My son and I biked down to the great East Bay Vivarium reptile store in Berkeley the other day. Our snake, Snakey, was out of mice. (We feed her frozen mice, after thawing them out. Naturally, we keep these mice cubes [if you will] in the freezer — so everything in the freezer tends to end up tasting like mice. Hey, wanna come over to our place for sherbert?!) On the counter, front and center, was a tiny tank holding some smallish, swimming creatures that looked kind of like horseshoe crabs; a sign informed us that these were triops.
Now, as it happens, that very morning we’d been listening to a song called “Triops Has Three Eyes,” from They Might Be Giants‘ terrific “children’s” album Here Come the 123s. (I put “children’s” in quotes because — like, say, Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy — it’s rockingly swell for adults as well as the ostensible target audience of small fry.) So when we learned that triops eggs were, in fact, for sale, my son and I had little choice but to buy a package — which, in flowery writing, promised the purchaser a virtual voyage back to prehistory, when these plucky creatures swam alongside (or, at least, near) dinosaurs.
We set up a jar of spring water (the instructions were clear that tap water was verboten), plopped in the eggs, and waited for the magic to happen. At which point the phone rang — it was my wife telling me that Cody’s Books had closed, suddenly and forever. This was a huge shock. Cody’s is a Berkeley institution, going back 52 years. A couple of years ago their original, huge-ish Telegraph Avenue store shut down, but they still had a place on Fourth Street — smaller than the first store, but quite sufficient, and with a world-class children’s-book section. Then, just a few months ago, they announced that their lease on Fourth Street had been raised so exorbitantly that they had to move — and, coincidentally, where they moved to was downtown Berkeley, just a few minutes’ walk from where we live! My wife and son and I were thrilled: like many other Cody’s fans, we rushed into the new place as soon as their doors were open, vowing to support them whole-heartedly. And when my wife gave me not one but two Cody’s gift certificates (for my birthday and Father’s Day), I plotted and planned to make sure I honored her generosity, and my affection for Cody’s, by picking only books that I suspected could change my life.
I bought the first, Daniel Mendelsohn’s The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, the day before — as it turned out — Cody’s closed for good. It was a typical Cody’s experience: When I strolled into the store, I had only a vague recollection of either the author or title of this book, about which I’d read in the New York Review of Books about a year ago. So I’m standing in the middle of the store, thinking about asking one of the staff for help, when my eye happens to alight on … the very book I wanted! It was on a table of new paperbacks. And here’s why I love independent bookstores so much: Someone had thought to put The Lost there, in a prime display slot, because he or she knew that a) it was a cool book and b) their regular customers were likely to find it of interest.
When I was a child my father had a scary number of entities to which he owed money: Macy’s, Gimbel’s, S. Klein’s, Alexander’s, May’s — and those were just the department stores! His attitude about credit cards seemed to be that if a company was silly enough to issue one to him, it was only fair and proper that he ring up a huge, un-payable tab. But there was one exception, and he was very strict about this: his running charge account at the New Yorker Bookstore. This was a wonderful place, with an enormous and varied inventory spread over two floors on West 89th Street in Manhattan. We’d go in there, my father and I, and I knew that we wouldn’t be leaving for hours. Dad would go into, say, the religion section and start leafing thoughtfully — slowly — through some of the books that had been set out for display. Then he’d work his way into the volumes crammed in on the shelves above. Give him at least an hour an a half to make his way through religion. And God forbid he should go into the Marxism section — we’d be there for the rest of the night!
