Insects (Bookhounds)

 

Behold its antique glory.

First purchased in the early 1900s by a retiring Military officer who was coming to Bermuda to take up a Colonial job, later to live out his days in the subtropics, it has been in the same family ever since. Until now. The owners are going to the UK to be closer to their kids, the cost of shipping was exorbitant, the kids didn't want it, and I said that if their choice was between taking it to the dump or giving it to me, give it to me.

They did.

See, down here, antiques are not prized. Ironically, we have too many of them. Not that the island's a hotbed of things that would make the antiques roadshow crew weep with joy, no no. These are the midlevel items. The decent repair stuff, the slightly dinged, the much-loved. The local National Trust, which looks after old homes and heritage, is always overwhelmed with 'gifts' from people who can't bear to see granny's old whatsit go to the great furniture repository in the sky but who don't want to keep it themselves. The Trust hasn't the heart to tell them that granny's old whatsit is a fairly mediocre example of the brand.

However, I've wanted one of these for a while, because of our insect problem.

I like books. I think you know that by now. I do not like cockroaches, but I have them anyway - not by choice, mark you. Other insects too, for that matter. Some of whom are really far too fond of antiquated binding. Many's the time I've brought home something from the Argosy, put it down somewhere for a day or two, and found a hole chewed in it. See, the little beggars love them some leathery or leather-adjacent goodness, particularly if it's seasoned with dried-out bookbinding glue or old sinews.

There's a couple ways of combating this. A dedicated extermination campaign, for example. More difficult than you'd think, even with the off-brand and probably illegal insecticides you can get in the islands. Some form of internal climate control to reduce humidity and discourage insect activity, which does work but tends only to be available to the ungodly rich, since electricity on that scale costs a bundle.

Or one of these bad boys. 

Removing the books to a place where the insects can't get at them is great. Traditionally I've moved books that might be vulnerable to a place in the house I don't use for anything else; roaches tend to prefer living close to humans, probably because we leave crumbs and other goodies lying around. Now I can start putting the vulnerable items behind a thick glass door. 

It's not a perfect system. There's still risk involved. But it does work, or at least it works better than leaving things out in the open on an uncovered shelf.

There are all kinds of insects that eat books. I'm personally fond of the deathwatch beetle, that beloved staple of old homes and old ghost stories. Their distinctive tapping or ticking noise used to attract mates is what gives them their name. Ghost tradition has it that the knocking is a harbinger of death, and in old books like Bluenose Ghosts you can find ghastly tales of soft knocking on the door from hands that aren't hands - three of those, and you're sure to die within the year. 

Ironically there is biological precedent. The deathwatch beetle has a three-tap rhythm. Males usually tap first, and females tap only in response to males. A female responds within 2 seconds of a male tap. After the female responds, a male will tap again from 2 to 30 seconds later. 

Three ghost knocks.

When I was still in the building surveying trade I was assured that the deathwatch was on its way down the dodo's path, due to lack of available foodstuff. They like wooden wainscoting and similar things, which were prevalent in housing before the second world war but which died out with the modern building boom. Whether that's true or not I couldn't tell you, but that's what we were told.

Bookhounds touches on the subject of insect attacks but doesn't go that far. However, if worms which gnaw on wizards' corpses grow to become wizard themselves, it stands to reason that insects which gnaw on Mythos texts grow to be something hidjeous and vile. 

From which:

Deathwatch

Your store's staff are about to go on strike.

They claim to be terrified of the ghost knocks. Some maleficent entity must have come in the shop after the last big book-buying spree, they say, and ever since it's been haunting the place. Its knocking noise is causing a furor. 

That's not all it's causing. The Hounds notice that some of their most important texts are suffering insect damage. It's getting pretty bad, enough that the shop may suffer a Reverse. You can't advertise a copy of the King In Yellow as calf-bound first edition excellent condition if some little swine has nibbled chunks out of that binding. That brings it down to Reading Copy level pretty damn quick, with consequent knock-on to the price. 

Something Must Be Done.

What?

Option One: Crawling Chaos. It's not deathwatch, though it certainly sounds like deathwatch. It's actually Brood of Ehiort, which came in on the back of a house clearance in which texts beloved of the Severn Valley Cult were purchased. There aren't enough of them to constitute a simulacrum but more and more are breeding all the time. Left unchecked, eventually a pale man will form. Once that pale man forms it will start constructing a Fane in some forgotten part of the shop or basement, and soon after that it will start to contact other Brood in the area. A vast swarm could eventually gather ...

