There is a name of a person in the news I would pay cash money to never hear again.
There is a story told during the era of FDR of a rich man who arrived at his office everyday, got out of his limo and bought a paper from the nearest paper boy, looked at the headlines and handed it back.
“What are you looking for Mister?” asked the paperboy one day.
“An obituary,” said the rich man.
“But Mister,” said the paperboy, “Obits aren’t on the front page!“
“The one I am waiting for will be.“
I am slowly becoming hardened to the fact that I may not live to see a resolution of this news cycle in my favor.
But the alloy of my hope is proximity.
Above ALL THINGS one must stick around.
One must be there.
I tell my kids (quoting Jim Harrison though they don’t know it) that the list of folks who get fired for being late to work is as long as my arm.
STICK AROUND.
BE THERE.
As the State of South Carolina license plates say, While I Breathe, I Hope!
fantasies drawn more real says a lot about what going on in his head
I allowed myself to get excited when I saw that there was an upcoming article to be published in the New Yorker titled, Life after Calvin.
It was reported to be look at the life of Bill Watterson in one of the few interviews the artist/writer/creator has granted since he stopped creating the Calvin and Hobbs comic strip.
I love Calvin and Hobbs or at least I really enjoy.
Much of it, for me, can be seen as biography.
Much of what Calvin thought, says and does sounds very familiar to me.
With much interest, I have been waiting for this article.
So it is here.
And I have read it.
And …
I am not sure what I wanted it to say.
But it sure didn’t say much.
I think the writer got one or two quotes and fleshed out a New Yorker profile.
I am reminded of something Jim Harrison said about giving interviews.
Mr. Harrison remarked that he could get through any interview by repeating any question back as a statement.
He didn’t have to think much.
And the writer was able to prove all their preconceived notions.
The was one take away thought, but it seems to have been said in some other interview.
The writer, one Rivka Galchen, writes, “Watterson has said, of the illustrations in “Calvin and Hobbes,” “One of the jokes I really like is that the fantasies are drawn more realistically than reality, since that says a lot about what’s going on in Calvin’s head.” Only one reality in “Calvin and Hobbes” is drawn with a level of detail comparable to the scenes of Calvin’s imagination: the natural world. The woods, the streams, the snowy hills the friends career off—the natural world is a space as enchanted and real as Hobbes himself.“
… the fantasies are drawn more realistically than reality, since that says a lot about what’s going on in Calvin’s head.
I like that.
I like that as I think I live that way to this day.
So I can find affirmation of my lifestyle.
As for Mr. Watterson?
In this article, I think there are more quotes from Calvin or Hobbs than from Mr. Watterson.
Maybe the title should have been, Life after Bill.
booksellers about as uncommercial breed of people possible
In a world gone crazy, when I am grasping at anything that points the compass in a positive direction, I found the recent article in the New York Times, Barnes & Noble Sets Itself Free ByMaureen O’Connor to be something of a word of hope.
To quote Big Bill or better to quote Portia in the Merchant of Venice, So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
Or maybe best to quote Willy Wonka and say, “So shines a good deed in a weary world.”
At least, for a moment, this story about how Barnes and Noble is pushing the chain to act more like the indie stores it was once notorious for displacing under the direction of a new CEO, James Daunt.
“The curious trick has been that if you actually let the local book-selling teams do what they think is best, you suddenly get much better bookstores,” Mr. Daunt said. Then he quickly added a caveat: “About a quarter of them become dramatically better, and a quarter become dramatically worse — but it is much easier to focus on that quarter and improve them.”
The change goes along with his strategy of embracing the mind-set of his typical employee. “Booksellers are about as uncommercial a breed of people as it’s possible to come across,” Mr. Daunt said. “The irony is that the less concerned we are with the commercial, the better it works commercially.
“You need to love books, and you need to know how our customers shop for books,” says a long term Barnes and Noble employee.
I read and I believe it, but only because I want to believe it.
I spent 12 years working for a chain bookstore.
For many employee’s it was a job.
For me and many employee’s and many of my good good friends that I worked with, it was a calling.
And it was a fight against those who went into it as business and tried to make it business while we tried to keep the faith.
