[lbo-talk] Anti-Chomsky Reader

Lance Murdoch lancemurdoch at lycos.com
Wed Jul 21 22:33:52 PDT 2004


Michael Pugliese said:
> Fight like hell, amazon.com, Borders and Barnes and Noble. Michael the
> mgr. at longtime radical bookstore here, Modern Times says their sales are
> down catastrophically. At the Borders by Union Square here, a good 50
> copies of the new one by Amy Goodman, for example, flew out the window,
> immediately. Sales at Modern Times, zilch, nada. Even when Bill Ayers came
> to speak (and I almost jumped outta my chair, Bernadine Dohrn was inches
> away from me, just behind) and it was packed, few bought his book. Took me
> months on a waiting list at the SFPL to check it out for free.

This assumes that the purpose of a radical bookstore is to sell commodities. If that were the case, I wouldn't volunteer my time at one. Our bookstore in New York ( http://www.maydaybooks.net ) has a lending library for books and videos; a leave one/take one bookshelf; a counter to leave or take free pamphlets, notices and newspapers; a "free box" and so forth. Of course, we sell books (and Zapatista coffee, and shirts, and buttons, and CDs and so forth) as well. Everyone volunteers their time, and we mostly hope to make enough to reorder books and pay rent. We're actually a couple of thousand ahead at this point.

I see us as one of the most accessible anarchist-y places in New York. ABC No Rio is a bit out of the way, and one has to be in the groove of things already sometimes to know what events are taking place there. On the other hand, we are here seven days a week, from 3PM-9PM, selling books. Anyone can walk in, check out the bulletin board, browse the magazines and books, have a chat with whoever is volunteering. We're there so people can make connections with each other. Barnes and Noble tries to make their stores social centers to create book sales, we sell books so we can create a social center.

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