Option Two: Roach Swarm. A peculiar kind of revenant haunts the shop. It can only act through roaches, and it attracts roaches by the dozen. There are only a few of them for now, but they're forming peculiar patterns when they're on the march, and their blood leaves stains on the walls that are uncomfortable to look on. Time to start scrubbing the walls down and getting out the Blast-It bug repellent. Otherwise those roaches will take over the place, and that peculiar chant the staff are repeating will become more than just an earworm ...

Option Three: Enemy Action. This isn't an insect problem. It's a rival bookstore problem. Someone from a competing shop is dealing with its insect issues by making them march across to the Hound's shop. Every so often a staff member from the rival comes to the Hound's place and discreetly disgorges another batch. Perhaps they do this Great-Escape style by having the bugs hid up their trouser cuffs, or perhaps they leave a tainted book on the shelf like a calf-bound Trojan Horse. Either way, that shop's problem will soon become the Hound's problem, unless they take action.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

New York O God The Books

Well.

My wallet has two hernias but I'm not sorry.

Let's review. 

Bought at the Mysterious Bookshop we have two Crime Classics from E.C.R. Lorac, aka Edith Rivett, a novelist I highly recommend to anyone interested in crime fiction. I've read them both, which given that I got home Monday should show you how highly I rate them. Especial recommendation to Bookhounds of London Directors, as the London she writes of is wartime London. That's a little out of the usual Bookhounds timeline but not by much, which makes it good source material. Plus, there's a wealth of historical data here, because Rivett lived through it and knows wherof she speaks. Also Deadly Isle: A Golden Age Mystery Map. Because I'm not a heartless monster. I see the same publisher does maps for Los Angeles, Agatha Christie's England, and the Hardboiled Apple. Hmmmm ...  

Bought at the Strand we have Boys from Brazil, The Borrowed and The Midnight Washerwoman and other tales of Lower Brittany. Boys should need no introduction. The Borrowed is a series of tales about a detective nicknamed the Eye of Heaven, who makes things hot for Hong Kong criminals. Midnight Washerwoman by Francois-Marie Luzel is the kind of thing I go to the Strand for; their Mythology section often has treasures like these hiding away.

Bought at Barnes & Noble on 14th - highly recommend this big box store, it has damn near everything including a well-stocked selection of Criterion blu-ray discs - I got a Thomas Ligotti and an intriguing reprint of an old horror novel, the Auctioneer. I haven't dipped my toes into either pond just yet but am looking forward to it.

Bought at Tannens - everyone who visits NYC should go to the oldest magic shop in the Western hemisphere - we have Steinmeyer's book on the old illusion Pepper's Ghost, and an encyclopedia of cigarette tricks. Because if you're going to write about period things you need to have an understanding of how these things work, and while cigarette tricks are a bit old these days, they were all the rage in the 1920s. 

Bought at the Argosy, and anyone who has any interest in the written word needs to pay the Argosy at least one visit in their lifetime. Its collection is a must-see. Oddly, the first time I tried to visit I couldn't get in because they were filming a Goosebumps film. So, if you should see it on the small or big screen sometime soonish, well, that's why. The Tim Powers needs no explanation. The Toy Boats book is very relevant to something I'm working on. I think I read it before, in a library; now I have a copy. The other two are creaky real-life crime collections. As I've said before, if you want to work within a historical period, you need to know what they were thinking even if what they were thinking is ludicrous.

Bought at Forbidden Planet. Also bought at Forbidden Planet, a Shaw Brothers collection and a blu-ray of the old 80s horror, House. Again, I'm not a heartless monster. 

Bought at the Compleat Strategist. It was a tough decision between this and Old West Cthulhu, but I'm not sorry. I haven't had a chance to more than skim the first few pages. I'll have more to say about this later. 

Shows I would recommend to any lover of the stage:

Stalker! No lie, my plane landed at 4 and I was in my seat by 7. This mentalist act is an absolute joy to behold.  Brynolf & Ljung are masters of the craft and by God do they let you know it. I was up on stage with them getting utterly foozled and I don't regret a second of it. The concluding performance (I hate to call it trick) is an absolute brain-buster and I shan't spoil, but I kinda wish I had been the target ...

