistic art aspect of the physical book.

So getting to my thesis here. My sense is that the computer has displaced books severely and that it is forcing books to become art objects. You see it in new book production. We think this is going to be a big part of the future of the book – that books will be more fetish objects than they have ever been in the past. I even see it now, I'm in my 40's but I see people in their 20's who come in our store and they really want a first edition of this book they love. I didn't see my generation do that – I did it because I grew up in the book trade – but I didn't see others doing it. But there is a newer affection which the generations behind me has than the boomer generation had. So this is a sign of this evolution of the book and its position in society.

This is going to shape our inventory selection. We are not only thinking of the bookstore more as a verb than as a noun we will probably have a book store design that probably won't resemble any book store that anyone has seen. Certain sections will disappear. For example we decided to eliminated computer books from our bookstore because the people who buy them either go on-line to buy them or they buy them at the store where they buy their computer. They don't really go to a bookstore to find a computer manual like they used to. So there will be certain parts of the book trade that will disappear or shrink dramatically and I think that we can summarizer those by saying they are things that are used sporadically, things that are rapidly dated, or things that are just used for reference - which the computer handles better and it should.

On the other hand I can't imagine there will be any shrinkage in cheep handfuls of novels. I don't think the Kindle or other devices will eradicate them because of the cost and failure rate of electronic devices. Basic bookmaking is a near perfect technology. You would be hard-pressed to name anything that we use today that has existed in it's current form for as long as the book has.

Rebecca: Speaking of the Kindle, does the store have a website, an on-line store, where customers can buy books?

Tony Weller: We do – but our current site has problems and so it doesn't have a shopping cart, so customers do not have the ability to shop there.

Rebecca: But that is a possibility in the future?

Tony Weller: It is. We do sell through some other web sites. We list our books at Advanced book exchange, ALibris, and at Amazon so people can find our books on those websites. But it is part of our hope that when we land in the new store that we will have a website that functions properly because we don't right now.

Rebecca: Thank you for giving me that literature. I read through it and I did have a question. It said in there simply that you faced a different world than what your father faced as a bookseller. Would you care to elaborate? How is your world different than your fathers world.

Tony Weller: Well I think we've already been talking about it but with a different focus. In his day which I would mark as being from the 40's until, well he didn't retire until the 90's – so our lives overlap. Businesses were owned by local people, shopping was done on Main Street and people went to bookstores to find books. Television was already beginning to impinge upon the traditional book market. The web, the Internet, has been the most dramatic change since the invention of television. So how it is different for me is that I have more corporate competition than my father ever faced and people don't read as much as they used to. That makes my job considerably different than his

Rebecca: Out of all the things that have been accomplished by or for Sam Wellers bookstore which would you say is the most important?

Tony Weller: I consider just surviving an accomplishment. We don't earn much money here at my job and the people who work here like what they do. We have people from as far away as Asia saying someone said to them 'oh you're going to Utah? You've got to see this store.' We have a lot of hard core bibliophiles who are sad that we are move because they have developed an affection for the store as it exists.

Rebecca: Yes I'm one of them – I am going to miss the ladders and the book cage and the stacks.

Tony Weller: It is our intention to take at least some of the character of the store, at least as it exists when we more so the new store will be at least as exciting as this one.

Rebecca: What are your hopes for the store in the future? Five years? Ten years down the line?

Tony Weller: Really I would just like to be able to retire from this business. I mean I have fairly humble hopes. I just hope that our family can be supported and that we can support a small number of people who love books as much as we do in the course of things. I am just about certain that the book industry is a contracting industry with all of the losses to computers and the other challenges. I think in ten years the market for books, as measured in sales, is going to be half what it is today. Since I believe in the durability of the book I believe there will still be a need for bookstores and there will still be enough people who will want to see the things they have purchased – actually browse the books – that there will be a viable position for bookstores.

I just think that the golden years of book-selling are behind us and that the future will hold more trouble for books. But as I said they will be more artful and they will be more precious to their owners than they are today. I think today we take books for granted and we have probably for about a century. I think that in the future when people chose to buy books they won't just be buying them for the text, they won't just be buying them for information, they will buy them for an aesthetic reason that is bigger than the text.

And I guess some of the evidence that I didn't mention earlier is that recently I was walking by the receiving desk and I saw these really nice looking little hard cover books and I thought, “oh what are those? Those are attractive.” I had to go see what they were - they were Agatha Christie's novels. Now these are not new, these are old books, but the publisher decided to make these sweet little hard cover editions of all of Agatha Christie's mysteries. At the same time you can go to the paperback mystery section and find these books for five or six dollars each.

