Back Pocket/Winter update
Hasn’t been much to report on our end here at anecdote, but wanted to show off the new space we have at Back Pocket Vintage! A little more shelf room than before and I’m rotating in new stock weekly. The store has an event/sale coming up this weekend with additional hours for the holiday season. Stop in and say hey to Ally and Jacob and browse their awesome space for some holiday gifts.
Looking for some winter options for a pop-up or two and I’ll be sure to check in here…
St. Paul Almanac 2025
Still working on the next event for anecdote, but wanted to let folks know that I have a poem published in this year’s St. Paul Almanac! It’s a fantastic annual publication that brings together voices from all walks of life in the city. I’ll be doing a reading at the great St. Paul bookstore Next Chapter Books on Wednesday, October 29th with several other writers from 6-8pm. I’m fairly certain this is my first ever reading…no guitar to hide behind! Check out the links and look for the book around town!
October means art crawls and MEA
Two October events starting with this weekend at the White Squirrel parking lot on Sunday 10/12 as part of the Sounds of Schmidt/Schmidt Art Crawl. We’ll be out there 2-7pm, weather permitting. The following weekend, we’ll be back at Brake Bread for their “M-E-YAY” event from 8am-1pm on Saturday the 18th. There will be a number of vendors and activities in the parking lot that day. Check the events page for more!
Also, just a reminder that we have a shelf at Back Pocket Vintage that I’m refreshing each week as things sell. They’ve really settled into the space nicely–give ’em a visit soon!
I just reread Warren Zanes’ Deliver Me From Nowhere about the making of Bruce Springsteen’s album Nebraska in advance of the box set coming out (and yes, the movie of the same name. I was skeptical of adapting that particular source material to the screen, but if Bruce signed off on it….). Also Insomnia by Stephen King. It is spooky scary season, after all. Cue up “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” and I’ll see you on West 7th St. this month!
Brake Bread, Back Pocket, and upcoming sales…
We had our first sale at Brake Bread a few weeks back and had such a great time that we’ll be back for an event on October 18th for MEA weekend. Not only are their breads and pastries elite, but it’s a quick walk from home with Cooley, so they are truly good neighbors to have.
Big news for our friends Ally and Jacob at Back Pocket Vintage as they opened their brick and mortar store last week! They share a great building with Wabasha Brewing (go just past the Taco House–can’t miss it) and are kind enough to offer space in their spot for other vendors, including an area for anecdote. Check that polaroid and give ’em a visit.
Finally, just a reminder and announcement that this Sunday the 28th we’ll be back at JS Coffee patio from 10-2 and are dropping in at the White Squirrel on Tuesday the 30th from 3-7. Full details on the events page.
September Events
Had a great couple of sales for the second half of the summer and we’ve got two coming in September at Brake Bread on the 13th and back at JS Coffee on the 28th. Full info on the events page and you can subscribe here if you’re so inclined.
Speaking of JS, check out that anecdote crew at the last sale! My friend Sean (pictured, left) has a rep as a man about town, wearing all kinds of hats–trivia, jazz, bass, dad, podcasting, radio, having coffee with me, and writes about it all at his fantastic blog. Check it out. (Also below, some recent and upcoming reads.)
Looking forward to seeing folks out and or about this month. Still working on some ideas for the colder months. Also sometime soon I’ll get around to my sure-to-be-a-hit series “Things I’ve Found In Books.”
Update: 9/30 sale added at the White Squirrel patio 3-7pm.
July 15, 2025-Novellas!
Here are two that I bought last summer in San Francisco at a great shop we happened upon called Dog Eared Books. Great name and logo. Both of these seemed like good SF finds. Had never read Trout Fishing In America and I’m currently in a half-assed, occasional effort to read Kerouac’s Duluoz Legend in order. I check in with the next one every 4-6 months or so… This also reminds me to read some Nicholson Baker.
This coming Sunday, July 20th is the next pop-up event–check the events page for full info and if you’d like to join the email list, just drop a line at anecdotebooksstp@yahoo.com and I’ll get the very occasional update your way.
June 26, 2025 – It was more or less twenty years ago…
During the most recent round of pondering my space for books in the house (this is also a forever game with the vinyl collection), I came across a couple of books I’ve owned for over twenty years, from my Half Price Books days.* The first of which, The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte, falls somewhere between The DaVinci Code and Foucault’s Pendulum on the scale of “literary/ancient secret society/conspiracy” novels. You don’t necessarily need to have read Dumas (I barely have) and while the protagonist is reasonably detestable, you nevertheless end up rooting for him. Also, I’ll almost always check something out that has to do vaguely with a “book detective” or the like. Fun and well-written. More on this in a minute.
