Buy the Dip!

May Day Has Books?

As we sit here in our one-of-a-kind bookstore drinking cheap coffee, Craig started to wonder – again.  We get visitors and book buyers from all over the U.S., from isolated out-state Minnesota communities and from other countries.    Hey India!  Thank you Europe!  In addition, the website and blog are viewed all over the world.

But the flow of customers from left groups in the Twin Cities is sparser than it should be.  The ‘Christmas’ season showed this up.  Minneapolis has branches of the Democratic Socialists of America, the Communist Party, the Industrial Workers of the World, Socialist Alternative, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Socialist Action, the International Marxist Tendency, the Socialist Workers Party, the International Socialists, the Socialist Party, the Revolutionary Communist Party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Workers' World and the Committees of Correspondence. (Whew!) There are even some members of the Socialist Rifle Association in town.  No one from the Spartacist Leagued or Solidarity is an official member here, but there are sympathizers.  Did I leave anyone out?  The Black Socialists of America or Black Agenda Report?

Then we have a number of community groups that are grounded in class, anti-racist or left politics of single-issue or smaller multi-issue causes.  Then there are the many independent, ‘poly-vanguardist’ single lefties who are not tied to any one organization.  There is even a Green Party with a rep in the City Council, though that ‘left’ is somewhat mysterious and hard to find.  Now, if you do the numbers, that is a lot of people.  You might ignore my idea that if all of these left groups formed a ‘Left Front” we might scare the bejesus out of the ruling elite in town.  God forbid. But we’re talkin’ books here.  Buying books.

I know almost none of these people are actual Christians.  Christ’s Mass is really a pagan Solstice celebration that the Christians stole – trees, lights, gifts, drinking, movies, family, arguments.  So you’d think more than a few of the above would come through the door and buy some fantastic book for their list.  But noooo!  Is it the unironic hammers and sickles?  The coming recession?  The quiet person behind the counter?  The people sitting at tables and actually talking?  Too many commies?  The low, low prices?  The deep, depressing titles?  The scary West Bank?  Tricky parking?

This was on outside of store for years.  Did Banksy Do This? 

We carry progressive books of every kind ... our 'bench' is deeper than any liberal bookstore in town and perhaps in the nation.  Books by famous authors like Naomi Klein, Slavjo Zizek, Noam Chomsky, Michelle Alexander, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Howard Zinn, Chris Hedges, Murray Bockchin, David Harvey, yadda, yadda, down to unknown ‘losers’ like me.  It is not all Mao, Trotsky, Lenin, Marx, Engels or Stalin’s little brother.  Or are you afraid to be in the same room as the latter group?  They have their own little corner in back …like the porn bookstores of old where they kept ‘the hard stuff.’

It is no secret the left loves labels and unfortunately, our label is 'various.'  Many leftists are so busy they don’t have much time for ‘theory’ or ‘other views’ or even ‘the present.’  It is no secret that many left groups have assigned reading.  Or that they want to cover the Communist Manifesto or The Short Course for the 50^th time.  Or that they only read books written a long time ago.  Hey, I get it. I’ve been there. We love you all!  But if you want to actually widen your understanding of the present capitalist conjuncture, you have to read beyond that.  Stuff about now too.  Really! May Day apologizes for carrying books of every kind, for being an up-to-date, non-sectarian, left-wing bookstore.  But we’re here when you get tired of your carefully curated assigned reading.  Class dismissed.

Of course it takes a movement to raise a bookstore.  Right now we are waiting to be saved by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and I’m a little dubious of that prospect.  So we have to put in our own oar.  When people are active, organized and aggressive, we sell books.  When people are isolated and negative, or falsely hopeful, we don’t.  Of course poverty doesn't help. Don’t sit this one out, your brain included.

Now what I think is also going on is something else.

Reading a blog post, seeing a podcast, perusing Counterpunch, the World Socialist Web Site or The Intercept, a Party newspaper or magazine is not sufficient. It isn’t!  No more than listening to an iPod download of one Grace Slick tune beats listening to the whole ‘Bathing At Baxters’ Album AND reading the LP or CD liner notes in bright, living color.  Otherwise you are not really serious about the Jefferson Airplane.   Or pick newer groups like My Morning Jacket or the Decembrists or the Black Keys or Happy Apple.  Immortal Technique or Boots Riley would agree.  But you do have to leave your house.

Here's Lookin' At You Kid! - Joe Hill

And we get it.  The internet, not books, is the new weak model of learning.  It has both positive and negative sides.  After all, the internet is incomplete in one sense.  There is more in one book than many, many journalistic posts and podcasts.  So books and the internet have to work together. Yet attention spans are being molded by on-line life and that means shorter ones. Additionally, doing actual research with real books (like a library) is much more work than Goggling.  Which means ‘books are too long.’ Just like many TV series or movies are actually too long.  Which is why you have to choose wisely no matter what you do.  But if length is your only criterion - then woe is you.

So meanwhile, what is going to happen at May Day Books, among other things like dying, is that the “Red Frog” is not going to write uber-detailed descriptions of May Day books for awhile.  This as a science experiment.  The point in doing that was to spread theory and information and incentivize people to read the books or other books.  Kind of a free ‘sampler.’ But if local people are using the reviews to get the ‘Cliff’s Notes’ version of the books and not buying them, then, well, there is going to be nice, general stuff instead.  Good but general.  Generally not specific.  I.E. you will have to BUY THE BOOK to find out what is really in it!  Like a mostly wrapped package.  It starts now.

Reviews of non-May Day issues will continue as normal.  Fahrenheit 451 will be postponed...maybe.  The Book of Eli is still in the future...maybe.

P.S. "...illiteracy has remained stubbornly in place, and the fraction of Americans who read at least one work of literature a year has dropped by almost a quarter in recent decades."  "...the average US high-school leaver tests more poorly in reading today than in 1992." - Guardian 1/22

Prior comments on this issue:  “Why People Don’t Buy Books,” “Reading Paper Books versus Reading E-Books” and books on the digital ‘revolution.’

The Kommissar Of Kulture

Athens, Georgia, USA

January 9, 2019