But that’s not what I came here to write about at all, really. It’s just that I’m thinking about permanence and change, the eagerness of young people to be considered adults, and the desire, perhaps, of many adults to take a step backwards and be rid of responsibilities.

What this all relates to, sort of, is my habit of watching computer TV as I process books to shelve in the shop (“processing” means, for those of you who wonder, simply going through the stacks of books on hand, checking for faults, tidying them if need-be, and putting a price on them). Generally, this is a laid-back activity, requiring only the stacks of waiting books on my left, a few pencils, some cleaning materials, and a place for the finished stacks of books to my right. In between are me and the computer. To keep myself entertained, and to ward off the temptation of *reading* the books I’m supposed to be processing, I watch movies & tv shows on the internet. Lately I’ve become fascinated with the number of shows devoted to home buying. My favorite show follows young people in search of their “first home,” aided by the steadying hand of realtors who help them find their dream houses.

And that’s really my source of fascination. These people are so young, and their “dream houses” are so incredibly overwhelming, with what seem to me impossibly burdensome  long-term mortgages and property taxes and fees that I never would have saddled myself with in my twenties. These young people want to rush into adulthood triumphantly, with a 4000 square foot house, complete with all the latest buzzword necessities. Let’s see now, we’ll need an “open floor plan” with “flow” into the “large kitchen” with “stainless steel appliances” and “granite counter-tops.” The floors must be hardwood, and even the walls must already be painted the right colors (for these eager folks cannot spend the time painting or repairing or buying anything for themselves). The house must be complete, like a gigantic dollhouse for them to play in. Which reminds me, the “man cave” is a must-have for married couples, as are separate sinks in the “en suite” bathroom off the sizable master bedroom. Deal-breakers would include: walk-in closets that aren’t large enough to be considered rooms on their own, carpeting of any color, walls that show a little character (that is, that are not painted in the dullest neutral shades imaginable), an unfinished basement where the man-cave is supposed to be, or kitchen cabinets that are unsuitable because of their old-fashioned appearance (imagine! white cabinets!). Nobody wants to spend any time renovating anything. “Move-in ready” and “all new construction” make their ears perk up.

Of course, not all of these young people are married. Many are single, but just feel the need (apparently, it seems, as soon as they find their first job after college) for an  up-to-the-minute, state-of-the-art house. For guys, the whole place can be considered a man-cave. For girls, well, of course *everyone* needs an entire floor devoted to entertaining. Don’t they?

Oh dear, oh my. I may sound like an old lady waving her cane at the younguns, but some of the happiest times of my life were spent living in apartments shared with my roommate friends. I didn’t *want* a house of my own. I didn’t *want* to tie myself down to a mortgage or even a neighborhood. I wanted to explore the world (or at least part of it) in my twenties.

Ken and I didn’t acquire this building until we were, well let’s just say quite a bit past our twenties. By that time we really knew what we wanted and needed, and it wasn’t state-of-the-art appliances or granite counter-tops. It was a sturdy building that had been around for a while that we could make our own, by choosing our own paint colors (and painting the interior walls ourselves) and our own furnishings (some inherited from our families and some bought at the thrift store) and our own plan for what sort of rooms we needed and for what purpose (bookstore and apartment, room for us and our books and cats and computers and vinyl record collections – have I missed anything?).

Anyway, this is just another source of perplexity for me, and a conundrum. How, after all, can anyone need to be “leading edge” (be it technology or bathroom design) if “leading edge” means, as in this case, being saddled with onerous long-term commitments? Will that granite counter-top be so fashionable in a few years, or will something else be totally necessary to the next wave of young house-buyers?

Or perhaps I’m all wet. Perhaps these kids are doing in their own way what I did. Perhaps they’re planning to hop from house to house just as freely as I did from apartment to apartment. I just bet, though, that after a while they wouldn’t mind a few roommates to take along on their journey.

A mortgage contract might be just a wee bit harder to dismiss than a yearly rental agreement. And after all, it’s not always possible to flip your house for a profit (that’s another show, which is also fascinating, though sometimes rather depressing).

