Monday 10 October 2005

been shoppin'

I went to the campus bookshop academic book sale today - or, more accurately, I went to the last dwindled pitiful dregs of the campus academic book sale today. They only had one table full left, and all books were drastically marked down to fifty per cent of the already discounted price! (see how consumer excitement makes a person start talking ad language?) Anyway, I scored.



From the bottom up:

The Crowd: British Literature and Public Politics by John Plotz. $4!
William Faulkner and Southern History by Joel Williamson. Think I might have read parts of this before. also $4!
Turning Points: Essays in the History of Cultural Expressions, Marshall Brown. $3.50!! which is $1.50 less than the library fine I paid for returning this exact same book two weeks late, last December.
The Embodiment of Characters: The representation of physical experience on stage and in print, 1728-1749, Jones DeRitter. I had this on interlibrary loan in April for Mansfield Park - related reasons, so I think it will be useful again. It was $4 also.

The Moving Pageant: A Literary Source-book on London Street-Life, 1700-1914, ed. Rick Allen. The massive sum of five dollars.
The Full-Knowing Reader: Allusion and the Power of the Reader in the Western Literary Tradition, Joseph Pucci, also $3.50, and on the four or five pages I've read so far, going to help me very very much in my dissertation.

Not pictured: Hurricane Hits England: An Anthology of Writing about Black Britain, ed. Onyekachi Wambu. I bought this because of having enjoyed and been moved by Small Island & thought at the time that I'd like to know more about the subject. That, and it was only TWO DOLLARS, for feck's sake.

The pineapple on top I picked up on the way home, it was $5.59, so it cost more than any of these bled, sweated out, and wept over products of scholarship. Why don't this year's pineapples have the leafy spiky part on top, does anyone know? I feel a bit cheated not being able to pull out the leaves one by one.

9 comments:

R.H. said...

My dissertion on the current societal predilection for headless pineapples will be delivered in a paper to the North Balwyn Ladies Macrame Group next Thursday.

But meanwhile, seeing we're all here, let's have a word about Demographics.

Now then, this term frightens a lot of people, but really, there's no need to cower from it at all. Demographics is just some old codger having a pee in his backyard with an estate agent peeping through the fence.

Yes. That's all. No mystery whatsoever.

Right. Now then, next week should be very exciting. We'll be discussing Life's Chances - and why John Howard is not an Aboriginie. Boy! Bet that's puzzled a lot of you. Anyway, hoping to see you all here, and don't forget to bring along your note books, plus two dollars to cover the tea and biscuits.

Toole-oo

R.H.
(Social commentator)

R.H. said...

Humphrey Bear is an idiot.

R.H.
(Social commentator)

lucy tartan said...

It's puzzled me. But you know! one learns something every day, and that. Don't think I'll make it to the macrame club, but.

R.H. said...

That's okay. Just send the money.

Ampersand Duck said...

Scored, indeed! I bow to your streak of luck.

But ripped off with the pineapple... I think it's a consumer's rights issue, because pulling a bit out of the middle of the spiky end is the best way to tell if the pineapple is ripe. Call the ABC! Alert the free press! We've got a real issue on our hands! Hooray!

uoylf! said Beowolf

The Student said...

You know, the pineapple is underrated in terms of it's comedic value.

As are late night re-runs of Stingers I have just discovered. Get 'em Phelpsy.

(thanks for the link Lucy, I shall reciprocate - however that is spelt)

Cozalcoatl said...

Someone at work was talking about the headless pineapple issue.
I think they said it was so people couldn't grow thier own, by planting the top bit. Why you would wait that long for a stunted Sydney grown pineapple, i have no idea.

lucy tartan said...

My thinkings exactly on the pineapple issue. I suspect also that it's to make them into a shape that's easier to fit in the box, as well. Crap to that. I'm frigging buying the pineapple, I frigging want the leaves as well people. My mildura contacts tell me that fruit is going to be insanely expensive this year because of petrol prices.

Is it actually true that you can grow a new pineapple from the top down?

That's a bit too cheap even by my standards. Unless it's done in the interests of science, of course.

Hi Student. Nice to see you here. I have been lurking round your blog for a while trying, among other things, to figure out if we've ever crossed paths. (Don't think so.) I'm sure that one day I will recognise Gary in the Ag, though.
A fellow Peter Phelps aficionado lives at Boring Like A Drill in the sidebar there, just thought I'd mention that.

The Student said...

We may have, but I'm normally asleep when I'm there.

Assuming you know where there is.