I wish I knew for sure.  I just know what I see in the market makes me a little bittersweet.  Even sad.

I first entered a Borders bookstore in January of 1999.  I lived in Lawrence, Kansas at the time.  Bored with class and postponing the inevitable decision to leave Kansas for good I decided to drive to Topeka, about a half-hour away.  This Borders store had main street entry, a café, wide aisles, huge tables serving as book displays, and big soft chairs intended to give customers time to skim potential purchases. 

It was the perfect place to skip a couple of classes until I finally moved back to Washington three weeks later. 

What I didn’t know was the Borders model had already been standardized across the country, not only by them, but by Barnes and Noble and smaller chains.  B. Dalton had tried to copy it in the late 1990s by remodeling many of its stores with wood floors, coffee and earth-tones.  The remodel came too late for many locations.  The B. Dalton in Spokane’s Northtown shut down months before Barnes and Noble moved in underneath a new multiplex. 

By then, Borders in north Spokane had opened up, just five minutes away from my apartment on Nevada Street.  I went two or three times a week.  It felt like the Topeka store and had all the comforts I remembered.  I didn’t have to deal with parking garages or the mall crowds. I love Auntie’s downtown, but hate the traffic.  So nearby Northpointe Borders suited me. 

As the years went by and my life and addresses changed, the Northpointe Borders changed.  There were less customers walking the aisles.  The staff pushed membership cards on a level I hadn’t experienced before.  CDs and DVDs had always been part of the store’s merchandise, but now it was so in your face you wondered if you’d walked into a Hastings.  It was happening at all the chains, even Barnes and Noble, which I frequented at the mall more than I ever thought I would. 

Recently, Borders has been in the news a lot.  They are currently in bankruptcy court and reorganizing – read that as closing stores.  That’s the consequence of waiting too long for the jump into online store and e-reader markets.  So far only the Lynnwood and Gig Harbor locations are affected in Washington, but can my sentimental favorite at Northpointe be far behind?  Only time and the market will tell. 

In the meantime, where does this leave other chains or independents?  Last summer, Barnes and Noble announced they were for sale.  Good luck with that.  Auntie’s has firmly put itself at the center of Spokane’s literary community – and it’s only right that a locally-owned store holds that spot.  But will the troubles come for them the way it has so many book sellers?  I don’t think so, thanks to their almost iconic status in the community.  It seems they’ll be the last man standing in Spokane. 

But all this thought about Borders and bookstores remind me of a tweet by Time Magazine on March 9^th, “A new Shel Silverstein book will hit bookstores in September – if bookstores still exist in September…” 

Things change, and brick-and-mortar stores eventually be shut down by online sales, but I know I’ll miss them.  Where will I go if I ever have something dull to avoid?

To sum up what a reader gets from this book, I pulled this quote out “If you actually want a quality hot dog, the best is at Papaya King on East 86th Street.  Be sure you enjoy it with a frothy delicious papaya drink – and if you put ketchup on your dog I will fucking kill you.”  Pure, angry, honest attitude. 

There is an honesty that gets at the core of what it’s like to be a cook working his way up in the late 70s and 80s.  It’s also sort of a how-to manual to running your own small business.  In the kitchen, one either does his job and does it well, without pats on the back or letters of commendation placed in some personnel file, or the boss will find someone else.  There’s no bullshit.  There’s no PC/CYA for an over-litigious society in a restaurant.  Get it done or get lost.  I consider myself a no-BS guy, but Bourdain does it at a much higher level.  It’s inspiring.

I also like his stories about the people who work in the business.  Bourdain writes about his younger days, before the celebrity-chef phenomenon, when those who worked in the kitchen of a restaurant were usually people who lived on the fringes of society.  But most often, they were immigrants, legal or not, who busted their asses and through sheer endurance and smarts worked their way up into becoming successful entrepreneurs.  One of my favorite lines from the book is where he points out the hypocrisy of some who go to a Vegas celebrity chef chain restaurant and are dying to meet the celebrity chef.  Bourdain asks the reader if those customers want to meet the kid from Peru who actually made the meal and he answers, “Apparently not.”

Although he is now a celebrity chef himself, you can see he doesn’t like what it’s done to the industry by those who only seek fame or want to fill some romanticized fantasy of becoming a chef.  Bourdain shows us the hardcore world beyond the Food Network.  He also shows us that while average everyday restaurant workers deserve our respect and appreciation, they sure as hell don’t need it. 

What a great philosophy to take out of this book.

 The subtitle also caught my attention: “Because if you’re going to make a writer of yourself, you must read your brains out.”  Words to live by for an aspiring writer. 

I’m also happy to see that two of my three picks for must-reads for a high school lit class was on the list.  Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald were two of the dozens of picks by Minor, however my 1984 by Orwell was not on the list.  Not a total defeat though.  Minor listed one of the dystopian novels that was a toss-up with 1984 for me, Fahrenheit-451 by Ray Bradbury. 

Interesting list.  Comprehensive.  Anyone want to tackle it?  Or do you already have a lot of them under your belt?  I have a few, but not many, I’m ashamed to say.  But between diaper changes and helping the wife with loads of laundry, I’ll get there.

Happy 64th birthday to my dad, by the way.

http://www.makinggameofthrones.com/production-diary/2010/12/5/inside-game-of-thrones-feature.html 

And if you haven’t given the series A song of Ice and Fire a whirl yet, go get a copy of A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin, the first of the series.  Interesting right from the start, but give it until about page 90 and then tell me you’re not hooked. 

If not, fair ‘nuf.

Remember: “A mind needs a book like a sword needs a whetstone.”  – Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister.

It was a little weird for me to have reported on these guys for The Star while coaching them at LRHS this fall.  I not entirely sure I was objective in the game write-ups.  But I can say that these student-athletes are a great bunch of guys, and yes, I am pretty biased on that.

The announcement about these players and student-athletes from other LRHS fall sports earning All-League honors can be seen here.

Congrats everyone and go Raiders!

Thanks to the Willow Springs Twitter feed for making me aware of it.  Keep that good stuff coming. 

My DirecTV is starting to lose it’s signal, good thing there’s no football on the idiot box today.  This wouldn’t worry me so much, but I also get my Internet access from DirecTV.  How’s that bundling package sound now, dude? 

Dark, it’s so dark here.  The snow keeps falling. 

If there’s no posts for three days, someone send a search and rescue team.