So I plunged ahead to re-read Mr. King’s essay. I like Stephen King just fine. He seems like a swell guy, a regular fella, and a few of his books rank right up there with the best of dark fantasy. However, in this essay I’m afraid Mr. King does not play fair. He takes the worst possible use of the adverb and displays it as his example of how adverbs make for bad writing, to whit:

‘Put it down! she shouted menacingly.
‘Give it back,’ he pleaded abjectly, ‘it’s mine.’
‘Don’t be such a fool, Jekyll,’ Utterson said contemptuously.

Well, of course these are bad sentences. They verge on being Tom Swifties. But Mr. King seems to think this is a typical use of adverbs. He accuses adverbs of being words of fear, words that timid, passive writers use. Especially in dialogue.

Wait a minute … These two writing counselors both hate adverbs — but apparently for very different reasons. Maybe they despise adverbs simply because they know they’re supposed to. Ever since Hemingway we have been advised to keep it crisp, keep it short, keep it unadorned with fancy-schmancy stuff. Like adverbs.

Confused now about adverbs and how they’ve come to be held in such low regard, I turned off the computer and decided to pick a book to read after I finish the one I have going now. I leafed through Sinclair Lewis’s Ann Vickers and made a random stop at a random page. The first sentence I read was, “They danced morally.” What a great sentence! How much it tells you with just three words, one of them an adverb. These dancers were dancing the requisite number of inches from each other, they were not passionate, I imagine them to be rather stiff in fact. All that resonance with three carefully chosen words.

And isn’t that the real message we should be getting? No part of speech is bad or wicked or malignant. It’s all in how we use our language, it’s all in how we choose our words.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shtetl/
]]> http://heyjudetheobscure.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/our-global-village/feed/ 0 heyjudetheobscure http://heyjudetheobscure.wordpress.com/2013/03/24/why-haggle-why-not/ http://heyjudetheobscure.wordpress.com/2013/03/24/why-haggle-why-not/#comments Sun, 24 Mar 2013 18:54:19 +0000 heyjudetheobscure http://heyjudetheobscure.wordpress.com/?p=564 Continue reading →]]> We do not haggle over prices in my bookstore. Occasionally, if we think it’s appropriate (an especially large purchase of a large stack of books, for example) we’ll *offer* a discount as a nice little surprise. But haggling as store policy? Nope. And don’t believe ‘em when they tell you all shopkeepers expect to haggle. Most of us, at least the ones who put reasonable prices on our merchandise to begin with, don’t.

There has been an inexplicable surge of TV shows lately which feature haggling as an almost necessary part of any successful “deal.” The show that I watch most, possibly  because I find it most bizarre, is MARKET WARRIORS, presented on PBS of all places. Several “experts” are sent out to buy objects (meeting certain specifications) at a flea market. These objects are then put up for auction while the experts watch and react. We the TV audience see who has made a profit and who hasn’t. The profits, by the way, are few and far between. And this is because, I think, the show has the natural order of things back-asswards. In my experience you go to the auction *first* (auctions are full of dealers where I come from, collectors not so much). Anyway, the stuff bought at auction then eventually makes its appearance as retail merchandise. I don’t mean to say this sequence is written in stone, it’s just what I’ve observed over the years.

But let’s get back to the flea market, where our “experts” trek, searching for bargains. It’s possible to find a bargain at a flea, but bear in mind that the vendors are paying in many cases astounding amounts for their booth spaces, have many other expenses as well, traveling as many do from flea to flea across the country, and are themselves trying to make a profit on merchandise that they probably didn’t get for free.in the first place.

Be these circumstances as they may, most flea marketeers have learned to shrug their shoulders and go along with the haggling, probably feeling that they won’t get any sales at all if they don’t.

