We call them

The idea of boxes containing remains buried underground has never appealed to me. I recognize, however, that the ritual has meaning to many people, including my mother and father. Cemeteries are designed for the living, both for those who soon expect to be buried and their families. Landscaping would seem to be an important feature, along with easy access. You might choose a family plot, an established place with ties to the community.

Or you might do what my deeply missed and deeply stubborn parents did.

Mom and Dad bought an apartment in Longboat Key, north of Sarasota, in the early nineteen nineties. It made sense. They were retired from duel careers: my father as an attorney and a small business owner, my mother as a co-owner of the business and its chief marketing person. Their long-time business partner, my dad’s brother, was dead. After years of living in Milwaukee and enduring the harsh Wisconsin winters, they were ready for sunshine.

Sarasota provided what my parents needed: warm weather with just enough variety to interest my mother, a laid-back Gulf Coast ambiance, a lively cultural scene, and a diversity of communities. My parents always identified as Jewish but they never wanted to find themselves in an exclusively Jewish community. In Sarasota, they joined the synagogue but religion was simply one marker, along with “golfer” or “artist” they used to pick their activities and their friends.

We were nevertheless surprised, my siblings and I, when they became permanent residents of Florida. My parents were deeply rooted in Milwaukee, my father in particular. Just a few years earlier, he’d declared he could never imagine voting in the Sunshine State. Perhaps being a snowbird took its toll as they aged. I know the winters up north were difficult for my mother. Still, I never imagined they’d forsake their Midwest identities to become full-time Floridians.

It’s supposed to be instructive to watch how your parents age in place, what decisions they make, what regrets they retain. We then promise ourselves never to do what they did, unless we choose to do exactly what they did.

The apartment my parents bought featured breathtaking views; in every other respect it was severely isolated. Longboat Key is a slip of land with a single road traveling between Sarasota Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Their gated development offered a swimming pool and tennis courts; everything else was driving distance away.  Billed as an “active senior” community, it was no place to be old or ill—or both. The place presented like a ghost town in summer. My folks made it work as long as they could, which is to say, as long as they could drive. After that, their small apartment with the big views began to feel like a lovely prison. They missed their old lives.

Go back to Milwaukee, I urged my father, even if for a few months to reestablish yourself. We’ll get you up there, I promised, and we’ll get Mom up there too. I meant we would accompany them back but I also reminded him they had a home of sorts: side by side plots in their family’s area of the Jewish cemetery.

Instead, my father dug in, stubborn about his life choices or perhaps his waning control over them. He announced he and my mother had sold their plots in Milwaukee and bought them in Sarasota, where he now lived, as he reminded me. The place they chose is certainly ecumenical. It’s also vast. A dozen Catholic and Protestant churches are represented. Sarasota’s two synagogues are also included, each with tiny areas, measured in yards and situated at the edge of the park like afterthoughts. Navigating the cemetery requires both a car and a map, which you pick up from a “care concierge” at the funeral home/care center. The memorial park, as it’s called, sits at the intersection of two busy arteries on Sarasota’s western edge. It’s close to Highway 75 and about as far away from Longboat Key and the water my parents loved as you can get and still stay in the county. Aside from a few mature trees in the center, its landscaping is minimal.

Maybe it’s the only game in town. That doesn’t make it any less depressing.

Five people attended my father’s funeral, including the nurse accompanying my mother. At her funeral ten months later, there were three of us. Seven years later, I finally made it back down to Sarasota, jumped off the highway at exit 210, stopped at the center for a map, got lost, found the designated area and still had to pace the site until I spotted the plaques in the ground. At last I stood in front of their nameplates and presumably on top of their graves, which was the only way to read them. I’d planned on some sort of semi-sentimental soliloquy. Instead, I looked at the scruffy grounds, the scratched bronze of my father’s nameplate, the adjacent names on adjacent markers, none of which I recognized and said aloud:

“What were you thinking?”

(to leave a comment, click on the title to go to the post page)

Nowadays, in discussions about deeply felt issues that get amplified by relentless media coverage and nonstop commentating, words and phrases are deliberately skewed. We overburdened, inattentive folks will hear whatever the media personality, political leader or celebrity says as truth, regardless of whether it is.