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But I loved it! I discovered so many books in their children’s section: C.S. Lewis’s Narnia series, Alfred Hitchcock Introduces … The Three Investigators, and the series of fairy-tale books that came in different colors: The Red Fairy Tale Book, The Purple … and so on. The clerks at the New Yorker tended towards the dour, or even gruff: like the waiters at the Famous Deli, a few blocks away, they expressed their love for the customer through a kind of rarefied rudeness. But my father made clear that on any day, whether I was with him or not, I could walk into the New Yorker Bookshop and buy whatever book I wanted — and all I had to tell them was to put it on Paul Kornbluth’s tab, and that would be that. Because this was the one tab that Dad always paid; in fact, he claimed to be their oldest customer. And I used that charge account frequently (though not extravagantly). I’d pick my book and hand it to the solemn clerk, tell him to charge it to my dad’s account, and watch him open the old looseleaf binder, turn the pages till he got to my father’s, and — in pencil — write in the new amount. And in this way I confirmed my membership in a culture, stretching back at least as far as Gutenberg.
I suspect the New Yorker isn’t there anymore (I’m afraid to look!). And I know that time and technology march on: it’s hecksa-easy to buy stuff on Amazon, and people like me do most of our reading online these days, and “serious” literature is more and more the province of a diminishing peak of pointy-headed geeks. But the abruptness of Cody’s demise! Poof! One day it was open, taking orders for books and smiling and such, and the next day there was a sign on the door saying “CLOSED” and a hasty, information-challenged message on their website, headlined “THE END.” No information on how we can redeem our gift certificates, or on whether we’ll be able to pick up the books we ordered. It feels like a death — a cultural, community-wide death — with no means for the bereaved to grieve (at least for now).
In recent years Cody’s was sold by its longtime owner to a businessman who loved the store and seemed determined to keep it going. That the business turned out to be unsustainable I can accept; but that the public (and, I’m guessing, much of the staff) has been treated so shabbily I find very hard to take. There are still, thank God, great independent bookstores in our neighborhood, like Black Oak; and there is, yes, our marvelous public library. But this loss is really tough: a piece of our collective heart has been ripped out.
Our triops eggs, we are told, have remained in a state of suspended animation for years. Now, released into their new, spring-watery home, they are coming back to life. Today is Day 3, and so far three triops (a “nona-ops”?) have hatched; even since yesterday, they’ve grown considerably. Perhaps with their three (apparent) eyes they can peer into a future in which independent bookstores will once again flourish. Till then our task may be to keep the memory of that world intact, even as we make ourselves inconspicuous by playing Nintendo (“Monkeyball” rules!) and watching reality shows. As the song says, triops has three eyes — and one of them can spy our pain, and our fragile hopes.
Hi Josh.
I’ve been meaning to comment here since my wife and I saw you in San Diego. I realize that it’s taken me a while and that some of my comments may have passed their expiration date but, not unlike those eighty-five letters, better late than never! in an effort to appear at least tangentially apropos your current post, I hope you watched Steve Jobs’ last keynote speech wherein he introduces the new iPhone AND, more importantly, showcases it’s ability to play Monkeyball!
So let us now return to those glorious days of yestermonth… I first want to thank you for bringing your show to San Diego. My wife, Barbarella (who commented here on your blog a few posts back) and I very much enjoyed your performance of Citizen Josh. I liked the fact that you were able to promote civic activism without being pedantic, berating, or bludgeoning. Barbarella (who writes two weekly columns for the San Diego Reader — kind of the S.D. equivalent of the S.F. Weekly or The Guardian — check her out at: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/diary_of_a_diva) appreciated the way you wove the “quixotic” theme through the many disparate tales and then tied it all off in a neat little bow at the end. Like yourself, she is also a die-hard bibliophile and huffer of book pages.
When I purchased our tickets I had no idea your show was part of the Jewish Arts Festival. I have to confess that as we sat there, shaloming along with everyone else we felt like a couple of impostors that had inadvertently stumbled into a clandestine meeting of some secret society. Barbarella, an ex-roman catholic now atheist, sat next to one of the head Lipinskyites — perhaps the most ouska of all the Lipinskyites! — making sure to laugh at all the Jewish jokes lest our cover be blown (I later had to explain to her what a shmate is, who this Elijah person is, and why he keeps getting invited to dinner even though he’s always a no-show). I think we came close to being found out when we were the only two people that laughed at your “bottom” joke. Is it just me or did I detect a moments hesitation and the slight smile of someone about to do something naughty as you considered whether to release that joke upon this audience?