So to read, “The curious trick has been that if you actually let the local book-selling teams do what they think is best, you suddenly get much better bookstores.” almost makes me want to cry.
I worked for Waldenbooks.
But I lived in Michigan.
If you loved books and you lived in the State of Michigan, at some point in your life you ended up at Border’s Book Store, a stand alone, independent love-affair with books in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
If you went down that path, you also at some point ended up at John King Used Books in Detroit but that’s another story.
Among booksellers in the State of Michigan, Border’s was the gold standard.
It had sofa’s and chairs and probably some sort of cafe before Starbucks.
They had a service desk set up and staffed by three people, in the pre computer era, who did nothing but researched hard to find titles so a customer could order the book.
They had floor upon floor of books.
The had an art print / map section and I still have prints on my office wall that I purchased there, using my grocery money instead of using my grocery money for groceries.
When I started with at my bookstore in a mall, I saw how it could embrace some of what Border’s was.
I fought for chairs in the store.
I fought for more and more copies of different books rather than 100 copies of the same bestseller.
We worked to create displays of content that meant something.
I started as a bookseller then assistant Manager and finally, Manager.
Though I used label tape and put the title, GUY IN CHARGE on my name tag.
One of the many, many things I did that got me trouble.
My battles can be kind of summed up when I made a display of books for Valentine’s Day.
Regardless of the topic or author, I took over a wall and made a display of every red book we had in the store.
My District Manager came in, took one look at Car Repair manuals next to Novels next to books on Knitting but ALL WITH RED COVERS surrounded by cardboard hearts and he ran back out to his car to get his camera.
“That’s the type of thinking we want to see Mike!,” he told me.
I banged a big red American Heritage dictionary against my head.
“This is Walden’s, Mike”, he would say, “Not Border’s.“
The really funny part of this story is that after I was asked to leave the employ of company, another long story, Walden’s relocated it’s headquarters from Stamford, CT to ANN ARBOR and then bought out Border’s and in an effort to change the brand, changed the name of the Company TO Border’s Books!
In the end I guess I won.
To read Booksellers are about as uncommercial a breed of people as it’s possible to come across is a tonic to my soul.
Some where I have a book, I think it’s an autographed copy of Lake Wobegone by Garrison Keillor.
It was picked up for me by a Waldenbooks Regional Vice President.
Her office was in Ann Arbor and I got to know her when I worked at the Walden’s in Ann Arbor when I was in College.
I was allowed to switch back and forth between Grand Rapids, where I lived and Ann Arbor.
I would have long talks with this VP on bookselling as a calling and she would explain bookselling as a business.
She knew I liked Keillor and arranged to get an autographed copy when he made an appearance at some other Walden’s.
Inscribed above the author’s autograph was this sentiment.
“To the most un-corporate person I know.”
And she signed it.
When James Thurber’s dog Mugg’s (The Dog that Bit People) died, he writes, “Mother wanted to bury him in the family lot under a marble stone with some such inscription as “Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest” but we persuaded her it was against the law. In the end we just put up a smooth board above his grave along a lonely road. On the board I wrote with an indelible pencil “Cave Canem.” Mother was quite pleased with the simple classic dignity of the old Latin epitaph.“
To the most un-corporate person I know.
Should I have a tombstone someday, I would be quite pleased with the simple classic dignity of that sentiment.
computers often in reality too dumb to avoid hurting us
Inspired by the guest Opinion Essay, “Autonomous Vehicles Are Driving Blind” by Julia Angwin a contributing Opinion writer to the New York Times and an investigative journalist and the passage, “There’s an irony here: So many headlines have focused on fears that computers will get too smart and take control of the world from humans, but in our reality, computers are often too dumb to avoid hurting us.”
Ms. Angwin writes, “For all the ballyhoo over the possibility of artificial intelligence threatening humanity someday, there’s remarkably little discussion of the ways it is threatening humanity right now. When it comes to self-driving cars, we are driving blind.”
Ms. Angwin explains, “The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration regulates the hardware (such as windshield wipers, airbags and mirrors) of cars sold in the United States. And the states are in charge of licensing human drivers. To earn the right to drive a car, most of us at some point have to pass a vision test, a written test and a driving test. The A.I. undergoes no such government scrutiny before commanding the wheel.”