It’s distressing that we use language to misrepresent, mislead, judge, condemn, distract, oversimplify, or present false equivalencies unless we’re in the business of writing satire. The Onion works because its readers are in on the joke. In other instances, words (like statistics) are pulled out of context in order to confuse and obscure.  Sometimes the purpose is more sinister, to worry or terrify the listener (The word “socialism” has that effect). Say “evangelical” or “urban Democrat” or “Wall Street” with a sneer or a note of alarm; the meaning is clear: Danger!

In 2012 you’re going to see and hear lots of this: conventional wisdom suggests an election is no time to start a dialogue or hew too closely to unadorned facts left firmly in context. I have no control over this, people, but perhaps I can help by gently redirecting your thinking about certain common words and phrases.

1. Liberal: not the spawn of Satan
2. Republican: also not the spawn of Satan
3. Pro-life:  Really, who isn’t, besides serial killers?
4. Atheist: I promise you, not the spawn of Satan, Lucifer or some ancient Wiccan cult (side note: not automatically angry or depressed)
5. Wall Street: Can we drop it as synonymous with greed? As an ex-New Yorker, I can tell you that greed, wealth and monetary/political manipulation is taking place in plenty of other locations  besides Lower Manhattan.
6. Real Americans: citizens, as well as anyone who feels as if they are
7. The American people: see above. Note:don’t assume they all want the same things.
8. Founding fathers: A group of bright, privileged, nominally Protestant white men who sought to create a form of government independent of a monarchy. Exactly what they meant by certain key phrases in the document that sets out to define the government is open to debate; exactly what they’d do in 2012 is impossible for anyone to know.

Okay, now your homework assignment. You didn’t know you were going to get homework? Tough.

First the discussion topics:

1. What is/should be the proper role of government? Include—what government does right and what government doesn’t do right. Extra-credit: come up with “fixes” and discuss.
2. What is/should be expected of this nation’s citizens? Discuss voting obligations and rudimentary knowledge of our present system of government.
3. How can/should our society accommodate people of different beliefs and ideas?

Now the rules:

• You MUST have these discussions with people with whom you disagree (or suspect you disagree).
• You must discuss civilly, using your words to advance an argument, not bully your opponent.
• You must resist personal attacks. You must NOT assume anything about your opposite.
• On at least one of these two topics, you must find common ground with your opponent.

Report back to me.

(to leave a comment, click on the title to go to the post page)

A recording! The mighty BMW is the Milli Vanilli of high-end automobiles? This is just wrong.

Granted, technology is famous for pulling a fast one. Social media is populated (or littered, depending on your point of view) with discussions about the benefits and limits of Photoshop. Pop stars have been lip-syncing for some time, especially since it became important for them to multitask as decent dancers (Broadway performers are often able to do both for far less money, but let’s not go there.)  The use of a laugh track on television dates to the early days of the medium itself. What you see (or hear) isn’t always what you get.

Besides, it’s not as if the BMW in question is performing at below par. In fact, the superb insulation is what muffles the engine sound, along with other annoying audio tracks from the ordinary world. The folks outside the cushy cabin can hear the delicious vroom that signals all that money and power as exemplified by one machine. If the driver can’t, then maybe BMW has done its job too well.

What a quandary!

Of course it depends on what you want for your money. If your automobile is designed to show the world your purchase power, you can count on the combination of branding (“Ooh, a Jaguar”), styling (“Look at those lines”), and performance (“Look at it go”). It works just as well with couture (“Ooh, Zack Posen.  Look at those lines. It flatters her”) or just about anything else that has the potential to confer status. Who cares how awkward, uncomfortable, impractical, or unwieldy it is?

For many people, that’s exactly what having money is all about. For others, spending money is tied to enhancing one’s own quality of life. In those instances, some may prefer discrete touches, such as indoor waterfalls that mimic the soothing sounds of nature, or the heft of a $15,000 Rolex tucked out of sight under a weekend flannel shirt by L.L. Bean. Money, after all, can’t buy taste.

At any rate, the BMW honchos believe that for $100,000 the driver deserves the satisfaction delivered by the audio reproduction of the power surge that kicks in on the Autobahn at 130 kilometers an hour. If that’s okay by the driver, that’s okay by me (well, maybe not the 130 km but that’s that Autobahn).

