Waxing, Wayne-ing

My old buddy Wayne was in town this weekend, visiting from New Mexico.  He called me at work on Friday and we met him for dinner in the usual spot, a Chinese restaurant he first recommended a decade ago.  

Wayne brought two small gifts with him:  a collection of Raymond Chandler stories and a Simon Finch rare book catalogue (#53) from 2002.

I'm very familiar with Chandler's Red Wind.  Five stories ("Red Wind," "Blackmailers Don't Shoot," "I'll Be Waiting," "Goldfish," and "Guns at Cyrano's"), all of them long on style and loaded with attitude.  The protagonists may have names like Carmady and John Dalmas, but they're all Marlowe no matter how you slice it.

I don't know if Simon Finch is still actively selling rare books, but his catalogues are serious affairs.

There are 230 collectibles listed for sale here, all of them lovingly described.  

It's a shame people don't take this kind of thing as seriously as they once did.  

We ate, we talked, we cracked open our fortunes.

The "Learn Chinese" word on the back of Wayne's fortune was tennis.

Particularly prescient, if you ask me.