Retail Anarchy

If the idea of spending a long Saturday surfing slickdeals and coupon forums appeals to you, you can get a ton of stuff for free. Most of us know this, and are too lazy to put the amount of effort necessary into seemingly small gains. I spent a month or two working the drugstore systems (I <3 CVS and the like) and winning gift cards through SwagBucks before I got bored and moved on to things that I deemed to be more productive uses of my time.

Now, some folks find that awkward or just plain tacky. I used to be among that lot when I worked in retail myself. I really disliked it when bargain hunters would come in (especially when I worked on commission), and I steered well clear of them whenever possible, until one day I worked in a store that went out of business and we had to liquidate all of the merchandise and fixtures. I got some amazing bargains there, and I helped many other people get them as well. It was exciting to see families come in and buy things that they probably wouldn’t have purchased otherwise for their children. People’s eyes would light up when they’d come up to the register with their purchases. It was a free-for-all. Chaos reigned. But it was also a thing of beauty.

A few years later, I put in some time selling merchandise online for a charitable “thrift” store, and I was amazed at the family heirlooms that came in, unwanted by the families of deceased relatives, as well as the number of costly items that came in with tags attached, unworn, unwanted. When you’re faced with multiple floors of floor-to-ceiling cast-off stuff, you’re staring at our culture’s consumer mentality. As unfortunate as it sounds, a loss in one place balances itself with a gain somewhere else.

Retail Anarchy‘s author Sam Pocker (a self-titled economist) promises to make his readers both angry and delighted in the introduction of his book, and he makes a good point – in a rambling, chaotic style (for a visual sampling, check out his website), he pokes fun of our consumer culture that leads us to pay inflated prices for merchandise that we don’t really need to people that aren’t really offering us good service. He chooses to fight our warped retail system by manipulating it and teaching other people to do the same.

This is a book that’s best nibbled at instead of swallowed whole, since reading through it from start to finish does tend to lend an impression of being complained at by an elderly person. Don’t let the rant confuse you; Sam Pocker isn’t elderly. He’s merely gifted in the art of gripe. Example from the section entitled “How to Argue with a Cashier”:

The nihilistic and almost dictatorial manner in which corporations try to determine how you “will” and “want” and “need” to buy things and at a price that only exists because you, the consumer, let it exist.

Food for thought. Retail Anarchy is happening, people. It’s like the Rebel Alliance rising up against the Dark Side of the Big Box Stores. Or something.

New Years Resolution

Hey, little Blog. You’re my resolution for the New Year. I promise to update you more. I’ve got a great backlog of books to write about, and somebody has to suffer through that with me. Right? Write?

In honor of the New Year, I’m going to admit that I’ve officially gotten back together with my son’s father.  A long time ago, we read Into the Wild together (way before it was a movie). We were on a road trip, and I’m ashamed to say that we laughed at Chris McCandless’s antics until we realized the gravity of his situation when he was in Alaska, near the end of the book. It was shocking to us that he’d abandon his life to “tramp,” and we certainly couldn’t understand why he’d give up his cash and his car. Nonetheless we found it entertaining until it inevitably broke our hearts.

This year, for Christmas, I gave him a new copy of the book, as well as Back to the Wild- the photographs and writings (postcards, letters, etc) of Chris McCandless, and it is a worthy purchase for anyone that’s read the book or watched the movie. Not only does it contain page-by-page fascinating images, but the proceeds of the sale benefit the Christopher Johnson McCandless Memorial Foundation, which aids needy mothers and their small children. If you’ve ever had any interest in the book or the movie of Into the Wild, I highly recommend you check it out.

Happy New Year to all, and may you all get back to your joy, or find it for the first time.

Cheers!

The Givers

I just found out about The Givers. How come none of you people ever told me about them? What a day brightener!

Right now their album is only $5 to download!

“Like my dad did…”

My son is a huge fan of David Shannon. He knows the story of No, David so well that he “reads” it to me (with some interesting personal commentary).