But wait: What if the brilliant engineers at BMW look into developing technology that mutes the actual engine sound altogether? The driver hears the primal sound of twin turbo V-8 engines coming to life or shifting gears. We don’t.

This technology has applications far beyond the world of automobiles. What if we could mute the know-it-all at the party who’s mouthing off about Europe’s economic mess? How about the idiot on the train talking loudly into her cell phone?  Could we be kept from the mindless chatter of teens at the mall or the non-stop yammering of the talking heads on the inevitable cable channel playing where you get your car serviced?  What about the couple who fights in public? Or makes love loudly enough so they might as well be copulating publicly? Can we stuff a sock in it?

I’m not just talking about insulating individuals from offensive sounds, but a technology that allows the self-deluded  to believe they have a larger audience than they actually do, one that simultaneously protects their egos and our eardrums. Given the amount of noise pollution, this would amount to a public service. Perhaps BMW could get a global tax break.

I admit that slashing tires or breaking windows, embarrassing loudmouths in public or even changing the channel despite protests is more viscerally satisfying. But that’s an approach with serious blow-back potential.

This invention could potentially free us from the injury of assault by unwanted sound. We would still hear what we need to (police sirens, calls from our mothers) or want to (see “sounds of nature,” above); moreover, we’d be protected from those sounds we find most irritating, off-putting and egregious, like television commentators, nagging spouses, or even aggressive-sounding twin turbo engines.

image via Creative Commons

“Sorrow” by Van Gogh via Wikicommons

No one ever knows what to say.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’ll be okay.”

“Hang in there.”

Yeah, thanks.

“You’re one of the strong ones.”

“You can beat this.”

“I know just how you feel.”

Gack! No!

Don’t get me wrong: the impulse to reach out, offer support, be there, wherever “there” is—is  priceless. And appreciated.

“Fuck!”

“Shit!”

“Dammit to hell!”

Anglo-Saxon curses have the advantage of capturing the utter baseness of the predicament: inelegant, infuriating, rough, raw. They address the senselessness of it all–whatever “it” is. Unfortunately, they lose potency after awhile. This sucks.  True. Next…

How do we address bad news—grief, loss, sorrow, the pain of someone we know, admire, respect and genuinely like? How can we help?

Here’s what I learned: for every event (good and bad, I suppose, but let’s deal with the bad), a circle of affectedness is created. In the middle of the circle is the person who has taken a direct hit: the patient, the bereaved; the forever changed. He (or she) is the one who’s been shoved over the line in the sand they hadn’t even seen, kicked onto another path, dealing with the “before” and “after” of a timeline with a new wrinkle. Hit by a crashing wave, he struggles to the surface.

Actually, that’s my metaphor; we each have our own. But we’re not at the center of this particular story. We are somewhere else in the circle; further from the middle than the family and loved ones whose lives will also need to proceed along a new trajectory’; further perhaps than the colleagues, co-workers, close friends.

Our place in the circle isn’t insignificant. We’re pulled in by our genuine affection for the central figure. His pain isn’t our pain, but we hate his pain and we want to make it smaller. Our place in the circle matters, oh yes it does.

“What can I do?”

Don’t ask.

What I mean is: Don’t require of your flailing friend that he recommend to you the means of his rescue. He can’t tell you.

Do what you do best. Bake a cake, send a book; share a link, share information. Stay close, stay in the picture.

Expect nothing; know your support means everything. Be you. Be funny, be loving, be resourceful, be present. Be normal.

I wasn’t sure how I would feel about the film. I have middle-brow tastes when it comes to movies and I can scarcely be called a film buff. I love to look at color, although I have an appreciation of the beauty and mystery of black and white photography. I also traffic in words and none are spoke in “The Artist,” a love letter to the late twenties and early thirties and the entertainment that preoccupied America.

I loved it; loved the attention to detail; in the curl of a mustache or the arch of an eyebrow. I adored both the overt and sly references to classic movie tropes of the era: the highly choreographed scenes, the grand theatrical acting. Some of the references were out of the time period (defined as 1927-1932): I recognized a bit of Alfred Hitchcock; the lush score brought to mind the work of renowned film composer Bernard Herrmann and the supremely talented Jack Russell terrier put me in mind of Nick and Nora Charles and their beloved dog Asta. Wait: maybe I DO know my film history!