Twenty Sided Tavern! This was my Tuesday joy. I've seen similar setups at improv before but this is something in a class of its own. I don't know if you've ever seen anything like it? Twenty gives you an improv D&D session in one evening, where our heroes - a plump Holy Turkey, a Wild West Dead Man Walking and a Wizard with a Switchblade (lover of fresh kidneys) - took on a chaos mist that threatened to destroy the weave. I like to laugh. I had plenty of chances that night.

 

The staging was very effective. That back wall? One big screen. Once the action started that screen showed everything from landscapes to hit points. When the audience intervened with their own choices, the screen showed the result. Pro tip: if you go, try to get seats close to the front row. You won't regret it!

That's it for this week! Next week: ahhh, why spoil? ;)  

Books! Glorious Books.

 I arrived home poorer financially, but not poor in spirit. I brought home a cargo of books, as you can see. But what, you ask, was the result?

Well!

David Wellington, 99 Coffins and Vampire Zero. If you remember Wellington, that’s because you read his Monster Island series of zombie apocalypse novels. I think I may have mentioned him in a Bookshelf, lo, these many moons past. In Monster Island, followed by Monster Nation and Monster Planet, he started off with a great idea: dude from UN shanghaied during zombie apocalypse is sent to NYC to pick up meds for a Somali warlord afflicted by AIDs, since the UN building is the only place anyone can think of where someone can reliably get said meds. Sold. Job done. Problem being, that plot didn’t quite sustain the novel, never mind the following two books. Here we have a situation where reluctant modern-day vampire hunter is, first, sent off to deal with Civil-War era shenanigans, and then, in the next novel, has to deal with her former mentor who’s gone rogue and joined the fang gang. I admit, this was a gamble purchase. I'll have to see whether it was worth the $7 or so the Strand charged me for them. [spoiler alert: ehhhhhh ... *shrug*]

Christianna Brand, Green For Danger. Classic crime from the British Library. I’ve already seen the film so I kinda know whodunit, but that shan’t stop me enjoying this one. World War Two drama in which a mysterious person is unceremoniously offed on the operating table. The person who says she knows what happened is stabbed to death moments later …

Agatha Christie Mallowan, Come, Show Me How You Lived. Period archaeology, and yes, it is that Agatha Christie. If nothing else this will be excellent research material, but Dame Agatha is always readable so I’m expecting great things.

Arthur Machen, The Three Impostors. I’m going to delve deeper into this in a separate post. Briefly, excellent horror fiction that GUMSHOE Directors should be poaching ideas from left, right and center. A group of disparate acquaintances discover that they’ve all had close encounters with mysterious forces, apparently led, coordinated or otherwise involved by the young man with spectacles – whoever or whatever he may be …Even if you've never read the novel you have almost certainly read The Novel of the Black Seal and The Novel of the White Powder, both of which are part of the Three Impostors and both of which have been anthologized in many publications since.

William Hope Hodgson, The House on the Borderland. Often called a classic of the genre, this is one I actually wouldn’t recommend to most people. It has a strong premise but no follow-through: two friends on a fishing expedition discover a mysterious house, and a diary written by the man who lived there. Expect much luminous and hallucinogenic imagery and almost no plot whatsoever. Worth picking up if you enjoy delving into the history of horror.

Bartholomew Gill, The Death of an Ardent Bibliophile. A policeman pays what amounts to a welfare check on a notorious bibliophile only to find him dead and naked. Or naked and dead, whichever way you’d prefer to read that sentence.

C. Daly King, Obelists at Sea. Another classic crime novel, with the added bonus that this is set on a classic cruise liner. Neatly involving two of my personal obsessions in one package. Job done.

Paul Halter, The Mask of the Vampire. A locked room mystery master tackles supernatural murder. This is a translation of the French original. Vampires and a Frenchman’s interpretation of the English countryside murder mystery? Oho!

Seishi Yokomizo, The Village of Eight Graves. I’ve mentioned his work before. Yokomizo-san struggled to find a market before the War and very nearly starved to death during it, but post-War found fame with his series of historical mystery novels. Once upon a time greedy villagers murdered eight samurai for the stolen gold the samurai were supposedly guarding. Nobody ever found the money; many died from the samurai curse. Now, it seems, the bloody work of vengeance is to begin anew as unlucky heir BLANK comes back to his birthplace, a village he has never seen in his life.

