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I'm a tiny bit ashamed to admit how late I am in getting into the writing of George Saunders.  I read Pastoralia last year and recently finished up his first short story collection, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline.  Both were amazing and I really need to track down the rest of his books.  In the meantime, I have decided to write out brief synopses of the stories and the novella included in CivilWarLand in Bad Decline.  Maybe they'll sound good to you and you'll want to check it out.

CivilWarLand in Bad Decline

The story from which the collection takes its name is about what happens when a struggling Civil War theme park hires a sociopath to deal with its gang violence problem.  We don't need to go into the details, but let's just say that's not a very good idea.  "CivilWarLand in Bad Declind" features a beautiful last sentence.

Isabelle

"Isabelle" is about a man and his handicapped daughter.  It isn't a touchy-feely Hallmark movie-of-the-week story, though.  It's full of murders and suicides and bags of human ears.  Try making a movie out of that.

The Wavemaker Falters

The third story in the collection is about a man who accidentally kills a boy at a water park while oogling an all-girl glee club lying around in their bathing suits.

The 400 Pound CEO

"The 400 Pound CEO" tells the story of an obese man who works at Humane Raccoon Alternatives, a company that claims to release captured raccoons into an idyllic wild, but actually beats them to death with tire irons and dumps them in a burial pit out back.

Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz

This is my favorite story from CivilWarLand in Bad Decline.  In it, a man overwhelmed by guilt uses technology to make life easier for himself and his elderly companion.  This story is similar to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but predated it by almost 10 years.  If you think George Saunders is too weird or distant or dystopian or Pynchonesque, then you must read this story.  The last few paragraphs will break your heart.

Downtrodden Mary's Failed Campaign of Terror

This story is about a woman in her 90s who works in a museum.  Her name is Mary.  She's downtrodden.  She engages in a campaign of terror.  It fails.

Bounty

"Bounty" is the novella included at the end of CivilWarLand in Bad Decline.  It's one of those post-apocalyptic tales I like so much.  In it, America has bacome a country in which people are divided into two groups, the Flawed and the Pures.  The protagonist in "Bounty", a Flawed with claws on his feet, heads out on the road to find his vestigial-tailed prostitute sister, who may or may not have been sold into slavery by a rich client.  His journey brings him into contact with a strange assortment of rubes, slave catchers, and Flawed revolutionaries.

So there you go.  That's it.  Six short stories and a novella packaged together in one 192 page collection.  If you keep up on short stories, you've probably already read CivilWarLand in Bad Decline.  If you don't, or if the book managed to slip by your radar, you should probably remedy that right away.

Nellie McKay has been on my Top Ten Concerts to See list for a long while now.  Homebody and I went to see her perform a couple nights ago at Neumo's in Seattle.  I was really looking forward to the show, but I must admit it was something of a let down.  First of all, Neumo's is not an appropriate venue for someone like Nellie McKay.  She should be playing in a piano bar instead of a dive bar.  It was hot in there and much of the audience was made up of the worst Seattle has to offer...inconsiderate jerks and raving Black Flag t-shirt wearing psychopaths.

You can blame a lot on the venue and the audience, but at the end of the day, a performer on her game can overcome those setbacks.  Unfortunately, Nellie had what I can only hope was an off night.  Her piano playing was sloppy in places and she kept forgetting the words to her own songs.  It was actually kind of sad to watch.  Here's the best example I can remember from the evening.  Someone requested "Ding-Dong".  Nellie got excited and said she'd play it.  She started in on the song...only she started thumping her keyboard with her hands and making panting noises.  That, of course, is the introduction to "The Dog Song", not "Ding-Dong"  She'd already played "The Dog Song" earlier in the evening.  She looked frustrated.

Nellie McKay had her moments of brilliance, especially on the playful "Pounce" and during a beautiful cover of an Antonio Carlos Jobim song called "Meditation".  Overall, though, this was a disappointing show.  It's a good thing Nellie is cute and bubbly and wore a fancy red flapper dress.  Otherwise, I'd be far less forgiving of her performance.