I noticed these oddities but I wasn’t bothered by them: this was a film about a film star and the culture he inhabited during a transitional time in American history. “The Artist” was captivating in every way and the symbolism evinced by the successful actor pushed out of his chosen profession by the advances of technology is certainly a parable for our time.

One thing that struck me was the absolute silence of my fellow viewers. It’s not just that no one spoke; I doubt my smart, sophisticated audience would have put up with that. But we were treated to plenty of cues about how audiences react to silent films via the film itself; we saw them laughing or clapping or gasping or murmuring at various moments during the plot. The silent-movie audience was vocal, not in an effort to impede the flow of the movie but in expression of their appreciation. Watching “The Artist” in a theater that was completely quiet except for the music was odd. No coughing, no crackling of paper; in fact, no laughing out loud, although I caught many smiles. No, we were reverentially still, as attending a concert.

Maybe the difference is in the present-day movie-going experience itself, which doesn’t teach us how to watch a movie without distraction. Maybe it’s the novelty of being several layers removed: a present-day audience watching actors who portray a long-ago audience using the same exaggerated style as the rest of the movie’s characters.

Or maybe, at least in this instance, it was just such a blessed relief to be free of the cacophony that surrounds us every day: to surrender to the music, to watch the action unfold on the screen, to marvel at the comic and dramatic elasticity of the actors and not need to have anything explained, enhanced or interpreted. We sat back and let the rich sounds of (relative) silence guide us.

All rights reserved by hpebley3 via flickr.com

contributions, however modest, feels somehow mature. If I’d been a member of a faith-based organization, I might have started this process much earlier, but better late than never.

I’m hit up by the usual suspects: charities who purchased my address from the charity I gave to five years earlier; organizations who got my name through the $25 donation I made to my neighbors’ kids’ car wash to raise money for childhood cancer. I receive heart-rending letters from at least four charities focused on women in third-world countries (not including the one to which I donate). I’m often invited, courtesy of my connected friends, to fancy fundraisers that begin at $750 a plate for the privilege of sitting at a table in the back with people I don’t know and watching the tiny speck that is the famous featured speaker or performer. At least the local versions, which usually come in at a quarter of the cost, remind me that I’m part of a community.

I’m generally careful with my research, although I once gave $40 in cash to a young woman who came door to door, clipboard in hand, with a tale about raising money for blind kids in Africa. I never saw a receipt, or the young woman again; but I learned my lesson. No donations on the fly, in the subway or at my door.

At some point during the G.W. Bush years, I began to donate small sums to political action committees (PACS) and I do mean small. I was never shooting for a night in the Lincoln Room but I did want to throw my two cents into the effort to turn over both Congress and the White House. It was fun hearing from Emily’s List and getting thank you notes from the DNC Chairman. I felt as if I were making a difference.

In this coming election year, the stakes are at least as high as they were in 2008, if you’re inclined to vote (I am) and if you consider yourself far more likely to vote for one party candidate than the other (I do). Nevertheless, I’m unlikely to respond to any solicitations that involve politics because when it comes to promotion, my team is poised to play as dirty as the other.

 This year, gleeful Democrats are thrilled to be able to point to GOP front-runner Mitt Romney’s shifts in position in order to accommodate, one assumes, his primary voters. Payback for the attacks on John Kerry!  But as FactCheck.org has pointed out (the site should be required reading for anyone planning to vote), the latest DNC extended video “strains the truth to build a case against Romney by including some dubious claims” which it then goes on to list.

FactCheck’s home page demonstrates that Republicans produce far more questionable media pieces than do the Democrats. Grand Old Party operatives have perfected the art of burying a tiny truth within a mountain of innuendos, inferences, torquing contexts and twisting particulars.  Conclusions are supported by a lopsided mix of semi-legitimate observations and an overwhelming number of outright lies. All a party faithful has to do is point to the legitimate sliver of the message and say, “You can’t argue with that.” Hell, our candidates are happy to argue it isn’t absolutely essential, when making a larger point, to stick to the facts.

Meanwhile, political strategists assume we’re simultaneously biased (we already know what we like and don’t like) and inattentive and/or overwhelmed, which is why the credo “keep it simple, stupid” (KISS) is so popular. The problem when playing KISS and tell is that truth often has to leave the room.

