CHRIS ARVIDSON

words and art
 

I am having a wonderful time with the baseball book -- seeing friends, going to great bookstores, getting great pictures taken. What could be more fun? I get to go to great bookstores like Scuppernong in Greensboro and yak with baseball fans. I get to talk with friends on the radio like D.G.Martin (I'll post the link from his Chapel Hill radio station soon), and next week I'll be in DC seeing friends and signing books at Mike Fraioli and Carol Eickert's house. YAY!  Read More 

So much fun this past weekend. I went to homecoming for my undergraduate college, Olivet, in Olivet, Michigan. Wonderful seeing friends from, gulp, 40 years ago. And they sure supported me -- buying 25 books. We also had a wonderful lunch and the chance to sing with old classmates. I'm not the pro that these folks were, so it was a pleasure to sing with such wonderful voices. Truly. We had the audience with the selections anyway, but when we got to the Olivet Hymn, I saw some teary faces out there. Fun after the football game included the Kathy Ford Band, a sorority sister who knows every 70s rock tune that we all listened to at the bar.

Speaking of "the bar," our old haunt, Garfield Lake Tavern, is sadly a "KEEP OUT" wreck. That more than anything made me feel a bit old. But, truly, my friends all looked fantastic and I think we've aged very well indeed.

So, thanks Olivet and all the great Olivet folks who forked over their bucks for books. You are the best! Read More 

Here's the events coming soon, friends!

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 -- Pittsburgh Release Party. City Books, Northside, 908 Galveston, Pittsburgh, PA. Time is TBA. Join Editor Diana Nelson Jones and Pittsburgh area contributors.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30 -- Olivet College, Homecoming Saturday, 12 noon - 2:00 p.m. Klock Commons. Editor Chris Arvidson will be there to sign and sell books.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7 -- Scuppernong Books and Cafe, Greensboro, NC. 3-5:00 p.m. It's a wonderful downtown bookshop. Join Editor Chris Arvidson and area contributors for a reading and signing.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21 -- Home of Carol Eickert & Michael Fraioli, Chevy Chase, MD. 2-5:00 p.m. RSVP to Chris Arvidson (chrisarvidson.com). Books, food and fun with area contributors. Read More 

We've already got some great book signing and reading events set up for The Love of Baseball. Here they are so far:

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7 -- the big local premiere! 5-7:00 p.m. at the Ashe County Arts Council. Reading, signing, wine and snacks -- don't miss it!

NEW! Saturday, September 16 - 6:30 p.m. EST -- I will be on KNBR in the Bay Area, the flagship station for the San Francisco Giants. (KNBR.com)

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 -- Pittsburgh Release Party. City Books, Northside, 908 Galveston, Pittsburgh, PA. Time is TBA. Join Editor Diana Nelson Jones and Pittsburgh area contributors.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30 -- Olivet College, Homecoming Saturday, 12 noon - 2:00 p.m. Klock Commons. Editor Chris Arvidson will be there to sign and sell books.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7 -- Scuppernong Books and Cafe, Greensboro, NC. 3-5:00 p.m. It's a wonderful downtown bookshop. Join Editor Chris Arvidson and area contributors for a reading and signing.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21 -- Home of Carol Eickert & Michael Fraioli, Chevy Chase, MD. 2-5:00 p.m. RSVP to Chris Arvidson (chrisarvidson.com). Books, food and fun with area contributors. Read More 

It's here, it's here! I got home from a meeting on Thursday and there were books on my front porch! I wasn't expecting them until mid-September, so now I'm off on a tear to get readings/signings scheduled. If you preordered the book from the publisher (see the link on the right) you can expect to see it momentarily on your own doorstep. Amazon still has a mid-September date on their site, but I expect that will be changing soon.

Buckle in, friends. "The Love of Baseball" is here! Read More 

Back from the dig. Pretty pleased with myself. Managed heat and tough physical activity pretty damn well, if I do say so myself. Many exciting discoveries and, as always, the people were the best, including especially my old Sigma Beta college sorority sister Cheryl Fischer Schaffer and the dig leaders James Tabor and Shimon Gibson . I also got the chance to see Tamar, an archeological park/dig in the Negev desert south of the Dead Sea. Fantastic place.

NOW, it's on to getting ready for the big book release in September. You can pre-order it on Amazon, or direct from the publisher: mcfarlandbooks.com. Or, you can wait to see me somewhere near you soon. I'll start setting up signings soon and keep you all posted. I'll also be putting up a book webpage as well. Stay tuned! Read More 

Off to the UNC Charlotte archaeological dig in Jerusalem this month. Fortunately, I managed to get the index done for the upcoming baseball book and my partner in crime, Diana Nelson Jones, completed the proofing, too. We kicked butt. Just in time to get ready for digging. Look for photos soon!