As always, here's the complete setlist typed out for your curiousity and convenience:

Main Set:  World Without Love (Peter & Gordon cover)/Toto Dies/Cupcake/Politan/Mother of Pearl/David/Pounce/Long & Lazy River/Vote for Mr. Rhythm (popularized by Ella Fitzgerald)/Old Enough/The Dog Song/Meditation (Antonio Carlos Jobim)/Sari/Feed the Birds (from Mary Poppins)/Tipperary/The Dog Song intro-->Ding Dong/Swept Away (acapella version to see if she could remember the words...she couldn't)/Zombie/Won't U Please B Nice

Encore Set: Food

And here's Nellie performing "Ding Dong" on a better day.

The previous post made reference to my Top Ten Pop Songs, Ever list.  I decided to sit down and write out my list and settle this thing once and for all.  Actually it won't be settled, as a list of this nature is subject to my daily moods and whims.  Who knows what it'll look like tomorrow, but here's my Top Ten Pop Songs, Ever list as it stands today (in no particular order):

• Left Banke - Walk Away Renee
• Archers of Loaf - Web in Front
• Jayhawks - Blue
• Byrds - Eight Miles High
• Cardigans - Lovefool
• Jonathan Edwards - Sunshine
• Love - Alone Again Or
• Zombies - She's Not There
• XTC - Senses Working Overtime
• Heavenly - C is the Heavenly Option

And here's the video for the Archers of Loaf song:

My previous post featured a brief rave about the band Badfinger.  Jason mention that their song "No Matter What" was a contender for his Top Ten Pop Songs, Ever list.  I responded with some of my own nominees for the list.  Hotrod joined in with a few of his own.  I agreed with all of his except for "Little Red Corvette" by Prince.  I mentioned that there wouldn't be any Prince songs in my Top 1,000 Pop Songs, Ever list.  This declaration caused a bit of an uproar from Hotrod and Emma Peel.  They basically implied that I was an idiot with bad taste in music.

Instead of calling them names, I made the following challenge:  They could each select five Prince songs and I would acquire the songs and listen to them in their chosen order.  Maybe they could change my mind on the man and his music.  Here are the mini-mixes they recommended:    

Emma Peel's 5-6 Song Prince Mix

1. I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man
2. Little Red Corvette
3. Purple Rain
4. When Doves Cry
5. Darling Nikki/Sexy M.F. (tie)
   

hotrod's 5 Song Prince Mix

1. Little Red Corvette
2. I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man
3. Delirious
4. When You Were Mine
5. Cream

"Little Red Corvette" and "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man" made both lists.  Emma Peel couldn't narrow it down to five, so she offered six.  Altogether, nine different songs were recommended to me.  I did a bit of investigating and found out that eight of them were on the Hits 1 & Hits 2 compilations.  I went out the next day and bought used copies of those two CDs.  "Darling Nikki" wasn't on either CD, so I just downloaded the mp3 from iTunes.  I put together the mini-mixes and listened to them each a few times.

Now I'm going to interview myself about the results of this Prince mini-mix experiment:

Q: Are any of the recommended songs going into your Top Ten Pop Songs, Ever list?
A: No.

Q: Are any of them going into your Top 1,000 Pop Songs, Ever list?
A: Probably not.

Q: Did you like any of the songs?
A: Yes.  I've always liked "When Doves Cry", but I was also impressed by two songs that were entirely new to me: "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man" and "When You Were Mine".  Those two were surprisingly good and worth the $12 I dropped on the Hits comps.

Q: But?
A: But I still don't like "Little Red Corvette".  I know it's supposed to be a a classic and all, but it sounds like 1983 and that is not a good thing in my book.  I can't get over that cheesy synthesizer.

Q: Any other thoughts on the recommended songs?
A: Yes, thanks for asking.  I have to honestly say that "Sexy M.F." is one of the worst songs I've ever heard in my life.  It's right up there with "Pussy Control", a Prince song my cousin recommended to me a couple years back.  The problem with "Sexy M.F." isn't the explicit nature of the song or the titular obscenity.  The song has a wicked funk beat and I like the smooches and the "you sexy motherfucker" part.  The problem is the horrible "rap" that ruins everything.  It's the worst rap I've heard since KRS-One shat all over R.E.M.'s "Radio Song".  I need to look around and see if there's a "Sexy M.F." remix without the rap.  I think I'd like that.     

