We all have that friend (or maybe we’re that friend) that laughs a little too loud, parties a little too hard, and does things that in retrospect are really, really, really stupid. She’s fun, she’s crazy, she snorts when she laughs, and she’s okay with that because she accepts her inner dork (or nerd, or geek, or whatever your word is), and we’re okay with it because we want to be her when we grow up (only without that whole passing out only to wake up in our bra on someone’s front yard part). What makes her so great is that she can laugh at herself, while inviting us to laugh with her—even as we cover our eyes in mock pain.
So here’s to that girl (cue the beer commercial music). And here’s to those of us who wish we could be her, but will settle for reading other people’s personal narratives instead (doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it?).
Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch: Tales from a Bad Neighborhood by Hollis Gillespie
ISBN: 0060561998 Price: $13.95 (Trade Paperback)
A commentator for NPR, columnist, flight attendant, and bad German translator, Hollis Gillespie has been around—the world and life—and she’s not afraid to tell it like it is. Alternatively funny and poignant, she draws you in with her candid dissection of her life experiences, no matter how painful, embarrassing or down-right screwed up they might be. The perfect book for when you are feeling down or simply looking for a laugh, but you might want to invest in some Depends before cracking the spine.
My take: “She had me at Hellish Gargoyle.”
The Boss and I actually ordered the follow-up to this book, Confessions of a Recovering Slut: and Other Love Stories, first, but I would recommend reading them in order (so you can read the progression to “slut” and “back” again). Gillespie doesn’t hold back—at all, even if you sometimes wish she did—and the result is a character study through moments of how we become who we are. Each entry is a combination of the past and present, sprinkled with pictures (including little headers where she’s making horrible faces) and references to other entries. Screwy lives sure make for good writing (and reading), and I cannot stress enough that you should pick this one up (the Boss and I both loved it, despite the 20 year difference in our ages). And then read it in public, like on the subway, with the cover up so others can see it (if only to watch their reaction, I had a lot of fun at an upper level restaurant with it).
If Hollis sounds a bit too hard core for you, check out:
The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club: True Tales from a Magnificent and Clumsy Life by Laurie Notaro
ISBN: 0375760911 Price: $12.95
If something slightly (and I mean very slight like “a thin piece of paper” slight) less raunchy would be to your tastes, Laurie Notaro is your girl…or she would be, if she could master that whole “staying on her feet” thing, that whole “human-interaction” thing, and that whole “engaging the tact filter before speaking” thing. But since she has problems with all of these areas, we get to read about her adventures instead. If she were a character in a book we’d groan and call her too stupid to live, but she’s a real person (who’s miraculously still breathing) who realizes that she’s made some mistakes and wants to make us laugh with her. If you are into humor writing at all, this is the book for you.
My take: “Where do I get my Idiot Girl merit badge?”
I read Notaro for the first time a couple of years ago and almost wet myself. I had just gone through a whole David Sedaris kick, and while I adore him, I was looking for a female counterpart. Enter Laurie Notaro. I laughed so hard with her first book that I bought up all that my store had (thank God for employee discounts) and started sending them to my friends. They loved her too (and I don’t think it was just those little airline bottles of alcohol that I sent along talking either). She speaks to that part in all of us that goes “I know this is stupid, but…” and does whatever it is anyway, and then asks later “How did I survive that and where’s my martini?” Let’s face it: no one is perfect and some of us are no where close, Laurie just puts her crimes adventures down on paper for everyone to enjoy. It’s like peek in your favorite, older sister’s journal.
I also recommend her follow-ups:
Autobiography of a Fat Bride: True Tales of a Pretend Adulthood
I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies): True Tales of a Loudmouth Girl
We Thought You Would Be Prettier: True Tales from the Dorkiest Girl Alive
Sensing a theme?
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Just another manic Monday
Once upon a time I thought bookstores were like libraries, quiet and serene places where people did their thing in silence and the proprietors got to read the stock.
Ha!
And again for good measure, HA, I say.
The only time we experience any relative quietness is when the store is empty, and then I’m tearing out my hair trying to figure out stuff for my coworkers to do while the candy store across from us blasts the latest teen queen movie soundtrack. Miss Duff starts sounding like a rabid, hyper chipmunk after the second repetition, which is unfortunate because they play the same CD all day long. I think that everyone who works there must be deaf. There is only so much Hillary Duff I can take before I start contemplating a call to Uncle Guido, or at least to my mother to find out if I have an Uncle Guido.
I wish I were deaf.
So to combat Hill screeching her little heart out we have to pump up the Bach for Booklovers, which in turn means we have to speak louder (as do the customers) to be heard over the cacophony. Serene? I think not. But hey, sooner or later it all settles down as a background noise in your mind because you’ve got bigger problems to deal with. Take yesterday for example:
At 9:15 (before we were even open) my boss received a phone call from a woman who either had a very heavy accent or a very bad connection.
Woman: Do you have any books by Scilibda Gregor.
Boss: Scilibda Gregor?
Woman: Yes.
My boss was stumped. Scilibda Gregor? It sounded like a cross between Scylla, one of the mythical creatures from the Odyssey, and a Russian gymnast. She couldn’t even think of how to spell it (the take on the name is my own), but she tried punching alternatives into the computer.
Boss: I’m sorry, but we don’t have any authors by that name.
The woman then hung up, leaving my boss with that “Whaaa?” feeling we all get when the request makes no sense. Later, after she had switched out with the person running the calendar store for the day, the customer actually came in and confronted my coworker who was running the counter.
Woman: I don’t know who you had working this morning, but she didn’t even bother checking her computer. You have a whole shelf of the author I was looking for.
Coworker: Who was the author?
Woman (holding up The Virgin’s Lover): Philippa Gregory.
Scilibda Gregor. Philippa Gregory. Maybe after several cups of coffee I could have seen that one immediately, but not at nine in the morning.
Perhaps Scilibda can be Philippa’s pseudonym if she ever writes early Greek historicals.
(The lesson in this? Always spell what you are asking for, and give an example of the title if possible.)
This little incident (customer confronting coworker) took place in the middle of our lunch rush while my coworker was attempting to receive a vendor order of a hundred books. Normally bookstores don’t allow receiving at the counter, but when you don’t have enough people on (or the hours to put enough people on) it’s the only place it can happen. That order? Three books over. He recounted a couple of times between ringing customers. And those extra books? Not even in our computer. Who knows where we’ll end up shelving them.
At one I came in, dodging the urban assault stroller (the ones with three monster wheels that look like they could double as a bobsled) parked at the front of our store. It was at just the right angle that anyone over a size four who tried to slide through the gap allowed would brush against the books on the display table, knocking them to the floor. I asked her if she would mind moving it, but she ignored me. Story of my life. I asked again, a bit louder, feeling very much like Garth at that concert in Wayne’s World. Still no response (the Da Vinci Code had sucked her into its vortex), so (without my stun gun to continue my Wayne’s World analogy) I was forced to tiptoe by.
The stroller, by the way, was empty. In fact, I’m not entirely convinced she even had a kid, but was instead using it as a barrier between her and the unwashed masses. I’ve pulled the same trick with a library cart and a stack of strips. Nothing says “stay out of my personal bubble” like a large hunk of metal on wheels.
Once in the backroom I clocked in and proceeded to play phone tag with FedEx. You see, last Friday instead of receiving three pallets of product, I received one, leaving me short more than seventy boxes. I was without half of my street dates for the 20th: Goodnight Nobody, The Anansi Boys, and others. You do not go into a release day without Weiner and Gaiman’s new books. Not in my town. The Chick-litters and the Fantasy Fans will murder you. Death by cardboard cuts would be quicker and more preferable.
Only FedEx doesn’t know where the pallets could possibly be, but they’ll “run a trace and get back to me.” My company also doesn’t have a clue where they could be hiding, and asked me to “let them know when they show up.” Southern California (see: a store in, not that whole part of the state) calls to let me know that they had one of our boxes, which they were sending up.
Great. One out of over seventy accounted for.
Meanwhile back at the ranch—er, counter, people were passing hundreds like they were a natural resource (and using them to purchase just one $7.99 book), my coworker was threatening to leave unless I give him something go do that “was not shelving,” I kept trying to place an order to get those street dates in on time from a local distributor, and one of my customers couldn’t figure out why her card was declined and demanded the phone to call her bank.
(She was using an expired card.)