As you may have noted, I am now reading your nascent blog. I don’t blog — but then I’m not a writer or monologist. Still, I am fascinated by the rise of blogging. Are people really burning to be kept up to date on the banal details of each other’s lives? O.K., I’ll admit that I am, well… old, by some people’s standards. I am 47, about the same age as yourself, but I in no way think of myself as old. I think other 47-year olds are old, but I still think of myself as a punk-ass kid. You know, dive bars, loud music — definitely more Mac than PC. (By the way, I was in Boston about the same time you were there — The Middle East, The Rat, Bim Skala Bim, The Bosstones, Chucklehead, Concussion Ensemble, Metropolis at the Coolidge Corner accompanied by the Alloy Orchestra, etc.). And though I still listen to today’s new music I’m just not “getting” the whole blog thing yet.
Barbarella, on the other hand, is 31. She blogs. She first had an account on Tribe, then LiveJournal, followed by MySpace, FaceBook and her own website.
So as I see it, millions of people spend countless hours each day composing and broadcasting riveting stories about their fascinating lives such as…
May 25
Last night me and my posse went to this totally sick party at the rooftop bar at the W downtown. We were just kickin’ it, all chill and shit, when fucking Jeremy starts pissing off the edge of the roof! I’m like, “Dude! WTF?!!! Next thing I know, these two jacked bouncers are showing us the door. If you didn’t get my email blast, be sure to check out my YouTube video of the whole thing (be sure to give me an awesome rating!) Speaking of having to pee… the dam’s about to burst so I’ve got to bounce. L8TR.
May 26
I hate Mondays. I also hate hangovers and the fucking office Barbies outside my office door bragging about which of them got more free drinks this weekend. I’ve got a butt-load of depositions to work through, I just downed a six-pack of Diet Coke and I’ve got to pee Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. The fucking Twinkies are still there and they just won’t shut up! I swear if any of them sez so much as a word to me I am going to go apocalyptic on their asses.
Are people so desperate for their lives to have meaning that they think that making themselves the star of their own little Truman Show, somehow equates to being worthwhile?
As if that wasn’t enough, people now Twitter too! Whereas a blog might be thought of as the day’s equivalent of the “highlight” reel, Twitter is just an eternally long, unedited, Director’s Cut, revealed one line at a time…
2 minutes ago
Man I’ve got to pee!
1 minute ago
Fuck, that was some piss!
Check out my YouTube video!
I like to think that because I’m “old” I can step back and examine the phenomenon from the distance of someone with an attention span. What I see is our species evolving into a population that is connected, accessible, locatable and on call 24/7. Cell phones and PDAs allow for GPSing, instant messaging, texting, emailing, taking of photos, and video and their broadcast. Everyone knows where everyone is and what they are doing all the time, and it’s all being recorded and documented. Either the current generation is evolving into a kind of hive mind, or this was the brainchild of the Department of Homeland Security.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m not a Luddite. I love new gadgets and technology — I heart my iPhone! — but it’s really kind of scary vis-a-vis our right to privacy, isn’t it?
Sometimes I’ll regale Barbarella with tales from a time when there were no cells phones, pagers, answering machines, CDs, computers, or cable television; a time when being on the phone meant that you were tethered to within 30 feet of the wall-mounted kitchen phone (24 feet if no one had spun out the tertiary and quaternary twists in the cord for a while). I tell her these things not as an oldster who, while pulling his pants up to his nipples, says “back when I was your age we’d heard rumors about the wheel and this fire thing…”, but just for the amusement that comes from from seeing her eyes widen and hearing her say, “Stop! You’re frightening me!”.
