Comix 'n' Scabies at Boxcar Books

Before my vacation to Lake Michigan I was in Boxcar Books getting some reading material. They were having a meeting of the Midwest Pages To Prisoners group. They give books to prisoners so they'll have something to do other than shank each other or sex each other up or just spend all their time lifting weights (or waiting for the really big guys to finish lifting weights). OK, all I 'know' about prison I learned from watching the HBO show OZ, plus 'Midnight Express' when I was a kid, up to the point where the 2 dudes start kissing, which is when my parents turned it off.

There was a guy with long hair and an interesting beard talking to one of the tattooed girls near the cash register. I wasn't really paying attention until 'I have scabies, but it's not active now'. Then I think he asked her for money. All she had to say to him was 'I'm sorry, I can't help you', and shortly after he left.

I got really uncomfortable, wondering if he'd passed on inactive scabies to me. Maybe it would lie dormant, just waiting until I was old and weak, at which point it would flare up. I might even be suffering from the diabeetus, like Wilfred Brimley, and the scabies would be the straw that broke the camel's back, last nail in the coffin, all that.

I picked these up:

• Fuzz and Pluck by Ted Stearn (via the inarticulate starving-to-death-monkey Stearn mocks ascetics and mystics, who probably aren't a big chunk of Fantagraphics' readership)
  
• Found #4 (aka 'Come into our World')
  
• The Comics Journal (requires you to give a shit about details of the industry more than I do, but did tip me off to potentially interesting books)
  
• The Believer (again introducing me to books/writers/artists I've never heard of, but suddenly find very interesting, for example: Marjane Satrapi)
  

I read them all (except the Comics Journal, I skimmed it).

I read this book, which largely has a 'it's a rough and tumble world out there, Data Warehousing ain't no game, son, you best knuckle down and get ready for some pain' tone which was off-putting, but I need to know about this stuff.

I read this book, which was a nice where-are-they-now follow up to Louis Theroux's old 'Weird Weekends' show.

The books were rung up by a friendly young woman with interestingly colored hair and a very detailed, black and white photo like tattoo of Niezsche on her arm.

That's it for now, gotta keep the entries short as in brief (to work on next - more frequently as in often).