Kate's Holiday Tips Part II

I shall begin with a tangent. Remember waking up early just to watch cartoons on Saturday mornings? Well, waking up to sell books is almost as sassifying. Almost.

Anyway...

We started carrying Taza chocolates and things have changed in my life since. I have lost 30 lbs, I can now complete a full leg split, and suddenly... I can speak Polish. The chocolates are that good. This particular brand is a local company in Somerville, and we are having a free tasting on Dec 18th. This chocolate tastes unlike any chocolate I have had, and now every other chocolate tastes of wax and plastics in comparison.



On to my tip of the week!

In efforts to maintain a healthy BMI do NOT have more than one serving of fiber one's 90 calorie chocolate peanut butter bars. If you don't believe me, then try having 2 before bed. Let me know how you're feeling in the morning. My email is kate@brooklinebooksmith.com The experience was reminiscent of my 2002 foray into the world of olestra. I'll leave it at that. Classy.

What I'm saying is, instead of having a substitute for the real thing, have the damn thing. Forget O'doul's, and waxy chocolates and have the dogfish head and Taza. You'll need less and be a happier person all around.

If you read this far, thank you...and yes I am seeing a professional.

costumes. social responsibility.

Correct! It is Halloween. Halloween even here, at the Boooosmith (yardy har har).

It's getting pretty spooky here. Dana flew in this morning, and I haven't been able to make eye contact with her yet. As for myself, I'm not sure which is scarier, my "half dead" costume or the mess at my desk. Sigh. Either way

I've got candy.

at the register.

Apparently it is for customers, and not for me...so help me out and come take it from my line of vision.

Have a happy Halloween- either a quiet night encouraging carbohydrate solicitation , getting dressed up as a promiscuous version of whatever (kitty, nurse, cave woman, fireman, gynecologist) and getting humiliatingly sloppy, or just the usual blood-letting in your local graveyard.

respect without the romance

I don't have a digital camera for a myriad of reasons. Mostly I don't have the cash, and there is something that feels transient about the experience, I can take so many pictures that it would border compulsion, each one meaning less and less....

the other reason is--- I have a monster fear of losing pictures that I love...

...that's why I still use film (120) and use the hardiest, cheapest camera out there...the holga.

I don't chose to use film because it is kitchy and urban outfitters broadcasts the hipness of lomography with their overpriced film section...

I don't romanticise old technologies simply because they are old... I use them because I know that it is important that the tradition live on casually somewhere...and they force my frantic brain to settle down, and focus on taking one good shot.

I have to keep the compulsion to collect, accrue and consume in check.

Friends have told me about holga & poloroid apps on their iphones- and that's great....(feels cheap but whatever it looks great.) The reason it wouldn't cut it for me is because the process is lost. I want that slowness. It's good for me.

I'm resisting running the parallel of ink to page ....and ebooks to book-books, and bookstores....(That's another post)...but I think you can image the lines I'd draw. One line...when all the data is corrupted and the servers go down- how will the future be sure this wasn't a dark age?

Mostly- I want to understand how things age...how their purpose changes, how we make meaning of things, how meaning is made of us... how obsolescence changes the way we view the medium...

Mostly I'm protective ...when it gets old...and other people are throwing it away...I love it more.

© Kate Robinson 2010

Bookselling on a Saturday, meditations on weekend labor in a grammatically suspect, run-on-sentency- postmodern- meanderation

Most people, when prompted to comment on my line of work, and the hours that I generally keep, tend to squirm when they hear that I work on the weekends. I understand why they think that this is a travesty, but I want to take a moment to draw a sketch of why book selling on a Saturday in Brookline is the best time to work.



((If you've ever worked in a coffee shop, or cookie shop, deli, or the like...there are most likely certain smells which cause you to be throttled back in time to that particular job. Olfactory triggers are fantastic for time travel. Sometimes it makes it hard for baristas to go to cafes without being triggered...(this is a phenomena I like to think of as the labor- trigger)))...



I just came back from NYC, where I went to St Mark's bookstore in the lower East Side...and what an amazing bookstore they have. ..seriously, funky and chic...to the 9's...anyway....while I was browsing it dawned on me that I still love being around books during my free time...is it possible that the "labor-trigger" doesn't apply to booksellers?

(don't worry I'm getting to my point soon)...



Today is my first day back to work, and it also happens to be a Saturday. I spent a good portion of my shift at the register. Helping people enjoy their one solid chore-free, work- free day off. The people who work 9-5...you come and see me on Saturday...you stay for a while, you browse...you ask about the music we're playing...(Angus&Julia Stone right now)...you ask us for book recommendations...(Jason Lasdun's It's Beginning to Hurt) and you are smiling when you get to me at the register. The shift is full of exchanges, and time takes on a lithe- acrobatic quality; and before I know it...I'm walking home. Saturdays are my Monday...

I wish I could return the favor, show up at your office on a Monday...walk around and be the cool stranger who informs the rest of your day with my appreciation for your line of work. But I won't, because that might be creepy...and I do have some boundaries...

For sure for sure for sure...an independent bookstore is more than a market, it is a cultural theatre, an actual agora,...not an ambient assemblage of pointing and clicking on a pixilated purchase...when you are here... you are a participant in a cultural moment, a shared space...the blue light of your Internet Explorer puts the world at your fingertips, there is no denying that...but you can't put your fingertips back on the world...

I work on Sundays too.
Bring your dog.
I'll be at the register.