Now, why would a person pay maybe twenty dollars for a nice little hard covered book, as opposed to five dollars for a paperback if all they wanted to do was read the story? There is something about that package for that story that will entice some customers – not all of them, some will just go for the cheapest way they can read it - but there is another market out there for that sort of thing. Britannica® stopped publishing encyclopedias in book form in the 90's, and I think it was three or four years ago that they started doing it again, because they thought it was all going to computers. They were just going to sell people subscriptions to the Britannica® website or CD's or whatever they were doing. But they had so many people who were just bent out of shape because they couldn't just buy a good old fashioned book with pages and stuff that they brought the book back after giving up on it.

There are other examples of this. To use a local one you can get a free Book of Mormon but people will chose to come into a book store and buy one in leather, or a first edition or an old one. There is obviously a level of satisfaction they get out of that book that is beyond the words in that book or they would just go get a free one.

Rebecca: Well I suppose speaking on a personal point of view, about five years ago my sister bought the Harvard classics from you. A few years ago I bought them from her. That is two hundred books I have in my personal collection just from that. I am never going to read all of them all the way through but I derive a lot of satisfaction just from owning the set.

Tony Weller: To me books say a lot about a person. I deal a lot with estates and to me nothing you own tells more about your spirit and your personality than your books. Certainly not your clothing or your furniture. Books tell you about a person. But aside from that, even a books a person hasn't read tell you something about that persons ambition. They show you the path that that person wanted to take.

I have a lot of books at home and most of the books I have at home I haven't read because, well, my wife works here and we have too many books in the house. But I tend to keep the books I haven't read because I intend to read them. If I have read a book and I love it I will keep it - but if I don't love it it comes right back to work with me and I sell it. So I could run the risk, if you were in my house vising, of having you look at my books and saying, “have you read that one?” and I would have to say, “ah, no.”

And you might start thinking this guy is a poser he doesn't really read. But the truth is I only keep the books I care about. All the rest of them I have to get them out of there – make room for something else. So even the books we don't read tell something about ones personality. You may not read them all but the fact that you wanted your sisters Harvard Classics says something about your personality. Maybe your ambition will never rise to the level of your hope, but you got those books and now they are right at your fingertips and if you ever get curious about Machiavelli, or Plato or whatever they are right there for you – and there is a sense of power in that. I know I feel very frustrated when I am at home and I can't find information I want. It's frustrating and the Internet is cumbersome. A good reference index is often easier to use than the Internet.

Unfortunately the Internet has been messed up by some of the things that mess up a lot of good things in the world. One is commercial access – I don't know if you've ever looked for something on-line and all you can find is offers to buy stuff. People are like 'I'm just so tired of being sold things'. And the other is just meanness and stupidity. People who send viruses your way, or derogatory or libelous comments. Awfully bold when you aren't there in person. I've had a lot of that. I was looking around on the Internet the other day and I found some references to our bookstore. I found a few very mean things said about us, or me in a few cases, and I thought 'oh, that kind of hurts my feelings'. Because I try to do a good job here and be nice to people – but they were from anonymous people, and I remember thinking 'if you're going to be so bold with your criticism why don't you put your name on it?' If you are embarrassed about what you are saying, maybe you ought not to say it.

I am far to anal to be a good writer. People tell me that when I write for our newsletter or our rare book catalogs it's good writing but I find it to be more arduous than almost anything I do. I just do not have the heart of a writer. To be a writer you have to have an amazing vocabulary, you have to have a near perfect grasp of grammar or you are just being deluded. And I think there are too many writers in the world so I think it ought to be hard because there's a lot of crap out there. In the old days just the simple editorial process made sure that the worst writing never came to light but now days with self-publishing just send them a couple hundred books and they'll just print your book up for you. They won't edit it, they'll just print it up for you and bind it.

In a way I like it, because there's a guy in me that puts power in peoples hands. I think this is good. But in another sense I'm just thinking, 'there's too many bad books out there already.' People think I might have a secret door into the publishing industry. In the old days booksellers did have more influence over publishers but today we have very little influence. But I nonetheless have local people bringing me their manuscripts and they want me to read them. I say 'no thank you' very frequently but in the past oh maybe twenty years I have plowed through ten or so manuscripts of local people and I have yet to see one that I consider publishable. It's a very thankless task because I am jaded about books. I know how hard it is to sell books. When someone gives me something that is poorly written I have the lucky position of being the guy who gets to break this persons heart by saying 'I'm sorry your writing is shabby. It won't sell. You've got to work on the craft of writing.'

John gardener had the best theories, I think, of what good writing takes – at least in fiction and literature – I love his approach to it. But writing is too difficult for me. I'm not courageous enough, there's things I'd like to say but I just don't think I would ever would be a writer.

