I get by with a little help from my friends

I count myself insanely lucky to have the interesting crowd of friends and acquaintances that I do, and I try my best to return the favor for their not putting me into a burlap sack and tossing me into a river. That’s why I’m making a quick shoutout to St. Johns Booksellers in northeast Portland, Oregon. St. Johns Books is celebrating its sixth birthday on June 25. Nena and Adam, the owners, are old and dear friends, and I’ve already donated my extensive palaeontological library toward expanding the store’s science section. If you can make it to the store, buy mass quantities, and clear out that palaeo section. If you can’t, may I tempt you with an online purchase of the new Timber Press book Vanilla Orchids: Natural History and Cultivation by Kenneth Michael Cameron? Or, worse, a chrestomathy of utter gibberish and vile by a justifiably obscure crank?