We have a gorgeous cover for the upcoming baseball book, friends. And the title I LOVE, especially with the image of a baseball in the letters.

We're looking at a $19.99 cover price, which is excellent. And a sometime this fall publish date.

Now the fun can begin in earnest. I'll be talking to bookstores in select baseball towns, since we've so many contributors from so many places.

I'm so excited! Read More 

On Tuesday this week I turned in the baseball anthology that Diana Nelson Jones and I have been working on for the last year. (I should like it to be noted that it was delivered one day ahead of schedule.) And then I promptly went down with a heinous cold/flu crap and lay around in bed and on the couch for the next couple of days. But I'm back in the saddle again and looking forward to sharing news of the book with everyone as we work through the publishing process.

Once we have a title from the publisher (McFarland & Company), I'll set up a separate book website, but for now, I'll keep everyone posted here on my own blog page. And, to get you ready to be excited, here's just a small, tiny, smidgen, of what you'll be able to see in the coming 8-10 months or so. Hope it makes you want to get the book!

EXCERPT from the essay "Nothing Else Like It"

The regular season powered to a close and the Tigers continued their record-breaking ways. Things were also heating up at work -- big elections, late nights, crazy times. But the Tigers were never off my mind. In mid-September, with the pennant clinched, I was anticipating the World Series. I thought “Oh my god. It is really going to happen.”

And remember, in 1984, you couldn’t just flip a cable channel on or subscribe to MLB TV. You had to do this thing called reading the box scores in newspapers the next day. Maybe sometimes, if you got lucky and the wind and atmosphere were right, you could pick up a late night few minutes of Ernie Harwell on AM radio from WJR in Detroit. I was looking forward to seeing my Tigers on television for the World Series.

Then the unthinkable happened. A few days before the series was to begin my boss gave me some potentially thrilling news. Our chairman would, naturally, have access to World Series tickets. And while the California tickets would be quickly dispersed since that was his home state, there might, possibly, small chance, be a possibility that there wouldn’t be enough “important people” who wanted to go to Detroit, and if that might, possibly, small chance did in fact happen, I, Chris Arvidson, would get the tickets.

But I still had problems to fix -- I needed to see if I could get myself, last minute, to Detroit on my own. The game tickets were free, but not the plane, and I wouldn’t know if I had the tickets until the day before. Did I want to take dibs on this maybe, possibly, small chance deal? Oh hell yes.
 Read More 

After the On the Same Page Literary Festival, I caught my breath and we were off to England for a long hike of The Cotswold Way. It's a lovely journey through quintessential English countryside, about 100 miles in all if you count the time hiking into your village's stop for the night. We took the 8 day, 7 night schedule, hiking as many as 15 miles in day. It's truly over hills and dales, with a good bit of elevation gain and descent each day -- you climb the escarpment each day at least once. We were well prepared and thus fared well. Those "training" hikes up and down Mt. Jefferson really paid off. We got no blisters, but acquired plenty of aches and pains along the way.

Friends Joan and Philip went along with us and have now indicated that 10 miles a day is the maximum for future hikes. Now that we're all past 60, that's probably not a bad rule, but I'd be temped to go on further if the terrain were flatter.

We took a picture each morning when we set out -- to the left are a few samples. I think we look pretty damn good. There's also a few shots of the lush countryside and woods we were treated to along the way and of friends in Bath. Enjoy. Let me know if you've a hankering for any advice on making such an excursion. I got it covered.

We finished up the Chipping Camden to Bath hike with a stay in Bath at a wonderful Landmark Trust property, right near the Abbey. Friends from England, and even Charlotte, came to stay the five days there and explore. Unfortunately for me, on the first night in Elton House, I stumbled on the stairs and did a number on my foot, which had me hobbling through the remainder of the trip.

I knew it was a fairly serious injury, but was loathe to take time out from friends and fun to have it seen to. Once home in North Carolina, I found I'd fractured a metatarsal. It was a clean break and simply required I wear one of those giant boot things for a couple of months. I am now completely healed and back ramping up my hiking locally. I've always been a tripper, stumbler and faller, but now it seems I'm more inclined to break things when I do. Yes. I'll be careful.

On to the new year and books about loving baseball and hating our country's politics. And, there'll be some traveling, too, to write about. Next up - the Women's March on Washington on January 21. Stay tuned! Read More