Truth-twisting may be necessary to campaigning; it may even be inevitable—I hope not.  But I don’t have to pay for it. When Women for Women International tells me my money is going to sponsor women in war-torn countries, I believe it. When the DNC insists my donation will be used to get the truth out to the American people, I don’t.

Not every critic loved the book. The New Yorker reviewer Elizabeth Colbert faulted Pinker’s methodology: “Those developments which might seem to fit into his schema are treated in detail. Yet other episodes that one would think are more relevant to a history of violence are simply glossed over.” Andrew Brown, also writing in The Guardian, snidely referred to the book as “a comfort blanket for the smug” and followed up with this indictment: “The factual errors in The Better Angels of Our Nature destroy Pinker’s thesis, rendering it no more than a bedtime story.”

Let me stop right here and let you know I won’t be reviewing the book. I don’t feel qualified to judge either the research or the central thesis; I’m not sure I can fairly determine whether Pinker’s conclusions are based on solid science or selective speculation. I will admit that I’m attracted to the notion that on the whole, we’re getting nicer; that may factor into why I find myself reading cautiously and yet with a modicum of hope.

Besides, Pinker introduces the book with caveats: many readers will find his conclusions hard to accept; we are overrun with oppressive news; a series of unforeseeable events could change everything. Notwithstanding his warnings, certain readers seem mightily put off by anyone’s imagining that we might be turning into good guys and gals. Harsh comments have been left on blogs, at the end of articles and interviews and elsewhere. I have no idea whether these readers have actually read any of the book; or whether they’re simply reacting to their understanding of what Pinker is proposing. The suggestion that mankind is evolving into a kinder, gentler version of itself apparently drives people nuts.

Kristoff’s Thanksgiving Day piece praised Pinker’s book, going so far as to give thanks for a world that is, on the whole, improving. His column gave quite a few readers indigestion (“this column’s a turkey,” said one). Other commenters accused Kristoff and Pinker of being dangerously naïve. “What universe are you living in?” asked one. “Maudlin and wishful thinking do not a wise man make,” advised another. And another simply wrote: “This is not true.”

We are, in the view of the commenters, craftier, sneakier, less overt or less inclined to whack someone over the head, perhaps but most definitely not nicer. Anyone suggesting otherwise is dangerously deluded.

Angry, aren’t we?

As a skeptic nevertheless trying to tiptoe towards a version of happiness, always mindful of landmines and booby-traps and the possibility of reversal, I’m both bemused and concerned with our negativism. I’m no fan of blind faith, mindless positivism, or false hope. I don’t know for certain that everything works out for the best; I realize we’re far from perfect–far from it. I detest the xenophobic hucksterism that underlies certain politicians’ insistence on American “exceptionalism”; the word was originally meant to describe a fortuitous combination of history and geography, not the sense of entitlement it currently conveys.

It seems, however, that many people, Americans in particular, may have become stuck in a collective mindset that views gratitude as naive and improvement as unlikely, given the nasty, brutish nature of our fellow travelers. That ticks me off. While I’m aware of the capacity of humankind to inflict suffering upon each other, I also rely on a personal perspective that encompasses more than half a century. I’m not thrilled that in my lifetime, children are threatened, the elderly are swindled, and the rest of us live with a virtually unbreachable income disparity. But I’ve seen things change for the better in my lifetime and so have you, even as the hold-outs object loudly to any changes at all.. It’s neither naive nor unsophisticated to look up from our gloom and doom from time to time and recognize forward momentum for what it is: a type of moral and social evolution that requires our encouragement, not our disdain.

It stands to reason that a quintessential university town like Princeton would have an independent bookstore. For 26 years, Micawber Books was that store, until the owner decided to close for personal reasons. . Meanwhile, the township built a new library and just outside the town limits, Barnes and Noble had customized a branch to draw the Princeton clientele by including knowledgeable information specialists, a large supply of arcane books and a roster of top-drawing guest speakers. No one was quite sure whether the town would see another independent bookstore.