So, I’m watching Market Warriors. One of the experts, a young woman with long blonde hair, tight short skirt, and an outlandishly Southern Belle demeanor, approaches each object she’s interested in, flirts with the poor slob whose booth it is, and when he names his price, immediately bats her eyes, acts shocked, and gives him back a figure maybe 20% of his stated price.This is an assault and an insult, and the vendor usually shakes his head, dumbfounded. Then comes “What’s your very best price?” — a question often asked by shopper to vendor. She asks this question a lot, especially after she’s already unnerved the vendor with her opening offer. The vendor, knowing that a) he’s being filmed for a possible appearance on a national TV show; b) he doesn’t want to appear to be a cheapskate, and c) he longs to impress the beautiful young lady, might put in a few half-hearted attempts at negotiation, but in fact his game was lost from the beginning and the young lady gets her object at a rock bottom price, though maybe it’s somewhat more than the 20% she originally offered. Still, a good buy!

Or so she thinks. Because vendors have a passive-aggressive way of fighting back. It’s simple, it works, and it avoids bloodshed. They just over-price everything, leaving a cushion for them to make some money even after the haggling is over, the buyer has apparently triumphed, and the dust has settled. I even believe there’s a bit of class warfare going on here, because the buyers are so obviously upper-middle class and the vendors, well, the vendors work very hard and struggle through some hard times on the flea market circuit. It must be a bit much to take when some yuppie tells you he has only so much money to spend when it’s pretty obvious that to get more all he’d have to do is head for the nearest ATM. (Plus which, the yuppie could easily be lying about how much money he has anyway; this is a well-known ploy.)

And that is why, when you go to a flea, so much seems so expensive. Once in a while you’ll run into a vendor who has priced her wares appropriately and won’t take more than 20% (a standard discount to those buying for resale) off the fixed price. I admire these vendors for their courage and honesty, but I can empathize with those vendors who price their things at twice or three times what the items are actually worth just to prepare themselves for the onslaught of hagglers.

Haggling has become such a mania for some that it’s not even about price any more, it’s just about winning. Even if the vendor is down to offering 70% off his original price, they just have to go for another 50 cents so they can have the last word. Then they reign victorious! Then they are kings and queens of the flea! Or are they?

When our Market Warriors get to the auction, they seem perplexed when their items, so vigorously haggled over, so often barely break even or even lose money.  You’d think, as “experts,” that they’d know who else is at the auction – retailers and even some wholesalers who like auctions because they KNOW how much they can pay for something and still make a profit (even though it’s lower than the puffed-up price they’re going to put on it).

This all seems way too complicated and unnecessary to me. It also seems unfair. Still, the desire to haggle is creeping its way even into my retail store. For example, let’s say I price a paperback at $1.75. The book is in great condition, it’s a great book, and it’s a bargain. Why would anyone feel the need to niggle the price down to $1.50? Yet it happens. And if I did give this person his lousy 25 cent discount, how would it be fair to the rest of my customers, who come in again and again, paying the price as fixed and happy to do it?

Thank heavens most of my customers get it. They tell me they like the fact that I price things reasonably, that they don’t have to haggle in order to make the books get down to affordable prices. Haggling is stressful and unworthy of two adult people, both of whom would probably rather be talking about the content of books instead of the prices anyway.

Even I lower prices from time to time when I find I’m running out of shelf space and I’m willing to sell things at a loss just to be rid of them. But that’s another story and another blog post on another day.

Happy reading, everyone!

I’ve been gone for a few weeks, getting ready for my very first gallery show under constant (self-induced) stress. My ever-loving, ever-patient husband Ken kept watch over the bookstore while I freaked out in the living room/workroom flinging art stuff all over the place, having tantrums, and making an incredible mess.

But at last it got done (with the help of that self-same cheerfully competent husband). Somehow stuff that you think of as impossible does pull together and on the day it has to be done it IS SOMEHOW DONE. I guess I could call that the Project Runway Syndrome; you know, when it’s ten minutes to runway & the designer is standing there screaming despite all the pins in his mouth but his model makes it to the runway nevertheless. It must be magic.

Anyway, all this time I was reading. I can’t NOT be reading something or other. I read horror stories to help me sleep at night (this worked well). Now I’m ready for something huge & engrossing to take me through the rest of the winter. There are a LOT of thick books I could choose that are waiting for me on the shelf, waving their little book-arms and yelling “Me next! You promised you’d get to ME  next!” etc.