Q: I know you're busy, so just one more question.  Were any of the recommended songs as good as your favorite Prince song, "It's Gonna Be Lonely"?
A: No.  "It's Gonna Be Lonely" is the best.  Great cover art, too.

 

This is my tenth Vox Block.  It features a bunch of junk I probably could post individually, but then I'd be posting way too much and would feel that I'm wasting my life.  I can trick myself by combining everything into one big post.  It keeps my numbers down.

There's Gold in Them Stacks

I went to Half Price Books yesterday and found an old CD called Come and Get It: A Tribute to Badfinger.  I got all excited.  I love Badfinger.  I'll take their top five hits over the top five hits of just about any other rock band from the 70s.  Can you think of any band that can top these:

• "Come and Get It"
• "Baby Blue"
• "No Matter What"
• "Day After Day"
• "Without You"

But anyway, I didn't know anyone ever bothered to record a tribute record in Badfinger's honor. I gave the clerk $5.00 and took my prize home.  Ohhhhhh, it's so good.  I've never heard of most of the bands on the CD, but they do a great job with the songs.  I think the CD might be rare, too.  I can't find out much about it online.

Q: How Lazy is M-----l?

A: He is so lazy that he stopped watering his lawn, so that the grass would die, so he wouldn't have to cut it.  That's how lazy he is.

My House is Now an Art Gallery.

I got "Shoot the Rabbit" (left) for my birthday.  It is a fine companion piece to "Coffee" (right) which I also own.  Both are original ink & water colors by Marc Johns.  He's on Vox as Draw.

Randy Newman and I Hate Blu-Ray

I went to Target to buy the new Randy Newman album, Harps and Angels.  While I was looking around the music department, I heard a boy no older than four scream to his mother:

I want Spider-Man on Blu-Ray!

I tried to explain to the boy that Blu-Ray is a scam designed to get us all to repurchase things we already own.  Do I really need The Big Lebowski on a fourth format?  The answer is a resounding NO!  Sure, movies now come in cool blue cases and the picture quality is better, but the average American needs Blu-Ray discs like the average American needs high fidelity audio equipment.  I can fully enjoy my CDs on an $80 stereo.  I can fully enjoy my movies on a DVD player purchased in the mid-90s.  I will not succumb to psychological obsolescence.  I will not.

The boy didn't understand.  I think Randy would.

What does it mean if...

...the little waitress at my Thai restaurant says "I like to serve you" while accidentally touching my hand?  I don't know what it means, but I gave her a hefty tip and got the hell out of there.

Boston Pictures

Here are some pictures I took on my recent trip to Boston.  I tried to post them last week except Vox was being highly disagreeable.

   

I Would Just Like to Say That I am Sick of Hearing About the Following Things

The Olympics, Batman, talentless whore heiresses who make satirical political videos, The Last Lecture, Brett Favre, the Hold Steady, people who get splinters in their eye, Miley Cyrus, Judd Apatow, iPhones, and a bunch of other stupid stuff I can't think of right now.

I Would Just Like to Say That I Would Like to Hear More About the Following Things

Monkeys.  That's it.  From now on I'm only reading Vox posts that feature pictures of monkeys or discuss monkey-related topics.  For example, if you write about how you got something in your eye and had to go to the optometrist's, then I will probably skip over your post.  If, however, a monkey threw feces in your eye and you had to go to the optometrist's as a result, then I will read your post and probably even give it the sacred [this is good].

And Last But Not Least, This is For Marina

I graduated from a decent college and have gone on to tackle some of the toughest novels in the English language.  I like to think I'm a relatively intelligent guy.  I like to think I'm a good reader.  Well, it turns out that I'm a lot dumber than I thought.  I read two books over the weekend and didn't understand either of them.  Both left me perplexed.  One of them was even a comic book.  Here they are: 

Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron--Daniel Clowes

Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron was my seventh Daniel Clowes graphic novel.  It's also the first one I wasn't able to follow.  As far as I can tell, it's about a man named Clay who sees his former wife in a pornographic movie.  He then goes on a quest to find her.  Of course, you can't have a quest without some trials and tribulations.  Clay gets puked on by a drunk, gets arrested and beaten by some cops, wakes up in a cult full of busty, short-haired girls, steals a van, meets some conspiracy theorists obsessed with corporate logos, acquires an orifice-less dog, earns the unwanted affections of a mutant girl who looks like a potato, accidentally kills the orifice-less dog, finds out about a little girl who writes snuff films, and is then literally torn limb from limb by a crazy man hired by the orifice-less dog's former owner.