Amanda Hocking – My Blood Approves

“Whenever I said the word vampire, I felt like a complete tool. Like I was in a bad horror movie or I was being Punk’d. It just wasn’t a possibility.” – Alice in My Blood Approves

Amanda Hocking is a brilliant, brilliant girl. I can’t emphasize that enough. I’m not even (necessarily) talking about her writing. I’m talking about her self-publishing savvy.

As for her writing… yes, she could use a new editor. But her stuff is Young Adult fiction with a lot of pop culture references (to items like Chuck Taylors and Dickies, and artists like Kanye West and the Violent Femmes) and it does its job, which is to carry a story that readers find engaging. It’s a fast, easy read – though editorially excruciating – and 56% percent of the way through the first book, it may or may not start to grow on you.

Now, I’ve been told that I’m exceptionally quick at predicting plots, but I’d think with a title like My Blood Approves the gist of the book is pretty evident. Alice, the main character, doesn’t think so. One of the other characters finally has to reveal the book’s premise to her out of what I presume to be exasperation at her slowness at figuring it out.

Alice is the average girl; apparently her pretty friend Jane’s sidekick, she isn’t used to a lot of attention at home or socially.  Jane, on the other hand, is a pretty, fast girl with a drinking/drug habit (she doesn’t start rolling until book two, if you make it that far).  Alice’s mother is busy working swing shift, sleeping, smoking, and drinking, so her closest family member is her brother Milo, who cooks and cleans for the family.

When Alice and Jane unsuccessfully attempt to go clubbing with fake IDs one night, the book borrows a page from Twilight as they’re followed by some menacing men and rescued by a stranger. That stranger is Jake, a thin, trendy, sensitive, and bored vampire that lives with his wealthy “family” of vampires:

• Peter, who Alice is irresistibly attracted to
• Ezra, the head of the household
• Mae, the sweet, nurturing vampire woman

True to form, Jake has nothing better to do with himself after a few hundred years than hang about with a teenage girl whose thoughts are, for some reason, enigmatic to him. She spends her time being torn between her strong bond with Jake and her strong attraction to Peter, and obsessing about becoming a vampire herself.  Alice is less interesting than Bella, but the vampires are equally or more likeable if you can overlook the seriously awful spelling, punctuation and usage and some clumsy plotting to get to know them.

I’m incredibly impressed with Amanda Hocking’s persistence, savvy, and narrative ability. Despite the editing gaffes, I’m going to download the third in the series soon.

You can download My Blood Approves for $.99 here.

Twilight Past Midnight

So, I just finished reading Twilight. It might be because I was so riveted by the book and I couldn’t put it down, so I stayed up until 2am reading. Then again, it might be that I’m grappling with a bout of insomnia the past few nights. Actually, it’s market research. I’m fairly certain that I’m going to write a vampire novel to contribute to the gross oversaturation of the market. (If you’ve walked around a Barnes & Noble in the past three years, you’ll know what I’m talking about.)

How some readers feel about Twilight

If you’ve already read Twilight, you know that you read the book from Bella’s perspective, hopefully identifying with her as the “every-girl” that doesn’t know how special she is until enough strangers affirm it for her. Her affirmation comes from Edward, a 90 year-old vampire in a 17 year-old body. We all know that vampires are inexplicably rich and drive fast cars (in a variety of expensive makes and models), are handsome to a fault, and have charisma coming out the yin-yang. Thanks to this book, the entire female population of North America (with the possible exception of the Amish) knows that vampires sparkle. 

The first half of the book was slooooow. Then, the vampires start playing baseball. That’s when things get interesting, because that’s when the bad vampire that wants to eat Bella shows up.

I’m not going to say awful, nasty things about this book. I’m a 20-something, and not a big romance reader, but this book managed to keep me up until 2am reading. I’m not sure if I’ll bother with any of the others or not, but I’m not ruling it out. However, I found Edward’s repeated talk of how “dangerous” he is as off-putting as if any teenage boy were saying it. If you ARE dangerous, shut up about it already, and do something dangerous. Like be an actual vampire, instead of an animal-hunting emo sissy. 

