i use amazon because it's cheaper. not because i think they're santa.

"It seems like a lot of people who shop at Amazon believe that the site sells books more cheaply than your neighborhood bookstore out of the goodness of their hearts."

Really? I've never met anybody who has expressed this belief. Nobody believes that stores reduce prices because it must have hurt when they fell out of heaven, the other day. Jesus.

"I know affordability is an issue. But sometimes I think we’re so obsessed with getting stuff cheaply that we forget what we’re losing in the long run."

Here's what I lose in the long run if I don't get stuff cheaply: food. A roof over my head. Electricity. Running water. Not having these sorts of things sucks balls. Anybody who says "I know affordability is an issue" and then goes on to ignore how much difference three or four dollars makes does not know exactly what kind of issue it really is. My husband, a student, has racked up massive debt because he has to buy school books-- if we had to buy these books full price, much less Amazon's discounted price, we'd have at least a credit card debt that is three times higher and would also be paying directly out of pocket, immediately, rather than, as we are unfortunately doing now, off-setting the cost at the expense of later interest. Amazon Marketplace, which I am well aware does not exist out of the kindness of the company's heart, thank you, is a fucking lifesaver. Not only are we able to find academic books that often sell for upwards of $100 for 200 page books (and not glossy or hardcover or anything), but we can also sell them back if need be, often at 60 to 100% of the original cost.

I like bookstores. I love bookstores. I spend a lot of time in bookstores, and have done so since I was young. I still go to bookstores despite the fucking ridiculous music they pipe in. If I live somewhere without AC or heat, I go to bookstores. I love used bookstores because they too are affordable and, if you have the time, a treasure to browse in. Big bookstores offer bathrooms; that's really great. But not everyone has the luxury to put money into a cause.

Generally, I shop at used bookstores or Amazon Marketplace. I prefer both these options to independent new book stores and large retailer bookstores; this is purely for reasons of finances. I don't feel bad about hanging out in bookstores without making a purchase. I don't buy things unless I really want them.

"There’s value in a bookstore that Amazon can’t offer."

Yes, as of this moment, I have yet to figure out how to shoplift from Amazon. I'm just kidding. At least I don't pull a Bogie and go seduce the store clerk and drink whiskey ALL WITHOUT making a purchase. The nerve of some people.

from an Interview with Mary Gaitskill

When did you realize you wanted to write a novel that engaged in some way with Rand’s philosophy, and how did your conception of Two Girls, Fat and Thin change over time? Did you see it from the start as a satire? [The Nervous Breakdown]

I've heard it said about satire, that for it to work, the satirist has to have some sort of secret love or empathy for the thing she's satirizing. That's probably true, but I didn't start out thinking in terms of satire. I felt it poignant and weirdly moving that people wanted to base their lives on the deeds and opinions of fictional characters. Especially since these characters were created by someone so sternly and humorlessly purporting to represent objective reality and rationality; I can think of few things less rational or realistic than trying to imitate made-up people. [1] Yet I didn't have the impulse to just mock it because it came out of an idealistic impulse plus need. Also what these people were doing seemed just a more extreme version of something a lot of people, maybe everybody, does: cobbling together a sense of self or purpose through a combination of ideal and fantasy that gets superimposed over actual experience, and which can seem real, or at least non-nutty if enough people are buying into it. And shared fantasies, like the kind pop culture or fashion create naturally, do have elements of reality that get bigger the more people are acting like its real. That is part of the irony of Rand's appeal; supposedly she was a pure individualist, and the kind of phenomenon I just described is by nature collective. [2]
__________
[1] I envision this applying to anyone imitating anything as received through media-- behavior on reality shows or fashion as delivered through the internet or crimes reported by the news is filtered and tidied up and sensationalized, and has already lost its ability to claim a state of pre-made-up. All of those people on a screen or page are "made-up people."
[2] I like this-- it could apply to any movement that expresses itself as apart from "a crowd" but that relies on representative figureheads and visible proponents.

** emph. + notes from b.

what is feminism?

Feminism, like any other -ism, is little more than providing for others a model of behavior based on the agenda and manufactured ideals of the self-proclaimed -ist. Superiority & inferiority then become dependent entirely upon the signals broadcast by the -ist. This insistence on emulation is a form of control.

whoa

One of the most amazing tattoos I've seen:

via + Artist: Dennis m Del Prete at Providence Tattoo, RI

doesn't make it alright

Forrest comes off as a talented, intense woman who knows she’s lucky to have had some high-caliber help in her struggle to make sense of it all. She acknowledges that she is privileged to be able to mine her suffering for material. Writing about an abortion, she admits, “I have the luxury to find inspiration in the pain because I am a middle-class girl with a tight-knit family.”

[warning: link goes to New York Times (which now enforces a monthly limit), and it should also be pointed out that the reviewer of the above is also a memoir writer with those same privileges and with the same power to ensure that more of these books get put out there to glamorize mental problems, prioritize psychiatry or psychology that devalues actual mental health problems, and other such issues.]

