Your quote for the new year

History, of course, shows repeatedly that the most culturally threatened people are those who are complicit in the tranformation of culture from what they honor to what they desire.

- Ed Kilgore, NewDonkey.com

Winter 2005: New Visions for Downtown New Albany

I’m creating this thread to facilitate comments for Destinations Booksellers’ quarterly Public Affairs Seminar, tentatively scheduled for March 2, 2005. We will assemble a panel of local residents to discuss new visions for the future of downtown New Albany.

Over the next two months, I invite you to post your questions and comments to be raised at this moderated discussion.

To get the discussion off the ground, here is a topical question:

What, if anything, should be done by our public officials to rejuvenate the downtown district?

For what it’s worth

A patron just informed me that the chain bookstore in Clarksville is closing, effective Jan. 31. I did not know that.

The nature of things

The next time you lament the passing of a tradition or the loss of a historic landmark, the next time you remember a favorite haunt and realize that memory is all you have because the place just ain’t there anymore, ponder this: Did you do anything to prevent the passing? to prevent the loss? to preserve the place and not just the memory?

We’re living in a society that honors ends rather than means. If a historic building gets torn down or defaced to make way for “progress,” it seems we accept that as being for the best. If a faceless corporate entity uses predatory tactics to destroy competition, that seems to be OK. We, as a society, have replaced worship of a deity with a worship of market forces.

Are we willing to trade in what’s unique about our town for a one-size-fits-all cultural uniformity? Should New Albany, Indiana be little different from New Albany, Ohio or Albany, New York? Some people would actively say “yes” and promote that end. But far too many of us would instinctively say “no” and then proceed to enable the promoters of monoculture.

In Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle For Workers’ Rights at Wal-Mart, by Liza Featherstone, a comment is made that Sam Walton built his mercantile empire by targeting poor people and that his corporate heirs rely on keeping people poor in order to thrive. That came from an activist trying to boost wages, and others have made the case that society as a whole benefits from Wal-Mart’s lower prices, even if that means your local clothier, your local hardware store, your local auto parts store, and your local textile factory go out of business while your county’s median income plummets.

If you worship markets, that’s OK. Those local businesses must have been “inefficient.” We must be better off with one store to shop at. It must be a good thing to have the same restaurants available wherever we go.

But the facts show that it’s not OK. Civic Economics just released its latest survey of local businesses in comparison to chains. Ironically, their Web site domain name seems to have been bought up (by whom?) in just the last few weeks. Could it be that the study is being repressed?

Their analysis of retailers in Andersonville, Ill., a Chicago suburb, showed that for every $100 spent at a local retailer, an additional $73 is returned to the local economy. Chain retailers returned only an additional $43. The study further showed that when it came to efficiency, local retailers were about 2 percentage points more efficient than the chains.

As you watch your local economy transform, do you like what you see? Do you want more of your money to leave town, thus accelerating a downward economic spiral? Did you know you get to vote on this?

That’s right. Every time you make a purchase, you are casting a vote. Vote for monoculture and absentee ownership of your local merchants. Or not.

It all comes down to how you frame the debate. If the “given” is that dominant players are by definition “good,” then the means by which the winners win is irrelevant. John Yarmuth, columnist for the Louisville Eccentric Observer (LEO at http://www.leoweekly.com), makes telling comment this week about framing. Josh Marshall does likewise in his blog, Talking Points Memo (www.talkingpointsmemo.com).

You’d think all this bloviating stemmed from pure self-interest. After all, I’m a new local retailer in competition with corporate behemoths like Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, and Kroger, not to mention the Killer B’s of the bookstore business. But that’s not where I’m coming from.

I’m afraid we’re about to lose an important part of our local culture, just like we lost Hawley-Cooke a few years ago. Last night, I checked out the drop boxes for LEO and its primary competition, Velocity. By 9 p.m., the LEO box was almost empty. Velocity, its much more ubiquitous competitor, had an overflow of copies. You might think that showed LEO to be more successful, more in demand.

