Every morning at Barnes & Noble we have a meeting. The manager comes on overhead to say some variant of "Good morning booksellers, let's gather at the customer service desk," and then once the booksellers are assembled gives us a recap of the prior day's events.
The other day the manager was Leslie, a middle-aged woman and single mother who has volume control problems and terrible taste in everything.
What I imagine to be on Leslie's Nightstand
Northern Lights by Nora Roberts.
A photograph of her husband.
Two alarm clocks, one electric and one old-timey wind-up one in case the electricity fails.
Disinfectant.
Reading glasses.
A small bottle of beano.
An issue of More magazine.
"We made plan yesterday, but barely," Leslie told us. "We're still not meeting our goal with membership sales, so everyone work on that. Try selling them all over the store, not just at the registers. Oh and don't forget we have Trent Lott coming Saturday to sign his new book, Herding Cats. That should be exciting, huh?"
Nods and murmurs. Jacob said something about being glad he isn't working.
"We have a lot of new strict-on-sales coming out today, let's take a look at them."
Strict-on-sale refers to a book with a "strict-on-sale date," which means that the publisher won't allow us to sell the book before that date. Sometimes these dates are broken: Wal-Mart sold the last two Harry Potter books early and paid substantial fines for it.
"Okay, here we have Team of Rivals, by, uh, Dorrie Kearns Gooden. Hmmm. And here's Truth, by ehem, Al Franken."
Leslie made a face as she said "Al Franken" that led me to think she probably watches Fox News, something I had always suspected of her. She is exceptionally well-informed.
"And, well, HERE's a title. Memories of My Melancholy Whores. SKREEEEEEEEETCH. Well I never."
"SKREEEEEEEEETCH" is actually a pretty accurate representation of how Leslie laughs, a laugh one of my coworkers has compared to the cry of a starving eagle.
"Well," said Leslie, the strict-on-sales disposed of, "Is anyone reading anything interesting?"
Leslie always ends her meetings with this question, usually to the same silent response but today a new girl named Elizabeth piped up.
"I'm reading A Million Little Pieces," she said.
A Million Little Pieces is a biography by James Frey that came out several years ago. It sold some copies then, but wasn't a big deal until very recently when Oprah decided she liked it, sending droves of her fans to stores to make it Barnes & Noble's top selling paperback title.
"Oh," said Leslie, "What's that like?"
"Pretty good I guess. It hasn't really grabbed me."
At which point Jacob weighed in.
"Man, I looked at that book. It's all about drug addiction, and suicide and stuff. It's totally fucked."
He looked Leslie dead in the eye as he said fucked, and she smiled wide, her eyes full of fear.
My heart soared.
Friday, October 28, 2005
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Happening
This week I cleaned out my closet for the first time in several years, and found a lot of crappy old toys, as well as roughly a dozen notebooks from college and high school, many of them three quarters empty. Among the broken supersoakers and the notes on integral calculus I found a box dating back to my senior year of high school, when I attended Happening #34.
Before l went to Happening I always thought it was this exclusive club, where members went away for periodic secret weekends and initiated new members and had lots of fun, doing what I wasn't sure, but maybe bonfires were involved, or possibly large scale battles with waterguns.
Well there are no bonfires, and no watergun battles, because Happening is a cult for teenagers-- a long-established, well-respected, open-minded cult. Run by hippies. The point of the whole thing is to make the "happened" feel "God's love." Everyone sits around and talks about life, and morality, and what they think life means, and God of course, and a load of other crap, and then at the end everyone feels really close to each other and really happy and everyone is sure to go to church for the rest of their lives and donate lots of money so that their churches can build new fellowship halls and host bigger and better pig-roasts.
I won't go into all of what takes place over a Happening weekend, in part so as not to ruin these people's fun secrets and in part because most of it is rather dull, but I will discuss one part of the weekend called "Caritas." This is when the people running the show surprise the people being "happened" by throwing a bunch of balloons and confetti, and giving each participant their own individual giftbag full of little trinkets, incense, toys, candy, cards and letters. It's supposed to be about making you feel loved, and while I'll admit now that its kind of a nice idea, back in high school it really creeped me out. I re-lived that feeling this week when I found the contents of my Caritas giftbag in a box in my closet.
Among the dried flowers and notes from total strangers I found a few items of particular note--
A sponge with the inscription "Soak up GOD's LOVE!"
A pair of extra large sunglasses with the words "Don't be blinded by God's Love!"
A picture of a VW Bug from a girl named "Muffin" with the words "Honk if you Jesus!" (Muffin forgot the verb, and it's fun to try filling in the blank with creative alternatives to "love." "Honk if you walked Jesus!")
A pack of 10 Kleenex with the inscription "Tears are for soul-washing!"
And, inexplicably, a can of Hannaford brand cat food (sliced chicken in gravy).
And then there were the notes. There were a lot of notes, telling me that I was a "special child of God," and that I should "spread my wings and fly" and, a conflicting request, "Bloom where you are planted!"