Enter Labyrinth Books. After making sure Micawber’s owner was truly out of the bookstore business (“We would never have come to a small town and displaced a quality independent store with deep roots in the community,” says Labyrinth owner Dorothea von Moltke), the new store opened in 2006, backed by a partnership with the University and a strong wholesale business. Add to that an ambitious community outreach, and Labyrinth appears to have hit on a winning formula.

The retail establishment is just what you want in an indie book store. Unusual and unexpected books are more likely to grace the windows than are best sellers, although those are also on hand. Nearly every weekend, the bins are placed outside, where they become part of the busy main street culture that attracts many tourists in addition to students and members of the local community. Labyrinth doesn’t have a coffee shop and products like mugs, bookmarks, and calendars are kept to a minimum, especially since they can be found in the University gift shop next door.

Labyrinth and its helpful website are both organized “so you can find what you didn’t know you were looking for.”  True, but the wide variety of categories makes it likely you’ll find what you were hoping to find. The business of book–buying,  browsing, reading and discussing–is what Labyrinth is all about

Dorothea and her husband met in New York; she was finishing her PhD at Columbia University and he was co-owner of the nearby store, BookForum. In the mid-nineties, the couple founded Great Jones Books, which has become nationally recognized as a wholesaler of quality hurts and remainders.

Labyrinth Books opened a retail store in New Haven, close to Yale University more than a decade ago. The owners established strong ties to the faculty and students. But Yale’s administration chose as its official partner the Barnes and Noble branch just around the corner from Labyrinth. “To say that [Yale] did nothing to support the presence of an independent, scholarly and community bookstore in town is, unfortunately, even a bit of an understatement,” notes von Moltke pointedly. The New Haven store closed in May of 2011.

In Princeton, however, Labyrinth has a true collaboration with the University and remains its official source for all required course books as well as important ancillary materials. The bookstore  is next to the University store; both do a brisk trade, especially on weekends.  A new pilot program launched in September offers students 30% off. Discounts are also available to faculty. The University sponsors events at the store; Princeton professors are often guest speakers.

The store’s relationship with the community is one of mutual devotion. Labyrinth’d mission–“keeping reading alive and…reaching across intellectual as well as social divides”—is especially important to the highly educated, culture-loving residents. Program co-sponsors have included the Princeton Public Library (itself a significant cultural presence in the community), the Princeton Research Forum,  Trenton Crisis Ministries, Sustainable Princeton, the Lewis Center for the Arts, and Princeton’s well-regarded McCarter Theater, to name a few. Labyrinth has also established, with carbonfund.org, a unique program designed to offset the carbon foot-print of any book purchased from the store for an additional five cents per book, that sum matched by the organization. Von Moltke believes these partnerships enable Labyrinth to “keep questions of social justice as well as the viability of the arts at the forefront of our concerns.”

Princeton is home to a great many writers, some quite well-known and others less so. The store is generous in giving both established and relatively unknown authors time and attention (author’s note: I gave a reading at the store, which carries my book, in 2010).Whereas Barnes and Noble might sniff at a pitch from an author without a national platform or a slot on the best-seller list; Labyrinth will offer a place in its events calendar for a reading/book signing and free publicity through its mailing lists.

Labyrinth’s bread and butter comes from its business as a highly reputable and nationally recognized scholarly book wholesaler. “To be the booksellers we are,” von Moltke says, “we need also to be book-wholesalers; [we are] constantly looking for the best books at the best prices.” GJB buys titles “by the truckload” at auction, keeps what’s best for the store, catalog, and retail website, and sells the rest to bookstores nationally and internationally. GJB has a warehouse not far from Princeton in Pennington, New Jersey that carries more than 50,000+ titles at discounted prices, “more than the largest of chain stores,” according to von Moltke.  The idea is to source books that the ever-churning marketplace has given up on; giving them a longer life by bringing those books back into circulation and selling them at deep discounts. The process is designed to allow both GJB and its retail store to compete with chains and online retailers

Businesses like Amazon present a challenge, von Moltke admits. “Here you have a bookseller for whom books are effectively lost leaders for selling other products such as cosmetics, electronics, and all the rest,” she explains, adding, “Competing with a ubiquitous bookseller who is not looking to make any money on books will always be tricky.”