Well, what shall it be? A Suitable Boy? Our Mutual Friend (my one remaining unread Dickens novel, except for Pickwick which I can’t get through no matter how hard I try. Sorry, Boz.)? Frank Norris’ The Pit? Mann’s The Magic Mountain? Or one of Simon Schama’s magninficent displays of learning and wit? So many choices.

But for the rest of today, folks, I’m just going to recuperate from yesterday’s festivities. If anyone is interested in my artsy pursuits, you are more than welcome to check out my other wordpress blog, http://howtobeastarvingartist.wordpress.com/

Meanwhile, maybe I’ll just take to my bed & leaf through one of those 1000 Books You Must Read doorstoppers. Maybe something will jump out at me. Or (and here’s a good idea) maybe I should just browse through my own bookstore and see something lurking that I’d forgot I ever shelved & which is the perfect choice right now.

Furthur! See you next week, I hope!

Today we’re once again open. It just feels *right* to be open. A good thing, too, since we’ve had some customers who managed to negotiate their way through the mess outside and into the shop. Book people, I must say, are hardy people and we surely do appreciate the fact that they do seem to visit us in all kinds of weather.

Best wishes to my fellow New Englanders. Hope everyone is snug and well supplied, and if you’re still without power may you regain it very soon!

No, the place for a drunk to go is a nice, quiet used book store.

Do  not misunderstand me. I’m not talking about young, belligerent drunks here. They pick fights and would never think of confiding in a bookseller or even entering a bookstore. I’m talking about people who are old enough (though they don’t have to be all that old) and smart enough (though they don’t need to be that smart) to realize the wrecks they’ve made of their lives. These are the people who need to feel the importance, if only for a little while, that even a single listener can convey.

It is understood by all drunks that we booksellers have no other duties than to listen to other people’s troubles. We have no troubles of our own. In fact, were it not for the gracious drunk who comes in to keep us company, we would be splayed out with our feet on the counter, reading comic books or falling asleep on duty.

So the drunks believe they are doing us a favor, no doubt. What could be as interesting as, say, an incoherent account of the flying saucer you might have seen twenty years ago? Or the wife (a saint or a bitch on alternate days) who no longer lives with you? Or the bright prospects you once saw before you like a castle blazing in the sun, a castle you could never reach, a castle that has crumbled into dust?

Even with that all said, I have to add that I like drunks, I really do. I like them and pity them when probably the last thing they need is pity. I should know because for many years I was a drunk myself, staggering up and down the streets of Chicago, just wishing someone would listen to my own sad story.

I haven’t had a drink for 20 years now, and as a result I have fewer sad stories to relate. So when drunks enter my shop, fairly sloshing over with spirits, I usually do give them  some of my time. I smile and try to make the smile genuine, the smile of the affable listener they seek. I know I’m not helping them any, but maybe they’ll at least feel that somebody does find that flying saucer story (the one they can’t quite remember as something real or something seen in the strangest dream) pretty interesting, after all. They have to feel just a little bit important, don’t they, if they can ever hope for (or I can hope for them) a point in time when they at last do find the strength to stop their long, slow, very public suicide?

using *elites* as a noun
using *creatives* as a noun
steampunk
post-racist
post-feminist
post-rock
female genitalia used as an implication of weakness and timid vulnerability*
male genitalia used as an implication courage and resilience*
*when we all know it’s really the other way around
also –
Somebody please tell screenwriters to leave out
Let’s take it to the next level
Bring it on!
You just don’t get it, do you?
and –
Let’s finally put to rest the by-now totally meaningless term “politically correct”

In exchange, I promise to
stop using so many exclamation marks!
try to use words of approval other than Great! and Love!
trust my FB friends to understand me the first time without repeating a point again and again (and again)

That is all!
Oops.
That is all. Period.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/garden/bedbugs-hitch-a-ride-on-library-books.html?hpw

I came as close to hating this man as I could ever come to hating another human being. I blamed him for destroying my niece’s life. She married him at 18, and had to commute to college for her music degree while at the same time performing all her housewifely duties. They lived in an isolated world of a fringe religion concentrated in a midwestern community close to where I grew up, a right-wing Christian sect  which demands the wife defer to her husband in all matters large and small.

