Seeds posting and cool photos up at Huffinton Post this AM!

2011-05-16T08:51:24-04:00

Check out Rick, SEEDS on Huff Po this AM.

Rick and Charley!

2011-05-10T11:10:03-04:00

Richard Horan's been on a wonderful tour of New England for SEEDS, and was even on PRI's Living on Earth and also On Point with arborist Brian Sayers!! And Charley and I did a fun Q&A at BN in the Bronx, and he did one with MLB historian John Thorn at the Kingston store. Charley's been posting a few original pieces at BullpenDiaires.com, with more to come.

Who can name which publishers have pre-war NYC buildings with their company names on them?

2011-05-09T07:20:18-04:00

publishinginsider

an ode to Earth Day from Richard Horan, author of Seeds

2011-04-22T07:15:55-04:00

I spent much of my childhood playing in the trees. And that is no insignificant matter because our childhood playgrounds, like the Universe itself, are the very goop from which our hearts and minds are created. Freud wrote in The Interpretation of Dreams that “the deeper we go into the analysis of dreams, the more often are we put on the track of childish experiences which play the part of dream-sources in the latent dream-content.” The trees, tree houses, and my father, were the dark forests, castles and giants of my youth.

My very first memory of my father, also the most touching and poignant, is watching him build me a tree house. I couldn’t have been more than three years old. His inner kid must have compelled him to build it because of the squarish grouping of four cherry trees that lay in wait behind our humble home. Completed, it was a sweet little ticket booth in the trees, entrance fees waived in perpetuity.

He always wore white, my dad, when he worked at carpentry. I don’t know why. I see him now in the midst of a sweltering Connecticut summer, his thin lips pursed with determination, the underarms of his faded-white T-shirt shadowed in sweat, his white painter’s pants all gummed up with sawdust and dried glue and splatters of creosote, contrasting wildly to his nappy black hair, while his skinny arms hammered and sawed, hammered and sawed. I can visualize the tree house, too, like a one-eyed little domi-smile, proudly gleaming under the dappled summer rays: two-by-four-by-six-inch incline ladder, wide vertical-length pine siding, paneled front door with a thumb-latch doorknob, two glassless windows—one in the front and one in the back—and a pitched roof. But the most powerful memory of all, is the ubiquitous smell of creosote. She exuded its essence forever more. He really loved that creosote, my dad.

A few years after my own tree house had been built, and, alas all aspects of its endless possibilities had been fully exploited, I discovered another tree house in the neighborhood. But this was no ordinary tree house. This was of psycho-mythic proportions. I found it high up among the scaly branches of a gigantic silver maple, in the midst of a dark wood in an out-of-the-way corner of my little suburban sphere. I almost couldn’t see it for the trees. Painted dark blue, it was an odd rhombus shape, with two distinct levels. The problem was, I couldn’t get inside her. There were no windows, and the only point of entry was a small trapdoor, but it was padlocked.

Then one day, while passing by, lo and behold, the trapdoor lay agape. My heart raced. I don’t know how they normally entered the place because there were no two-by-four slabs nailed to the tree trunk, no rope ladder handy, just the thick bole itself misshapen by a an odd assortment of knots and burls, enough for a kid my size to get a few precious toe-holds on. My eight-year-old agility proved equal to the task, and just like that I was up and in.

Crawling around in the gloaming, I found a veritable treasure trove of wonderalia. There were sleeping bags piled high on all bunks, with pillows and blankets and empty soda bottles and cans and books strewn about, with international flags on the walls, and board games galore stuffed under the bunks. I stayed inside that tree house for hours, weltering in the ecstatic joy of childhood fantasy.

When I grew up, I did not build a tree house for my two daughters because I am not handy like my dad was. He will always have that advantage over me, which is as it should be—fathers and sons both benefit from one another’s advantages. And even though now I do not climb and sleep and build ticket booths in the trees, I continue to walk and imagine among them.

With the national Arbor and Earth Days both coming at the end of April this year, we need to be mindful, and look up. Because in and among the trees, we are all of us children at play.

Check out Seeds, on sale now.

wine in time

2011-04-20T08:43:49-04:00

This spiral wine cellar made me weep with envy.

you and me...and LP's on the roof

2011-04-19T15:46:29-04:00

I feel faint. From Readymade.com...a vinyl record roof!!!!!!!

a forgotten philosopher of words

2011-04-19T06:13:38-04:00

Raymond Moody told me yesterday about JL Austin, a British philosopher who changed the way sentences were thought to work. Fastcinating. I've ordered his books from Powell's.

you tell me

2011-04-18T16:00:25-04:00

I’ve been debating a few things in my head while on the treadmill. Cooler city: Austin or Denver? Cooler phase of a musician’s life: Billy Preston during or after the Beatles? More symbolic tree: oak or maple? And don’t even get me started on cover songs. Ok, I will. Tomorrow.

other publisher pick

2011-04-15T07:11:00-04:00

Kudos to Unbridled Books and the rave Janet Maslin NYT review for The Coffins of Little Hope!

http://unbridledbooks.com/

it's a book!

2011-04-04T11:45:24-04:00

Just rec'd finished copies of Bullpen Diaries, due out April 29. I am so happy!!! Check out Charley's Yankee updates and quotes of the week.

Publishing Insider