Not so, from what I can gather. Could it be that the dominant print medium, owned by the newspaper giant Gannett, is using profits from other publications to subsidize Velocity in order to really put the hurt on the true alternative weekly? There was a time when such predations were considered illegal. Lawmakers and citizens still maintain a de jure ban on same, even including treble damages for such anti-competitive, anti-consumer activities.

Pick up a copy of LEO, if you can find one. It’s a FREE publication, after all. We have a few copies here at the store. Patronize its advertisers and be sure to tell them you saw their ads in LEO. I, for one, consider it to be one of the good things about our town. We’ll miss it if it goes away. Just like we miss all those good things that are only memories today.

And while you’re at it, think again about that decision to take only one newspaper. Does a regional daily have any incentive to truly cover New Albany? Georgetown? Jeffersonville? Would its readers in Bullitt County even care to know what cultural events are going on in Southeast Indiana? The Tribune, The Evening News, and The Democrat, among others, provide us with that sense of community we need desperately. I’ve chosen to make Southeast Indiana my home and the home for my business. What happens here matters.

Serge Storms

Yes, Tim Dorsey’s lay historical preservationist/avenging angel is coming back for more Weird Florida antics, and he’s even got his own blog.

If you want just a taste of Serge Storms, check out http://www.sergestorms.com/.

Warning! If you are the slightest bit offended by off-color language, Serge’s blog is not for you.

Guest posting

With one click, you can see what my baby brother is recommending. Larry is the executive director of the Practice Management Section of the American Bar Association in Chicago and a prolific reader.

Unlike me, he has always lived in a large metropolis (Atlanta, Denver, Chicago), and was often my source for hard-to-find autographed copies. For many years, his hometown independent bookstore was The Tattered Cover, which is, perhaps, the finest bookstore in the world. If you are ever in Denver, you should make it a point to stop in to one of their three locations and see the model after which we have modeled ourselves.

So, without further ado, here is Larry’s end of the year reading list:

http://www.larbotoday.blogspot.com/

Heads up on Destinations’ big books of Winter

Ann and I want to wish all of you the best as we wend our way back toward Spring and we hope you’ll have many opportunities to wend your way back to Spring Street.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out to you a few books that you’ll be hearing a lot about here at the store. Just before we opened the store, we had the opportunity to spend some time with two of the authors over a weekend in Atlanta and I can’t tell you how excited we are to be able to sell these two books.

The first is Baker Towers by Jennifer Haigh. Jennifer’s first book was the dazzling Mrs. Kimble, which Ann and I both had the chance to read during 2004. As you may know, during our courtship I drove to New Albany every other weekend from Daytona Beach (863 miles one way) to fan the flames of our relationship and to scout out locations for the store. That made books on tape my preferred reading media, so Mrs. Kimble came to me during those long night drives through Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky.

Ann is reading Baker Towers right now and she can’t put it down. It just became available for January release. I have it inbound right now and I’m certain many of you will want to read it. The setting is a Pennsylvania coal town in the 50s, but I immediately saw parallels between her fictional town and our own little burg. This is a novel about societal change and the stresses that come from an entire community trying to adjust to a new economic reality. The title refers to two massive coal waste piles (towers) that mark the entrance to the town.

In a large crowd, Jennifer comes across as very literary and a bit aloof. I made it a point to seek her out after her major address and later, when I introduced her to Ann, we found her to be a sparkling woman and a bit of a word freak. In fact, a bit of a geek. We booksellers hold a spelling bee each year and Jennifer was stricken when her schedule wouldn’t allow her to join our team. (We won, by the way, although the story of how we did so is best left to another time.)

For you non-fiction buffs, I can’t recommend strongly enough that you explore Malcolm Gladwell’s new title, Blink. Malcolm is an independent bookseller favorite after the breakout success of his last book, The Tipping Point. This new one, on order now, is going to be phenomenal. This 41-year-old New Yorker writer has made it his business to examine why people act the way they do. This time, he turns his eye to the quick decision-making process.