I would hope that recognizing this privilege would result in a different kind of book, one that uses those benefits to explore others who don't have such luxuries as treatment or even the luxury of defining their problems as "mental health issues." Instead, this woman chooses to write about herself, and as far as I can tell, how fabulous it is to date famous people, but also how hard it is.

I prefer this review of the book because it really helps me understand how tough it must be to live with those privileges.

Dr R is furious with himself that he did not recognise the intensity of my pain immediately and could not prevent my suicide attempt, but I decide to forgive him this once. "I am like a broken doll," I said, "and I need you to put me back together again." "A broken doll I can mend," he replied, "but a broken record is beyond help[. . .]" I seek out one of his colleagues and ask her what she thinks of me. ''I know I ought to be moved by your story, but I'm left cold," she replies. "You are a high-maintenance narcissist who appears to have learned almost nothing about herself, despite eight years of therapy." I decide she wasn't quite the person I was looking for and find another who tells me I'm wounded and wonderful.

writers are special ok?

god, I am so sick of this shit. Writer Bridget Asher wonders what's up with all those writers & poets offing themselves. Yeah, what's up with that?

Or could it be that we are talking about famous people, and whatever famous people do, even when it's stuff you & I do everyday, seems that much more remarkable when they do? Suddenly, actors are more likely to die in plane crashes and rock stars are more likely to OD.* (Remember Darby Crash, by the way, how his plans to achieve immortality were rubbed out by John Lennon's murder? Oops.)

This obviously isn't the case. Such individuals' visibility makes it seem this way, but I'm sure any quick search of statistics will assure you that the likelihood of ODing is probably pegged more to factors like frequency of use than whether or not you've cut an album. (The drugs one is a weaker argument, maybe, because drugs are so inextricably linked to money.)

There are a few other factors that make Asher's question and the subsequent line of reasoning problematic. One is that creating this specialized group suggests that there is something inherently more important and more tragic about a writer/poet committing suicide than there is in a general suicide. A hierarchy of importance and worth in life and death is a dangerous road to go down. It implies one person has a more important potential than another, and there is really no way of knowing that.

Asher concedes that looking into this matter would be helpful in solving a more general problem of depression-related suicide, but the fact that she has identified that depression with creativity suggests that this is a highly specialized issue that "non-creative" types couldn't possibly grapple with. Writers love to think about things like this (to generalize, sorry.) Just see the glee with which everyone greeted the news that "writers" are more likely to be alcoholics (I'm trying to find the post to link to, but in general, the only people I saw mentioning this were writers or aspiring-to-be-published writers.) One point that should definitely give anyone pause is the method of reporting-- people who hero-worship Hemingway or Burroughs or the other hard-drinking members of the old boys club to the point of emulation are going to be striving for the label and will then be more willing to personally assume it as well as more willing to accept "alcoholism" as an acceptably defined term (according to drinks per night, for example.) The overly-simplistic part of me wants to say that it's just a bunch of people who haven't outgrown their vanilla upbringing/parents/homogenization in high school/whatever/wherever, and think being depressed/alcoholic/addicted to something is just so. gee. edgy, I guess-- there way of rebelling is still linked to a world that they should have long outgrown. In a world where alcoholism is actually a problem that destroys lives and families and people, it's not cute, no matter how much it shocks your parents. (Okay, none of that was fair, but it does apply to maybe a few people I know.)

But in the end, taking reports of writers committing suicide and using that to imply a monopoly on it is the same as watching the news and only seeing stories of good-looking white women killing their children. It must mean that they are the special ones, and the logical next step must be to assume that either other groups don't do it at all, or are so naturally inclined to it that it is not worth mentioning or, in the case of suicide, lamenting.

_________
* Musicians are also special:

Maybe it’s just us, but musicians seem to land themselves in a little bit more trouble than people of other professions. Maybe it’s because they’re living the high life, thinking they can get away with it all, or maybe they’re just negatively influenced by their surroundings, but we think it probably has something to do with the same personality trait that makes them want to be performers in the first place.

This says outright what Asher hints at, and can again be answered by the visibility of celebrity. I'm pretty sure at least one of you out there has an equal or higher ratio of acquaintances arrested:acquaintances than the sample of high-profile musicians arrested:musicians (wherever you can get that statistic.)

Gertrude Stein is useless

From her. . . children's book (reviewed at NPR, including tips on how to read it, "If you have any trouble, read faster and faster until you don't."):

Alphabets and names make games and everybody has a name and all the same they have in a way to have a birthday.

The thing to do is to think of names.

Names will do.

Mildew.

It seems that Katherine Anne Porter is also not wild about the sorta fascist/collaborationist who coined the term "The Lost Generation." I hope to read her piece on Stein in the next few days and get back to you; full disclosure, haven't really read Stein but view her with suspicion. Looking forward to a take down the way you feel when reading People at the dentist's & get sucked in without having seen celebrity X's latest music video/movie/interview/sex tape but still just want to know the general shape of popular contempt.