Too Many Books

A few days ago I commented there was too much media in the world to begin with.

Though one could argue there are NEVER too many books, I have to state my belief: there have long been far too many new books coming out (none of mine, however). Most bookstores, even the independents, are crammed with titles no one is ever going to buy. I believe most of it is shelf-dressing, and a peek at the publishing trades will likely confirm this suspicion.

Is that bad?

Not unless you're a tree, I guess, or an aesthete of economic purity.

This is where two completely different entrants in the book retailing game come in from opposite sides of the stage: e-books and used book stores.

For my taste, there is little reason for a new bookstore to earn my visit except to peruse the bargain bin. Very occasionally a new book seems a must-have, but almost never unless steeply discounted. I own a lot of books, so I know whereof I speak.

For nearly all of my reading pleasure, I supply myself from the stunningly various arrays of wonderful volumes available at low cost from used books stores and charities. Can there be any doubt the world has so many wonderful used books that, were a moratorium on publishing be declared for ten years, the reader's market would not remain well-supplied? I think it would.

Sometimes I buy a "first edition"--for real money. This is because the book, and especially its dust-cover, have intrinsic value. Again, these books are nearly always "used", though they are in nearly every case quite a bit more expensive than a typical brand new book. There is a reason for this--they're collector's items.

With the advent of e-books, there is little reason for me to ever buy an actual new book at anything like list price. About a trillion (it seems) great books are available either for free or low cost as e-books. All of the classics are available as e-books and I have found them quite enjoyable to read in their new electronic get-up. Unless you're literally collecting the volume for posterity (sometimes I do), and if you believe the content is what you are after and not the paper and cardboard of a volume, e-books can provide the reader with about ninety-five percent of his or her reading pleasure.

So I think publishing (and more specifically the "new book" store), like the music industry, is headed for a fall. The fact is, we really don't need that many new books. And those we need, we can--again, except for special editions or signed first editions--purchase as e-books and enjoy quite utterly as such. For the rest, I think we shall see a rise in the status of the used book store for those who want "books". The volumes are as richly varied and as relevant as ninety percent of new books in print, and radically cheaper; and of course have all of the best qualities of print as well (look, feel, smell, weight, cover art). Moreover, you can buy these on-line as easily as you can buy e-books or new books at Amazon.

One model that may prove to work is that exemplified by that exemplar of great book stores, the Powell's mini-chain out of Portland, Oregon. Perhaps the world's best bookstore, Powell's hardly distinguishes between new books, old books, and rare books. They are all on the shelves together. And if you want a really rare book, they have those in a glass case. There is something quite wonderful about finding several editions of certain books, from a much-read paperback to a new hardcover edition, all on the shelf together like dissimilar siblings at a family gathering. Hats off to the Powell's model, may it long endure.

The new world of books will probably be crowded with small, specialty book stores and less so with megastores per se. The B&N model is already morphing into less a bookstore than a brick and mortar entertainment store--and good luck to them with that (and their cappuccino stands). A heavy percentage of buying will be weighted towards either cheap e-books (hooray for the iPad) and used books.

There will always be new books at book stores. But not nearly as many. And not nearly as big a market for new books in general, as it becomes obvious that, no longer needed quite literally as window dressing, most in-print book projects become totally irrelevant.

Next up is electronic self-publishing (see: blogging), which will end up putting further dents in the mighty ships of traditional publishing. We shall see much junk published this way. But we see much junk published "traditionally". I fail to see the problem, except that underpaid editors and entirely unpaid and unqualified interns ("readers") will no longer hold arbitrary sway over the fate of any particular author's chance at publication of a manuscript. Bye-bye!

As a final note, let me say that I have read Moby Dick on a tiny screen and found it quite as absorbing as holding that enormous tome in my hand and maybe more so. In the book world, content perhaps at last will in fact be king.

News Flash: I Have Nothing to Say

I have nothing to say that would not be of an overly personal nature for my taste, even though it seems social media requires a confessional frame of mind.

Perhaps the fact I have nothing to say is a statement in itself?

First, I am involved in enough actual things in the real world that they in fact consume too much of my time for me to spend any more of it online than I really have to.

Second, I am increasingly disenchanted with the notion of social media as it relates to the creation of content.

Let me explain.

Yes, you get free publishing. Isn't that what you always wanted? Of course it is. But did you know you don't own what you create? Even these words are technically owned by a giant corporation called Google. And when Google gets bought by a far more evil branch of the empire, it will be owned by them. And they will probably try to sue you if you want to use your own creations in your own way, later on in life (just kidding!).

