No, not the diary itself. I am now the sole editor of a new series at Readers and Book Lovers called "All Things Bookstore." The first diary will publish on Tuesday, March 12 at 5 AM Pacific, and, mirabile dictu, I'm not writing it. Another Kossack saw the announcement in another R&BL diary and volunteered it.That makes, I suppose, five regularly scheduled diaries (one weekly, three every other week, and us) that I'm responsible for. Follow me below the Great Orange Bookplate for a fuller explanation, and one of the gentlest sales pitches to which you have ever been subjected.
But First, A Word From Our Sponsor:
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Please come in. You're invited to make yourself at home!
This is another tribute to the Great Orange Satan and its community-building abilities. In this case, it's a lesson that you never know who is going to be touched by your reading, and what the outcome of that is going to be.
You may remember that in a moment of idleness, I wrote a diary about Barnes and Noble closing bookstores even though they're making money because they want to migrate their readers to the Nook. I called it"Whither the Bookstore." You may have read it. It attracted some interest: 34 recs, 100 comments, and the comments ranged from discussion of defunct book and record stores to the relative merits of the Nook and the Kindle with some commentary of the social value of "tree" books. It was fun.
(Scribner's Book Store, New York, 1989, defunct)
About a week later, I received a kosmail from one of the admins of the Readers and Book Lovers group asking if I'd co-edit a series about bookstores, and almost immediately the proposed co-editor begged off. "Of course!" I said. So I wrote a mission statement for it
We all love books and we all have had favorite bookstores. This series is about the bookstore: what we like about them, their history, the people who work there, the hours we’ve spent looking through them and the stores in which we’ve found our favorite books and our greatest treasures. This is also about the economics of bookstores and the forces that help or hinder the existence of independent bookstores. In short, diaries about anything that has to do with the bookstore.
I decided to call it "All Things Bookstore" and it showed up on the Readers and Book Lovers schedule on February 20. I decided to schedule it on Tuesday at 5 AM Pacific the weeks when LGBT Literature was dark, because I already had experience with getting those diaries ready to queue on Sunday or Monday (I still marvel at the Readers and Book Lovers queue -- it shows such organization).
(A Different Light, Castro Street, San Francisco, closed)
So, you ask, what resources can I fall back on for this so it doesn't take a huge bite out of my time? Remember Top Comments: Art Hoax, 1920s Version Edition? Remember how I ended it?
BARELY rewritten from my dissertation. Mostly from Paul Jordan Smith, The Road I Came (1960) and from Box 42 of the collection he left at the Special Collections library at UCLA. This is why I like archival work so much, because you really don't know what you'll find in any given collection.
As I told the R&BL admin, I wrote a doctoral dissertation about an indie bookseller during the 1930s who had his fingers in lots of areas of culture in Los Angeles, so I have a large stock of fill-in material if necessary -- it's never going to be a book, in other words. You'll get to read more of it in this series.
(Powell's Books, Portland, Oregon)
And now the sales pitch. Surely, many of you have something interesting to say about bookstores and how you acquire books nowadays as opposed to how you acquired them in the days before Amazon and its competitors. This is a series that will accept anything that even tangentially has to do with bookstores. I'm the curator, so I get to make these decisions! Consider your relationship to the physical book, and how it has or has not changed, and I know you'll come up with something interesting! Thank you in advance.
And now for the stuff that makes this Top Comments:
TOP COMMENTS
March 8, 2013
Thanks to tonight's Top Comments contributors! Let us hear from YOU when you find that proficient comment.
From Horace Boothroyd III:
In my own diary, offgrid had this to say about our justice system.
From Noddy:
renzo capetti has an inquiring mind in today's New Day diary.
From Says Who:
Jay C has a new slogan for the NRA in Tolerant Liberal's diary about, um, concealed carry. This one you HAVE to visit. Trust me!
From Steveningen:
In my diary, Totally heterosexual Peter LaBarbera, Bob Johnson started this incredibly funny and incredibly NSFW thread. I'm nominating the entire thing.
From Dave in Northridge, your intrepid diarist:
In a thread in Steveningen's diaryabout the odious Peter LaBarbera, skip954 has this spot-on explanation of LaBarbera's behavior.
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TOP MOJO
March 7, 2013
(excluding Tip Jars and first comments)
Thanks, mik!
1) Clearly We Have A Two Tiered Justice System by webranding — 150
2) Betcha this won't appear on Fox! n/t.. by fabucat — 139
3) Little white lies by Loge — 117
4) I want to see her make them squirm by kovie — 115
5) The rich people and big companies by Marihilda — 109
6) Betcha this doesn't stop by Puddytat — 98
7) Holder was appointed by Obama. by dkmich — 97
8) Cowardice or complicity? by Dallasdoc — 86
9) Excellent! by cotterperson — 85
10) Also by Iberian — 80
11) The fact that they're covering for people by kovie — 80
12) Knock yourself out by kos — 75
13) Warren is looking even better if that is possible by Shockwave — 72
14) Chuck Todd is an idiot. by MargaretPOA — 65
15) Don't buy that excuse by david mizner — 62
16) I thought of that... by markthshark — 62
17) surely no one thinks Austin is red???? by anotherdemocrat — 62
18) TOTALITARIANISM...it's the "new normal!" by bobswern — 61
19) Excellent news by stevej — 60
20) Democratic political leadership, take note by Simplify — 59
21) Let's hope this is just the first... by lexalou — 58
22) You're not rooting against us. by Giles Goat Boy — 57
23) It's amazing how some on the left by Smoke and Mirrors — 57
24) That it is ... by dmhlt 66 — 56
25) That's nice that liberals by david mizner — 56
26) Molly Ivins dreamed of a Blue Texas, imho. Let's by foucaultspendulum — 56
27) This is brilliant! by TriangleNC — 55
28) now totally out in the open - law protect powerful by Don midwest — 55
29) Woo!!! by TexMex — 55
30) Little more than two years by Horace Boothroyd III — 54
31) If president didn't like what Holder was doing he by RFK Lives — 54
For an explanation of How Top Mojo Works, see mik's FAQing Top Mojo
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TOP PHOTOS
March 7, 2013
Enjoy jotter's wonderful PictureQuilt below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo. Have fun, Kossacks!
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