What is all that supposed to mean?

I have no idea. 

Invisible Cities--Italo Calvino

Invisible Cities was my second Italo Calvino novel.  I'm not even sure I should call the book a "novel".  I have no idea what it was.  It's unclassifiable.  Invisible Cities basically consists of a long conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan in which the explorer tells the ruler about 55 cities he's visited on his travels.  The thing is that the cities described don't seem to actually exist.  They're clearly imaginary.  Perhaps they're metaphors for something.

For example, two of my favorite cities were Euphemia and Eusapia.  The former features a thriving market where the trading of spices and cloth is supplemented by the trading of memories.  The latter features an identical copy of itself underground where the citizens go when they've died.  They're not just buried down there, though; they're propped up like puppets or mannequins.

Once again, I have to ask, "What is all that supposed to mean?"

Once again, I have to answer, "I have no idea." 

CURRENTLY READING:

• The Book of Yoga--Christina Brown
• Civilwarland in Bad Decline--George Saunders

BOOKS BOUGHT:

• Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic--Alison Bechdel
• Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron--Daniel Clowes
• Fight Club--Chuck Palahniuk (for $1)
• The Escapists--Brian K. Vaughan
• The Enchantress of Florence--Salman Rushdie
  

BOOKS READ:

The Life & Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman--Lawrence Sterne

I had this really great quote about The Life & Opinions of Tristram Shandy.  I got it from the bonus features on the DVD version of the 2006 movie adaptation, A Cock and Bull Story.  I paused the movie when I heard the quote, ran off to get a piece of paper and a pen, and then replayed the quote and wrote it down.  I wanted to use the quote as an intro to this review.  Unfortunately, Tristram Shandy is a very long book.  It took me a couple months to get through.  In that time, I managed to misplace the piece of paper with my introductory quote.  I guess I could go back up to the library and re-rent A Cock and Bull Story, but that seems like a waste of precious energy and time.  Instead, I will forget all about that quote and quickly come up with an entirely new approach to this review.  Hmmmm.  Okay, I will share with you my four favorite quotes from the book itself (which I just happened to mark with Post-its).  Here we go:

#1 - On Digressions in Writing

Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;--they are the life, the soul of reading!--take them out of this book, for instance,--you might as well take the book along with them;--one cold eternal winter would reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer;--he steps forth like a bridegroom,--bids All-hail; brings in variety, and forbids the appetite to fail.

#2 - On Reading the Same Thing Over and Over Again...and the Results of Doing So

O! but to understand this, which is a puff at the fire of Diana's temple--you must read Longinus--read away--if you are not a jot the wiser by reading him the first time over--never fear--read him again--Avicenna and Licetus read Aristotle's metaphysicks forty times through a-piece, and never understood a single word.--But mark the consequence--Avicenna turned out a desperate writer at all kinds of writing--for he wrote books de omni scribili; and for Licetus (Fortunio) though all the world knows he was born a foetus, of no more than five inches and a half in length, yet he grew to that astonishing height in literature, as to write a book with a title as long as himself--the learned know I mean his Gonopsychanthropologia, upon the origin of the human soul.

#3 - On the World We Live In

What a jovial and a merry world would this be, may it please your worships, but for that inextricable labyrinth of debts, cares, woes, want, grief, discontent, melancholy, large jointures, impositions, and lies!

#4 - On Reading Tristram Shandy

I write a careless kind of a civil, nonsensical, good-humoured Shandean book, which will do all your hearts good--And all your heads too,--provided you understand it.

The nine volumes of Tristram Shandy were originally published between 1759 and 1767, making it the second oldest novel I've ever read (after Don Quixote).  It didn't read like an old book, though.  Sure, some of the language came off a bit archaic, but the book as a whole felt surprisingly modern.  I'm not going to lie, though.  Tristram Shandy was a difficult book to get through.  Sterne wrote and wrote and never seemed to get anywhere.  I don't think Tristram was even born until a couple hundred pages in.  Just about the entire book was made up of tangential ramblings and digressive loops.  It was a frustrating, yet ultimately rewarding book.  Reading it did my heart good...I'm not sure about my head, though.