Finally, I believe--and have long believed--there is too much content in the world anyway. Social media is really the last thing we need. Is there any hope that a great work of art will be created out of the social media milieux? Somehow I doubt it. And if works of art are not at least compelling, they are in the end deeply annoying. This is because, as objects, they compete with non-art objects, which almost always have a much more richly detailed past and present--even a small piece of stone has been bonking around for millions of years before you happen to have picked it up; and therefore is imbued with a certain natural energy that none but the most compelling works of man or woman can hope to attain.

Perhaps this sounds awfully precious.

But this is mostly because I have nothing to say. And because my cat is pushing a baseball towards my keyboard.

Ann Walling

Who is Ann Walling, buried in Trinity Churchyard in 1716?

The Enduring Mystery of Cat

Introducing "Indie", a photogenic member of the feline race of fellow travelers. We rescued him from an animal shelter on 110th Street about a year ago. Here Indie places himself amongst some familiar items on my desk, as is his wont. Recently he ruined an inkjet printer by attacking the paper (as it printed) so often that the paper advance gears became misaligned. The printer is gone--Indie stays.

Indie has an alert, owlish look about him and we like to believe he is quite intelligent. He enjoys splashing in water, is quite affectionate, has been known to be aggressive at times, and has a meek, squeaky voice that does not sound like it belongs to such a well-formed, agile animal. I find it very easy to believe that the Egyptians of yore, a culture clearly steeped in the occult and the mysterious, would have revered cats above other creatures.

I have nothing against dogs of course (or fish or gerbils for that matter). But dogs are, companionable and true as they may be, entirely lacking in the qualities exhibited by what you might call a "muse". They are slobbering, needy and really awfully predictable as a group (I have loved certain dogs, so I'll not debate their "value" in the scheme of things).

Cats seem to care only peripherally that humans are present, and I believe they view us somewhat as serviceable companions. They respect those who feed them. They allow themselves to be handled--until they don't. They are unsentimental and if you have ever seen a cat toy with its prey, you will know they can be coldly cruel and entirely without remorse. They suit the postmodern sensibility in that they are essentially amoral.

That is about all I can glean about cats from watching them. They seem to hold much in reserve, and this is exhibited when suddenly they make fantastic leaps across open space to reach a desired spot whence they simply curl up to sleep. They can hide in impossibly small spaces as if their bodies are made of something less solid than bone and gristle.

Unlike the warm, loving gaze of a dog, the gaze of the cat is flat and apparently an act of surmise, as if at any moment they may decide you are friend, provider or prey. It is quite obvious why domestic cats are never grown larger than a human can throw them. A cat the size of a golden retriever would be a bone-chillingly dangerous beast.

Cats and humans have come to an understanding that we are mutually pleasing but for entirely different reasons (it seems). We do not (or I do not) "understand" cats any more than I understand the moon. They are not like us, nor like any other creature sharing terra firma. They are an ancient race, highly evolved, cunning, sufficiently endowed for their own purposes, and offer little but warm fur, a steady gaze and for me at any rate, constant fascination.

If you have the chance, offer kindness to one of these special creatures, as they are favored in the pantheon of sentient beings.

None Escape Blame

"What do the oil catastrophe and the Wall Street collapse have in common? In both cases, a powerful, politically protected industry invented something that could not easily be repaired when it broke."-- Robert Kuttner, The American Prospect

I agree.

But why'd they do it?

In a market, sellers do things because of what buyers want them to do.

In the case of the Wall Street meltdown, every TomDickandSally wanted their stock to go up and they might even sue if it didn't. Greed wasn't imposed from on-high, but it was exploited and then suddenly John McCain had to rush to Washington by way of Katie Couric's make-up room.

In the case of the BP gusher, every HarryAbdulandLaQuonna wanted cheap driving, cheap plastic, cheap heat, and every what-all petroleum is used for, and wanted it now and threatened to vote you out of office if you told them it might cost more and feel a colder and smaller world if you didn't deliver now now now. Environmental disaster wasn't the goal of BP nor anyone else, but it was a perhaps unavoidable consequence of the modern thirst for all things oil-based (and that includes everything you know in this world except maybe that antique wooden coffee-grinder you bought at the flea market, and that's only if you pretend it got to the flea market in a horse-drawn carriage).

So we have by common consent contracted with these major, politically connected interests to systematize what they do and not tell us the details but just satisfy our hunger for universal comfort in a world where every day is necessarily a roll of the dice and where we each, personally, need to try and load the dice as heavily as we dare in our favor.

Much as the fate of every system, the complex interlocked units that drive such enterprise work well for a time; until they don't.

And now they just don't any more.

