JOUR 5050 GOES TO BARNES AND NOBLE
Felicia: Well, here we are, Barnes and Noble.
Anne: Here we are–dang! You win this time, Davis. Next time you may not get there first.
Hongxi: I see his coat thrown over the Business shelf, but what happened to Mr. McPhate?
Gino: I just ran into him in the parking lot, buyingbags of white powder off some guys. Christian said it was powdered Holy Water, but that was obviously a lie. Real powdered Holy Water doesn’t come in zip-lock bags.
Sahar: No drug can satiate the mind like the most jeopardizing acts of war correspondents, and people who spy on the president. It certainly gets me higher than those tedious hallucinogens the kids sell these days. What do you have there, Brad?
Brad: This book is great! It has all these photo-shopped images of Obama–look! Pockets stuffed with I.O.U.’s to the working class, googly-eyed Obama can’t sign the slippery bill covered in oil... ha ha! It also quotes his most ardent supporters sounding all delusional. Like this:
"He never said he would end the war. What he said was he would end the war. He never said he would end the war."
Or, this one is good:
"The bail-out was not a ‘terrible mistake.' The news media, the national economy, the bank accounts of the rich and our daily lives just try to spin it that way."
I think we have a winner in this book. [holds book up like a child] Uncle John, I could kiss you!
Carli S.: Tiffany, your website says you traveled through Italy: You should look at this book. It really shows the soul of Italy through ad campaigns aimed at tourists.
Tiffany: Ah, I remember seeing that poster on the corner of Bellavitalochanzo and Corolansanzita Street. It would have been better if the man were kicking the toaster at the cat and not the cat at the toaster, although how either combination would help sell the hair spray I don’t know.
Lance: I could bring in more profit for a bread-washing machine using only a skunk, a microwave that has dials on it and no kicking at all.
Brittany: At the store I always want to buy Lavazza espresso, but I never do... I could do much better advertising for those people with their sad, forgotten coffee on the bottom shelf.
Christina: Looks like you are getting a lot of photos, Morty.Both Alain Jaubert and myself hope you are not going to skew their meaning to use them as propaganda.
Morty: Of course not. It takes no manipulation to capture the vulgar truth of this shopping center. Let’s see... photo of a child tripping on the curb outside... a single tree surrounded by concreteand unable to grow, two men about to have a fist fight over a parking space...
Carli B.: The motifs are rather bleak, Morty my dear. Although I suppose that is the path to the Pulitzer: One emerges not with a blue ribbon but with a red bandage. Oh, speaking of which, I still need to order a corsage for Boxing Day.
Morty: When the cloud brings the rain, everyone feels the pain.
Jane: Morty, that is dark. Darker than the Verona coffee sold next door, darker than the secret dog prisons of Quebec. That is darker than the obsidian talisman which I wear to protect against the impending Mayan doomsday.
Amber: Sometimes we can still enjoy atrocity for its comedic value... Andrew Mueller had me laughing pretty hard when he visited war-torn Gaza. And others felt the same way, too (MacLean, 2008).
Garret:[into microphone] Here comes Christian now, rounding the final bend with a white baggie in each hand. He is moving fast but there is a look of confidence about him that Gay Talese would give twenty pagesof description... The manager must have been alerted by now. Folks, I haven’t seen this much bravado since Dallas Cowboy Troy Aikman threw a long bomb directly at the opposing team’s coach in 1992.
Sara: That was the same year the Summer Olympics were held in Barcelona, but nobody came because of a Midwest corn shortage. Or did the corn shortage happen because of the Olympics? That’s what David Rowe is asking.
Christian: I just memorized every social sensation while carrying out an upper-middle class drug deal. Very inspirational. In a Barnes and Noble parking lot, no less! We should have just done it in the Starbucks... yeah, there’s my piece–“White Dust and Black Drink: How America Overpays to Stay Up Late.” Yeah... I could dance to that.
Cesta: By the beardless cheeks of Ted Kennedy, that would get a lot of hits if you posted it on the Times’ Online. So are you going to throw them away now?
Christian: I don’t believe so. Like I just said, I put a lot money into this stuff.
Guillermo: Good for him, I say. The readers of THC magazine have been philosophizing under the influence for several centuries that actually just turned out to be a couple of weeks... but the pages contain the tone of several eras.
[Dr. Busby approaches from between aisles]
Busby: Does anybody need help with their book selections?
Kensy: I do. I had no idea there were so many good studies on female portrayal in the media. When I lift all of them at once I can’t move.
Rajan: I am looking for a book on Native American views on ecology and environmental activism, but I understand they did not want to waste the paper or spend electricity on e-readers, so the book is essentially... well, it’s oral tradition. Is that OK? The APA guide does have a page detailing the citation of Oral History.
Busby: Yes. We even have a chief on hand who knows that story, but he’s just the tenth edition version of it. The eleventh edition chief is in our Plano storetonight.
Rajan: Are you the manager of this store, Professor Busby?
Busby: That’s right. You don’t get to be where I am without managing several bookstores. I am also a full time cattle hand, I write boastful monologues for pro-wrestlers, and you know that popular ‘90s theme song for the N.B.A.? I write that song.
Pennie: You mean you wrote that song.
Busby: No, they just used a little piece of something I work on every morning. So far the song is 230 minutes long. If you listen to it all at once, you’re not really the same anymore.
Adriana: I would like to hear that song. No doubt it could be used to control reality, to create a new reality... It could be part of a mass movement toward a new psychic age of excellence.
Lola: That age has arrived with the celestial invisible nerve system of the internet incorporating all of us with no real central system behind it. Except in our case, I guess we have Dr. Busby. But who can the others turn to?
Pennie: Neither zookeeper or wife, I’m afraid. They are now deceased. But the book was well written, it had the right sound on the page.
Jia: It is good when a book has an interesting tone, and when it is concise. A good book should also include:
- Diverse sources of information
- Rethinking of a commonly-held idea
- Complete verification of facts
- Bullet points
Busby: I approve of all your book choices. 10% off for everyone!
Carl: Wait for me! My watch says just before midnight... did I make it?! I have been concocting a reply to an online remark for the last two hours, but I dearly need the new MAD magazine...
[curtain]
THE END