Taipei Book Expo '19

  Call me Da-Wei. I was reminded there are very few people you can rely upon and embarked on a trip to the Taipei Book Expo on my own. I was rewarded with the first book I focused on: Moby Dick, illustrated; a ten-pounder that lightened my load instead of weighing me down. I walked on but realized that if I didn't get that Moby it may be gone on the return. I thought it would be $200 or more but it was $27; a one-of-a-kind, just published. Perfect to sit and read in the covered patio on a rainy day. I went back but refused the cloth tote bag with a nifty phrase about socialism and a Karl Marx likeness for a brown paper bag with handles. I had enough of Marx for fashion and walked off to see what other English language books there were; not as many as last year.

There were too many stalls with languages no one in Taiwan read but I guess some publishers needed to digest funds. Taipei Writing Group weren't there this year; I guess they had no funds to digest and no collective output to show. Walking briskly by the Hare Krishna and Bhutan stalls I came around to a bookseller with Wordsworth and Collins Classics pocket books, 99 each; 5 for 450. I was hoping I wouldn't see a Moby and I didn't. But I did see a few Thomas Hardy novels, bought four of them (one a duplicate) and one Jack London White Fang.  

      As I was about to leave, an art retailer with coffee table books, three for 1000, had on top displayed  a grand George Catlin collection of Native American portraits and landscapes from the Smithsonian. With sincere socialists and good times in mind, I couldn't resist the $12 steal, though the bag weighed 20 pounds and the straps were cutting blood circulation in my fingers. They fit in  snugly. like a solid brick; I was ready for a breather at Lobster Foods; New York roll with Guinness on tap then headed back to the Red line to Taipei Terminal for the high speed return to Taichung.

     It's true that the paper bag broke off the bike and spilled the books on the road near the Han River on the bike ride home from the local Taiwan Railroad station. I picked them up oblivious to honking and stuffed them into the plastic Catlin bag. It's true that the plastic bag broke on the step of Renoir Condo as I ended the excursion, but I laughed it off. I can be my bodyguard and I can be my long lost pal, I can call myself and when I do you can call me Ishmael, Da-Wei, or Al.