End of lunch rush, six more hours to go.
To sum it up, let me list: customers, customers, shelving, change-outs, customers, customers, one extremely cute kid, customers, tourists from Scotland, customers, customers, shelving.
Highlights: the airline stewardess with Lufthansa looking for the book Around the World in a Bad Mood (those ladies of Lufthansa love it, so consider it my international pick of the week), the woman shopping for her daughter’s 21st birthday (she needed gift bags tall enough for bottles of alcohol), the customer I finessed into buying a bow for the present he got complimentary wrapped, the tourists from Scotland (they were such a cute, older couple), and the realization that it was 9 and we could close.
Not every day is as crazed, or filled with customers that make you want to cry. Many are the personification of sweetness and light, a joy to be around and help. Those people just don’t typically show up on Mondays.
And, hey, given a choice, neither would I.
Here’s hoping that today those pallets show up along with those street dates.
Ha!
And again for good measure, HA, I say.
The only time we experience any relative quietness is when the store is empty, and then I’m tearing out my hair trying to figure out stuff for my coworkers to do while the candy store across from us blasts the latest teen queen movie soundtrack. Miss Duff starts sounding like a rabid, hyper chipmunk after the second repetition, which is unfortunate because they play the same CD all day long. I think that everyone who works there must be deaf. There is only so much Hillary Duff I can take before I start contemplating a call to Uncle Guido, or at least to my mother to find out if I have an Uncle Guido.
I wish I were deaf.
So to combat Hill screeching her little heart out we have to pump up the Bach for Booklovers, which in turn means we have to speak louder (as do the customers) to be heard over the cacophony. Serene? I think not. But hey, sooner or later it all settles down as a background noise in your mind because you’ve got bigger problems to deal with. Take yesterday for example:
At 9:15 (before we were even open) my boss received a phone call from a woman who either had a very heavy accent or a very bad connection.
Woman: Do you have any books by Scilibda Gregor.
Boss: Scilibda Gregor?
Woman: Yes.
My boss was stumped. Scilibda Gregor? It sounded like a cross between Scylla, one of the mythical creatures from the Odyssey, and a Russian gymnast. She couldn’t even think of how to spell it (the take on the name is my own), but she tried punching alternatives into the computer.
Boss: I’m sorry, but we don’t have any authors by that name.
The woman then hung up, leaving my boss with that “Whaaa?” feeling we all get when the request makes no sense. Later, after she had switched out with the person running the calendar store for the day, the customer actually came in and confronted my coworker who was running the counter.
Woman: I don’t know who you had working this morning, but she didn’t even bother checking her computer. You have a whole shelf of the author I was looking for.
Coworker: Who was the author?
Woman (holding up The Virgin’s Lover): Philippa Gregory.
Scilibda Gregor. Philippa Gregory. Maybe after several cups of coffee I could have seen that one immediately, but not at nine in the morning.
Perhaps Scilibda can be Philippa’s pseudonym if she ever writes early Greek historicals.
(The lesson in this? Always spell what you are asking for, and give an example of the title if possible.)
This little incident (customer confronting coworker) took place in the middle of our lunch rush while my coworker was attempting to receive a vendor order of a hundred books. Normally bookstores don’t allow receiving at the counter, but when you don’t have enough people on (or the hours to put enough people on) it’s the only place it can happen. That order? Three books over. He recounted a couple of times between ringing customers. And those extra books? Not even in our computer. Who knows where we’ll end up shelving them.
At one I came in, dodging the urban assault stroller (the ones with three monster wheels that look like they could double as a bobsled) parked at the front of our store. It was at just the right angle that anyone over a size four who tried to slide through the gap allowed would brush against the books on the display table, knocking them to the floor. I asked her if she would mind moving it, but she ignored me. Story of my life. I asked again, a bit louder, feeling very much like Garth at that concert in Wayne’s World. Still no response (the Da Vinci Code had sucked her into its vortex), so (without my stun gun to continue my Wayne’s World analogy) I was forced to tiptoe by.
The stroller, by the way, was empty. In fact, I’m not entirely convinced she even had a kid, but was instead using it as a barrier between her and the unwashed masses. I’ve pulled the same trick with a library cart and a stack of strips. Nothing says “stay out of my personal bubble” like a large hunk of metal on wheels.
Once in the backroom I clocked in and proceeded to play phone tag with FedEx. You see, last Friday instead of receiving three pallets of product, I received one, leaving me short more than seventy boxes. I was without half of my street dates for the 20th: Goodnight Nobody, The Anansi Boys, and others. You do not go into a release day without Weiner and Gaiman’s new books. Not in my town. The Chick-litters and the Fantasy Fans will murder you. Death by cardboard cuts would be quicker and more preferable.
Only FedEx doesn’t know where the pallets could possibly be, but they’ll “run a trace and get back to me.” My company also doesn’t have a clue where they could be hiding, and asked me to “let them know when they show up.” Southern California (see: a store in, not that whole part of the state) calls to let me know that they had one of our boxes, which they were sending up.
Great. One out of over seventy accounted for.
Meanwhile back at the ranch—er, counter, people were passing hundreds like they were a natural resource (and using them to purchase just one $7.99 book), my coworker was threatening to leave unless I give him something go do that “was not shelving,” I kept trying to place an order to get those street dates in on time from a local distributor, and one of my customers couldn’t figure out why her card was declined and demanded the phone to call her bank.
(She was using an expired card.)
End of lunch rush, six more hours to go.
To sum it up, let me list: customers, customers, shelving, change-outs, customers, customers, one extremely cute kid, customers, tourists from Scotland, customers, customers, shelving.
Highlights: the airline stewardess with Lufthansa looking for the book Around the World in a Bad Mood (those ladies of Lufthansa love it, so consider it my international pick of the week), the woman shopping for her daughter’s 21st birthday (she needed gift bags tall enough for bottles of alcohol), the customer I finessed into buying a bow for the present he got complimentary wrapped, the tourists from Scotland (they were such a cute, older couple), and the realization that it was 9 and we could close.
Not every day is as crazed, or filled with customers that make you want to cry. Many are the personification of sweetness and light, a joy to be around and help. Those people just don’t typically show up on Mondays.
And, hey, given a choice, neither would I.
Here’s hoping that today those pallets show up along with those street dates.
Monday, September 19, 2005
SBD: Hello, I love you, won't you tell me your name...
Since I’ve already got my Pirate on for the day, I figured I’d smack my inner Smart Bitch up, too.
Just how much can this little brain produce on two cups of tea? Not much, but I’ll give it a try anyway. So let’s talk about Wuv, Twue wuv, shall we? Specifically love at first sight…
Which I will now state for the record that I do not believe in.
Do I believe in love? Yes.
Do I believe you can fall in love quickly? Of course.
But love at first sight? Try lust maybe. Lust at first sight makes much more sense. I’ve fallen in lust at first sight several times. Oh fickle, fickle lust. Oh the many beautiful, beautiful men. Oh the customer that came to my counter with the Economist looking like a tall, ropey Johnny Depp, doing the intense eye contact thing so well that my mind left my head and went…well, I think it went off with him. I’m sure they are making little thought babies now. At least I hope so. Because I would certainly be making—
Oh wait, where was I?
Lust, right (is it hot in here?). I know thee well, which is why when I read a romance novel and the character is all “I loved you from the moment I saw you” I’m struck by the overwhelming urge to scream, “Liar!!!!” That and throw the book across the room.
Look here, Mr. Man or little Miss Girly-girl (since it inevitably seems to happen in those types of books—she says making a generalization about a whole genre and talking about herself in third person. She obviously needs more caffeine), what exactly have you fallen in love with? Her cleavage or legs? His broad shoulders and handsome face? Where’s the depth? The getting to know you? The something beyond the superficial “Hey baby, I wanna get in your pants” feelings!?
Which is what I hate most of all. Here Ms. Author has spent an entire book building the emotional relationship, the meeting of the minds, between these two people only to have one of them trivialize this growth by saying, “I loved you the moment I set eyes on you.”
It’s trite, damn it! It pisses me off (obviously), and it tosses any and all emotional development out the window. To me the character is saying, “I, like, totally love his/her body, it’s slammin’, and the brain is like an extra whoa, ya know?”
Why do the characters become a valley girl/surfer boy when they talk to me? I blame Bill and Ted, really, but the example works if only for the belittlement of the scope of the feelings involved.
