Snowbound with Ferrante and Teicher

Today to Howard's and my astonishment we sold the second record in a week from our record shop on Etsy, The Old House Downtown.

We sold a lot over Christmas but after Christmas Day you would think it would die down, the world not being privy to the fact that Christmas actually extends until Candlemas which is Feb. 2.

Perhaps the world is privy to the fact!

One record we sold had a Christmas theme, sort of. It was Ferrante and Teicher's "Snowbound."

That video is all well and good however the art is distorted. The record cover in reality is beautiful.

I will tell you one thing, listening to that YouTube recording I am bitterly regretting selling that record.

"Snowbound ... we're snowbound ...." That is amazing. Alas, the record I sold looked so perfect that I did not want to listen to it and maybe scratch it or something.

Anyway, now I am hoping.

Perhaps people are celebrating Christmas into January!

Perhaps they still have their trees lighted, as I do, and they were listening.

We have the art store on Etsy and that is the one I have been paying the most attention to. But I would like to make the record store a success too. On account of it can dovetail with the book about Leonard Pennario. If I run the world's most successful record shop that adds to my cred.

I will tell you one thing, I have learned a lot from being a record dealer. That was how I thought of it when I worked for The Buffalo News. I would leave after a long day at work and then remember my alter ego, as a record dealer. It was fun to switch gears.

And you learn a ton dealing in records. I love Capitol Records because that was Leonard's label, and face it, it was the coolest label. Founded by Johnny Mercer, need we say more?

But I also love the other labels at the time and the records they made. When I list one I will look up information about the artists involved, and the artists who designed the covers -- because of all my years at The Buffalo News, I learned to turn over rocks. You learn so much. When a big album of Leonard's came out, it is fascinating to see the world it entered. Who else was recording what. What else was going on.

Records are the greatest. I wish I had kept "Snowbound"!

The sketch calendar

Fast away the old year passes! Hail the new, ye lads and lasses!

Also hail my first calendar!

I love calendars and planners as I have surely written about before. I keep a bullet journal. And I thought it would be fun to fit some of my sketches onto calendar month cards.

Hilarious experience putting it together. When I thought everything was in the bag I realized that in three different months, the days were off. Then I kept going back and forth about type faces. There are all these details you never think of.

Luckily having worked for years as a newspaper writer I have all kinds of safeguards in place. You learn to check everything out of necessity.

Here are some of the months lined up like the Rockettes.

The calendar posing on my desk.

Flush with success I added the calendar to the products at BuffaloDonut.com. I also put it in our Etsy store, Buffalo Donut.

May I take this opportunity to say I cannot believe how the year has flown. I cannot believe we are looking at 2020.

Here we are back in Eastern Standard Time, plunged into darkness! And we have already passed All Saints Day and All Souls Day. I heard a priest at church say once that at this time of year, the readings at Mass all turn to matters pertaining to the end of the world. It is a time of year that I confess, I love.

But it all goes so fast!

I will be using my new calendar before I know it!