I am reminded of The Glass in the Field by James Thurber from Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated: as in appeared in The Thurber Carnival.
A short time ago some builders, working on a studio in Connecticut, left a huge square of plate glass standing upright in a field one day. A goldfinch flying swiftly across the field struck the glass and was knocked cold. When he came to he hastened to his club, where an attendant bandaged his head and gave him a stiff drink. “What the hell happened?” asked a sea gull. “I was flying across a meadow when all of a sudden the air crystallized on me,” said the goldfinch. The sea gull and a hawk and an eagle all laughed heartily. A swallow listened gravely. “For fifteen years, fledgling and bird, I’ve flown this country,” said the eagle, “and I assure you there is no such thing as air crystallizing. Water, yes; air, no.” “You were probably struck by a hailstone,” the hawk told the goldfinch. “Or he may have had a stroke,” said the sea gull. “What do you think, swallow?” “Why, I–I think maybe the air crystallized on him,” said the swallow. The large birds laughed so loudly that the goldfinch became annoyed and bet them each a dozen worms that they couldn’t follow the course he had flown across the field without encountering the hardened atmosphere. They all took his bet; the swallow went along to watch. The sea gull, the eagle, and the hawk decided to fly together over the route the goldfinch indicated. “You come, too,” they said to the swallow. “I–I–well, no,” said the swallow. “I don’t think I will.” So the three large birds took off together and they hit the glass together and they were all knocked cold.
they foolishly sought power riding the tiger ended up inside
“… remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.”
From the inaugural address of John F. Kennedy, on January 20, 1961.
It is worth pointing out that the paragraph with this quote in it starts out, “To those new states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free …”
Today, I don’t think of new states but old states.
Our state.
This Country.
This Country that is in such a state that I don’t think Mr. Kennedy could ever had dreamed in his worst dreams.
This Nation has a Constitution of checks and balances.
The checks and balances are the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government.
Like a three legged stool, each branch both supports and checks the others.
Of late …
The Supreme Court of the United States of America, a branch of Government I always took for granted as being above Government and the one branch that could be counted on to do the right thing has been marginalized by politics, greed and social media.
The Supreme Court seems to be broken and it doesn’t work like as it was planned to work.
In the Legislative Branch, the United States Senate is deadlocked so that any one Senator can prevent, delay or change the daily business of the Senate.
While that isn’t great, it is better than what the United States House of Representatives did when they themselves, the members of the House, took the House out the Legislative branch part of the equation and pretty much ceased to exist as a functioning part of Government.
The Legislative Branch seems to be broken and it doesn’t work like as it was planned to work.
Within the Executive Branch of the Government, multiple Government Agencies are held in question and from Health to Education their existence is in doubt.
The Department of Justice, say that out loud, the DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE is seemingly dismissed by half the Country.
The US Military, part of the Executive Branch is being denied promotions and the Soldiers and Sailors themselves, the Men and Women who DEFEND this Country have to worry about whether or not they might get paid.
The Executive Branch seems to be broken and it doesn’t work like as it was planned to work.
On top of all this, the whole thing is based on free and fair elections.
Elections were supposed to give us all a voice in Government by selecting between the best and brightest candidates the two party system could offer.
Everyone seems to be in agreement who the next two candidates for President will be.
Everyone seems to be in agreement the no one really wants either candidate.
These are the best the Two Party system can come up with?
The Two Party system seems to be broken and it doesn’t work like as it was planned to work.
Regardless of your party affiliation, is there anyone left in the United States today that feels they can trust the next election?
Elections seem to be broken and it doesn’t work like as it was planned to work.
The Checks and Balances no longer work and I can see easily how a faction within this country will endorse the idea that we, as a nation, need to step away from the Constitution and bring in somebody as a caretaker, a benign, good natured, the best interests of the people at heart, type of … Dictator to take over until we can get things sorted out.
What scares the stuff out of me as I am starting to think that this was the plan all along.
I am hoping I am wrong.
I am hoping that this Country, this Nation can rise above this.
I am hoping that those who feel the need for a caretaker, a benign, good natured, the best interests of the people at heart, type of … Dictator keep in mind what Mr. Kennedy said.
“… remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.”