Give me the slow realization, the build up, the little things that click together. It wouldn’t bother me at all if, say, the characters have been together for awhile and one day, while he’s lying in bed watching her do the hip wiggle dance necessary to get freshly laundered jeans on (because everyone has to do the hip wiggle at some point, I don’t care how small you are), he thinks, “I love this person.” In fact, I would love it more, believe it more, because he’s thinking this during something as mundane as the morning dressing ritual that we all go through. If he can become aware of the love during one of those blurry-eyed, messy-haired, dear-God-where’s-my-coffee moments, I have more faith in his profession and more faith in the characters.
Of course, he still might utter the line about love at first sight because what woman wants to hear that she was loved at her worst. It’s just one of those little while lies, baby. Like telling you that you look good in that dress.
…and I still might throw the book at the wall.
But hopefully, just hopefully, when she asks when did you fall in love with me, he can answer truthfully, “Remember that morning you were trying to button your jeans…”
And he’ll say it in such a way, with the right amount of tact, that he won’t get slapped.
And she’ll have enough of a sense of humor—and love for him—that she won’t slap him.
And I, I will be getting the warm fuzzies because these would be people I would actually want to hang out with even if they did make googly-eyes at each other across the table all the time.
Just how much can this little brain produce on two cups of tea? Not much, but I’ll give it a try anyway. So let’s talk about Wuv, Twue wuv, shall we? Specifically love at first sight…
Which I will now state for the record that I do not believe in.
Do I believe in love? Yes.
Do I believe you can fall in love quickly? Of course.
But love at first sight? Try lust maybe. Lust at first sight makes much more sense. I’ve fallen in lust at first sight several times. Oh fickle, fickle lust. Oh the many beautiful, beautiful men. Oh the customer that came to my counter with the Economist looking like a tall, ropey Johnny Depp, doing the intense eye contact thing so well that my mind left my head and went…well, I think it went off with him. I’m sure they are making little thought babies now. At least I hope so. Because I would certainly be making—
Oh wait, where was I?
Lust, right (is it hot in here?). I know thee well, which is why when I read a romance novel and the character is all “I loved you from the moment I saw you” I’m struck by the overwhelming urge to scream, “Liar!!!!” That and throw the book across the room.
Look here, Mr. Man or little Miss Girly-girl (since it inevitably seems to happen in those types of books—she says making a generalization about a whole genre and talking about herself in third person. She obviously needs more caffeine), what exactly have you fallen in love with? Her cleavage or legs? His broad shoulders and handsome face? Where’s the depth? The getting to know you? The something beyond the superficial “Hey baby, I wanna get in your pants” feelings!?
Which is what I hate most of all. Here Ms. Author has spent an entire book building the emotional relationship, the meeting of the minds, between these two people only to have one of them trivialize this growth by saying, “I loved you the moment I set eyes on you.”
It’s trite, damn it! It pisses me off (obviously), and it tosses any and all emotional development out the window. To me the character is saying, “I, like, totally love his/her body, it’s slammin’, and the brain is like an extra whoa, ya know?”
Why do the characters become a valley girl/surfer boy when they talk to me? I blame Bill and Ted, really, but the example works if only for the belittlement of the scope of the feelings involved.
Give me the slow realization, the build up, the little things that click together. It wouldn’t bother me at all if, say, the characters have been together for awhile and one day, while he’s lying in bed watching her do the hip wiggle dance necessary to get freshly laundered jeans on (because everyone has to do the hip wiggle at some point, I don’t care how small you are), he thinks, “I love this person.” In fact, I would love it more, believe it more, because he’s thinking this during something as mundane as the morning dressing ritual that we all go through. If he can become aware of the love during one of those blurry-eyed, messy-haired, dear-God-where’s-my-coffee moments, I have more faith in his profession and more faith in the characters.
Of course, he still might utter the line about love at first sight because what woman wants to hear that she was loved at her worst. It’s just one of those little while lies, baby. Like telling you that you look good in that dress.
…and I still might throw the book at the wall.
But hopefully, just hopefully, when she asks when did you fall in love with me, he can answer truthfully, “Remember that morning you were trying to button your jeans…”
And he’ll say it in such a way, with the right amount of tact, that he won’t get slapped.
And she’ll have enough of a sense of humor—and love for him—that she won’t slap him.
And I, I will be getting the warm fuzzies because these would be people I would actually want to hang out with even if they did make googly-eyes at each other across the table all the time.
It be International Talk Like a Pirate Day, ye landlubbers!
It be International Talk Like a Pirate Day, ye landlubbers!
Aye, me hardies, it be that day again: International Talk Like a Pirate Day! So raise your inner pirate from Davy Jone’s locker and celebrate with these swashbucklers and fiends…or ye’ll be walking the plank.
Pirattitude!: so you wanna be a Pirate? Here’s how! By John Baur and Mark Summers. Introduction by Dave Berry
ISBN: 0451216490 Price: $ 12.95
That’s right, ye swabbies, the Pirates behind International Talk Like a Pirate day have written down their tale fer yer edification. Learn to raise the main sail, walk the plank, swash your buckle and comport yourself in all pirate-type ways. (Special bonus: learn to actually talk like pirate for more than three words unlike the author of this post.)
About the Author:
John "Ol' Chumbucket" Baur and Mark "Cap'n Slappy" Summers came up with the idea for Talk Like a Pirate Day during an ill-fated game of racquetball way back in 1995, making it the first holiday that ever originated as a sports injury. They adamantly deny that there was any grog-swilling involved, though they both admit to swilling more than their fair share of grog at other times.
Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists by Gideon Defoe
ISBN: 0375423214 Price: $15.95
Satirical. Pirate. Fiction. ‘Nuff said.
What? You didn’t know it existed? Who said ignorance was bliss because you are obviously missing out. Pirates! Is a book beloved by everyone in my store. It’s been passed around almost as much as Lamb (which would make since because they share the same bit of silly, Python-esque humor).
About the Author:
Gideon Defoe, who lives in London, is twenty-eight. He wrote The Pirates! to convince a woman to leave her boyfriend for him. She didn't.
I say:
Really, how can you not fall in love with a book written to get some woman to leave her boyfriend…it would have worked on me. Not to mention all the science humor, ham, and the holy ghost make for one amusing as hell tale. Look for Pirates! In an Adventure with Ahab coming soon.
Under the Black Flag by David Cordingly
ISBN: 0156005492 Price: $14.00
Get your history on with this exploration of pirates and our perceptions (with actual examples). Was Blackbeard truly a nasty, nasty man? And what about that Captain Cooke? Cordingly answers all in an easy to read format.
The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805 by Richard Zacks
ISBN: 1401300030 Price: $ 25.95
Political intrigue, pirates, presidential shenanigans and covert operations: what more could a girl ask for? An interesting (and entertaining) look at a small piece of history that might must be one of those things that make you go “hmmm.”
Books for the pirate kiddies:
Curse of the Blue Tattoo: Being an Account of the Misadventures of Jacky Faber, Midshipman and Fine Lady (Bloody Jack Adventures) by Louis A. Meyer
ISBN: 0152051155 Price: (now in paperback)
A follow up to Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary "Jacky" Faber, Ship’s Boy, Jack(y) is once again battling the high tides of…private school? Say it ain’t so? Who would want to reform a pirate? The term scrappy is totally appropriate for this fun, tough character.
How I became a Pirate by Melinda Long. Illustrations by David Shannon.
ISBN: 0152018484 Price: $16.00
A boy runs off with pirates to help them bury their treasure, David Shannon’s bug-eyed drawing ensue.
How to Be a Pirate by Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III. Translated by Cressida Cowell
ISBN: 0316155985 Price: $ 10.99
From the woman who brought us—I mean, translated—How to Train Your Dragon comes the further adventures of the son of Stoick the Vast of the Harry Hooligan Viking Tribe (Hey, I know some Hairy Hooligans). Fun for little boys and girls alike.
Pirate Girl by Cornelia Funke and Kerstin Meyer. Illustrations by Chantal Wright
ISBN: 0439716721 Price: $15.95
Whether you view this as dose of little girl power or an example that girls can be bullies too (as the contrasting reviews by Booklist and Library Journal alternatively suggest), you’ll definitely get your dose of girl Pirattitude!
Aye, me hardies, it be that day again: International Talk Like a Pirate Day! So raise your inner pirate from Davy Jone’s locker and celebrate with these swashbucklers and fiends…or ye’ll be walking the plank.