I had the chance to engage Malcolm in a public colloquy during his appearance at the Southeast Booksellers Association. It turns out that I had been using the “thin-slicing” method he describes in my decision-making for the last year. For 47 years, my modus operandi was to research and gather every nugget of data and information before making decisions. Coincident with meeting Ann and with a nearly fatal illness my father suffered, my processes changed. But I wasn’t comfortable with it. Suddenly, every decision I made was turning out right, but I did not trust the process.

Malcolm’s research gave me reason to be confident in this new (for me) way to make choices. His is not a mystical process and he’s not really an advocate, but rather, a journalist. Fast Company magazine has crowned him as the hot new business guru and I’m pleased to be able to bring his findings to New Albany. Would that our public officials take some of these lessons to heart.

I do think many of you will want to check this book out…even keep it handy as a reference and a tool for building confidence in your own decision-making. His thesis is that instinct is nearly always correct, but we let our “big brains” (with apologies to Mr. Vonnegut) get in the way of doing what we “know” is right.

- Let me also recommend 1776 by David McCullough, coming in May. The Truman chronicler takes on the momentous events of our nation’s founding.

- One of my perennial favorites is Please Understand Me II, the David Kiersey implementation of the incredibly useful Myers-Briggs test that applies Jungian thought to our daily interactions. I have NEVER found anyone who didn’t learn something about themselves, their co-workers, their children, or their mates from this book. Over the years I have given away dozens of these copies, used it in my own businesses, and improved my understanding of myself and others.

- Ponzi’s Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend reminds us that Ponzi was, in fact, a real person whose mischief created a new word and whose figurative descendants still prey on the eager and gullible. Mitchell Zuckoff tells the story in a March release.

- I’m eager to read Mitch Cullin’s A Slight Trick of the Mind, in which a retired Sherlock Holmes is compelled to don his deerstalker hat again.

- Alexander McCall Smith takes on academia in three novellas with January’s Portuguese Irregular Verbs. It includes The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs and At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances, as well as the title piece. McCall Smith is the increasingly popular author of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency novels and The Sunday Philosphy Club.

- Frank Delaney’s Ireland brings the history of the Emerald Isle to epic life in February.

Look for a major announcement about the upcoming Torpedo Juice by Tim Dorsey. This is Tim’s seventh Serge Storms comic masterpiece and I am determined to turn all of you on to this incredible talent. Dorsey’s entire backlist is in stock here and we’re going to make it impossible for his publisher to bypass us when Tim brings out his eighth book in 2006. I’ve sent a case of his latest to his home in Florida and he has agreed to affix his autograph to each and every one.

During the new year, our first in-house reading group will be the Serge Storms Historic Research and Debating Society. These autographed copies will be reserved for its members, who will convene only at those venues in the area that qualify for the appellation of “Quasi-Weird.”

Dorsey’s (and Serge’s) obsession with the preservation of authentic history and nature should fit right in with the zeitgeist among our patrons. The SSHR&DS is going to be much more than a book club. I envision it as the release valve and forum for growing body of like-minded people we’ve met here in the first two months. There are so many of you who should meet each other and this is one of the ways we will be helping to create the Third Space for building community. It’s not quite the salon Ann so earnestly desires, but the Shredders are going to be a force in this community…mark my words.

Communication in a time of crisis

On a day when even the newspapers aren’t being delivered, it’s nice to be able to hit the Internet and communicate with friends and loved ones. We here in New Albany have been clobbered by the storm of this century and even the most stringent employers have declared this an emergency day. The wife has a snow day off for the first time in her career.

Still, since it was possible for me to get to the store, we’re open. Today is probably the only chance that the public will have to meet author Patrick Naville, who is doing a book-signing from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. here at the store.

