Reports of the Death of Bookstores are Greatly Exaggerated
In today's Seattle Times, columnist Danny Westneat wrote another story on the impending last breath of bookstores in Seattle and the nation. You can read it here at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2010939207_danny31.html. If you have the time, read the reader's comment too. Overall, the comments possess a more nuanced and accurate take on what is happening and will probably happen to books and brick and mortar bookstores. Some of the comments are unintentionally hilarious (and provide this author with future comic material), such as the following from Paul000: "The independent bookstores in Seattle serve a niche of people that mostly includes liberal women (who probably are the biggest book readers), homosexuals, and other "progressive" urban types. If you don't want to buy that type of literature, then you are out of luck."
Well, there you have it: Liberal women, progressive urban-types and homosexuals. While Couth Buzzzard Books Espresso Buono Cafe certainly enjoys catering to those three demographics "types" we also believe that the future of independent bookstores is contingent upon serving everyone in our "community."
And serving community is an vital bookstore function missed in the Westneat article.
Sure bricks and mortar bookstores are closing here in bookstore-rich Seattle and across the country. But places like Couth Buzzard Espresso Buono serve needs--primal needs perhaps--that online booksellers and Kindlesque devices can never, never meet: the human need for true, face-to-face social contact, communication, interaction: instantaneous communication--faster and more giddy-inducing than any Giga Network number promised by any Corporation.
And speaking of Corporations, online buyers of books and of downloads for their Kindle-Ipad-UPlod devices should contemplate the fact that for each "purchase" they make, their "profile" is being scooped up and "gathered" and stored, and plugged into unimaginative algorithms of market stereotypes and then spit back out to them as personable "We Recommend Just For You" embedded and unavoidable Pop-Up advertisements, which also serve the purpose of cataloging your reading "habits" for use by these web-based corporations for future "market" strategies, and for sale to other corporations that also do not have your best interest in mind, and, perhaps also to government agencies who--as they have in the past-may take an interest in just what is (your name) reading these days.
Well, there is no gathering of buyer information at Couth Buzzard Espresso. We are a Free Speech and Privacy Honored Zone.Our goal is to stock a complete variety of books, from best sellers to collectibles and obscure titles, and to serve as a physical meeting place for all people in our true "community." It's not just about books, its about knowledge, and sharing and coming together, creating community, One Book, One Cup at at Time.
Maybe Danny Westneat should have interviewed us before writing his Obit to Bookstores column.
IPad, Kindle and the Future of Books. Very Interesting
Free Speech Zone
A friend recently posted the following interesting quote:
"With liberty comes excess. I mean, if you want to play it safe then you're not going to have liberty. The safer you are with guarding those things that you value, those speech codes that you value, the more you invite tyranny, the more you invite suppression, the more you invite censorship."Ron Collins (author/scholar at the First Amendment Center).
Thinking about these thoughts lead me to remember the Old Couth Buzzard and it's "George Carlin" Discount offer. I put up a sign right after learning of the death of that great, essential even, comic and social commentator. Next to a photo of George, I posted: "Say One Of The Seven Banned Words and Receive 50 Cents Off Of Your Book Purchase!" Most of you know of Carlin's famous routine about the seven words that the Federal Communications Commission bans from the airways. In a famous Catch 22 situation, the FCC will not tell you which words are banned because, well, they are banned. Carlin mock just idiocy, and his case went all the way to the US Supreme Court.
Anyway, one of my most pleasant surprises was watching the almost child-like glee arise in those customers who took up the challenge. Saying "those" words in public!? In a store!Some customers knew all seven words, and then, playfully asked for $3.50 off.
The New Couth Buzzard Books Espresso Buono Cafe continues with it commitment to celebrate one of this country's most important freedoms: Expression. We are, indeed, a Free Speech Zone. A Free Ideas Zone.
For how else are we to discover how best to move forward as a community, as a people, as a country, as humans unless we have the forum to fully express ourselves, to listen to each other.
"With liberty comes excess. I mean, if you want to play it safe then you're not going to have liberty. The safer you are with guarding those things that you value, those speech codes that you value, the more you invite tyranny, the more you invite suppression, the more you invite censorship."Ron Collins (author/scholar at the First Amendment Center).
Thinking about these thoughts lead me to remember the Old Couth Buzzard and it's "George Carlin" Discount offer. I put up a sign right after learning of the death of that great, essential even, comic and social commentator. Next to a photo of George, I posted: "Say One Of The Seven Banned Words and Receive 50 Cents Off Of Your Book Purchase!" Most of you know of Carlin's famous routine about the seven words that the Federal Communications Commission bans from the airways. In a famous Catch 22 situation, the FCC will not tell you which words are banned because, well, they are banned. Carlin mock just idiocy, and his case went all the way to the US Supreme Court.
Anyway, one of my most pleasant surprises was watching the almost child-like glee arise in those customers who took up the challenge. Saying "those" words in public!? In a store!Some customers knew all seven words, and then, playfully asked for $3.50 off.
The New Couth Buzzard Books Espresso Buono Cafe continues with it commitment to celebrate one of this country's most important freedoms: Expression. We are, indeed, a Free Speech Zone. A Free Ideas Zone.
For how else are we to discover how best to move forward as a community, as a people, as a country, as humans unless we have the forum to fully express ourselves, to listen to each other.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)