It's only been a day, and I already feel your absence, your distance. Your accepting arms, your generosity, your wisdom, your humor, your passion... I am bereft of all of them.

I'll admit that I have spent time with others: the glitz of cable TV, the well-worn charms of used bookstores, the newer offerings of Chapters, and of course, the slightly schizophrenic appeal of the Internet. But they can be fickle. Cable and phone can be cut off, Internet connections can fail, and Chapters will throw you out for trying to read the entire run of Naruto in one day. But not you.

L-R: Marius, Stefanie and Christian work the lineup outside Chapters

Oscar's Art Books shouldn't exist. It's been operating for 17 years in its current location, on West Broadway near Granville, and has prospered even when the Chapters megastore opened almost directly across the street. Sean O'Flynn, the owner, attributes this success to specialization and no staff turnover.

Two years ago, O'Flynn decided to undercut the launch of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. He sold copies at a 21 per cent discount instead of Chapters' 20 per cent, and on the night the book went on sale, he walked across the street with a sandwich board and lured people to his shop, like the Pied Piper.

Another piece of what made downtown Granville South the tenderloin of Vancouver is going away. The ABC Book & Comic Emporium (1234 Granville, between Davie and Drake) will be closing this fall and moving elsewhere, casualty of increasing rent downtown.

I've always loved used bookstores. Moreso than first-sale bookstores, they're a testament to the continuing success of the book in our society. Books are so cheap yet durable that they're still usable decades after they are first sold. Long before Napster putting the music industry into a panic, the publishing industry was quite comfortable with an entire industry devoted to buying and selling books after their first sale, technically piracy, but also providing a valuable service in keeping out of print books available and cheap.

Photo from www.climb-acts.com

Maybe I'm old and jaded, my sensibilities dulled after having been involved in the fetish/BDSM scene for more than 12 years, but the song that ran through my mind at Saturday night's Bizarre Fetish Ball was, "Is that all there is?"

The performances were fun, but nothing extraordinary. The exception was Chain Goddess, aka Brandy Wirtz. Unable to walk in her ballet boots, two men had to carry her onto and off the stage. Ballet boots, for the unfamiliar, are high heels taken to their illogical extreme, in which the feet are kept in line with the calf, and the heels extend in parallel. The wearer must walk en pointe. Wirtz' shoes transformed her feet into alien, claw-like appendages. I half-expected her to flex her toes and make the heels snap shut like a lobster's claw.

From Nanarland.com

I endured Plan Nine From Outer Space. I survived Manos: Hands of Fate. I even staggered through to the end of Danger: Diabolik. But I was unprepared for The Man Who Saves the World, better known as Turkish Star Wars. This film should be classified as a mind-altering substance.

Once again, the world seems determined to frustrate any attempt to do the right thing. Like most people, I've got a small box of dead batteries lurking in my kitchen junk drawer (from before I switched to using mainly rechargables) and I have no idea what to do with them. The question turned up on the Vancouver LiveJournal community a couple of times in the past month, inspiring me to investigate further.