We have two signal disasters to let us know we have loaded one too many blocks onto the Jenga tower--first on Wall Street and then 50 miles out in the water south of the Big Easy--and in each case, with a single block pulled out, the tower comes down and the game is all but over.

Of course its not really over. There will be shouts and murmurs for a long time about both derivative finance and easy oil, but for all intents and purposes the era that grew these and enabled a certain fat and stupid attitude on the part of pretty much every non-impoverished person in the West, is now drawing to an ignominious close.

"Greed is good"? "Drill Baby Drill?"

What's that you say?

Have not heard those in a while.

So This Clown from the Suburbs Comes to Times Square and Tries to Blow it Up. . .

Enough with the aggrandizement of pathetic losers once they whisper the word "jihad" in response (ineffectively) to their career and marriage frustrations. Enough with "he trained in Pakistan"--to do what? Rumble a smoking car into a busy intersection with a back seat full of propane that a braver man would have ignited himself and died for his convictions?

And I've had it with "getting even for American aggression abroad" when the perpetrator has been buckling down with data for an American purveyor of fine fragrances to pay for his house in Connecticut.

Has anyone noticed that what we have here is less a political response to American aggression than a confused excuse for bad behavior by a guy that had soured on the paltry comforts of the American dream? Apparently he just didn't want to work in a cubicle, commute two hours from the suburbs, support his wife and kids--and decided to blow up a bunch of innocent strangers because he was too much of a chickenshit to take his own life like he really wanted to.

It's not hard to picture his frustration: upper-middle class upbringing, indifference at Universtiy, a creative, braggadocio streak, frustration at work, confused identity (Islamic sexism combined with American libertinism), more than a touch of wounded, sanctimonious self-righteousness--some half-witted suggestions from a so-called Shiek looking for willing fools to lay trouble at the feet of the Great Satan--and poof! Suddenly he's the vanguard of Islamic resistance. Except, not.

No, he's just a bigoted, deluded, self-important loser who decided to misbehave in the big-town one night and got nailed by the pros a few hours later.

What I Bought at the Cranky Guy's Yard Sale

He turns out to be not so cranky once you're buying trifles from his back yard mess-a-thon, and he does manage to have some queer, little-to-be-encountered items amongst his collections now on offer.

He lives a few doors down from our town house in the Yammer-glorified tiny city full of antique shops in which we have summered and sometimes wintered for several years now. Our town house is in a less respectable corner of the city and that is one of the things I like about it. The little girls living with their single moms in rented rooms on the corner run back and forth screeching and playing in the dirt. No one really cares if I get around to mowing the weeds on the sidewalk median in front (my plan is to eradicate them entirely and replace them with yet more stone or gravel). And there is Cranky Guy.

Cranky Guy is always working on a beaten-down car, shouting at someone to "turn it over" while he checks the timing; or his sunburned, gangly form will emerge from beneath one of these hapless conveyances cursing and besmirched with stains of dark oozing fluid. An almost permanent feature of his front "yard" (so tiny as to be nearly nonexistent) is a battered cardboard sign that says "FREE" and beneath it there is usually a much-clawed and battered child's car-seat or a hooked rod or a diminutive bald tire perhaps from a dirt bike or lawn tractor.

What caught my eye was that this spring his yard sales (which are frequent) began to feature a small army of Christmas-Claus figurines decked in red and white and sprinkled all over with sparkly "snow". I'm not interested in those but I figured there must be something of interest behind the crazily sagging gates, now thrown open to the public.

I was not disappointed. His yard was a treasure trove of oddities. And had he not suffered from the improvident supposition that book jackets are to be discarded, I might have bought some first editions. On the most recent visit I ended up coming away with a JFK tribute album (50 cents), two beautifully blue old unlabeled Milk of Magnesia bottles (@ 50 cents) and wicker baskets that appeared quite unmolested (2 dollars). I found all these to be reasonably priced.

His merchandising skills are not infallible, however, as suggested above regarding the book jackets. Also on offer was what may have been an ancient tricycle or other tyke's conveyance but its rampant rust and decrepitude had rendered it less an antique than a twisted filthy wreck quite unrecoverable from the slag heap and he wanted seventy five bucks for it. And out front he had a smudged lawn tractor marked down from five hundred to four hundred dollars. A brand new one of the same type at Tractor Supply will cost not more than nine hundred and possibly less.

One supposes a key element separating the professional dealer from the amateur is some sense of merchantability and pricing. But I find myself rarely buying from the professionals--they have calculated market value and I am only interested in laughably low prices and enormous values. These kinds of bargains are only to be found by picking amongst the dew-moistened bins of amateurs like Cranky Guy.