The telephone company has scraped their lot, I’ve cleared the sidewalk on Spring and we have the doors open at either end. If you are out, come on by. If you’re really smart, you’ll enjoy this extra day of leisure and take care of family and friends. But if you need a book, magazine, or gift item to round out your Christmas complement, go ahead and e-mail me at ops@destinationsbooksellers.com or just call the store at 812 944 5116 and we’ll set it aside for pickup at your first Pre- or Post-Christmas convenience.

Winter wonderland

This is my first snow north of the Ohio River since 1990…well, that’s not really true.

I’ve traveled all over the country since then, but this is the first time in 14 years that I’ve been responsible for shoveling snow. Got down here before the sun came up, shoveled, and salted, so there’s a clear and safe space in front of the store.

If you don’t want to brave the elements and the vagaries of “first-real-snow-of-the-winter” drivers, I can hardly blame you. But, if you’re growing bored and don’t really want to build a snow creature (and I must admit this is the perfect snow for that), we’ve got hot coffee (Antiguan) and tasty desserts for those of you who might make it down.

Our prayers are with those of you traveling or who have family inbound for the holidays. We’ll be here Christmas Eve for those last-minute gifts you forgot and under the right circumstances we might just deliver it to you. The Internet and the phones are still working.

If you need a stocking stuffer, remember we have the BookSense Gift Card that’s good at over 300 independent booksellers across the country.

Finally, I’m amazed we still have some left, but the best gift book of the season is “The Playmakers: Amazing Origins of Timeless Toys.” This is a dazzling book filled with nostalgic pictures and the stories behind all those toys you love, like Play-Doh, the Magic 8-Ball, Silly Putty, and more. Tim Walsh, the author, sent us some autographed copies and I have only 2 left. This would be a great book for Christmas morning and a wonderful one to add to your collection of “coffee-table” books. Call the store at 944-5116 or e-mail me; the next two patrons who buy this book will get the autographed copies. And for those of you who have still not joined the Patron Passport rewards program, this offer includes you, too.

We’re open Christmas Eve until late and we’ll open again Sunday from noon to 5.

Have a safe and joyful holiday.

Finding a tocip

Sorry to be so derelict in posting. I’m well aware of how annoying it can be when you rely on a blog for a daily nugget, only to find nothing new there.

A piece of prose about exhaustion might be appropriate, but that does seem a little whiny. I asked my beloved what would be a good “tocip” to catch up with. With the way the Christmas rush is going, I fear I might read the “Pee Thiddle Ligs” for Children’s Story Hour.

But, great things are happening down on Spring Street. Just today, we opened a dialogue with the Southern Indiana Writers Group, whose representative seemed enthusiastic about their participation in our Rhyme & Reason Nights (Saturdays at 6). More and more local writers are discovering that DB is ready and willing to be their biggest promoter.

I’m excited about a piece of historical memorabilia we acquired today and I think many of you will be, as well. Several years ago, this piece of New Albaniana was headed for the landfill before being rescued by a history-minded public official. As this public servant departs for the private sector, he and his family were seeking a venue for displaying this artifact, for a place that would treat the item with respect. Warehousing it or burying it in a private collection wouldn’t do.

Now, Destinations Booksellers will be the home of this historic document, given to us on semi-permanent loan for the next 25 years so long as we continue to make it available for public view.

As soon as we can find a way to safely mount it, you’ll quickly recognize it next time you come by the store. In the meantime, just ask and we’ll be glad to show it to you.

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Meanwhile, the store was blessed with a visit from Patrick Naville this morning. Pat is making a whirlwind tour of his hometown, including a book-signing here at the store on Thursday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Pat’s debut novel (he’s now completing his third) is “Echo Whispers,” an alternate history that imagines what would happen if A) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid survived their Bolivian adventures, and B) wound up crossing the Capone mob in Prohibition-era Chicago.

If you really want us to have events, come on down Thursday and meet Pat, hear the back story on how he came to write his first novel, buy a book and get it signed by the author.