Bibliography:

Weller, Tony. "Store History." Store History. Sam Weller's Zion Bookstore. Web. (http://www.samwellers.com/store_history/index.cgi)
Weller, Tony. "Interview with Tony Weller." Personal interview. 03 Sept. 2009.
Bantock, Nick. Griffin and Sabine - An Extraordinary Correspondence. Chronicle Books, 1991.
"Advanced Book Exchange". AbeBooks Inc. (http://www.abebooks.com)
"ALibris". ALibris. (http://www.alibris.com)
"Amazon.com". Amazon.com. (http://www.amazon.com/)

Want me to cover your small business? Leave me a message in the comments, or through email. I'll be happy to cover you.

All small businesses must

Be located in the Salt Lake Valley
Be independently owned and operated
Meet the SBA's requirements for qualifying as a small business
Not be part of a larger chain
Not be owned by a religion
Not be owned by a political party
Not be a subsidiary of another company
Be legal
Be accessible by bus or trax

All reviews are neutral and honest.

Poetry

2009-09-08T19:06:00.002-06:00

POETRY

Sweet waves of verse encompass me
And bear me to your flowing depths
Keep me far and safe from cruel reality

Engulf me in your stanzas floating free
Please do not release my drowning heart
No! No! Truth isn't what I wish to see

Entrap me in your gentle flowing sea
Take me as you flow along
In the droplets of your ever flowing sea!

-Rebecca Dufresne-

Busy Working on Layout

2009-09-08T13:00:00.004-06:00

Hey all I'm Busy Working on my layout. In the mean time ponder this *points to the picture above* and when you're done pondering that, ponder this *points to the picture below*

An Attempt to See Stars in the City

2009-09-04T10:45:00.003-06:00

An Attempt to See Stars in the City

It is the North Star whichI seek
By following the bear;
Yet I can see neither clear
By fault of that lamp's glare

A shower in the heavens,
A raining storm of light,
Is nothing in that lamp's glow,
Which cancels out the night

Give me back the Milky Way
Which I in youth held dear.
Let there be fewer lights below!
Let those above be clear!

-Rebecca Dufresne-

A Modern Woman's Song

2009-09-04T10:43:00.002-06:00

A Modern Woman’s Song

I am proud to be a woman
In a time when women live
When all the world is opened up
And the future is not closed

I dance upon this floor called life
With science on my feet
In curiosity I twirl
Upon philosophy

I stand tall, I am a woman
With hopes, with fears, with dreams
To be the very best I can
And leave my stitch in time

Rise up my sisters’ world round!
And show your rich desire
To be mothers, to be daughters
To be sisters, to be wives
No longer property

Sing loud ye females of this race!
Proclaim in treble clef
That God has made us men’s help meets
And not their serving maids!

-Rebecca Dufresne-

A Warning About My Poetry

2009-09-04T10:37:00.001-06:00

I feel it is necessary to post a short warning about my poetry. This site is intended to be rated PG-13 and lower. This means that while I will not include anything that is sexually explicit, derogatory or descriptively violent I will still be including some material which could be disturbing to younger viewers and those adults who who are more sensitive than others.

No I will not delete these poems. I had a right to write them and they have a right to be read. My poetry is not often long but it is often intense. It is meant to be interpreted a hundred different ways and each person who reads my work seems to come away with a different interpretation. All I ask is that you come to the poetry section with an open mind and if your mind is that of a poet so much the better.

It is my suggestion that parents read over the poems before their children do so they will know which ones they might want to wait for their children to read until they are better able to cognate the meaning or which they think the child might simply require assistance in reading. If you are an overly sensitive individual these poems may not be for you. Each poem is written in a fit of passion, hardly any rhyme, some follow a pattern others do not. So if you think every poem has to follow a set structure you may be a bit shocked by mine.

In any case I hope you will read them and that you will enjoy them.

Tears of Ink

2009-09-04T10:14:00.002-06:00

Tears Of Ink

Tears of ink flow from my pen
Like a rushing flood they spread
Like a landslide pushing on;
Unstoppable,
Undeniable,
The ever advancing rush of words.

-Rebecca Dufresne-

Possessed

2009-09-04T10:12:00.003-06:00

Possessed

Desperate I have sought an exorcist
To drive your memory from me
To remove the ever haunting shade
Of laughter turned to spite and tears

I spoke next to a learned psychologist
To shrink your memory from mine
With long expensive counseling
And his strange techniques

The Medium's efforts did not effect
To lure you from my punished mind
With screams in deepest agony
As you burrow through my soul

It was at the moment I thought brightest
That my darkest moment came
When you came wrapped in cruelty
To tell me of our ended love

There was no difficulty then for you
To svck and drain the life from me
And leave me starving of your love
Chained here in vast despair

I ask not more, my one time love
Than for the freedom you've denied
To my spirit and to my soul
Which writhe within your grasp

Though you are now long gone and free
Look back sometime and think of me
And let this one thought gratify

- Of you I am possessed -

-Rebecca Dufresne-