Author – On The 8 Spot

Laredo could be largest US city without bookstore
By PAUL J. WEBER, Associated Press Writer Paul J. Weber, Associated Press Writer – Wed Dec 16, 4:37 pm ET
LAREDO, Texas – The final chapter has been written for the lone bookstore on the streets of Laredo.
With a population of nearly a quarter-million people, this city could soon be the largest in the nation without a single bookseller.
The situation is so grim that schoolchildren have pleaded for a reprieve from next month’s planned shutdown of the B. Dalton bookstore. After that, the nearest store will be 150 miles away in San Antonio.
The B. Dalton store was never a community destination with comfy couches and an espresso bar, but its closing will create a literary void in a city with a high illiteracy rate. Industry analysts and book associations could not name a larger American city without a single bookseller.
“Corporate America considers Laredo kind of the backwater,” said the city’s most prolific author, Jerry Thompson, a professor at Texas A&M University International who has written more than 20 books.
Since the closing was announced, book lovers in Laredo have flocked to the small store located between City Trendz (“Laredo’s No. 1 Underground Hip Hop Shop”) and a store that offers $4 indoor go-kart rides to stock up on their favorite titles.
Schoolchildren even wrote letters to the parent company, Barnes & Noble, begging for the store to stay open.
“Without that store, my life would be so sad and boring,” wrote a fifth-grader named Bryanna Salinas, who signed her name with a heart.
via Laredo could be largest US city without bookstore – Yahoo! News.

This is sad. I hope the new store opens earlier than planned!

: Image by jwordsmith via Flickr

When I was in high school and for most parts of college I kept my watch handy at all times. The MTRCB approval was needed for any film shown commercially and it listed the total run time of the film. The combination of my watch/(and for two years a stopwatch) and the knowledge of the running time of the film has saved me from being naive about a film, if their were any surprise twist left etc. The bad thing about this is that I began to be less emotionally involved with the film I was watching; When I was bringing stopwatches/watches to theaters I was always checking it to see how the pace was going, the action to chatter ratio. The exposition versus the confrontation ratio and other minutae that was although nice to discuss with other film lovers was mainly an exercise in film intellectual stimulation. When I discovered Roger Egbert’s online reviews I was mainly entraced by his love for film, it seemed he had different levels of looking at films. As a film critic, as a film lover, as a lover of stories , and a lover of emotions. I began to see that in trying to one-up other people’s/stranger’s/friend’s observation skills and views I lost that connection to that part of me that just wanted to be escapist and enjoyed a film, whether the lighting/camera work is not as good as it could have been or how smart a film is. I got this back by only being conscious of the time whenever I watch a movie for the second time. I haven’t used a Kindle and I suspect that as long as we (Philippine Consumers) are forced to jump through so many hoops to get a kindle I won’t be using one anytime soon, but I think that it would really improve my naivete !

In a normal book, an author cannot have the antagonist fall with an ensorcelled death-sword in its belly with one-third of the pages left to go and expect the reader to be surprised at what comes next. The thickness of the pages beneath one’s right hand scream: “THAT’S NOT THE ANTAGONIST, SCHMUCK!!!”
Reading it on the Kindle–the sudden appearance of the were-bats has an extra punch that it cannot have in the hard copy…
Grasping Reality with Both Hands: Amazon’s Kindle and the Recovery of Readerly Naivete; or, Were-Bats–the Big Bug Scourge of the Skies!.

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