Pirattitude!: so you wanna be a Pirate? Here’s how! By John Baur and Mark Summers. Introduction by Dave Berry
ISBN: 0451216490 Price: $ 12.95
That’s right, ye swabbies, the Pirates behind International Talk Like a Pirate day have written down their tale fer yer edification. Learn to raise the main sail, walk the plank, swash your buckle and comport yourself in all pirate-type ways. (Special bonus: learn to actually talk like pirate for more than three words unlike the author of this post.)
About the Author:
John "Ol' Chumbucket" Baur and Mark "Cap'n Slappy" Summers came up with the idea for Talk Like a Pirate Day during an ill-fated game of racquetball way back in 1995, making it the first holiday that ever originated as a sports injury. They adamantly deny that there was any grog-swilling involved, though they both admit to swilling more than their fair share of grog at other times.
Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists by Gideon Defoe
ISBN: 0375423214 Price: $15.95
Satirical. Pirate. Fiction. ‘Nuff said.
What? You didn’t know it existed? Who said ignorance was bliss because you are obviously missing out. Pirates! Is a book beloved by everyone in my store. It’s been passed around almost as much as Lamb (which would make since because they share the same bit of silly, Python-esque humor).
About the Author:
Gideon Defoe, who lives in London, is twenty-eight. He wrote The Pirates! to convince a woman to leave her boyfriend for him. She didn't.
I say:
Really, how can you not fall in love with a book written to get some woman to leave her boyfriend…it would have worked on me. Not to mention all the science humor, ham, and the holy ghost make for one amusing as hell tale. Look for Pirates! In an Adventure with Ahab coming soon.
Under the Black Flag by David Cordingly
ISBN: 0156005492 Price: $14.00
Get your history on with this exploration of pirates and our perceptions (with actual examples). Was Blackbeard truly a nasty, nasty man? And what about that Captain Cooke? Cordingly answers all in an easy to read format.
The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805 by Richard Zacks
ISBN: 1401300030 Price: $ 25.95
Political intrigue, pirates, presidential shenanigans and covert operations: what more could a girl ask for? An interesting (and entertaining) look at a small piece of history that might must be one of those things that make you go “hmmm.”
Books for the pirate kiddies:
Curse of the Blue Tattoo: Being an Account of the Misadventures of Jacky Faber, Midshipman and Fine Lady (Bloody Jack Adventures) by Louis A. Meyer
ISBN: 0152051155 Price: (now in paperback)
A follow up to Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary "Jacky" Faber, Ship’s Boy, Jack(y) is once again battling the high tides of…private school? Say it ain’t so? Who would want to reform a pirate? The term scrappy is totally appropriate for this fun, tough character.
How I became a Pirate by Melinda Long. Illustrations by David Shannon.
ISBN: 0152018484 Price: $16.00
A boy runs off with pirates to help them bury their treasure, David Shannon’s bug-eyed drawing ensue.
How to Be a Pirate by Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III. Translated by Cressida Cowell
ISBN: 0316155985 Price: $ 10.99
From the woman who brought us—I mean, translated—How to Train Your Dragon comes the further adventures of the son of Stoick the Vast of the Harry Hooligan Viking Tribe (Hey, I know some Hairy Hooligans). Fun for little boys and girls alike.
Pirate Girl by Cornelia Funke and Kerstin Meyer. Illustrations by Chantal Wright
ISBN: 0439716721 Price: $15.95
Whether you view this as dose of little girl power or an example that girls can be bullies too (as the contrasting reviews by Booklist and Library Journal alternatively suggest), you’ll definitely get your dose of girl Pirattitude!
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Brigadoon's very own calendar store
“Are you closing?” a customer asked me as he looked around at the half-empty shelves of my calendar store.
It was the seventh such question I’d fielded in the last three days and given that I had only dealt with about 12 customers, that was saying something…something involving four letter words on occasion (even if only in my mind). “We just opened, actually,” I replied—same as I had the six times before—twitching a faceout of calendars of Italy over an empty spot. “I should be getting six more pallets of product soon…I hope.”
I never actually add the “I hope” aloud, customers can since fear and indecision. Instead I just think it. I hope that I’m not lying to you, Mr. Customer-man. I hope that my company is not lying to me when they say this will all get taken care of as soon as the new inventory system is fixed. Considering that last year my shelves were so packed that calendars jumped free, propelled by the quantity behind them—no doubt in an attempt to fall into customers’ arms, crush toddlers or just end it all—or overlapping them, or just plain shoving them out over the edge. There definitely wasn’t room in the place for all of them. Compared to then, I could see why some might mistake the vast expanses of bright, white shelf space (especially with their just dusted gleam brought out by some employee’s boredom) as the result of a store selling down, and not just reopening. Soon, I assured myself and the customer, soon there would be inventory as far as the eye could see (which was about forty feet across, given the store’s dimensions).
“Pipe dreams,” I heard my coworker’s voice whisper in my head, but I ignored her…and the fact that I was hearing voices at all. It was the result of being up in the calendar store by myself for too long, I was sure.
“We should have some more calendars by the end of the week at the very least.”
He didn’t seem to notice the doubt in my voice—damn you, pessimistic coworker—and nodded his head. “How long are you open?”
Yet another question I heard frequently, right up there with requests for the bathroom, food court, and another calendar store. A human directory; oftentimes that was all I was to these people.
“From the end of August to the end of January,” I chirped in my best “customer service” voice. The “Customer Service” voice was always a chirp that seemed to deploy in these situations, building a nice, thick, protective wall between my oblivious customer and the sarcastic, hormonal part of me that tried to compel me to roll my eyes and add things like, “Maybe I should get it tattooed on my forehead,” in a tone guaranteed to make my mother bitch-slap me into next year if she heard it. It was protection for the customer too, because he had no idea that I may have heard that question (or one like it) five million times already, it was the first time he had said it, and the customer service world (at that point in time) revolved around him. I knew this, and did my best to make sure that he remained unaware of any mental anguish that he may have caused.
Besides, I knew that tattooing anything on my forehead would be a waste of money for the simple reason that most customers would never see it—mostly because they never seem me. As a retail worker, I’m a non-entity, a retail drone. My face and appearance don’t matter, only the answers I give to the customer’s questions. Tattooing anything anywhere visible would only matter to my boss.
But while the customer may not see me, they can hear me (or why bother asking a question) and any anger, contempt or other emotion that may come through in my voice, hence the necessity of the chirp. Truthfully, it was that or the phone sex operator voice.
Now I know what you are thinking: Sex sells. Sex sells big! Yes, I too took Marketing 101, but whether the voice was too good, or not good enough, it earned me a lot of discomforting looks at my chest and cleavage (or lack there of). I don’t know if they expected me to have TB, or just a double D, but the response did not make the voice worth the effort.
So chirping it was, which saved me from being sexualized from all but the most deluded of male souls who seem to view me as having some sort of Pollyanna complex. Inevitably these forty-something men (and they are always forty-somethings which has lead me to a lot of theorizing on the male midlife crisis) offer to take me out to coffee or dancing, and since I don’t have the heart to tell them that they are old enough to be my father, I make up some excuse that sounds lame even to me. I mean, guys, I have a very healthy relationship with my father, thank you very much, and therefore feel no need to indulge an inner Electra, because ewww. No thanks.
Lucky for me the customer I was talking to—though in the right age group—did not seem to need his very own Pollyanna. Instead he just smiled at me—Oh God! Actual eye contact!!—and turned back to my half-filled (see that optimism) shelves. “You’re kind of like the calendar store version of Brigadoon, aren’t you?”
Oh God, first eye contact, then something vaguely interesting in response. Must. Find. Acceptable. Comeback! “Only we show up more often.”
He laughed (see, some people think I’m witty), and promised to return later when we had more stock. I mumbled something reassuring about Friday again, but my mind wasn’t really focused on my answer. No, I was captivated b the idea of a Brigadoon calendar store floating somewhere in the mists, open for 41.6 years (instead of five months) where no one could see (except for, you know, the people that lived in Brigadoon).
How would the calendars be set up? Would the New Year be marked when Brigadoon became visible to the rest of the world or was it some arbitrary day of some arbitrary month? What did they do about leap year? Was it a Chinese or Roman calendar (or something else)? Would the person running the calendar store counter know that they were actually open for decades (because it sometimes felt like that to me, in just a matter of hours even)? Would they even sell anything or would their existence be marked by customers that appeared and disappeared without ever buying anything because they were waiting for THE NEXT SHIPMENT!?