If I was thirteen I’d have loved the book, hands down. I know gals in their 30s that love the book, so it’s certainly readable.  Odds are good that if you’re a guy, you won’t like it. If you read a lot of books that are not romance or Young Adult novels, you probably will not like it. If you don’t believe in love at first sight, you probably aren’t gonna like it. If you’re a big vampire/romance novel/creepy vampire-human crossbreed/unicorns and princess fan, this book is for you.

Sample:

We sat silently, looking into each other’s eyes – trying to read each other’s thoughts.  

He broke the silence first.

“Maybe that’s not the right comparison. Maybe it would be too easy to turn down the brandy. Perhaps I should have made our alcoholic a heroin addict instead.”

“So what you’re saying is, I’m your brand of heroin,” I teased, trying to lighten the mood.

He smiled swiftly, seeming to appreciate my effort. “Yes, you are exactly my brand of heroin.”

“Does that happen often?” I asked.

(It’s apparently not odd to this teen that her sweetie is talking about alcoholism and heroin; all she wants to know is, how many “brands” he takes up with.)

If you haven’t read it and you want to, get it here.

To Download, or Not to Download: That is now the question.

It started with The Hunger Games. I wanted to read it, preferably right this minute, and all of the bookstores were sold out. I don’t have a Kindle, and I’ve always claimed to abhor ebooks. I caved. I downloaded the Kindle app to my android phone, and was reading The Hunger Games in mere seconds. I scrolled through the quasi pages so fast they were almost a blur.

By the next day, I had to have another one, and I consumed it so fast it probably ought to have made me sick.  By the day after that, my little habit was growing. I downloaded two ebooks (Mockingjay and The White Queen) because I finished the first so fast I had to have another one.

It turns out that it’s a dangerously addictive habit. Downloading books gives the thrill of instant gratification, and you can get your fix anytime, anywhere. It’s easy to get hooked. 

Now, I know what people are saying about these devils lurking in ebook culture, killing our local bookstores and ravaging innocent townspeople with their big, scary corporateness and unwillingness to cooperate with the infinite sharing policies of public libraries. Here’s what I say to all of that:

Libraries, used bookstores and the lot don’t pay royalties for each person that reads their books. Now, this doesn’t seem like a big deal, but considering that the average author advance on a full-length novel is well below ten thousand dollars, and considering the measly percentage the author makes on sales (usually below 30%, and the advance is just that- an advance on the author’s cut of the sale), the author – the person that creates this product you love so – isn’t exactly making a bundle in most cases. It’s radical, but I propose to you that there’s absolutely no difference between downloading movies without paying for them and reading books without paying for them, except that one is legal and the other isn’t. The irony here is that on average, books make a much smaller profit than movies in the first place. Even a bestselling book (with the exception of freak hits like Harry Potter) doesn’t make as much money as the average Hollywood “meh” movie.

Contrast the infinite shareability of a paper book, passed around a circle of friends and finally donated to the Goodwill and re-sold for fifty cents, with the ebook. You want to read the book- you pay for it. The author takes their cut, the publisher (if there is one) takes theirs, and the seller takes a tiny slice of the pie, too. You’re paying the people that published the book. And you’re paying them without overhead. Basically, they’re getting paid for producing quality products at a much higher margin than they are even if you buy a paper copy.

Take Amanda Hocking, for example. This girl self-publishes on Amazon at a much higher percentage than she could ever get through a traditional publisher, and she gets paid 70% commissions on her book sales (which are over 10,000 per month). But she’s earned it, because it’s her product. She’s self-marketing and offering products people like (and at a very low price), and she’s being paid accordingly.  A novel concept, if you’ll pardon my pun.

I thought I’d miss the paper when I started down this slippery slope. I love the feel of paper, the scent of it, its weight. I’m the girl that has stacks of books on every conceivable surface in my house, a book or two in my handbag at all times, shelves stacked horizontally two-rows deep. What I’m finding is that I no longer have backaches lugging extra pounds of book around by my shoulder strap, and I’m not bringing books into my already-crowded nest of them, contributing to a vast book storage problem (and possible fire hazard). I’m not saying I’ll ever quit buying paper books. Some of them are just too pretty to see on a screen, and some of them absolutely need to be held, touched, and even smelled to be properly devoured. But I will be buying all of the space-hogging bestsellers that I know I’m likely to read fast and give away in Kindle format from now on.  This saves a few trees and helps me avoid contributing to the current saturation of the book market that keeps authors among the lowest paid people in the book industry.