Ken Weber, Maximum Entertainment 2.0. Bought at Tannen’s Magic Shop, a place I thoroughly recommend to all visitors to NYC with even a passing interest in stage magic. I bought this for research purposes; I couldn’t card trick my way out of a rabbit’s hat. However, if you’re going to write about something – say, if you intend to write a novel with a magician as a main or major character – you need to know the business of performance. You need to know what it is to put on a show. That’s what Weber does, and he does it very well.

Lafcadio Hearn, Chita. I admit without shame that I'd buy/read anything Hearn ever wrote and I await the day when someone gathers all his newspaper columns in one anthology. This is his account of the hurricane of 1856 and, speaking as someone who lived through hurricanes: 110%, no error. Horror writers ought to at least read the first chapter, if you read nothing else. 

Radley Balko, Rise of the Warrior Cop If you want to understand how the US became what it is today, you need to read books like these. Balko charts the militarization of America's police, from its earliest days to the no-knock present. The downfall of the Castle Doctrine, one coffin nail at a time.

New York, New York

I'm back!

I'm also knackered, but that's usually a sign of a good vacation. This time I did in a week what can be done in a week, as opposed to last time when I did in three days what ought to take two weeks. Fun times, but by God I was wrecked at the end of it.

No, this was a much more relaxed time away. Christmas fairs, shopping, comedy clubs, improv clubs (the PIT in midtown is a lot of fun if you enjoy that sort of thing, and their improv D&D was a blast!), the lot. I didn't see as many museums as I thought I might, but that's mainly because the Frick, which was on the list, is undergoing renovations and I got lost on the way to the Merchant's House. Boy, did I feel like a sucker. I used to know that part of town so well, too ...

Films I recommend:

Framing Agnes

A fascinating glimpse at what it meant to be trans back in the 1950s. The talk show concept kinda didn't work for me; it made the film feel static and a little slow at times. That said, the subject is engrossing and the lives of the people the doc talks about are, well, actual lives. They don't try to tell a morality tale or a good-people-triumph or any kind of mythologizing. It's just the story, neat, no ice no water.

 The Draughtsman's Contract

Mad as a box of frogs. A wealthy, bored and unhappy wife hires an artist to draw her husband's house and grounds while he is away on business. He does so, on terms that include sex. Pretty vigorous and nasty sex, by the look of it. Then the husband turns up dead. It's not a murder mystery, really, not in the Agatha Christie sense, but murder definitely has its place in the narrative.

Both seen at the Film Forum, which I heartily recommend to anyone visiting New York. In the same week I was there the Forum also showed Welles' The Trial, which I also heartily recommend and have seen many times - though not this trip.

Books!

Once again the Compleat Strategist, Argosy and Strand did me good. I shan't go through the list of Christmas books bought, but:

Joe Lansdale, Savage Season & Rumble Tumble. This is one of those nostalgia purchases. I was a big fan of Lansdale once upon a time but I never got heavily into Hap and Leonard, his two detectives; I was fonder of his horror work. I figured this was as good a moment as any to find out how much I might like the series, and I was right. Recommended to lovers of film noir and pulp action.

William Gibson, Spook Country. Bought on a whim on my last day there, I haven't read it yet but am looking forward to it. Again, a nostalgia purchase; like everyone else I read Count Zero, Johnny Mnemonic and Neuromancer back in the before times, but I haven't read any Gibson in years. Time to rectify that.

Paul Vanderwood, Satan's Playground: Mobsters and Movie Stars in America's Greatest Gaming Resort. Brilliant historical romp through the twists and turns of Tijuana's dark past, it opens with a shootout over the cash from a casino group and closes with the end of Agua Caliente back in the late 20s. It's a great resource for Keepers, and a fun read for fans of true crime.

Basil Thompson, My Experiences At Scotland Yard, 1923, covers the turn of the century and Great War period. I think you can guess why I wanted this one. I haven't read it yet but am looking forward to it!

Emanuel Lavine, Secrets of the Metropolitan Police, 1937. Again, I think you can guess why I wanted this one. Good Trail of Cthulhu fodder!