The future of print material is another question mark in terms of the viability of the Labyrinth model. The owners are already looking ahead: they are hoping to acquire a print-on-demand machine (called the espresso machine), which would allow them to print any book in the public domain as well per-copy self-published books and perhaps even current titles, once publishers warm to the idea.  Says von Moltke with obvious enthusiasm, “This would mean we would never have to say to a customer that we don’t have a book. Instead, we’d tell them: give me 2 minutes.”

The owners seem to have hit upon a way to survive and thrive: the small store is backed by a successful wholesale book business with a huge list and deep discounts. In the end, it’s all about the culture of reading. Labyrinth is devoted to providing its customers with any book, anytime–the ones they need and the ones they didn’t know they wanted. What more could any of us ask from an independent bookstore?

Labyrinth Books
122 Nassau Street
Princeton, NJ 08540
www.labyrinthbooks.com

top image: en.wikipedia.org

My name is Nikki Stern and I approve this message. Okay, I wrote this message, in my book Because I Say So and in an article called “IMHO”  I bring this up because I’ve found myself this fall throwing opinions all over the place: on my blog, on Facebook, on the website I publish (Does This Make Sense) and, most recently, in the New York Times.

Opining on the Times website isn’t like opining on AOL. By and large, the commenters are smart, well-read and restrained in their responses (of course the Times screens the comments before publishing them, so perhaps I’m just not seeing the “!%$&@)%(*^*” versions that come into the editors’ inboxes. What this means is that if I have an impulse to comment, I know I’d better make sense. In part, it’s my ego at work: I don’t want appear to be a complete idiot. On the other hand, who’s going to remember commenter #49 on the recent Charles Blow or Frank Bruni op-ed? Exactly: no one. Still, I feel a certain responsibility to sound intelligent—to be intelligent.

Of course I’d like to attract a little attention on behalf of whatever I’m promoting (a book, a blog) before my comment scrolls by and disappears into the ethos. This can be achieved by obtaining “recommendations” which are garnered when the reader hits a little button at the end of the comment and which means said comment may be highlighted on the site. Gad, everything’s a competition these days!

The situation causes me to hesitate before I comment (a good thing), and then, if I decide to post my thoughts, I will write out and carefully proof them before I hit “send” (an even better thing). Sometimes, thanks to the unpredictability of the keyboard and the undeniable fact that my brain works faster than my fingers, I may end up with a typo. But my thoughts are nearly always clear.

I also read other comments on the post where I’ve left my comment but also on other pieces I find provocative (or pieces I don’t understand). If Paul Krugman tells me why the Euro is a terrible idea, I want to read what more knowledgeable people have to say on the subject. Granted, Krugman is a Nobel Prize-winning economist and some of the commenters don’t know the difference between a derivative and a derivation but I’m frequently surprised about the level of thought and intelligence that goes into the replies. At the very least, I get more background and more history.

I also read letters to the editor for my favorite magazines. Sometimes I try to read comments and letters in magazines I don’t care for,  like Reason Magazine (I don’t really dislike the magazine, but some of the articles in Reason–which purports to be a libertarian magazine–are pompous in the extreme); or letters in magazines I don’t care about. I love reading the letters section in New York Magazine because they aren’t simply letters but blog postings, tweets, passing comments—all reactions to the often provocative stories within. Like Vanity Fair and The Atlantic, the magazine makes a big deal out of noticing and promoting and replying to and arguing with the people who are noticing and replying to and arguing about something they read (which means they’re promoting it, of course).

Everyone has an opinion; no doubt about it. And everyone wants their opinions to count. One way to do that is to use your opinion as a way to start a conversation or encourage a response; to learn something from other opinionators; to practice writing clearly and concisely; to get better at framing an argument; to think, to review your own feelings about a topic, to get in the game. We might not all end up as recommended picks or one step closer to our own op-ed column, but we’ll be smarter commentators. And that means we’ll be smarter citizens.

A little bit naughty, a little bit wild, and a whole lot of that special something that makes you want to stay close, even though you suspect he’s nothing but trouble. Even when you see where this is all going, even when you recognize how wrong he is and how foolish you are, you can’t let go.

I’m not talking about Bruce or Bon Jovi or even Frank: these are our icons. As for the swaggering beach bums, hot-shot lawyers and wanna-be Manhattan power-brokers, a smart Jersey girl knows what is what.  But then along comes one or two of these fellas, promising the moon–and you believe it. Or at least I did.