Who the hell would ship to Brigadoon? And how? And when?
Every 100 years?
It certainly put my moments of boredom into perspective. It could have been worse. I could have been that lone calendar store on Brigadoon, holding a calendar for a customer that actually wanted to purchase it, only to disappear back into the mist before they could return from the ATM. How long would I be compelled to keep that hold: three days, three months, three decades? What if I reappeared out of the mists 100 years later to find a rickety old man waiting outside my doors, ragged money in hand, ready to get his calendar? Not even considering the inflation he might face, I have this horrible suspicion that my answer would not be positive, uplifting, or even a testament to his endurance. Nope. I’m pretty sure that it would sound something like this, “I’m sorry, Sir, but only half my shipment has arrived. I don’t have that one in yet.”
But hey, my own store was not in Brigadoon, right? It was in the real world, dealing with real things like FedEx and distribution centers and inventory systems. They would fix that pesky problem soon and I would have plenty of stock, more stock than I knew what to do with. It wouldn’t take a hundred years. Not at all.
“Pipe dreams,” I heard my coworker’s voice say again.
I really should see someone about those voices in my head.
Really.
Before the shrouding mist of Brigadoon—er, I mean, monotony closed in on me again.
It was the seventh such question I’d fielded in the last three days and given that I had only dealt with about 12 customers, that was saying something…something involving four letter words on occasion (even if only in my mind). “We just opened, actually,” I replied—same as I had the six times before—twitching a faceout of calendars of Italy over an empty spot. “I should be getting six more pallets of product soon…I hope.”
I never actually add the “I hope” aloud, customers can since fear and indecision. Instead I just think it. I hope that I’m not lying to you, Mr. Customer-man. I hope that my company is not lying to me when they say this will all get taken care of as soon as the new inventory system is fixed. Considering that last year my shelves were so packed that calendars jumped free, propelled by the quantity behind them—no doubt in an attempt to fall into customers’ arms, crush toddlers or just end it all—or overlapping them, or just plain shoving them out over the edge. There definitely wasn’t room in the place for all of them. Compared to then, I could see why some might mistake the vast expanses of bright, white shelf space (especially with their just dusted gleam brought out by some employee’s boredom) as the result of a store selling down, and not just reopening. Soon, I assured myself and the customer, soon there would be inventory as far as the eye could see (which was about forty feet across, given the store’s dimensions).
“Pipe dreams,” I heard my coworker’s voice whisper in my head, but I ignored her…and the fact that I was hearing voices at all. It was the result of being up in the calendar store by myself for too long, I was sure.
“We should have some more calendars by the end of the week at the very least.”
He didn’t seem to notice the doubt in my voice—damn you, pessimistic coworker—and nodded his head. “How long are you open?”
Yet another question I heard frequently, right up there with requests for the bathroom, food court, and another calendar store. A human directory; oftentimes that was all I was to these people.
“From the end of August to the end of January,” I chirped in my best “customer service” voice. The “Customer Service” voice was always a chirp that seemed to deploy in these situations, building a nice, thick, protective wall between my oblivious customer and the sarcastic, hormonal part of me that tried to compel me to roll my eyes and add things like, “Maybe I should get it tattooed on my forehead,” in a tone guaranteed to make my mother bitch-slap me into next year if she heard it. It was protection for the customer too, because he had no idea that I may have heard that question (or one like it) five million times already, it was the first time he had said it, and the customer service world (at that point in time) revolved around him. I knew this, and did my best to make sure that he remained unaware of any mental anguish that he may have caused.
Besides, I knew that tattooing anything on my forehead would be a waste of money for the simple reason that most customers would never see it—mostly because they never seem me. As a retail worker, I’m a non-entity, a retail drone. My face and appearance don’t matter, only the answers I give to the customer’s questions. Tattooing anything anywhere visible would only matter to my boss.
But while the customer may not see me, they can hear me (or why bother asking a question) and any anger, contempt or other emotion that may come through in my voice, hence the necessity of the chirp. Truthfully, it was that or the phone sex operator voice.
Now I know what you are thinking: Sex sells. Sex sells big! Yes, I too took Marketing 101, but whether the voice was too good, or not good enough, it earned me a lot of discomforting looks at my chest and cleavage (or lack there of). I don’t know if they expected me to have TB, or just a double D, but the response did not make the voice worth the effort.
So chirping it was, which saved me from being sexualized from all but the most deluded of male souls who seem to view me as having some sort of Pollyanna complex. Inevitably these forty-something men (and they are always forty-somethings which has lead me to a lot of theorizing on the male midlife crisis) offer to take me out to coffee or dancing, and since I don’t have the heart to tell them that they are old enough to be my father, I make up some excuse that sounds lame even to me. I mean, guys, I have a very healthy relationship with my father, thank you very much, and therefore feel no need to indulge an inner Electra, because ewww. No thanks.
Lucky for me the customer I was talking to—though in the right age group—did not seem to need his very own Pollyanna. Instead he just smiled at me—Oh God! Actual eye contact!!—and turned back to my half-filled (see that optimism) shelves. “You’re kind of like the calendar store version of Brigadoon, aren’t you?”
Oh God, first eye contact, then something vaguely interesting in response. Must. Find. Acceptable. Comeback! “Only we show up more often.”
He laughed (see, some people think I’m witty), and promised to return later when we had more stock. I mumbled something reassuring about Friday again, but my mind wasn’t really focused on my answer. No, I was captivated b the idea of a Brigadoon calendar store floating somewhere in the mists, open for 41.6 years (instead of five months) where no one could see (except for, you know, the people that lived in Brigadoon).
How would the calendars be set up? Would the New Year be marked when Brigadoon became visible to the rest of the world or was it some arbitrary day of some arbitrary month? What did they do about leap year? Was it a Chinese or Roman calendar (or something else)? Would the person running the calendar store counter know that they were actually open for decades (because it sometimes felt like that to me, in just a matter of hours even)? Would they even sell anything or would their existence be marked by customers that appeared and disappeared without ever buying anything because they were waiting for THE NEXT SHIPMENT!?
Who the hell would ship to Brigadoon? And how? And when?
Every 100 years?
It certainly put my moments of boredom into perspective. It could have been worse. I could have been that lone calendar store on Brigadoon, holding a calendar for a customer that actually wanted to purchase it, only to disappear back into the mist before they could return from the ATM. How long would I be compelled to keep that hold: three days, three months, three decades? What if I reappeared out of the mists 100 years later to find a rickety old man waiting outside my doors, ragged money in hand, ready to get his calendar? Not even considering the inflation he might face, I have this horrible suspicion that my answer would not be positive, uplifting, or even a testament to his endurance. Nope. I’m pretty sure that it would sound something like this, “I’m sorry, Sir, but only half my shipment has arrived. I don’t have that one in yet.”
But hey, my own store was not in Brigadoon, right? It was in the real world, dealing with real things like FedEx and distribution centers and inventory systems. They would fix that pesky problem soon and I would have plenty of stock, more stock than I knew what to do with. It wouldn’t take a hundred years. Not at all.
“Pipe dreams,” I heard my coworker’s voice say again.
I really should see someone about those voices in my head.
Really.
Before the shrouding mist of Brigadoon—er, I mean, monotony closed in on me again.
Monday, September 12, 2005
Smart Bitches Day: Romance Expert or Romance Dud?
It’s Smart Bitches Day, which I somehow forgot as I got myself all geared up to type a column on my Brigadoon calendar store by flipping through other people’s blogs and then I saw Beth’s entry. So now I’m torn, do I do: the Brigadoon entry that I have already written (but not typed) that will leave me enough time to get ready for work, or trust that my own brain power this morning will be sufficient to come up with something smart and bitchy about romance novels.
Given that I’m a procrastinator by nature, I’m going for smart and bitchy…or maybe just a confessional. You see, on the Friday before last I tried to become a Romance Expert (capitalization and boldness necessary)!!!!
(Cue the theme music, which sounds vaguely like the Pussy Cat Dolls because they’re stuck in my head. Damn you, MTV! And damn you, PSC, for your slightly annoying, highly grammatically inaccurate, but totally infectious song…)
Don’cha…
Er, right. Back on track. Not dancing in my chair at all.
Nope.