The main purpose of life, according to this sect, is to populate the earth with holy souls like themselves. It is a staggering responsibility, but it’s what God wants. My niece, ever the good wife, bore children. My niece told my mother that she’d continue to have children until her body “just gave out.” That was God’s plan for her. But God had additional plans, as well. My niece was given the tasks of a pioneer wife (including canning, preserving, gardening, constructing much of the family’s clothing, and educating the increasing throng at home as best she could as well as cleaning, food preparation, ad infinitum),

No matter how much work she did, however, it was the husband who was considered the breadwinner and head of the household. His decisions were final. In fact, I believe his chief responsibility at home was being Decider in Chief.

His life ranged a much larger sphere than hers. He was a member of a respected Town Department, a fellow just bursting with Christian respectability in this tight-knit community of souls. As a Department Official he was one of the most visible of the town’s  Leading Citizens, viewed as a friend by many. He taught classes in in civics, prayed a lot in public, and, though only his very closest friends and sect members were witness to this, didn’t allow his wife’s mother, my sister, past the front porch and into his house.

“You’re not going to get what you want,” he said when she approached. What my sister wanted to do was visit her daughter’s family and give presents to the children but she, being unaffiliated with any church, was not welcome (though the presents and the money she also gave were for some reason deemed acceptable).

He was very proud of this house. He had made it exactly as he wanted it, a modern log cabin which could only be reached from the highway by a very narrow and winding trail. He named this “The Narrow Path.” His cabin was surrounded by forest and fields. It was a beautiful spot and far away from the evils of the world. He even constructed a church building on his land so that the sect could have a permanent place of worship. rather than meeting at different members’ homes from one week to the next.

My sister would spend hours and hours making scrapbooks for the kids, using her not inconsiderable artistic talents to make little books and drawings for them. She left these in “fairy boxes” by the house that she was not allowed to enter, trusting that they would eventually be found by her grandchildren.”Fairy boxes” themselves were, of course, a concept that my niece’s husband couldn’t tolerate and yet more proof of my sister’s wickedness. Still, the presents were not sent back and my sister felt some comfort from leaving the boxes and then seeing that they had been taken.

But at last the rupture came between my sister and my niece, the one that seemed irreparable. I won’t go into details, just enough to say that the incident itself would have been small in a normal family but in my niece’s family it was a major breach of ethics. The husband felt challenged by the mother-in-law.

My sister, who has not had an easy life in any case, felt her heart and spirit break. She loved those kids, and she loved her daughter. Not in the godly consult-the-husband-first way my niece’s husband required, but she loved them fiercely for all that.

So, now he has gone and killed himself. What am I make of this? The civic leader, man of God and defender of the faith — he just decided to pull that trigger and to hell with everything else. I find myself angry as I’ve ever been — thinking, “So he dragged my poor niece and their kids and my sister and everybody in our family through all this religious fanatic HELL and now he’s KILLED himself? Isn’t that a SIN, you who were always so holier-than-thou? What do you expect your family to do now? You have deserted them, my niece with seven kids and left them with your creepy religion and  your remote log cabin and questions. They must have so many questions …

I am reading his obituary now, the same words in various local papers. He was a hero, a friend, a kind man, a comforting presence, and so helpful with children. My niece is mentioned merely as one of his survivors, and his good deeds and civic participation are allowed to shine in their full glory.

Nowhere can I find a mention of the manner of his death. I’m sure there’s some sort of “code of silence” for the Department and within his sect, but I’m curious. How could he be so incredibly thoughtless? This, no matter what reason he had for himself, must have been the most arrogant action he ever took. He dragged his entire family into a faith — and then with this act it’s like he took it all back.

I doubt we’ll ever know. But whenever I hear one of these zealots speak of how gloriously ecstatic they are, I’ll look deep into their eyes. In his eyes I didn’t see ecstasy, though I saw fear, anger, frustration, even, perhaps, madness.