"Fifteen is a gloppy age," my family used to say, although when my sons reached that age I found them beautiful, full of ripening energy and eminently interesting. This month, The Word Shop passed our 15 year mark, an amazing accomplishment given the continual shakedown within the publishing industry. We have made it thus far due to the grace of God, the faithfulness of our staff, the generosity of our sponsors, donations from friends, and everyone of you who bought a book or two from us. Thank You.
I often wonder how long we're going to play this particular game. And right when I start thinking maybe it's time to stop, in comes a new volunteer, or--as happened last week--I come in to find that the slice of Pizza bought for my lunch was given away to a stranger who wandered in, shared his heart and left happier. (Not to even mention less hungry.) "A grace moment," Lynn exclaimed, and three of us stood around remembering that these moments are the reason why we do what we do.
Grace moments happen regularly; you don't have to be in a bookstore to have one. It helps, however, to have some spaces in life where you're not charging forward, not so caught up in the busyness of things-to-accomplish that you can recognize and enjoy these moment as they occur.
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened." ~ Winston Churchill
The October Literary Party genre was Business books. I read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, who also wrote The Tipping Point and Outliers. Given the information glut we're all swimming in, it was interesting to read a series of studies exploring the virtue and efficacy of instant reactions versus careful analysis. Blink; The Power of Thinking Without Thinking is full of stories and intriguing examples, written in an easily accessible style. The sum of the book is that sometimes a instinctual reaction is preferable, experience can aid instant judgement calls and prejudice can pollute them. In other words, sometimes it's better and sometimes it's not. This is not an earthshaking conclusion, but given the pleasure in the journey, I'd probably also read The Tipping Point or Outliers, if they happened into the store.
Justin took Blink, trading me for the book he'd brought: Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy. Written in the early 60's, Confessions is full of advice from an advertising powerhouse who at that time considered TV too new to adequately assess. Fifty years later we have the internet and social networking sites that I'm sure he'd also consider too new to be conclusive about. There are, however, principles that stand both the test of time and shifting media; principles that are broken regularly, to the disgust and discouragement of us all. Honesty, integrity, civility... You know, the basics.
"There are three truths: my truth, your truth, and the truth." - Chinese proverb
Today I will stand at the polls and wish I could make a good decision, an informed decision, about people and issues lined up before me. While I have lots of friends with strong opinions on one side or another, some of them have posted sufficient nastiness via email or facebook that their opinions no longer carry the weight of goodwill. The words have become lite, tinny, meaningless; like sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Stripped of the recognition that we all are struggling together to find solutions to complex problems, sound bytes become bites: the arguments of children shouting names on the playground, who simply expect the loudest voice to win.
And we all lose.
"You have not converted a man because you have silenced him." - John Morley
November's Literary Party Theme is Music. Friday, November 19 at 2:00.
"Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination." ~Ludwig Wittgenstein
Meanwhile, to celebrate our 15th year, I will post the Tweetest Books that you can suggest on Twitter. The only requirement is that you must somehow attach your book suggestion to The Word Shop. Maybe you saw it on our shelves, or read about it in a newsletter, or heard about it at a writer's group or Literary Party. Maybe you even bought the book from us. (Imagine that!) My twitter feed goes onto our web page so you don't have to be on Twitter to read the posts. Just go by companyofsaints.com. Tweets can only be 130 characters, so if you email me, or put it on facebook, or drop something by that is longer than 130 characters, I'll have to edit it. Slash/cut/rip.
"I try to leave out the parts that people skip." -Elmore Leonard
Speaking of editing, my In the Spirit column in the Santa Cruz Sentinel started up again last Saturday, October 30. It's going to run twice a month. I'm open for hot tips, local happenings, interesting programs and folk in the Santa Cruz area. Send me your bits. (No bites.)
And that's enough words for the day.
"It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous." -Robert Benchley
Blessings,
Alliee +