by Alan Beatts
A few of us at the store were chatting about the phenomena of Steampunk recently and the conversation went in some interesting directions. Before getting into that however, I want to make something abundantly clear. When I refer to "Steampunk" I'm referring to the lifestyle or the fashion movement rather than to the sub-genre of fiction. Steampunk as fiction has been around for a much longer time than the current popular culture meme. We could argue for days about what the first steampunk novel was but both Infernal Devices by K. W. Jeter in 1987 and The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling are sure as hell steampunk novels. There was a bit of a hiatus in the 90s and early noughties but then the fiction genre came back. And it came back before the pop culture scene.
It is amusing to read comments from people who are really into the steampunk "scene" who rail against the idea that it is based in genre fiction. I've even seen some (quite upset) commentators insist that it's not fiction, it's their _lifestyle_. Which seems to me a bit self-absorbed and . . . well . . . dumb. It is as if they want to distinguish themselves from the people who dress up as Stormtroopers from Star Wars or characters from Star Trek.
To be fair, the steampunk lifestyle folks are very different from the average costumed science fiction fan. But not necessarily in a good way.
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
May 09, 2013
May 01, 2011
The Foundations of Fantasy
by Alan Beatts
I was recently chatting with a customer who was looking for suggestions for fantasy novels that he might enjoy. After a few twists and turns, the conversation got onto some of the basic ideas in the field. We determined, to my surprise and his pleasure, that he hadn't read a number of the original works that those ideas came from. Below are a few of them. I'm not suggesting that any of them are "must reads," but they are all quite good in their way. There is also a certain quality of excitement to the writing because, when they were written, the ideas were new and fresh to both the readers and the author. Something else that interests me is the way that the ideas are richer and more complex in these earlier appearances, rather than than the hyper-simplified versions that appear in the hands of later writers.
A side note for the scholars out there -- I know that some of these are not the first time that the ideas appeared. But they are the first time that the idea appeared in a modern work that was widely read and reasonably successful.
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Certainly, almost everyone who reads this newsletter has probably read it and, if not, you've almost certainly seen the movies (which are, I think, quite good). The original element here is that this was the first time that a small, diverse group of heroes ventured forth against terrible odds to defeat the Dark Lord. Granted there are many other ideas that appeared here for the first time but that quest is the thing that has probably shaped more subsequent novels than any element. If you've some time, give it another read and notice that the group of people who join together on the quest have a number of sometimes mutually incompatible motivations and agendas. They're not by any means friends or even allies at the start and, halfway through the story, the group is broken apart by internal friction, distrust and the loss of its leader. That particular element is often eliminated by other authors who are working the same idea.
The People of the Black Circle by Robert E. Howard.
I picked this novella because it's my favorite Conan the Barbarian story but almost any of the authentic Howard Conan stories will do (as opposed to the fix-up and share-cropper novels that were completed or written by other authors). Conan is the original "savage barbarian" character in fantasy fiction. But he's much more than a big, muscle-bound, unlettered, dumb sword-swinger as portrayed in the films from the 80s. During the course of his life he advances from being a simple thief to leading larger and larger groups of men until he finally reaches the pinnacle of being a general and, later, a king. He is portrayed as being both very intelligent and highly literate. The picture of the barbarian in modern fantasy tends to lack these elements but, more importantly, it lacks a fine but very important distinction present in Howard's work -- Conan is a barbarian because he disdains the trappings and rules of civilization, not because he is incapable of functioning within them.
The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft.
"Nameless elder gods" is a phrase that most people who read fantasy have run across somewhere, sometime. And The Necronomicon is possibly one of the most famous nonexistent books in the world. Lovecraft came up with both of those ideas. The Dunwich Horror (alongside The Call of Cthulhu) is both one of his best stories and gives the fullest outline of his cosmology. The idea that there are old gods (or aliens, or demons, or . . . ) that wait outside of our world and desire to return, with very bad consequences for us, pops up all over fantasy and science fiction. But one of the fine points of Lovecraft's vision is that these Elder Gods are so old, so alien, and so powerful, that human beings are completely below their notice. In Lovecraft's world, humans aren't at war with these beings any more than ants can be at war with a bulldozer. We're just in the way and will be swept aside whenever "the stars are right". Only a small handful of the characters in his fiction survive their encounter with the truth of the larger universe and most of them are driven insane by the experience. This idea of a heartless cosmos in which humanity is essentially insignificant and powerless is absent in most other fantasy. It would seem that this is with good reason; after all, who wants to read about that? But if so, then why has Lovecraft's work continued to attract readers for almost a century?
I was recently chatting with a customer who was looking for suggestions for fantasy novels that he might enjoy. After a few twists and turns, the conversation got onto some of the basic ideas in the field. We determined, to my surprise and his pleasure, that he hadn't read a number of the original works that those ideas came from. Below are a few of them. I'm not suggesting that any of them are "must reads," but they are all quite good in their way. There is also a certain quality of excitement to the writing because, when they were written, the ideas were new and fresh to both the readers and the author. Something else that interests me is the way that the ideas are richer and more complex in these earlier appearances, rather than than the hyper-simplified versions that appear in the hands of later writers.