To my local bookstore: Stock books that are as quirky and individual as you are. I’ll come see you for those, I promise. Just make sure the coffee and conversation are ready for me when I get there.

The Help

When my mother referenced The Help in a conversation, I knew I had to read it.  Our family is from a small county in Mississippi that seceded from the Confederacy, and even though I’m a few states to the North now, reading Mississippi literature – particularly literature about race relations in Mississippi – is irresistible to me.

Far from being the romance or chick-lit the cover art above implies, the book is a masterfully woven tale of a handful of women and ladies (note the distinction) in Jackson, Mississippi (Stockett’s hometown), overlapping tragic events like the assassinations of JFK, Martin Luther King, and Medgar Evers. With the obvious strong undercurrents of racial tension, brutality, and fear, the novel manages to be evocative without being too smarmy.

Abileen Clark‘s poor spelling and grammar become less and less noticeable the further along you get in the book, until they blend seamlessly into the story of this devoted maid, nanny, and grieving mama whose employers are building her a “colored” bathroom so that she doesn’t spread her diseases to the family she cooks and cares for.

Abileen alternates first-person perspectives with two other primary characters in the book:

Minny is the firecracker that speaks her mind, even in the presence of her many employers.

“Miss Skeeter” is a young white woman just home from college that has discovered the absence of the family “Help” that was closer to her than her own mother. In her search to discover what happened to the woman she considered family, she begins to see the volatility of the events unfolding around her, and to begin a project to expose them for what they are- but to do this, she must have help from the very women that are most likely to be victimized for speaking out: the “Help”.

The book was so engrossing that I read it in 24 hours, so I’m excited to see the film onAugust 10th. Meanwhile, check out the book if you haven’t already read it.

Harry Potter Hype by a Non-fan

What is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 like if you aren’t a fan? This is the blog of a woman on a mission.  A mission to see the show after not having seen any of the films or read any of the books since the first of each.

Disclaimer: This was my third stop of the evening and I had a huge tanker of beer sitting between me and my incredibly attractive date.

While my earlier Harry Potter post may lead you to believe I’m one of you trendy Harry Potter-loving nerds, I’m not; the truth is that I’m just a big admirer of J.K. Rowling’s business acumen. I’m not not a fan, mind you – I just read the first book, said, “It’s cute,” and shelved the thing. I didn’t think the movie was cute at all. I thought it was downright disappointing after the vibrant world that I’d imagined, chalked it up to the way of things, and moved on.

Well, here’s what I thought of the movie: It was flashy, visually mesmerizing, and it really ticked me off because I just found out that Ron and Hermoine are together. Um, excuse me? Emma Watson is much, much too cute for Ron or Rupert Grint (apologies to Rupert and all of his cult followers), and I hope that in some of the upcoming releases, she realizes this and kicks him to the curb. Hermoine is obviously meant to be with Harry. (Ginny who? He doesn’t even hang out with Ginny, she just makes random appearances when nothing important is going on.) Harry and Hermoine, now- power with depth, and a much shorter attractiveness gap to bridge.

As a standalone movie, this really wasn’t half bad, but I guess the other pieces of the puzzle might enrich it further. Here’s my conundrum: I didn’t like the first movie (though the book was alright) but I liked the last a lot. Do I read the books or watch the movies, or leave it alone now that it’s over and the Libran-o-meter has tipped towards “like”?

By the way…. do these make anyone else anywhere on this whole planet think of Narnia?

In an Artist’s Studio

This Christina Rosetti poem always reminds me of Kirinjirafa.

One face looks out from all his canvases,
One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans:
We found her hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness.
A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,
A saint, an angel — every canvas means
The same one meaning, neither more nor less.
He feeds upon her face by day and night,
And she with true kind eyes looks back on him,
Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:
Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;
Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;
Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.