Dear friends,
Last time we sent you an email, we were three days away from an election. Things seem to have worked out okay for now. Having just read Stephen Marche’s The Next Civil War, our heart’s are momentarily calmed knowing that our neighbourhood isn’t under threat of descending into guerrilla warfare. Never say never, of course. But despite knowing that not everyone in our lives feels GOOD about the outcome, we can at least rest at night knowing that no one is going to throw a Molotov cocktail through our threateningly woke lives. So far, we are not an enemy, and, we are pleased to say, neither are those we know and love who voted differently.
Having said that…
This week’s new arrivals is an anti-woke customer’s personal nightmare. Although it’s possible we COULD design a collection of books that are worse in theory (all nightmares are not equal), there’s A LOT of Foucault here. I mean, what are these books even about? The Visible Woman: Imaging Technologies, Gender, and Science? C’mon! Might as well call it Perceiving the Ineffable: Studies in Liminal Identity within the Simulacra. Errrrmmmmm … actually, we’d read that book. Read the hell out of it. We’d read the other one too. Deleuze, Barthes, Debord; it seems that every continental philosopher who single-handedly set fire to the presumed ethical roadmap of the West is represented in our list, and these are just the ones we managed to catalogue in time for today! You might be depressed to learn that there is even MORE moral degeneration on our shelves, waiting to be photographed and described for electronic transmission. WHAT HATH EUROPE WROUGHT!?!
Perhaps we are having a moral panic about a moral panic? Perhaps we are sticking our own heads up our intellectual asses? Perhaps we are ineffably folding into a simulacra OF OUR OWN DESIGN, unnecessarily finding meaning in what is essentially a bunch of books on shelves? We did play alone a lot when we were kids. We did invent all sorts of games that made no sense to anyone else. Maybe we’ve just lived the past ten years too publicly. While we’ve been slinging books over counters during the Decline of the West, our betters have relaxed into communities full of well-met and compassionate differences. Maybe our country will avoid the repulsive divisions down south?
Here’s hoping.
In the meantime, do know that you are welcome in our shop. Not only welcome, but invited. While we might have the terrible Europeans on our shelves, we have those who loathe them as well. Not to worry. Mary McCarthy’s essay My Confession would also be welcome at our table. We take note of her words, describing the public political terrors of her own time and their open advocates:
These people, unlike ordinary beings, are shown the true course during a lightning storm of revelation, on the road to Damascus. And their decisions are lonely decisions, silhouetted against a background of public incomprehension and hostility.
I protest.
At any rate, we hope you find books you like.
Much love,
Jason & Vanessa
P.S. Speaking of moral decay, our new neighbour Midnight Mass Books just opened in the old Back to the Fuchsia space on Dundas Street. They’re shop is creepy, awesome and certainly worth a visit.
Pearl clutching wonders abound.