A Fan’s Notes by Frederick Exley is one that I started and set down about twenty years ago, perhaps ill-equipped to embrace (yet another?) barfly narrator who harbors grand visions of his own creative talents and laments the loss on the world that he yet to capture his vision into a cast-iron masterpiece. It would seem I am better at relating to that now.
My buddy/bandmate/and yes, HPB coworker** Jake had recommended it to me at the time and I suppose I always felt out of respect for him that I would tackle it again someday. The book had those moments that I suppose I find in Kerouac and the like, where there are some absolute rambles that nevertheless contain a sentence or two out of nowhere that leave you holding a breath in for a second to reread it. He also nails a few things pertaining to drinking, sobriety, and that bittersweet and autumnal twist in time when a person realizes that they are at best a hobbyist in their craft and then finding out whether that makes them a bitter person or one more at peace. Wistful read in any case, like when you receive some light to moderate constructive criticism that you want to take personal and yet can’t because you know that there is at least some truth in it. This edition was one of those eighties-era Vintage Contemporaries publications. I’m low-key fascinated by these and their strange covers. They are invariably good reads in my experience…I’ll have to do some looking into more of them.
It then turns out there was a third book that had an HPB sticker on it (9/06 in this case) in this recent scan of our shelves, though I’ve yet to read it. Author Unknown by Don Foster is another that has made it through a couple moves and then stayed on the shelf here at home for an additional fifteen years. TRUE tales of a Literary Detective. I’ll likely dig into this soon. This is the guy who, among many other things (check out his resume), figured out that the Anonymous author of the “novel” Primary Colors was journalist Joe Klein. Klein also wrote the definitive Woody Guthrie biography, and one of my all-time favorite books, Woody Guthrie: A Life.
Anyway, thanks for swinging by this far…the next pop-up will be at Eclipse Records in downtown St. Paul on Sunday, July 20th from 11-3pm. I believe the record store will be open 11-7 as a special event during the Yacht Club festival weekend.
*This will inevitably come up a lot, as I worked there for six very formative years and this is a blog about books.
**See?
June 16, 2025 – Maiden Voyage
It’s taken a week to actually collect some thoughts, but we had a fantastic first event at Kev Fest at the White Squirrel on the 7th. As I’ve been playing fewer shows than usual over the past twenty-odd years, leaning a bit into this book pop-up has been a refreshing and different way to interact with my community. There’s something mighty comforting about connecting over books. I had a stream of small conversations* with people all day about what they had been reading or how we felt about a shared read, or any tangent that may spiderweb out from there.
Also had a great time being set up next to my buddy (and former trivia co-host) Tom and his store Media Monster.** We worked together at Half Price Books for a number of years in our twenties and always joked/hoped/planned that we’d have a store together someday. He’d be the comics and movies guy, me the records and books. Things just take a different shape at a different pace sometimes…
The library cart (General Fiction) was crucial as were the Barber’s crates for many of our small sections*** and the bookmarks arrived just in time. Maggie added most of the extra aesthetic touches to the booth, from the little section signs with the card catalog vibe to the flower arrangements, leaving the alcove feeling as much like a little shop as we could have hoped. The rain towards the end was a challenge, but with a good team helping, we got everything covered and packed up for a day that flew by. A tiring and yet nourishing time. Looking into a few options for a July sale and will be back at the White Squirrel in August. Huge shout to the staff of the Squirrel. Thanks to everyone that stopped by last Saturday and keep an eye peeled on the events page if you come back this way.
Martin
*there’s too much of a temptation to slip down the rabbit hole of anecdote jokes and puns here, so just gonna cut that out in advance.
**He sold a VCR!
***During one of my stints as a cheesemonger, we would get these 40# blocks of Barber’s English Cheddar around the holidays. The crates that they came in were a hot commodity among the employees, as they served as cool makeshift bookshelves. The ones I still had (and some wine crate/bachelor bookshelves of my youth) are housing some of the smaller sections like sports, cooking, etc. The cheese itself is fine. Standard English cheddar fare. We got it for a good sale price.
May 15, 2025 – Hello
Over the past year, through much pining, planning, and percolating, an endeavor emerged. and anecdote books is the result of all that ruminating. With the used book shop as an endangered species in this here year of 2025, we wanted to create something that connects community through the time-tested, tactile experience of reading. With the pop-up market booming in the Twin Cities, there are a lot of vintage vendors, record dealers, and artists of all types peddling their respective wares, but one area that seemed to be lacking: books. So we’re taking a leap–albeit a small one–into the world of used books. Look for us at pop-up events and markets starting this June (the 7th, to be exact). No social media. Just this site for events, updates, and assorted brain spillage on the blog. See you in the parking lots and yards of 651 and 612 with plenty of books and yes, anecdotes.
Martin
Check out the used library cart we just picked up (books added later)!
