Every week I take my son Aidan to a psychotherapy appointment in Montpelier, where he receives “play therapy” that is supposed to help him resolve issues arising out of his schizophrenia. I’ve got an hour to kill, so I usually walk around town, visit the bookstores, etc. Today, I went to Bear Pond Books in the very lefty capitol of Vermont. I was hoping to pick up a certain volume by Martin Amis that’s been recommended to me by several people. It wasn’t there.
I did notice a copy of something called Ho Chi Minh: The Missing Years. Although I’d love to round out my discography of The Ho, it was a little pricey. Whilst browsing, though, I came across something rather appalling: the “Little Thinkers” Che Guevara doll, complete with a hang-tag that outlines what a sweet and wonderful guy Che was, and what a deep thinker. Only $16. So, if you know anyone who’s looking really hard for a child-murdering plush doll, you can steer them that way.
On the way out, I inquired of the owner whether anyone’s ever complained about it. Taken aback, he said, after a moment’s pause, “Not bloody likely.” I told him I though it was a very, very strange sort of doll to sell.
I’d really hate for anybody to pick up on this story, because I put it down to sheer ignorance.
Angie Shultz had this years ago.
That’s disappointing. My son has the Einstein doll from the same series. If I’d known they were idolizing a murdering commie, I would have bought him a different Albert.
My son must have picked up on it, because Albert has been for a long time “not my favorite”.
It’s probably the hair, Alice.
But he seems to like troll dolls…
Ahhh…Vermont. I went to grad school at Middlebury after graduating from U of South Carolina. Silly me, I wore my leather jacket to Ben and Jerry’s due to the chill in the air and was treated to spoonfuls of scorn and opprobrium to go along with my chocolate chip cookie dough cone. I sure miss that type of antagonism.
TW: I heard you often, but not followed by 19. More like “fascist motherfucker.”
What’s next?
Dumbass. You should have worn a $400 Carhartt knockoff.
Yeah, B Moe. Why don’t you suggest that to Little Thinkers. It’s kind of “edgy.”
I’d really hate for anybody to pick up on this story, because I put it down to sheer ignorance.
Too
Late.
By more than two years.
Is this where I get into a funk about being ignored by the big bloggers?
Sorry, Angie. I meant in relation to Bear Pond Books. You know–think globally, fuck locally.
– I always try to fuck locally, whenever possible. Long distance bangbang is rather contact limited.
– Dear old Dad was a Pelierite. Been once, at which time I tipped my hat to his headstone, did a merciless 5 hours Easter night at the only Orthodox church within 200 miles, and skipped town.
– Speaking of mercenary dolls, Greenwald is missing a real marketing bonanza. I keep waiting for the Ellesburg Scottish brogue Sock puppet doll to hit the store shelves.
Dan, is the Amis volume in question “Koba the Dread”? Because if it is, you can add me to the list of recommenders.
I sent the John Robert’s little boy the “Little Thinkers” Uterus Plush doll. It’s cute, it comes with a “name” of the woman that used to own it.
How’d you know, Phil?
Jeremy,
A Ben & fucking Jerry’s?
The last time I was there (admittedly in the mid 70″s), Ben and Jerry were just a gleam in their father’s eyes. All I found was a girl with no shirt, clown make-up, and a decided bent to give me head, post haste.
JACKPOT!, you say? No. It freaked the shit out of me! I loved “head”, but this was the first time I ever said to myself: “WTF am I doing?” Or actually “WTF is wrong with this girl?”
I was not familiar with alcoholic delusion at that time. I was a pothead, and didn’t want to screw up the buzz with alcohol. Silly me.
I loved those young women (especially when they lowered the drinking age to eighteen – which meant that most of the “women” at a bar were between 13 and 16). But I was young and hormonally overwhelmed. Please do not judge me. As if I really give a shit. When you’re 21 years old, the younger the better (well up to [down to?] a certain point).
Please! Don’t ever put on a clown nose for any oral sex sessions. Really. It’s beneath you and it’s really fucking scary for anyone you haven’t known for at least eight years. And you could freak the shit out of the person you are trying to “do”, but if you are wearinf a red clown nose, that might be just what you are trying to do..
Thank you. I should probably write a column for “The Weekly” (or is it the “Weakly”?
I am constitutionally incapable of taking that kind of abuse anymore. Not US Constitution, MY Constitution. I’ve hear too much of that bullshit.
At the first sign of it, I threaten to start breaking things. If that doesn’t work, I yell and throw things….
TW: I wasn’t born a monster. I became92 a monster.
Sweet holy Jesus.
