The end of season rubble on my roof
I went into the city yesterday for an appointment and then I made the usual pilgrimage to Barnes and Noble Union Square, where I noticed space had been cleared away for a giant display and information counter about their new digital reader.
I eavesdropped for a while on the stylishly dressed, possibly overly enthusiastic district manager (she had so taken the blue pill on these contraptions) as she tried to convince a librarian they were the future. The librarian, a short-haired, sharp woman in her mid-50s, thought they were good for textbooks, and that it was important for kids to have access to them now because they probably would be using them in college. A few more grinning Barnes and Noble Digital Reader Amabassadors (I didn’t make that up.) (Yes I did.) swarmed in on the woman. She questioned them gently. She held her own.
She and I chatted for a minute and she said, “The one thing you have to realize is every time you print one of these, you kill another tree.” She picked up a book and held it for a second. “So that’s one good thing about it. But do I think these are going to completely replace books? No. They’re elitist devices. They’re for rich people, and that’s it.”
I sort of disagreed with her. Everyone has a cellphone now, no matter your tax bracket. It’s the same cheap hunk of junk in the end; these companies can price it however they want. But I would like to save some trees. That sounded like a good idea.
Before I left, the district manager tried to hand me a small booklet on the e-reader, and I declined.
“I know what it is,” I said.
If a tree falls in a forest so Barnes and Noble can make a pamphlet to promote a digital device can anyone download that noise?
Later I wandered around the Village, giving my ankle a work out. (Four miles, a new record. It’s getting better all the time.) I had found out I got a good review in Kirkus for The Melting Season, which was great news. You might not read Kirkus but the people who run review sections for newspapers and magazines do. I felt a small flame of hope in my heart.
I took a different route toward the park, and ended up on East 10th Street, where I noticed the ornate buildings owned by NYU. I found myself suddenly standing in front of a building Dawn Powell used to live in. The plate on the building explained that Powell had been the author of numerous books in the 1930s-50s, and it named a few of them. Then it went on to say that she had experienced a revival in the 1990s, which I found odd. I don’t know if you should have to explain it. But I guess that’s what plates on the side of historical buildings are for.
Anyway: Bury me, talk about me for a week, and put a few of my books in a library. And then move on, please. I would hate for anyone to miss me when I’m gone.
Tenth Street has long been one of my favorite streets. When I first moved to New York I met a man who had a storefront apartment right off Avenue A, on the same block as the Russian baths. He put weird little installations in his front window, and kept his door open on warm nights. I wandered in there once and talked to him. I was new in town, fresh from Seattle. I dressed like a hippie. He was an artist. He had a loose grin on his face. He was the first person I met in New York who didn’t seem in a hurry. We talked for a while about nothing in particular, but I felt so inspired afterward. He was glad I had noticed the art. He had just wanted to give the neighborhood something to look at.
I walked by his apartment for months after, watching the changing installations, until finally they was gone. He had moved I supposed, and the windows were empty. Now there are only curtains in that apartment. This is not to bemoan the way the East Village has changed. The time for that conversation has long passed. Only to say I knew once – and I think still know – that we do what we do hoping someone will notice, appreciating it when they say something, but we will not stop if we do not receive the attention.