Vampire: The Masquerade - the Second Inquisition. It was either going to be this or the Blood Cults book, and it was a tough choice. Maybe next time, Blood Cults! I also picked up some Vampire dice. Yes, I am a sucker. Mainly inspired by Jacob Burgess' Vampire game over at LoadingReadyRun. 

OK! That's it for this one. As mentioned, I'm going to take a break for the remainder of the year and come back raring to go in the New Year.

Question for the hive mind: I know I've talked a lot about Bookhounds and Night's Black Agents, less so other systems. Is there a particular gaming system you'd like me to explore in the New Year?

Books, Glorious Books

via the Mercatus Center

I have returned from New York City and now know what Brunch is. 

I was sitting in my usual coffee shop about a week or so back building up the mental strength to go to work and someone sat next to me asked if I was a local. She went on to ask if I could recommend a good place to eat brunch, which puzzled the hell out of me. We don’t eat brunch down here. We don’t have a brunch culture. The hotels offer something like, but that’s a purely tourist thing so it’s not something I can comment about intelligently. 

It’s different in New York. 

Very different. 

I fried myself in NYC. I always forget just how hot it is in the summer. It’s so tempting to walk everywhere; after all, it’s only a few blocks from here to there, it won’t be that bad. Followed swiftly by repentance and heat prostration. Mind, some of the subway cars are air conditioned now, which I don’t remember being an option the last time I was in town. 

I got to see some people. Hello, people! It was fun. 

I spent a ton of money on books. Shocking, I know. The Strand was my first visit, and I was slightly taken aback by how gentrified it’s become compared to the version I knew when I first began visiting NYC. Tote bags and coffee mugs must be a significant part of its bottom line, these days.  

I went to the Mysterious Bookshop down on Warren Street, which I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys whodunnits, whatdunnits and howonearthdidyoudunnits. Also, Dracula puzzles. Very pretty looking Dracula puzzles.  

However, the prize was, as always, the Americana section of the Argosy, where I blew the budget and also my suitcase; as I was disembarking the plane on the way home the case handle gave up on life. ‘Alas, cruel fate!’ it wailed, as it snapped forever.  Today I bought its replacement. Here's hoping the replacement lasts at least as long as its predecessor; I had that one since Uni.

The Argosy was the only place in NY to insist on mask wearing. Theoretically you were supposed to wear a mask on the subway but very few people did. Pretty much everywhere else was mask optional, which meant no masks at all. Despite NY’s best efforts I avoided COVID, continuing my streak of testing negative. I attribute this to blind luck, mask wearing at the airport and other public areas, and the 2oz bottle of hand sanitizer I bought before the flight. Thanks, Handy; you did me proud. 

Seriously, Handy, good job. I've lost track of the number of people I know in Bermuda who've come down with COVID these past few weeks. Meanwhile I stroll through 42nd Street Station many times over the course of a few days without so much as a sniffle.

I’ll spare you the full list of purchases but thought it would be fun to talk about the Argosy haul. 

Lafcadio Hearn, Two Years in the French West Indies (1890). You’ve heard me mention Hearn before. Believe me when I say I laughed for joy when I saw this and immediately snapped it up. Anything Hearn wrote is worth your time. 

The Iron Gate of Jack & Charlie's, various authors, anniversary edition detailing the 21 Club’s history up to publication. God alone knows what will happen to the Club post-COVID; Jack and Charlie would weep to see it. However, if you have any interest in Prohibition or NYC club life you ought to know something about the 21. I’ve read this book before but never had the chance to own it. I’ve also visited the Club, once, and saw the fabled secret cellar. Fond memories! 

Critical Years at the Yard, 1860-89, (1956) Belton Cobb. True crime, and this paired with the title below were my two true crime purchases of the trip. I often go a bit nutty for this sort of thing. This one's about Scotland Yard's early years, shot through with bribery scandals and botched investigations.

