Congratulations and thanks to everyone who heeded the call and took the time this weekend to buy books at the St. Mark's Bookshop. Of course, one weekend is not enough. To keep this great bookshop alive, we need to keep going back.
And remember: Real books are better for your brain than electronic readers, and reading fiction makes you more empathic. READ BOOKS: Save our city from the yunnie zombies!
P.S. The petition keeps chugging along, coming up to 30,000 signatures--and it's fun to play "Find the Authors":
21 comments:
I was one of the first 100s signing the petition, number 88 or so, and I'm an author, too. My book "100 Whores" is on the shelf at St Marks Bookshop. So there...
http://www.100Whores.com
Good to hear. Had a nice little crowd when I was in this weekend too. Definitely seemed as if something was going on...
hope the yunnie zombies will now go there and buy books since it is now crowded -- if you build a line they will follow...
great to see authors signing the petition, but kinda like late in the game. nonetheless, if it wasn't the signon movement, i don't think the authors would have found out about st. mark's plight.
and hopefully, people would buy books from SMB every weekend or everyday
I went in and bought a copy of Stevie Chick's Black Flag bio, "Spray Paint the Walls." Yay!
They make books for kindles and nooks and ipads now. You don't even have to go to a store anymore.
tim, those are not books. they're an assemblage of words in a digital format.
Mr. Moderator,
If the form is just a vehicle for the combination of words then I don't really see how it makes a difference if they are an assemblage of 1's and 0's or of ink smudges on a piece of paper.
I suppose that if you're saying that a book, in the gestalt sense, is more than the combination of words, then maybe I would have to agree with that, but what it seems that you're lamenting, more than the book itself, is the community hub that the book store itself represents.
Tim, I would rather have the worn paperback sitting on my shelf with the folded ears of pages containing passages that I want to return to; the immediacy and sensual experience of grasping, opening the book to see the page; to smell a bound book, to hear the rustle of a page turned and see the words "Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems, You shall possess the good of the earth and sun... there are millions of suns left." Do you have a favorite book and do you have that book still from the time you first read it and does it evoke memories of that time and place or person you were then? I'm sorry, but for me, the screen of an e-book can never accomplish that same familiarity or that connection to centuries of writers and readers who discovered literature the same way. If it's a community, it's a community that has a far longer life and shared history that the battery on a kindle or ipad.
Things you can't do with a Kindle: browse a shelf-ful of them in a book store; scotch-tape the binding; highlight interesting passages; dog-ear the pages (thanks Claribel); take a nap with it open over your face; admire the way it looks on a well-used bookcase. I love old paperbacks, especially if they're classic novels reprinted in the 50s or 60s with really bad cover art (which also can't be found on a Kindle). Glad to see St. Mark's did so well - hope it continues to thrive. Gotta get there! I need a new copy of "To Kill a Mockingbird".
Claribel has said it all, glad St. Mark's had a great weekend, let's keep it going.
You can't gift book with the Kindle, you can't share books with the Kindle, you can't take notes with the Kindle, your kindle is useless without electricity, you can't drop your kindle on the ground sharply - its a gimmick.
It was pretty crowded in there on Sunday, and I'm glad they got a needed sales boost.
Now, the key is to commit to go there and buy at least one book or magazine there every month.
I don't care how strapped you are, we can all afford one book a month, every month.
This place can be saved by ALL of us.
In a Vanishing New York, let us all commit to making sure at least this one place doesn't disappear.
esquared, did you know i thought it might be a great strategy to pay people, or get volunteers, to stand in line to get into St. Mark's for that very reason. people love lines.
think we could do that as a flash mob?
Excellent! If we want a vibrant neighborhood, then we have to support our local businesses, not just with words, but with our wallets, thin as they may be.
Let's expand the effort to buy other items locally. Music, for example, at the indie record stores scattered throughout the neighborhood. If you're a musician, buy your instruments and supplies locally (East Village Music, or even Guitar Center - a brick and mortar shop that lets you try out the musical toys is infinitely better than an online shop).
St Mark's is great for books, but I would wish for more hardcovers there, and a larger philosophy section!
- East Villager
jm -- we should. spread it around via fb, twitter, blogs, whatnot. do the flashmob esp. on a weekend when all those brunchers, parents of the college kids and others* are here
we should call it occupy EV
[*i notice that on sundays, there seem to be a lot more parents (and they tend to have condescending mannerisms or look down towards the locals) in the ev/les visiting their not college kids -- those who just graduated from college or trust fund kids. people who moved in the ev back then didn't have their parents help them move to the neighborhood, or hardly visited them. just an observation. #shutupesquared]
nonetheless, weekend would be best, since they're here and are in awe of anything that has a line or crowd.
this Saturday, 9/24, is NYU Parents Day:
http://www.nyu.edu/community/parents/parents-day.html
Cooper Union doesn't seem to have one.
if we did this, we'd have to be sure not to block actual customer flow into the store. so the line of actor/activists would have to move pretty well--people could flow in, take a lap around the store, then get back in line outside.
thoughts?
sounds like a plan. i'll be there either way, and will be actually buying books. maybe the sidewalk can be blocked (much like the sidewalk are blocked in front of cafe orlin, mogador, etc. -- that's when the zombies start paying attention to a place) or perhaps we can have a kim kardashian or justin bieber lookalike, if not the real ones, pretending to be browsing, to create more buzz. or fashionistas in front and inside browsing the fashion magazines. we'll call it reading day/night out
Bought a gorgeous copy of a Jonathan Safron Foer book at SMB on Saturday and had the author sign it in Brooklyn at the book fest on Sunday. I love NYC and I love SMBs. Keep going back people!!!!
I'm too busy just trying to keep my local public library branch open. But good luck.
Went on Saturday and purchased an Edmund White book and two short story books by Oates and Alice Munro! I sadly had never been in that bookstore, but I will tell anyone it is very cozy and the presentation and selection is fantastic. Everyone should go buy a book there!
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