Of course, none of this applies to YOUR blog, as you seem to have already grokked what, to me, would seem the most fundamental rule of blogging — wait until you have an actual thought or observation worth committing to print before you, well… commit it to print. So, it is with your blog that I am tentatively dipping my toe into the pool of the Blogosphere. I hope it doesn’t suck.
N.B. I kind of wanted to insert a smiley emoticon after that last sentence just to make sure that you knew I meant it to be humorous, but then I began thinking about emoticons and how little credit that gives the reader. There was a time when people understood sarcasm without “sarc” or ;-). Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker didn’t have to use emoticons. But that’s yet another tangent. (Oh, will he ever reel this thing back in? Does he ever quit? Maybe he’s really Hilary Clinton…).
To compress my point… We loved your performance of Citizen Josh. We hope you’ll return to San Diego some day. We hope your time in Washington was nice and that one day they may come to like democracy there too. I think the human species is evolving and that the blogging phenomenon is a fascinating indicator of this change, or perhaps just a Department of Homeland Security scheme. More people need to get a life before they blog about it. Perhaps once you’re done with the whole “democracy” thing, you can look into it.
To further compress my point: We think you’re great. Keep up the good work, and thanks.
Best regards,
David
p.s. sorry for hijacking your blog — I’m just not very good at this sort of thing because I’m old.
p.p.s. For some reason that I am sure is not about to become clear, all my italicized words were de-italicized when I posted my comment here which is kind of sad because I *love* italics – their food, their wine…
Now THAT’S a comment — thanks so much, young David!! Let me assure you that the next time I’m in San Diego, I am SO going to want to take a tour with you and Barbarella! And I really appreciate your efforts to “pass” at the Lipinsky Fest: sounds like you know more about Jewish stuff than I do, actually! And regarding the “bottom” joke in “Citizen Josh”: you interpreted my little pause exactly correctly! Kudos to you and Barbarella for your great comments — you’re “tops”!
Well… one of us is “top” anyway — and that would be Barbarella, of course!
Take care,
Babarella & David
this is also an off subject comment, a friend and i saw haiku tunnel a few yrs back and i rewatched it last month, so i was excited to find that you had a blog and that it was was similar in writing style.
keep up living and then writing about living!
best wishes
Well, Josh, I guess more of us are going to have to start commenting if we want you to write more in your blog! Even that desperate ploy may not work. We’ll see!
Another reason I check here from time to time is to see if you have any new performances scheduled. You’re not keeping that section up either!
I was visiting the new Jewish Museum in SF and learned you will be performing there Jan 10, 11, 17 & 18, 2009 inspired by their Warhol exhibit. Great. Hooray! I’ll be there. I decided to post a comment in order to post your performance dates. In that way, if some Josh junkie checks to see the new comment that’s been posted, they will know about the upcoming performances. I am also emailing my 300 closest friends.
It surprises me not at all that you haven’t gotten around to posting info of any kind on your blog. I am a champion over-committer and procrastinator, and now that I’m retired, I get to splash around quite happy and guilt-free in my lovely warm pool of dreaming-while-doing-not-much. I sense you have a hint of similar tendencies. Well, rejoice in them. It’s very important to keep dreaming in XXXL even when we may only accomplish in about a size Medium. For my part, I think my lolly gagging improves the quality of what I eventually do. (I’m a weaver. Weaving has elements that are very slow and others that just whizz by. Suits me to a tee!)
I also think you are very busy being fascinated somehow with every moment of your life – and that’s wonderful for you and very cool for your kids, in whom you also encourage curiosity and wonder. Just how are the triops anyway?
Keep on with whatever you are doing – and I’ll see you during your January run in SF.
Thanks for sharing yourself,
Laurel
We had a client who fed her pet snake frozen mice.
She called them “Mousicles”
The Good Humor Man who pushed the cart on Bronx Park East only had Popsicles!
Ira
I believe that “triops” are what used to advertised on the back cover of countless comic books as “Sea Monkeys”.