Shorthand for Nothing

I was searching for Joey Comeau’s Overqualified the other day on Amazon, and I saw something that caught my eye: a listing for his short story collection, It’s Too Late To Say I’m Sorry. I invite you to click through this link and see if you can spot anything wrong. The Loose Teeth Press link might help in this regard; it certainly enlightened me.

The problem? The Amazon link is selling the book for $115.24. Loose Teeth Press has it for $12.95.

I have seen items go for ridiculously high prices on ebay in the past. Harvey Danger’s original demo tape, for instance, sold for something like $300. But these collector’s items are usually rare. The price is inflated by this rarity, coupled with a demand for the product. This book, in contrast, is easily obtained for about $15, and even if it bears a signature (and this is speaking as a man who values his signatures), it’s certainly not $100 worth of rarity. I bet you could get a signature for the price of a SASE. Personalized, even.

It’s obviously just a cynical attempt to capitalize on the association, of course, and an even more cynical way to capitalize on the fact that sometimes people will buy something that is overpriced just because it is overpriced. Selling a book for ten dollars makes it sound like you can easily get it for ten dollars. Selling it for a hundred makes it sound like some rare volume that you’ll be pained to part with, and went through pains to acquire. That it’s probably used only sweetens the apparent deal: the dog-eared pages and the slightly tattered cover makes it look like you’ve just unearthed some arcane volume. If it has a signature it makes it seem like the ultimate of literary treasures.

Someone will probably snap it up eventually. They’ll might even leave the seller a positive review of how great the book is and how lucky they feel to have found it. The seller has thousands upon thousands of positive reviews, so apparently their racket is working out well for them.

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So, I was unpacking earlier and I found a little scrap of paper that I’d seen before but never paid attention to. It’s the first draft of the poem that I like enough to show people even now. Most of my poems, I start to dislike not long after writing them. This one is different. Here is the current/final draft:

Did your eyes sparkle like champagne
when you returned the world to Atlas?
No rocketing corks or explosive fizz
just a quiet effervescence that screamed
“I’m not lonely anymore!” and you weren’t–
lonely, that is,
and with no help but the world.
And when you became what you pretended to be,
did you lift a glass to the horizon?

Did you smile like it’s a crime,
or maybe like a secret between you and me
though we haven’t shared secrets for years?
Did you smile, afraid to smile,
frightened to be unafraid?

Remember when I sang your fears to sleep?
I never expected them to leave.
Did you think of me when they fled?
Or did you drink my memory away?
I know the champagne
is stronger than you’re used to.

It was something in your eyes,
I think,
and I knew you weren’t who you were.
And neither am I–
who I was, I mean,
and so, like strangers,
we pass in the street with a smile and a “What if?”
but we’re not like strangers at all.

The first draft reads as follows:

Did your eyes sparkle like champagne?
No rocketing corks or explosive fizz,
but a quiet effervescence that screams
“I’m not lonely anymore!” and you weren’t–
lonely, I mean, and on your very own,
no help but the world.

Or did you sigh and smile, content,
as you returned the world to Atlas?
And you did grow weary
and made him take it back–
and he was willing to bear it all for you.
Yours was no Herculean task.

I was expecting something I didn’t know I knew:
It was your eyes
(and your smile and your posture and your body language).
They made strangers say you were
the loneliest girl they’d ever seen.
I never understood until I saw
your eyes sparkling like champagne
or maybe I saw your contended smile
as you saw someone else
carry the world.

The rest of the post is concealed behind the jump, in the event you don’t want to read me talking about the “technical” details here. (more…)

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