Shadow Boxing The Brockengespenst
If a person happens to look up the word “brockengespenst” (a
German word with dots over the o) followed by “francophone” and “teratogenic”
in close succession, the Googlebot.motivator knows within a few degrees of
accuracy that you are most likely reading David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest,”
a hallmark of a certain modern ethos and accepted barn staple of the lonely collegiate
esthetic… a.k.a. proof that you know big
words and stuff… and/or, you have time to read.
AND
‘Time to read’ in
a 50-hour work-week society is becoming the new icon of success. Mercedes,
Lamborghini and 50-inch rims have finally been overtaken & replaced in full
by books (information), a subtle victory for human kind. Time is the new symbol of affluence. And rushing around in uncomfortable clothes
with a chirping phone and a vibrating smart-watch, pulse-monitor, location-beacon
to contend with are beginning to lose favor (style-wise) exposing a slow overdue
rotation in the appearances game.
At first, it’s a compliment (this stuff I’m saying) to all
involved… to the readers.
BUT
On a second look, we find the discerning reader started
buying, absorbing, taking in, downloading their coffee,
biscotti, batteries, news, and books (in bulk) online, in the privacy and
relative security/obscurity of home a
long while ago, leaving the freshly literate to fend for themselves…alone, in the physical book store.
BRICKS, MORTAR and YOU
Ten-dollar words, twenty-five dollar books, and four-dollar
coffee is living a hand-to-mouth existence in a feeble clump at the sharper
edge of town in realtime, today…right now.
The Corporate structure is legally obliged to repeat ANY last
quarter successes, electro-prodding the repeat customer mindset to life on the
cold steel ‘information age’ gurney. And
while fresh flesh coming through the front door is surely a factor in the
modern book store profit model, the book store seems to be locked into an
unhealthy relationship with 14-year-olds. An ugly, dysfunctional, company
picnic family portrait with “junior” hogging center stage develops on autopilot
like the fresh grey blue and yellow fog of a Polaroid picture materializing, becoming
a big mysterious box of books producing one allowable question…
Satin or Glossy?
The children’s books and restrooms are in the back, they take up 47% of the store, while CD’s
DVD’s, wallets, dinosaur puzzles, stuffed animals, Legos, glow-in-the-dark
Frisbees, key-chains, and blank goddamned journal books take up everything
right of the equator … & we all know where the coffee is.
What’s left for the adults? (besides the coffee)
You can thank the Lord for “Literary Fiction,” but try to define it and you’ll wind up in the
SELF-HELP aisle rubbing shoulders with that salmon-colored sweater guy wearing
the “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” hat.
There are three feet of “CLASSICS” & three meters of
SCIENCE being threatened continually by the nine yards of SPORTS ‘tween the Great
Wall of COOKBOOKS and the Leaning Tower of TRAVEL GUIDES.
The MAGAZINES (on
angular display) up in the front of the store are the flat dead prisons of
yesteryear, the slick volumes of unclickable martyrdom lay unblinking shoulder-to-shoulder
with the sad clearance rack being swarmed by paupers like a renaissance
musician’s apartment postmortem.
Somewhere in there… in the very center… is a book worth
reading. Hunter S. Thompson parties
alone in this thinly carpeted travesty, passed over for teen vampire love triangles and
6-week abdominal videos.
I love books, and I love book stores, but this has become
something else, a long-awaited sequel to your favorite movie that starts up
with thunder and lightning before you realize the timing is off, the dialog is
Disney-approved, the supporting actors have all been replaced, the music’s too
loud, and the director’s name is unpronounceable. The organized nightmare rings complete when
you realize (popcorn in hand/ass in seat)…
A picture is NOT worth a thousand words.
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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