Romance Expert.
It sounds like someone who is a matchmaker to the stars, or the name we gave my A.P. English teacher in high school after she choreographed a sex scene for the school play so it wouldn’t be offensive to parents (she succeeded, hence the title). It does not sound like something that I would want to wear on my name badge as I’m walking around my store, especially with the smart asses that shop there (I already had four people ask me in the last two days if I could help them find a “winning lottery ticket”). And yet, I’m tempted, oh so tempted, by the offer of Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs), and the idea that someone would actually listen to my opinions.
So on that Friday before last when I walked into my work and my boss handed me the memo from the company, I was intrigued. Despite the fact that there was much giggling from my coworkers (and my boss) as she gave me the paper because they do not read romance and never, ever will. One is interested in reading a historical to—in her words—see how truly horrible they really are. I replied that her secret corset fetish was showing, and did her husband know about that? Yes, that’s what life is really like in a bookstore: middle school redux.
But again I digress.
The job sounded interesting. Not only would we be getting ARCs, but we would be getting them at the same time the Romance Buyer did, so we could actually influence (in theory) the books purchased by the company. We would be given the sacred number to the Direct Line of the Romance Buyer, something you usually can’t pry out of the cold, dead hands of anyone, for any buyer. I should know, I’ve been trying to track down the Business Buyer for months so I can ask about ARCs for a big client, but I get no response. Nothing. His secretary never called me back. And I only got her voice mail because I tricked it out of an operator. They (the company) must fear that our power-mad, little minds would be overwhelmed by the freedom and go crazy. That they were even offering up the Romance Buyer to the hoards meant that a.) she’d pissed someone off, or b.) she genuinely wanted our help. Choosing to believe the answer was b I called the hotline number given only to be cycled through to the main office, and then back to the main office, and then back to the main office, because it was after business hours (on the East Coast) so I couldn’t track down someone to get me to an actual voice mail box. No big deal. I tried again on Monday.
Cycle. Cycle. Cycle.
Finally I managed to trip off the hamster wheel of corporate business lines and get a nice operator to help me. Turned out that the Romance Buyer’s mailbox was full and she (the operator) had actually started just taking a list of everyone who called. Our conversation went something like this:
Operator: Oh, not only was the extension given wrong, but her mailbox has been full since Friday morning. I’ve been compiling a list of everyone who’s been calling today.
Me: Is it a long list?
Operator (sounding perplexed): Yeah, it is.
Now I’m positive the list is so long because the majority of us are swag whores and not because we’re all genuinely interested in helping the company, but maybe I shouldn’t judge others by my own faults.
Not that Swag Whoredom is a fault. Because it’s not. It’s free stuff. And free stuff is your friend. God, next you are going to tell me that greed is a sin.
Sheesh.
Operator: So if I can just get your name, store, and number…
Me: [info dump].
Operator: Okay, I think that’s all the information that was asked for, right?
Me: Actually, no, they asked for you to explain why you thought you were qualified to be a Romance Expert.
Operator: Oh.
Long pause.
Me: That…might be why the voicemail box filled up so quickly.
Operator: I take it there wasn’t a word limit?
Me: Nope.
Operator: I think I will just stick with the information you gave me if you don’t mind.
Me: Not a problem.
Could you imagine some of the impassioned responses that woman might have gotten? Not to mention the length. I’ve had customers go on for a half an hour about their favorite author/book/characters, customers who would steal my job from me in a heartbeat. I know that people just like this work in bookstores. I’ve worked with them! A recitation of qualifications would have started with when they started reading romance, segued into how many books they’ve read, followed-up with several from-memory summaries, and then ended with a dissection of how those characters affected their lives, or how those characters’ reactions were a reflection of true-to-life emotions.
But, as Dennis Miller always says, “That’s just my opinion, and I could be wrong.” Not everyone feels the need to talk and talk and talk (oh look, I’m on my fourth page), and talk…like me.
Er, no. Not me. Not me at all.
My own qualifications were going to go something like this (starting with the answers to question asked on the memo): “The couples were from Gabaldon’s Outlander series, Kenyon’s Dark Hunter series—although fans will argue the coupling you chose, and Brockman’s Seal Team series (I think there was another couple, but it’s been a week, so I don’t remember).” And gone on to briefly, briefly outline my qualifications.
I think I could have kept it at 50 words, definitely under 100.
That’s brief, right? Just the facts, Ma’am and all that.
Right?
Oh, God, I would have ended up clogging her mailbox, wouldn’t I? I would have been the one I was rolling my eyes over when I talked to the operator.
I’m not worthy!
Since she never got to hear any of this, we’ll see if I get the job. If not, maybe it could make a good story. Can’t you see it?
I Was A Failed Romance Expert.
I know Springer is just waiting to have me on so that I could duke it out with the other ladies and scream obscenities at the audience. Oooh, then we could discover who’s my baby’s Daddy. If I had a baby who needed a Daddy, that is.
Which I don’t.
Contrary to popular romantic belief, it’s hard for a girl to find a Sheik/Duke/Playboy/Millionaire to accidentally impregnate her. What with birth control, STDs, a war in the Middle East, a bad economy, and the inbreeding of royalty, this womb hasn’t gotten close to any of the above.
I guess I’m not qualified after all.
Given that I’m a procrastinator by nature, I’m going for smart and bitchy…or maybe just a confessional. You see, on the Friday before last I tried to become a Romance Expert (capitalization and boldness necessary)!!!!
(Cue the theme music, which sounds vaguely like the Pussy Cat Dolls because they’re stuck in my head. Damn you, MTV! And damn you, PSC, for your slightly annoying, highly grammatically inaccurate, but totally infectious song…)
Don’cha…
Er, right. Back on track. Not dancing in my chair at all.
Nope.
Romance Expert.
It sounds like someone who is a matchmaker to the stars, or the name we gave my A.P. English teacher in high school after she choreographed a sex scene for the school play so it wouldn’t be offensive to parents (she succeeded, hence the title). It does not sound like something that I would want to wear on my name badge as I’m walking around my store, especially with the smart asses that shop there (I already had four people ask me in the last two days if I could help them find a “winning lottery ticket”). And yet, I’m tempted, oh so tempted, by the offer of Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs), and the idea that someone would actually listen to my opinions.
So on that Friday before last when I walked into my work and my boss handed me the memo from the company, I was intrigued. Despite the fact that there was much giggling from my coworkers (and my boss) as she gave me the paper because they do not read romance and never, ever will. One is interested in reading a historical to—in her words—see how truly horrible they really are. I replied that her secret corset fetish was showing, and did her husband know about that? Yes, that’s what life is really like in a bookstore: middle school redux.
But again I digress.
The job sounded interesting. Not only would we be getting ARCs, but we would be getting them at the same time the Romance Buyer did, so we could actually influence (in theory) the books purchased by the company. We would be given the sacred number to the Direct Line of the Romance Buyer, something you usually can’t pry out of the cold, dead hands of anyone, for any buyer. I should know, I’ve been trying to track down the Business Buyer for months so I can ask about ARCs for a big client, but I get no response. Nothing. His secretary never called me back. And I only got her voice mail because I tricked it out of an operator. They (the company) must fear that our power-mad, little minds would be overwhelmed by the freedom and go crazy. That they were even offering up the Romance Buyer to the hoards meant that a.) she’d pissed someone off, or b.) she genuinely wanted our help. Choosing to believe the answer was b I called the hotline number given only to be cycled through to the main office, and then back to the main office, and then back to the main office, because it was after business hours (on the East Coast) so I couldn’t track down someone to get me to an actual voice mail box. No big deal. I tried again on Monday.
Cycle. Cycle. Cycle.
Finally I managed to trip off the hamster wheel of corporate business lines and get a nice operator to help me. Turned out that the Romance Buyer’s mailbox was full and she (the operator) had actually started just taking a list of everyone who called. Our conversation went something like this:
Operator: Oh, not only was the extension given wrong, but her mailbox has been full since Friday morning. I’ve been compiling a list of everyone who’s been calling today.
Me: Is it a long list?
Operator (sounding perplexed): Yeah, it is.
Now I’m positive the list is so long because the majority of us are swag whores and not because we’re all genuinely interested in helping the company, but maybe I shouldn’t judge others by my own faults.
Not that Swag Whoredom is a fault. Because it’s not. It’s free stuff. And free stuff is your friend. God, next you are going to tell me that greed is a sin.
