mir tesnyi

Mir tesnyi--it's a small world. I had a totally goofy experience yesterday. An American historian had written me telling me to get in touch with a Kiev historian who would introduce me to another Kiev historian I need to talk to. I have this first man's contact info, but had put the whole thing on the back burner. Yesterday, I'm on the way to feed an adorable Siamese cat I'm cat-sitting, and I stop at a table on the street, where this guy is selling books, including the one by the second author that I need. I was getting ready to by the book when a large, older man came up to me and said, "do you want that book? I'm the author." I'm so used to ignoring the crazy people who talk to me on the street that I said, "whatever," and turned back to give the bookseller the money. The older man looked really confused, and said, "no, really, I'm the author." Then he showed me the picture of the author on the back and pointed to his face. How embarassing! He pulled me over a few feet, and then showed me that he was selling his own books out of a suitcase! He's quite a character, and I ended up buying several from him, all of which he autographed for me. He told me to come back to that place on the street any weekend to talk to him about questions that might arise. Crazy!