I guess that’s how these guys get elected.

Governor McGreevey–Jim–was a real charmer, with his ebullient manner and boyish grin. He’s just gotten married to a striking but reserved woman; had a baby daughter, and then,there he was: the young new governor of New Jersey. I was an emotionally roiled widow trying to keep busy. Jim offered me the opportunity by making me the Governor’s liaison to the 9/11 families.

Jim and I were once close

Sure, the pay was low, the hours were long and the clientele was demanding. But the perks turned my head: breakfast at the governor’s mansion, calls from his private cell phone, rides in the state limousine—once I was driven from a meeting in Manhattan to one in central New Jersey by state troopers slashing through rush-hour traffic at 100 mph, lights flashing and siren wailing. Turns out our state troopers liked to put the pedal to the metal.

I suspected Jim had a secret life, but I didn’t think it involved massively poor judgment until I learned that it did: he’d hired his male lover at an impressive salary to serve as director of security although the man had little experience save one mandatory stint in the Israeli Army. I watched the press conference, in which he announced he was a “gay American” and ignored the question of public salaries for unqualified friends, with sadness. I wanted him to call. Not long after his press conference, he separated from his wife, Dina. They wrote books, hers and his mortifyingly entitled The Confession; he moved in with a new friend and studied to be an Episcopalian priest.

He never called again…and that hurt most of all.

Then there was the Senator who would be governor. Jon radiated quiet stability and good intentions.When he decided to run for governor, I was there, squirming at the obscene amounts of money going into the election (could several poor nations be sustained for that kind of cash?), but ever faithful. I was also there for his inaugural, and for  the fancy dress ball, during which time I got another big hug and a whispered admonition to “call and schedule a meeting,” and at his straightforward State of the State address, where he was applauded for his honesty.

Jon’s administration, including his communications department, was as closed as Jim’s had been open.  But I still believed in him—for a time.  I still accepted the hugs and got a little tingly when he reminded me that we were going to meet to talk about my working in his administration (I never reminded him that his people were stonewalling me). But I tried not to take it to heart: I knew it was never going to happen. Not that he didn’t need help: his public persona was taking a beating. Not that he didn’t need help: his public persona was taking a beating. He was accused of being indifferent, weak, out of touch and prone to making bad decision. Meanwhile his seatbelt-free accident (another hard-driving state trooper) and his post-divorce relationship with Carla, a powerful union leader and prototype Jersey Girl, were the kinds of incidents that were getting him press.

Carla, #1 Jersey Girl 

I ran into him just before he was soundly defeated in our last election. He seemed resigned to the possibility he might lose and talked about working as an Ambassador. He wanted, he said, to stay in public service.

Speaking of resignation: Jon left public life to return to the private sector that had earned him millions, although apparently not much of a reputation as a smart leader. Last week, following a scandal about missing money at  MF Global, the firm he headed for several years, Jon resigned, forgoing the 12 million dollar golden parachute. Although he is not suspected of misappropriating any funds, he stands accused in business circles of making supremely bad decisions.  Maybe we all did.

Jim, Jon…and don’t get me started on Bob, AKA “The Torch.”  These boys make it so hard to be a Democrat in New Jersey. You know what I’m sayin’.

Maybe that’s why I had my eye on Chris. I was careful; we came from different backgrounds, after all. Still, I warmed to his outgoing nature, I admired his spunk, I was willing to cut the guy some slack and see how he applied his independent spirit and can-do attitude to governing our troubled state. I was, for a brief moment, almost proud of a Jersey boy.

Chris  finger-pointing

Shades of Rudy Giuliani! Turns out Chris is more pig-headed than tough; a bully, in fact, who enjoys talking tough and favors a sledgehammer where a paring knife might do. Although he began as a moderate, he’s been side-stepping to the right, more than willing to pander to his national party’s fringes to gain a platform. He also likes to flirt long and hard before letting his supporters down, but by the time he nearly ran as a Presidential primary candidate, I was so over him.

This week, I’ll be interviewing my local Congressman for Does This Make Sense. Rush is smart, compassionate, loyal and progressive.  Everyone around these parts loves him. I’m approaching cuatiously nonetheless. I can’t afford more heartbreak at the hands of another Jersey Boy.