Sheesh.
Operator: So if I can just get your name, store, and number…
Me: [info dump].
Operator: Okay, I think that’s all the information that was asked for, right?
Me: Actually, no, they asked for you to explain why you thought you were qualified to be a Romance Expert.
Operator: Oh.
Long pause.
Me: That…might be why the voicemail box filled up so quickly.
Operator: I take it there wasn’t a word limit?
Me: Nope.
Operator: I think I will just stick with the information you gave me if you don’t mind.
Me: Not a problem.
Could you imagine some of the impassioned responses that woman might have gotten? Not to mention the length. I’ve had customers go on for a half an hour about their favorite author/book/characters, customers who would steal my job from me in a heartbeat. I know that people just like this work in bookstores. I’ve worked with them! A recitation of qualifications would have started with when they started reading romance, segued into how many books they’ve read, followed-up with several from-memory summaries, and then ended with a dissection of how those characters affected their lives, or how those characters’ reactions were a reflection of true-to-life emotions.
But, as Dennis Miller always says, “That’s just my opinion, and I could be wrong.” Not everyone feels the need to talk and talk and talk (oh look, I’m on my fourth page), and talk…like me.
Er, no. Not me. Not me at all.
My own qualifications were going to go something like this (starting with the answers to question asked on the memo): “The couples were from Gabaldon’s Outlander series, Kenyon’s Dark Hunter series—although fans will argue the coupling you chose, and Brockman’s Seal Team series (I think there was another couple, but it’s been a week, so I don’t remember).” And gone on to briefly, briefly outline my qualifications.
- Awareness of up-and-coming new authors from the web and magazines
- Understanding what my romance customers want
- Broad understanding of trends
- Fast Reader
I think I could have kept it at 50 words, definitely under 100.
That’s brief, right? Just the facts, Ma’am and all that.
Right?
Oh, God, I would have ended up clogging her mailbox, wouldn’t I? I would have been the one I was rolling my eyes over when I talked to the operator.
I’m not worthy!
Since she never got to hear any of this, we’ll see if I get the job. If not, maybe it could make a good story. Can’t you see it?
I Was A Failed Romance Expert.
I know Springer is just waiting to have me on so that I could duke it out with the other ladies and scream obscenities at the audience. Oooh, then we could discover who’s my baby’s Daddy. If I had a baby who needed a Daddy, that is.
Which I don’t.
Contrary to popular romantic belief, it’s hard for a girl to find a Sheik/Duke/Playboy/Millionaire to accidentally impregnate her. What with birth control, STDs, a war in the Middle East, a bad economy, and the inbreeding of royalty, this womb hasn’t gotten close to any of the above.
I guess I’m not qualified after all.
Friday, September 09, 2005
Sneeking behind the corporate curtain...*
Sara Donati responded to my “Let your fingers do the walking” with a comment that touched on several points that I planned to make in a follow up entry (that I never got around to writing). She said:
First off, I agree that Tess Gerritsen seemed nothing but courteous in the face of (what amounts to) really bad customer service that she received (and definitely did not deserve). The comments made in her presence were uncalled for, unprofessional, and untrue. No one deserves the “Oh, no, not another nut” look, especially not an author who is the epitome of politeness, nor should the bookseller attempt to justify his/her behavior with bad information.
I can return books that have been written in, ripped in half, or bled on, all for credit with the distribution center (which eventually worms its way back to credit with the publishing company). I don’t need to justify the return even when I know the damage is our fault (e.g. a bookseller drops a book while shelving, creasing the cover) as opposed to books that arrive destroyed (like when a forklift runs through the boxes instead of picking up the pallet they’re on—no joke, this is something that happens far too often). As an author you should sign all of your front list, and everything they have on hand from your backlist (which is usually bumped up if your marketing people at your publishing house care about you at all) as well when visiting a store. You are your own best marketing tool, and signed books are an asset. Every bookstore has special stickers to denote signed stock (even if they can’t find them right away), and they will slap them on the cover of the books if they care anything at all about their store.
I would not, as Donati suggests in her blog, just “Don't tell them you're there. Just sign all the damn stock they've got on the shelf,” because it really tends to freak us out, and earn you “The nut” look. I still remember the time that I walked up to the counter only to find a strange man standing behind it, drawing faces in a stack of books. My immediate response (in my head) was to run through every bad scenario that I had ever experienced in my store (customers high on meth, the woman who threw a book at my head, the homeless people who talked to themselves and harass other customers) even as I asked him, “Excuse me, Sir, can I help you?”
I do get a lot of nuts, medicated and otherwise (I’m in the middle of the city and a short bus ride away from the major mental hospital), and a girl’s got to be careful. I know that I would not have been the victor if this person had violent intentions. Luckily it turned out that it was Chuck Palahniuk who considers drawing mustaches on his author photos a requisite part of the signing process (as is blacking out the teeth and adding devil horns), and confines all his violent intentions to his characters. In the end we sold all of his books (signed and unsigned restock copies), but I could have done without the heart attack.
Just give me some warning…and don’t talk to yourself out loud.
The simple fact is that signed books sell. Hell, I would kill for a bookstore full of signed copies. And Donati’s right, no one deserves to be faced with a bookseller operating without their tact filter.
End of story…right?
Not quite.
I could play devil’s advocate for the bookseller, and say s/he might have been having a bad day or been new, but being a good employee means not bringing your problems to work and knowing when to ask for help. I have had problems, though, where although I’m spelling the name right in the computer, the person who entered the data on the other end did not (a larger problem than one might think), or the name that you think has an obvious spelling is not so obvious to me. I’ve had customers take their bad days out on me, and I’ve had to fight not to take my resulting frustration out on other people. Customer service can be awful and thankless, especially when a large percentage of the customers treat you like you’re not a human being.
And then there are the times when your brain disconnects from your mouth, or bypasses the internal tact filter that is supposed to keep you from saying something stupid.
We all have our dumbass moments; times when we look back later and ask ourselves “What the hell was I thinking?” I remember once, someone asked for Ulysses and I had the name Homer so stuck in my head that I didn’t even think to look under Joyce at first. I apologized to the customer when I discovered my mistake (a coworker pointed it out), and we found the book, but I spent the rest of the day feeling like an idiot.
I’m not perfect, none of us are. I do think that Tess Gerritsen’s situation (and the poor reception that Donati received from her local B & N) is undeserved and indicative of a larger problem: the corporatization of the book business.
Wikipedia considers corporatization a “form of economic reform which takes services from the direct control of the government, and places them in the control of government-owned corporations. This is often seen as a step towards full-scale privatization.” I’m twisting the concept a little (hell, a lot), but the idea is similar (or maybe not at all, but work with me here). It used to be that books meant something, editors took time with each story, and that bookstores ordered the books in because they believed in what they were selling. Now the book industry appears to be all about getting as much product out and sold (and this is on both the publishing companies and the bookstores’ parts) as possible.
The bottom line isn’t the book and customer satisfaction, but the dollar for the stockholders.
The books I’m sent are not hand picked by a person, but ordered by a machine with only mathematical equations to quantify my store’s possible need. These books are then only given a six week shelf life to sell before the publishing house and the store begin to talk cost reductions, remainders, and returns. Often I find that I can be selling a book, and selling it well, but it will come up as a return. Why? Because the rest of the company does not show the same results, or at least, not results on a high enough level to rate more shelf time.
So what, you say, just keep the book for your store. A wonderful idea in theory (and one I practice to a great degree), but if an auditor comes through, scans that book, and it comes up as a “Missed Return,” I automatically lose audit points, no matter how I argue. That’s corporate mentality.
Don’t think outside the box.
Don’t point out any possible problems.
You’re just not seeing the big picture.
The top of the company is so far removed from the everyday activity in the store that they don’t understand—cannot understand—what we’re complaining about. They see a bunch of individuals that aren’t thinking into the future, and we see a bunch of people who don’t interact with the constituency. Individuality (by region, district, or store) cannot be factored into the group equations and thought processes, nor can the ideas of the collective be pared down into one universal rule for all; it’s the antithesis of the corporate ideal.
This distance is enacted on a smaller level in most of the big box stores. The people who shelve are often not the people out on the floor offering customer service (the shelvers come in on a 6 am shift, so they can shelve without customers around). The people in charge of events, human resources, and institutional sales, all take turns working on the floor, but (as my boss, who used to work for a big box store, once told me) “they may never, ever touch a book.” Just because they have a name badge doesn’t mean that they have anything to do with the day to day running of the floor.
