Tales from inventory #6: Arabia a Journey Through the Labrynth by Jonathan Raban. In 1978 English writer Jonathan Raban attempted to get a visa to enter Saudi Arabia in order to write about the place. Quite suspicious, they thought, so no visa. So Raban visited every country adjacent to Saudi Arabia & wrote a book about them anyway. Rather snarky, but there you have it. One tale he related was of thrifty King Faisal. If you were king of Saudi Arabia and you wished to be thought to be doing your job, you would make yourself available to the public on work days in order to adjusicate lawsuits. You'd hear the case & turn to your advisors who would tell you about similar lawsuits from days past & how your predecessors had ruled. Before the invention of writing this is pretty much how every king in the world handled lawsuits. One of the afflictions of the office were ordinary citizens who would read you poems of their own composition in praise of yourself. The sovereign would traditionally award the aspiring poet a gold coin and send him on his way. A line was forming around the block. King Faisal got tired of grinding his teeth through poetry recitals & started instead awarding the poets something of equal value: One of his own poems. This cut way down on the traffic. Barber's Bookstore, 901 Throckmorton, mon-fri 11-3, sat 11-4, sun 1-5. More stories on X & fb.
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