Think I could get one to use as a voodoo doll to work on Castro???
I’m sure they had a Hitler, Musollini, and Idi Amin doll somewhere on the premises. Perserverance my dear boy.
TW: there68
Actually I’m glad I wasn’t.
Please, tell me he wasn’t British.
Or do they talk like that in Vermont?
Dan,
Educated guess, based on the fact that it’s basically Amis’s personal Big Black Book of Communism.
I’m a big fan of his fiction, and in a way Koba is as powerful as any of his novels. It really puts the lie to all those old “liberals in a hurry”, and it’s gut-wrenching seeing him come to grips with his father’s Communist history.
tw: shot71? That was a slow day for Koba.
Which, come to think of it, no surprise that that bookseller didn’t carry Koba. Marty and Hitch are personae non grata with the reality-based community these days.
furriskey,
It was a leftie bookstore. They’re not commoners, you know.
neo commoners?
Y’know, when I was a boy my old man told me:
“The people who preach ‘peace’ and ‘love’ will be the first ones to shove you to your knees and put a bullet in your head if you disagree with them.”
He was wise and I never forgot what he told me.
He also said:
“Treat every gun as though it were loaded. So you might as well load it!”
And:
“What good is a deterrent if you can’t use it?!”
I miss my ol’ man….
TW: He wasn’t military28 just an old cold warrior.
Dan, why didn’t you ask if there was a Friedrich von Hayek doll?
Sorry, mishu. I was having a rather strained conversation with the proprietor. Also, I don’t know who that is.
Gray,
Your’ dad and my dad would have been friends.
TW:costs46 At Wall Mart I could get it for 35!
ChrisP
He wrote this. It inspired Margret Thatcher’s politics.
FYI, I rather liked this column on Che by Jay Nordlinger.
Vermont is another planet.
Last time I was in Montpelier I remember two book stores more or less across the big downtown street from each other – one was a used bookstore, the other a new one.
The state capitol’s golden dome looks a little, well, Muslim, doesn’t it?
btw, the owner of Montpelier’s Savoy Theatre, Rick Something-or-Other is a socialist.
Che was so uncivilized. How rude to do the killing yourself when everyone knows the proper thing is to hire the children of the underclass to do it for you.
They’ll do the oppressing Americans won’t do.
Would have avoided that whole Abu-Ghraib thing, if Bush had just lined the whole bunch up against a wall and shot them in the back like Che.
Yeah, pretty brave to have put a cap in the head of a 14-year-old boy, then to have cravenly begged when he was captured in Bolivia.
And just when I think I’m going to stop personally complaining about Marcotte, one of her friends pops by to make me reconsider.
You’d better check out the statistics regarding the children of the underclass, C.Diane, even though we understand you are all so reality-based that evidence doesn’t matter.
Jeremay–
Bernie Sanders is a Socialist.
Hey Dan, I didn’t know you lived in VT. Bear Pond Books is the great granddaddy of stupid hippie book stores. People say to me, “Well don’t you want to support independent bookstores?” Sure, whatever, but if I have to put up with a bunch of “Rethuglicans are the devil!” bullshit every time I walk in, I dont’ see why I should bother. If my money’s not green enough for them, it’s sure green enough for the Borders in Tax-Free New Hampshire.
Vermont’s a lot more Conservative than most people realize. Once you get out of the city (such as it is) and into the country there are quite a few extremely conservative people. And there’s the old saying “Vermont’s the state where even the hippies have a gun rack in their Volvo.” I think Vermont’s due for a swing back to the right. I thought that was going to be last November, but it looks like I was wrong on that. Another six years of Saint Bernard!
True, Bryan, but there are also a lot of very expensive Volvos with “US Out of Vermont” on one side of the bumper and “Bernie Sanders” on the other side.
I’m sorry, BBH, but as my dad always used to tell me, never sleep with a woman who lives any closer than 500 miles away.
I didn’t believe him for many, many years.
We hire the children of really stupid people, the mentally ill and drug addicts? Because that’s the only underclass we’ve got.
Them fellas blow shit up pretty good for having come from such derelict beginnings.
I love using bookstores. Because I can just walk away and they have to clean up my mess. How cool is that?
Dan,
I met “Bernie” – I mean, Senator Sanders – when I lived (briefly) in Burlington.
Q: What’s a not-so-nice Brooklyn Jewboy like you doing in a place like this?
A: What all the other hyper-liberal white-flighters do in Burlington:
* take back the night
* build socialism in one city
* knit
* compost teabags
* teabag composters
* and of course make a point of being nice to all the black people who don’t live there