Several different people sent me a "Letter from Jesus," which I will excerpt for you now:
"I saw you fall asleep last night and I longed to touch your brow. So, I spilled moonlight on your pillow and your face. Again I waited, wanting to rush down so that we could talk. I have so many gifts for you. But, you awakened late the next day and rushed off. My tears were in the rain."
I know that some people somewhere must find that moving (I did receive 3 copies of it), but I thought it made Jesus sound like a bit of a pervert.
Almost as strange as this letter and the catfood were four mixed tapes, all sampling essentially the same musicians, often the same songs. All four tapes start with the Indigo Girls' "Closer to Fine," and the Indigo Girls featured prominently throughout each of these tapes, as did James Taylor and John Denver. And for some reason Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al" was on three out of four.
I know I am not alone in thinking of mixed tapes as a personal thing. In my experience it's the sort of gift given to someone you know well, a gift that says a lot about yourself and how well you understand your friend. A good mixed tape should be specifically for the person you are giving it to and full of things you think that specific person will enjoy. If you've read High Fidelity, Nick Hornby goes on about this for pages.
Now I am fairly narrow-minded musically, and was even more so at seventeen. People who know me at all know that I lean heavily toward classical, and that for better or worse I am a pretentious snob. So there probably wasn't a better way for these people to show that they had no idea who I was than to give me mixed tapes full of Peter, Paul, and Mary, and Phish, and Aaron Neville singing "Amazing Grace." Unless it was to sign their names, names that could have been picked at random from the phonebook for all I knew.
"Who are Kim Tilford and Ben Maas?" I asked, as confetti and balloons rained down on me and my neighbors exchanged hugs. As I looked through more of the letters that were in my package I became more bewildered and more put off that a couple dozen people I had never met claimed to love me. Of what value is the love of someone who doesn't know you? I'm sure Muffin was probably a nice girl, but its entirely likely she would have hated my guts if we'd ever spoken. I'd probably have said something like, "Honk if you moisturize Jesus!" or "I fucking hate the Indigo Girls, Muffin," and where could we have gone from there?
Before l went to Happening I always thought it was this exclusive club, where members went away for periodic secret weekends and initiated new members and had lots of fun, doing what I wasn't sure, but maybe bonfires were involved, or possibly large scale battles with waterguns.
Well there are no bonfires, and no watergun battles, because Happening is a cult for teenagers-- a long-established, well-respected, open-minded cult. Run by hippies. The point of the whole thing is to make the "happened" feel "God's love." Everyone sits around and talks about life, and morality, and what they think life means, and God of course, and a load of other crap, and then at the end everyone feels really close to each other and really happy and everyone is sure to go to church for the rest of their lives and donate lots of money so that their churches can build new fellowship halls and host bigger and better pig-roasts.
I won't go into all of what takes place over a Happening weekend, in part so as not to ruin these people's fun secrets and in part because most of it is rather dull, but I will discuss one part of the weekend called "Caritas." This is when the people running the show surprise the people being "happened" by throwing a bunch of balloons and confetti, and giving each participant their own individual giftbag full of little trinkets, incense, toys, candy, cards and letters. It's supposed to be about making you feel loved, and while I'll admit now that its kind of a nice idea, back in high school it really creeped me out. I re-lived that feeling this week when I found the contents of my Caritas giftbag in a box in my closet.
Among the dried flowers and notes from total strangers I found a few items of particular note--
A sponge with the inscription "Soak up GOD's LOVE!"
A pair of extra large sunglasses with the words "Don't be blinded by God's Love!"
A picture of a VW Bug from a girl named "Muffin" with the words "Honk if you Jesus!" (Muffin forgot the verb, and it's fun to try filling in the blank with creative alternatives to "love." "Honk if you walked Jesus!")
A pack of 10 Kleenex with the inscription "Tears are for soul-washing!"
And, inexplicably, a can of Hannaford brand cat food (sliced chicken in gravy).
And then there were the notes. There were a lot of notes, telling me that I was a "special child of God," and that I should "spread my wings and fly" and, a conflicting request, "Bloom where you are planted!"
Several different people sent me a "Letter from Jesus," which I will excerpt for you now:
"I saw you fall asleep last night and I longed to touch your brow. So, I spilled moonlight on your pillow and your face. Again I waited, wanting to rush down so that we could talk. I have so many gifts for you. But, you awakened late the next day and rushed off. My tears were in the rain."
I know that some people somewhere must find that moving (I did receive 3 copies of it), but I thought it made Jesus sound like a bit of a pervert.
Almost as strange as this letter and the catfood were four mixed tapes, all sampling essentially the same musicians, often the same songs. All four tapes start with the Indigo Girls' "Closer to Fine," and the Indigo Girls featured prominently throughout each of these tapes, as did James Taylor and John Denver. And for some reason Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al" was on three out of four.
I know I am not alone in thinking of mixed tapes as a personal thing. In my experience it's the sort of gift given to someone you know well, a gift that says a lot about yourself and how well you understand your friend. A good mixed tape should be specifically for the person you are giving it to and full of things you think that specific person will enjoy. If you've read High Fidelity, Nick Hornby goes on about this for pages.
