They say I
should boycott
you.
I guess it is time to
boycott you. I was
supposed to boycott you
before but didn't.
The first time
I was supposed to boycott you
it was because
of your questionable methods
of choosing your recommended books.
But I never gave a rat's ass about
that, I would never trust your
recommendations, and people who
impulse-shop online
for books they can't read
any of the words of
must know they are taking chances.
What do they call stores now?
"Brick-and-mortar."
What a cumbersome prefix.
compared to "E-"...
Now they say I
should boycott you
because you are trying to
patent or copyright
online ordering
or "shopping baskets"
or something.
Like the widespread distribution of online shopping
is more important to me than
the widespread distribution of Ron
Silliman
or Bernadette
Mayer or Stanislaw
Lem or
Octavia
Butler or Theodore
Adorno
and
Max Horkheimer or Adrienne
Rich.
Like I am more
interested in the existence
of shopping than I
am in what is being
bought.
And today I learned from Maiko
That you haven't made a profit.
I guess selling stock is how
you got the money to send me
that free mug along with my
last order. Thanks a lot
for that, I need it to sneak coffee
on the bus in the morning,
which is when I do my best reading.
Babbitt's never
gave me a damn
mug.
So I'm supposed to boycott
you, even though you're
not making money?
How about I buy
your books but
boycott your stock?
And Dan said:
"You mean they're causing
other bookstores to lose a profit,
but they aren't making a profit
themselves?"
They say that this is a healthy economy.
The plight of the independent bookseller
is indeed unfortunate,
almost as dismal as the plight of the
independent writer,
but Barnes and Noble and Borders
are to blame for attempting to
monopolize the "brick-and-mortar"
market. Not you. Most people still
don't shop online
for books.
Most people
shop neither online
nor for books.
And my "local" independent
bookstore?
(local to Savoy,
not Urbana)
I just don't like it,
and I could support it out of principle
but not out of any real love.
Maybe it's because
I haven't been a grad student
in a few years, but
it seems like there just aren't any cool books
on the shelves
(except for about
twentyfive I already own).
More to the point,
I don't have a "brick-
and-mortar" car.
Aside from contributing tax
to city funds
for education
to help kids read books,
I'm not sure what good
an independent bookstore
is, if its atmosphere
isn't literary.
If it doesn't stock
dangerous, freaky shit,
then what is it really
independent
of?
The sad fact is
that I like you,
Amazon.com,
because I thrive
on the
sort of book
which
is in print
only
fleetingly.
Ultimately this is
a desperate, even
decadent passion,
whether or not
I politicize it.
We all want to be
perfect, don't we?
Boycotting you is
for me
the same as
boycotting writers.
But I'm not supposed to boycott you
because of writers,
or because of anything
having to do with writing,
or books or politics,
but to protect the interests
of E-business people.
What a bunch
of shit.
Amazon.com, let
me get down to brass tacks:
you've got a
CD,
well, two
CDs,
and a
book I need to get
before I boycott you.
And then I guess
I have to boycott you
which will be awkward
because I am already boycotting
Barnes and Noble
for attempting to monopolize
bookselling and distribution,
and I'm trying to boycott
Borders
for union-bashing.
So I guess I'm
going to take a determined
political stand
against
books.
Because some things
are more
important.
Like "one-
click ordering..."
I guess.
But I agree with Maiko:
I should pay tax on my orders,
Amazon.com.
As long as none of that tax
goes to the DOD.
Amazon.com Responds!
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