Swann's Way--Marcel Proust

Swann's Way is the first volume in Marcel Proust's masterpiece of 20th century fiction, In Search of Lost Time (sometimes called Remembrance of Things Past).  The book is divided into three sections.  In the first, the unnamed narrator (supposedly a fictionalized version of the author himself) looks back on childhood memories spent at his grandparents' home in Combray.  In the second, he tells the story of Charles Swann's love affair with Odette de Crécy.  The final section of the book deals with the narrator's own love for Swann's daughter, Gilberte.  Simply put, Swann's Way is the most poignant, beautifully-written examination of love and memory that I've read.

I look forward to the second book, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower.  If that volume is even half as good as its title, it's going to go down as an all-time personal favorite.

Buddy's Got Three Moms: A Hate Collection--Peter Bagge

When I'm not reading post-modern masterpieces that somehow managed to be written prior to modernism, and when I'm not reading the first volumes of 3,000 page books, I like to settle back with a comic or two.

Amy sent this Hate collection to me in the mail along with the original #1 and #2 Hate comics.  I'm not sure why she thought I'd like them.  What does it say about me that she thinks I'd enjoy a series of comic books about a cynical slacker who drinks too much?  What does it say about me that I actually did enjoy them?  These Hate books were pretty funny.  It took me awhile to get used to the art which Peter Bagge admits looks like something drawn by "a retarded garage mechanic who copies out of Car-toons magazine."  Once I got over that, I was able to concentrate on the stories themselves, which were usually hilarious...and sometimes surprisingly touching.

CURRENTLY READING:

• The Book of Yoga--Christina Brown
• Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron--Daniel Clowes

I saw the Eagles perform in Boston on July 30th.  I'm not exactly sure how I ended up at the concert.  Although the Eagles once held the title of "My Favorite Band", that was a very long time ago.  I saw them on their Hell Freezes Over tour in the mid-90s and soon lost interest in them.  And yet, for reasons that are still hazy to me, I flew halfway across the country to see them perform again.  Sometimes I confuse even myself.

The show started off with four songs off the Long Road Out of Eden double album.  In case you don't keep up on all things Eagles, last year the band released its first studio album in 28 years.  It was only available at Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, and on the Eagles website, so I didn't bother buying it.  I did manage to listen to a borrowed copy all the way through, though.  It wasn't terrible, but it paled in comparison to everything the band recorded in the 70s (with the possible exception of The Long Run).  Either way, I didn't care to listen to four songs off it right at the beginning of the show.  "How Long" is a decent song, but the others weren't.  Timothy B. Schmit actually sang a song called "I Don't Want to Hear Any More".  Never before in my concert-going career has a song's title so perfectly expressed the thoughts that were going on in my head during its performance.

I've got to hand it to the Eagles, though.  They know what the audience wants to hear and--after their mini-Eden set--they let us have it.  The hits portion of the first set started off with an eerie solo trumpet that gradually transformed into "Hotel California".  I've been a fan of that song ever since the guy who lived next door to me in my freshman year dorm told me I shouldn't listen to "Hotel California" because it was a devil worshiper song and listening would cause my soul to go to Hell where it would get poked with a stick and dropped into vats of lava.  Now that's rock 'n' roll!

My favorite Eagles song, "Peaceful Easy Feeling", came next.  We also got "I Can't Tell You Why", "Witchy Woman", "Lyin' Eyes", "In the City", and "The Long Run".  Sure, Don Henley snuck his own "Boys of Summer" in there, but I didn't mind.  It was surprisingly good.

The Eagles took a brief break and then came out for their second set.  They dumped a few more Eden songs on us in the beginning.  Those songs didn't do much for me, but they certainly sounded better than what followed.  I have no idea what they were thinking, but the Eagles subjected us to the worst song in their entire recorded discography.  I'm talking about Timothy B. Schmit's "Love Will Keep Us Alive".  I know he's in the band and standing there with a bass probably gets boring after awhile, but there is absolutely no reason he should be singing that song in public.  It's an embarrassment to him and the band.  I like a romantic ballad as much as the next guy, but "Love Will Keep Us Alive" is treacle.  (The drunk woman behind me seemed to like it, though.  She sang along with the entire song.  She even knew a few of the words.)