And yet, they’re still considered a “bookseller.”
I keep waiting for the name to change to something more vague yet PC. I’m thinking “Product introducer,” or “information consultant” (since just because you’ve consulted them doesn’t meant that they have to be right). Given that everyday I get more product that has nothing to do with books (like mints, gum, etc) and less and less title diversity (and god forbid we should buy something from a small press), perhaps they’ll just do away with the word book altogether. Then I’ll just be a “seller” working for a “store.”
Speaking of stores, I must get to mine, so that I can see what books they forgot to send me this week.
I’m just happy I can still order manually through the computer.
For now.
*and yes, I admit it. I originally titled this "Oh my God, I got feedback from a real live author! (as opposed to those real fake authors, I guess)" but I try to contain most of my geeker...at least to the fine print.
Your perspective on this phenomenon (When Drop In Signings Go Wrong) is
interesting, but I have to point out a couple things.First, I didn't get the impression that Tess expected anything but common courtesy. She approached those booksellers the same way Macguire approached you. I imagine she would have been more than satisfied with an exchange like this:--hi, author, maybe you've got, thought I could sign----name?--t.g.--hold on, please... oh yes. could you wait a moment please? At this point Courteous Bookseller goes off to find the books and/or the person who handles author signings. Courteous Bookseller makes no comments like 'huh. we've got a lot of your books' or 'are you sure that's the title?' or 'no such book in print'. (I have had booksellers tell me these things about my books. I've also had a bookseller say, 'I don't find any author by the name of James Joyce in our database' and then when I pointed to the bigger than life-size mural of JJ on the wall, I got a shrug). It's not that every bookseller should be familiar with Tess's work, or mine, or Joyce's, even. It's the dismissive tone. It's the 'oh no not another nut' look. In Tess's case, it's the outrageous comments about returning books. We all know that happens, but you don't have to rub it in on the second day of release.Just my two cents.
First off, I agree that Tess Gerritsen seemed nothing but courteous in the face of (what amounts to) really bad customer service that she received (and definitely did not deserve). The comments made in her presence were uncalled for, unprofessional, and untrue. No one deserves the “Oh, no, not another nut” look, especially not an author who is the epitome of politeness, nor should the bookseller attempt to justify his/her behavior with bad information.
I can return books that have been written in, ripped in half, or bled on, all for credit with the distribution center (which eventually worms its way back to credit with the publishing company). I don’t need to justify the return even when I know the damage is our fault (e.g. a bookseller drops a book while shelving, creasing the cover) as opposed to books that arrive destroyed (like when a forklift runs through the boxes instead of picking up the pallet they’re on—no joke, this is something that happens far too often). As an author you should sign all of your front list, and everything they have on hand from your backlist (which is usually bumped up if your marketing people at your publishing house care about you at all) as well when visiting a store. You are your own best marketing tool, and signed books are an asset. Every bookstore has special stickers to denote signed stock (even if they can’t find them right away), and they will slap them on the cover of the books if they care anything at all about their store.
I would not, as Donati suggests in her blog, just “Don't tell them you're there. Just sign all the damn stock they've got on the shelf,” because it really tends to freak us out, and earn you “The nut” look. I still remember the time that I walked up to the counter only to find a strange man standing behind it, drawing faces in a stack of books. My immediate response (in my head) was to run through every bad scenario that I had ever experienced in my store (customers high on meth, the woman who threw a book at my head, the homeless people who talked to themselves and harass other customers) even as I asked him, “Excuse me, Sir, can I help you?”
I do get a lot of nuts, medicated and otherwise (I’m in the middle of the city and a short bus ride away from the major mental hospital), and a girl’s got to be careful. I know that I would not have been the victor if this person had violent intentions. Luckily it turned out that it was Chuck Palahniuk who considers drawing mustaches on his author photos a requisite part of the signing process (as is blacking out the teeth and adding devil horns), and confines all his violent intentions to his characters. In the end we sold all of his books (signed and unsigned restock copies), but I could have done without the heart attack.
Just give me some warning…and don’t talk to yourself out loud.
The simple fact is that signed books sell. Hell, I would kill for a bookstore full of signed copies. And Donati’s right, no one deserves to be faced with a bookseller operating without their tact filter.
End of story…right?
Not quite.
I could play devil’s advocate for the bookseller, and say s/he might have been having a bad day or been new, but being a good employee means not bringing your problems to work and knowing when to ask for help. I have had problems, though, where although I’m spelling the name right in the computer, the person who entered the data on the other end did not (a larger problem than one might think), or the name that you think has an obvious spelling is not so obvious to me. I’ve had customers take their bad days out on me, and I’ve had to fight not to take my resulting frustration out on other people. Customer service can be awful and thankless, especially when a large percentage of the customers treat you like you’re not a human being.
And then there are the times when your brain disconnects from your mouth, or bypasses the internal tact filter that is supposed to keep you from saying something stupid.
We all have our dumbass moments; times when we look back later and ask ourselves “What the hell was I thinking?” I remember once, someone asked for Ulysses and I had the name Homer so stuck in my head that I didn’t even think to look under Joyce at first. I apologized to the customer when I discovered my mistake (a coworker pointed it out), and we found the book, but I spent the rest of the day feeling like an idiot.
I’m not perfect, none of us are. I do think that Tess Gerritsen’s situation (and the poor reception that Donati received from her local B & N) is undeserved and indicative of a larger problem: the corporatization of the book business.
Wikipedia considers corporatization a “form of economic reform which takes services from the direct control of the government, and places them in the control of government-owned corporations. This is often seen as a step towards full-scale privatization.” I’m twisting the concept a little (hell, a lot), but the idea is similar (or maybe not at all, but work with me here). It used to be that books meant something, editors took time with each story, and that bookstores ordered the books in because they believed in what they were selling. Now the book industry appears to be all about getting as much product out and sold (and this is on both the publishing companies and the bookstores’ parts) as possible.
The bottom line isn’t the book and customer satisfaction, but the dollar for the stockholders.
The books I’m sent are not hand picked by a person, but ordered by a machine with only mathematical equations to quantify my store’s possible need. These books are then only given a six week shelf life to sell before the publishing house and the store begin to talk cost reductions, remainders, and returns. Often I find that I can be selling a book, and selling it well, but it will come up as a return. Why? Because the rest of the company does not show the same results, or at least, not results on a high enough level to rate more shelf time.
So what, you say, just keep the book for your store. A wonderful idea in theory (and one I practice to a great degree), but if an auditor comes through, scans that book, and it comes up as a “Missed Return,” I automatically lose audit points, no matter how I argue. That’s corporate mentality.
Don’t think outside the box.
Don’t point out any possible problems.
You’re just not seeing the big picture.
The top of the company is so far removed from the everyday activity in the store that they don’t understand—cannot understand—what we’re complaining about. They see a bunch of individuals that aren’t thinking into the future, and we see a bunch of people who don’t interact with the constituency. Individuality (by region, district, or store) cannot be factored into the group equations and thought processes, nor can the ideas of the collective be pared down into one universal rule for all; it’s the antithesis of the corporate ideal.
This distance is enacted on a smaller level in most of the big box stores. The people who shelve are often not the people out on the floor offering customer service (the shelvers come in on a 6 am shift, so they can shelve without customers around). The people in charge of events, human resources, and institutional sales, all take turns working on the floor, but (as my boss, who used to work for a big box store, once told me) “they may never, ever touch a book.” Just because they have a name badge doesn’t mean that they have anything to do with the day to day running of the floor.
And yet, they’re still considered a “bookseller.”
I keep waiting for the name to change to something more vague yet PC. I’m thinking “Product introducer,” or “information consultant” (since just because you’ve consulted them doesn’t meant that they have to be right). Given that everyday I get more product that has nothing to do with books (like mints, gum, etc) and less and less title diversity (and god forbid we should buy something from a small press), perhaps they’ll just do away with the word book altogether. Then I’ll just be a “seller” working for a “store.”
Speaking of stores, I must get to mine, so that I can see what books they forgot to send me this week.
I’m just happy I can still order manually through the computer.
For now.
*and yes, I admit it. I originally titled this "Oh my God, I got feedback from a real live author! (as opposed to those real fake authors, I guess)" but I try to contain most of my geeker...at least to the fine print.
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