Now I am fairly narrow-minded musically, and was even more so at seventeen. People who know me at all know that I lean heavily toward classical, and that for better or worse I am a pretentious snob. So there probably wasn't a better way for these people to show that they had no idea who I was than to give me mixed tapes full of Peter, Paul, and Mary, and Phish, and Aaron Neville singing "Amazing Grace." Unless it was to sign their names, names that could have been picked at random from the phonebook for all I knew.
"Who are Kim Tilford and Ben Maas?" I asked, as confetti and balloons rained down on me and my neighbors exchanged hugs. As I looked through more of the letters that were in my package I became more bewildered and more put off that a couple dozen people I had never met claimed to love me. Of what value is the love of someone who doesn't know you? I'm sure Muffin was probably a nice girl, but its entirely likely she would have hated my guts if we'd ever spoken. I'd probably have said something like, "Honk if you moisturize Jesus!" or "I fucking hate the Indigo Girls, Muffin," and where could we have gone from there?
Monday, October 10, 2005
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
If the Gospels were written in the style of the movie Swingers
Jesus: I just don't know Pete, I mean yeah, I want a following, but it feels so forward to just walk up and suggest someone forget about their job and their family and wander around listening to me talk. I mean, what kind of ego trip is that?
Simon Peter: Listen to yourself-- baby, you know why you don't have any, well there's me and Andrew here of course, but why you don't have that many disciples. Yet. You know, right? Cause you lack confidence baby, and that's just silly.
Jesus- Oh please Pete--
Simon Peter: NO you oh please, you listen. You're beautiful man, you are so money and you don't even know it. Andrew, am I lying?
Andrew: Jesus, you are so money.
Simon Peter: See, baby? Andrew knows. Money. All you gotta do is just start telling the beautiful babies your parables and they'll follow you. They're dying to follow you man. Dying.
Jesus: But I feel like sometimes the parables are kinda vague.
Simon Peter: And THAT's why they're money baby, cause people hear them and they get all confused. They're like, "What's that mean? It sounds all wise and shit, but like over my head. This guy must really know something." And that, that's when you pounce on 'em.
Jesus: Pounce?
Andrew: Pounce.
Jesus: Listen, it's not like I'm a cougar or something here, I'm trying to, I dunno, lead them spiritually or something, not eat them.
Andrew: Maybe that's your problem. You know, maybe they won't listen until you tear them open, find out what's inside them, and then eat it.
Simon Peter: Shut up Andrew-- Jesus, baby, it's a figure of speech. The point is to be a little more sure of yourself, and I mean why not, right? I mean you're the son of God, right? Am I right about that?
Jesus: Yeah, I guess so.
Simon Peter: Of course I'm right. And you've got that awesome story about the mustard seed, right?
Jesus: You really like that one?
Simon Peter: Of course I fucking do man. And you know why, cause you tell it so fuckin' well. You really sell that shit about the mustard seed baby, and I don't even care that I don't understand it. That's how fucking money you are. So put on some fresh cloths cause we're going out, right? Yeah, we're going out and you are gonna recruit some disciples! Disciples baby, yeah!
Jesus reluctantly changes clothes. Swing dancing ensues.
Simon Peter: Listen to yourself-- baby, you know why you don't have any, well there's me and Andrew here of course, but why you don't have that many disciples. Yet. You know, right? Cause you lack confidence baby, and that's just silly.
Jesus- Oh please Pete--
Simon Peter: NO you oh please, you listen. You're beautiful man, you are so money and you don't even know it. Andrew, am I lying?
Andrew: Jesus, you are so money.
Simon Peter: See, baby? Andrew knows. Money. All you gotta do is just start telling the beautiful babies your parables and they'll follow you. They're dying to follow you man. Dying.
Jesus: But I feel like sometimes the parables are kinda vague.
Simon Peter: And THAT's why they're money baby, cause people hear them and they get all confused. They're like, "What's that mean? It sounds all wise and shit, but like over my head. This guy must really know something." And that, that's when you pounce on 'em.
Jesus: Pounce?
Andrew: Pounce.
Jesus: Listen, it's not like I'm a cougar or something here, I'm trying to, I dunno, lead them spiritually or something, not eat them.
Andrew: Maybe that's your problem. You know, maybe they won't listen until you tear them open, find out what's inside them, and then eat it.
Simon Peter: Shut up Andrew-- Jesus, baby, it's a figure of speech. The point is to be a little more sure of yourself, and I mean why not, right? I mean you're the son of God, right? Am I right about that?
Jesus: Yeah, I guess so.
Simon Peter: Of course I'm right. And you've got that awesome story about the mustard seed, right?
Jesus: You really like that one?
Simon Peter: Of course I fucking do man. And you know why, cause you tell it so fuckin' well. You really sell that shit about the mustard seed baby, and I don't even care that I don't understand it. That's how fucking money you are. So put on some fresh cloths cause we're going out, right? Yeah, we're going out and you are gonna recruit some disciples! Disciples baby, yeah!
Jesus reluctantly changes clothes. Swing dancing ensues.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