The second set didn't really pick up until Joe Walsh took over halfway through with the James Gang classic, "Walk Away".  That's a fine song right there.  The rest of the second set was heavy on Joe Walsh.  "Life's Been Good" and "Funk #49" were highlights.         

The Eagles performed a couple two-song encore sets.  The first featured Joe Walsh's "Rocky Mountain Way" and Don Henley's "All She Wants to Do is Dance".  The latter is one of the cheesiest songs of the 80s, but it was kind of fun in a silly way.  I'm glad they didn't end on it, though.  The final encore set featured "Take it Easy" and a haunting version of "Desperado" that had Don Henley doing his best Sinatra.

Here's the setlist I wrote down during the show:

First Set: How Long/Busy Being Fabulous/I Don't Want to Hear Any More/Guilty of the Crime/trumpet intro>Hotel California/Peaceful Easy Feeling/I Can't Tell You Why/Witchy Woman/Lyin' Eyes/Boys of Summer/In the City/The Long Run

Second Set: No More Walks in the Woods/Waiting in the Weeds/No More Cloudy Days/Love Will Keep Us Alive/Take it to the Limit/Long Road Out of Eden/Somebody/Walk Away/One of These Nights/(intros)/Life's Been Good/Dirty Laundry/Funk #49/Heartache Tonight/Life in the Fast Lane

Encore Set #1: Rocky Mountain Way/All She Wants to Do is Dance

Encore Set #2: Take it Easy/Desperado

And here's a video of the band before they started wearing suits in concert:

...the Barnes & Noble at Newport-on-the-Levee (located across the river from Cincinnati, OH in Newport, KY).  Why?  Well, I went in there with my parents this evening to buy a pair of cat bookends advertised for $29.95.  When we took them up to the counter, we met with the first incompetent employee.  Her name was Devonda.  She rang the bookends up as $39.95.  We pointed out the discrepancy in the prices.  She was flabbergasted and shook her jowls at us.  She wandered around for five minutes until she found a young man named Richard who was apparently a couple rungs up the ladder management-wise.  He was also flabbergasted at the price and shook his sumo-like breasts at us.  I told him he should give us the bookends at the advertised price...regardless of the price that came up on the register.  He seemed shocked that I would even suggest such a thing.  He stammered a bit and said,

Only a manager can do that.

Well, go get a manager then.

Ten minutes later--I'm not making that up; it actually took ten minutes to find a manager--a meek little girl named Sara P. came out.  I never got to see Sara P.  By the time she came out of the backroom where she'd been hiding, I'd left the store in a huff.  The rest of the tale comes directly from my parents.  Sara P.'s best excuse was that someone must've placed the $29.95 sign next to the cat bookends because they couldn't find the proper $39.95 price tag.  She offered my parents a 10% discount off the price.  My parents refused the offer, so she went to 20%.  That was still more than the advertised price, so my parents gave up, promised never to shop at Barnes and Noble again, and left the store.  My dad claims that Sara P. was close to tears.

I was so surprised when my parents came out without the bookends.  Barnes & Noble was basically engaging in the old price bait & switch.  I can't believe their management wouldn't remedy the situation and offer the product at the advertised price.  Even if it was a mistake, it was a mistake on their part.  What ever happened to customer service and taking responsibility for the actions of your employees?

When I got the rest of the story, I went back in to have a word with Sara P.  I couldn't find her, so I just took the names of the other employees and decided to write this post. 

This isn't the first time I've had issues with this branch of Barnes & Noble.  It's the last time, though.  I hereby declare a one-man boycott of all Barnes & Noble stores.  I'm going to boycott them for 365 days...or until they send me some free cat bookends.  It's not going to be a big deal avoiding them.  I've got a far superior Joseph-Beth Booksellers right up the road.  They haven't gotten so big that they've forgotten about customer service.  I also went to the remodeled Half Price Books at Kenwood today for the first time (it reopened yesterday).  It's a beautiful store.  Joseph-Beth and Half Price Books can have my numerous book monies.  Barnes & Noble can suck itself.