The Newgate Noose, (1957) Howard Culpin. A collection of the hanged and their many, many crimes. As with a lot of true crime there's a strong risk of picking up something you already know or have read before. However, no matter how much you know about the luckless pickpockets, murderers and highwaymen who fed the hanging tree there's always a new story. I've just finished the tale of Jenny Diver, a new one on me. Industrious, clever, lucky for a long while, she and her fellow pickpockets ran riot for a long time before she was sentenced to transportation. Not liking America very much she returned to England and for a while avoided notice, but it was death to return from transportation. She swung in 1740 leaving a three-year-old child behind her - at least, according to the Newgate Noose, which may or may not have the right of it. Probably not, since the Noose says she was 'all but a child herself' when she died and Wikipedia puts her actual age at early 40s, which - let's be honest - isn't youth's first bloom.

That's the risk with collections like these. They often talk a load of old bollocks. However, even rubbish can be useful material if you're looking for inspiration for a character in a novel - or an RPG.

This Was New York! A Nostalgic Picture of Gotham in the Gaslight Era, (1969) Maxwell F. Marcuse. This, like the next one, is research material. New York in the misty far-off days when it was building itself into the metropolis we now know. 

The Boss and the Machine, Samuel P. Orth (1919, Yale Uni Press) volume number [something or other] in the [I don't care] collection of American history. For every great fortune there is a great crime. Or, put slightly more accurately, the secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed. By that definition this is a crime that was found out and therefore not a great success for which we are at a loss to account - but it was a great success, nonetheless.

Now, enough! Hence! I have reading to do. 

The Booksellers (2019 documentary)

 

I became aware of this when YouTube trailers popped up early in the year. I can't remember whether I first saw them before the lockdown, or just as it was starting. Either way, I was intrigued. I love bookstores. I love New York. I love Bookhounds of London. This was an obvious buy - but was it worth it?

Oh yes. Definitely yes.

Directed by D.W. Young, whose documentary credits stretch back twenty years, this could almost be called New York Booksellers since its framing device is the New York Antiquarian Book Fair, most of its faces are New Yorkers, and its big documentary subjects (the Strand, the Argosy) are all New York icons. Even Rebecca Romney, who you may recall from Las Vegas' Pawn Stars, has relocated to the East Coast. You'd think there were no booksellers west of the Alleghenies. Possibly there aren't. I've never travelled west of the Alleghenies myself, so I can't comment. Been to New York at least thirty or forty times, and lived there for four months back in 1999, so ... 

If you're a Director looking for inspiration for your Bookhounds campaign, this is exactly the kind of thing you want to watch. If you're a player looking for inspiration for your next Hound, this is also exactly the kind of thing you want to watch. It's punchy, well-paced - I mean, look at the subject material, this could have been as dry as a bone - filled with brilliant characters and never beats you to death with information or statistics, the two bugbears of a documentary feature. 

There's one moment that, for me, encapsulates the Bookseller's appeal. An expert (Adam Weinberger) has been told a noted scholar has died, the spouse of an academic, and her collection has to be sold off. He knows she might have some treasures, so he has a look inside "the detritus of their lives." "My ears pick up," says Weinberger. "I think there's potential ... you always take a peek." 

My thoughts first are for those shelves and what might be on them, but then they wander to the apartment itself, which is a wreck. It's a New York wreck so it costs more than I could afford, but ... my God. I can only imagine that broken ruin in winter, with Jack Frost getting out the garden shears to nip off your toes and other extremities. Weinberger goes so far as to put on a mask (remember, this is all pre-COVID), which is probably wise. The person who lived there cared about books and nothing else. Absolutely nothing else. 

That scene in and of itself is an entire Bookhounds adventure, and it takes maybe five minutes of an hour thirty total. It almost writes itself. The Hounds have to catalogue a collector's entire library but a Cold One's lurking outside their wrecked apartment. It becomes a race against time; do they keep the Cold One out long enough for them to scoop up some unconsidered trifles?

If you're looking for a reason to watch this and aren't convinced yet (you monster!) let me put it this way: it's a remarkable, watchable glimpse into a book world that only exists right this minute. Twenty years ago it was completely different. Twenty years from now it will be completely different. The book business is one of the few that seems to thrive on change, despite the jeremiads from the old-timers convinced that nothing new is ever good.

A short while back I talked to YSDC about Bookhounds, and said I wished the game paid more attention to the book business. It sometimes feels as if the bookstore is just a framing device for the usual Scooby Doo action. Booksellers is here to remind you that buying and selling books is its own unique thrill, with all the joys and terrors of the carnival to entertain you. 

After all, it's retail. Anything can happen in retail. 

Enjoy!