A side note for the scholars out there -- I know that some of these are not the first time that the ideas appeared. But they are the first time that the idea appeared in a modern work that was widely read and reasonably successful.
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Certainly, almost everyone who reads this newsletter has probably read it and, if not, you've almost certainly seen the movies (which are, I think, quite good). The original element here is that this was the first time that a small, diverse group of heroes ventured forth against terrible odds to defeat the Dark Lord. Granted there are many other ideas that appeared here for the first time but that quest is the thing that has probably shaped more subsequent novels than any element. If you've some time, give it another read and notice that the group of people who join together on the quest have a number of sometimes mutually incompatible motivations and agendas. They're not by any means friends or even allies at the start and, halfway through the story, the group is broken apart by internal friction, distrust and the loss of its leader. That particular element is often eliminated by other authors who are working the same idea.
The People of the Black Circle by Robert E. Howard.
I picked this novella because it's my favorite Conan the Barbarian story but almost any of the authentic Howard Conan stories will do (as opposed to the fix-up and share-cropper novels that were completed or written by other authors). Conan is the original "savage barbarian" character in fantasy fiction. But he's much more than a big, muscle-bound, unlettered, dumb sword-swinger as portrayed in the films from the 80s. During the course of his life he advances from being a simple thief to leading larger and larger groups of men until he finally reaches the pinnacle of being a general and, later, a king. He is portrayed as being both very intelligent and highly literate. The picture of the barbarian in modern fantasy tends to lack these elements but, more importantly, it lacks a fine but very important distinction present in Howard's work -- Conan is a barbarian because he disdains the trappings and rules of civilization, not because he is incapable of functioning within them.
The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft.
"Nameless elder gods" is a phrase that most people who read fantasy have run across somewhere, sometime. And The Necronomicon is possibly one of the most famous nonexistent books in the world. Lovecraft came up with both of those ideas. The Dunwich Horror (alongside The Call of Cthulhu) is both one of his best stories and gives the fullest outline of his cosmology. The idea that there are old gods (or aliens, or demons, or . . . ) that wait outside of our world and desire to return, with very bad consequences for us, pops up all over fantasy and science fiction. But one of the fine points of Lovecraft's vision is that these Elder Gods are so old, so alien, and so powerful, that human beings are completely below their notice. In Lovecraft's world, humans aren't at war with these beings any more than ants can be at war with a bulldozer. We're just in the way and will be swept aside whenever "the stars are right". Only a small handful of the characters in his fiction survive their encounter with the truth of the larger universe and most of them are driven insane by the experience. This idea of a heartless cosmos in which humanity is essentially insignificant and powerless is absent in most other fantasy. It would seem that this is with good reason; after all, who wants to read about that? But if so, then why has Lovecraft's work continued to attract readers for almost a century?
January 01, 2011
Quite a Year
by Alan Beatts
Hi. I'm back.
It's been almost a year since I've written anything for this newsletter, which coincides with the opening of Borderlands Cafe. As I suspect many of you know, 2010 was a very busy year and one that, despite a number of nice things occurring, I'm not sad at all to see the backside of. During the year I had to cut most of the non-vital frills off of my work and personal life, in some cases with a chainsaw. One of the casualties was this monthly column. But, things are better now and, though I'm not promising to have time every month to write here, I'm going to try to do so. But I make no promises about the quality or cleverness of what I'll produce.
Speaking of 2010, some of the high points, both personally and professionally, were very nice indeed. In no particular order:
I was asked to serve on the board of the Locus Foundation (which, after the death of Locus' founder, Charles Brown, was created to continue to publish Locus Magazine as well as act as an educational organization within our field). I was pleased and flattered that they were interested in getting me involved. I'm very much looking forward to working with such a fine group of people.
Our new business, Borderlands Cafe, has been going for just over a year and is moving along very smoothly for a new business. Though not profitable yet, I have high hopes that we might turn that corner this year -- which is damn fast for a new business. Much of the credit for that goes to the phenomenal staff that work there. They are, in their own way, as hard-working and talented a group of people as the staff at the bookstore, which is high praise indeed. We've received some very nice coverage from the press, most notably a lovely mention in the travel section of the New York Times <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/travel/05SanFran.html?pagewanted=all>.
Business at the bookstore was steady throughout 2010 and we managed to beat the national average for bookstore sales for both the holiday season and the year as a whole. I'm still looking at the growing popularity of ebooks with great concern but, at least for now, we're doing fine.
One of the worst lows of last year also led to one of the highs. In the spring Ripley, Borderlands well known store cat, passed away from cancer. Losing her was extremely painful for everyone at Borderlands as well as many of our customers but it was especially agonizing for Jude and me.
After some of the shock had worn off, Jude and I noticed that Ash, our other cat, was acting a bit strangely. Since Ash had never been an only cat, we decided to get her some company in the form of Frost, the newest addition to Borderlands. Frost is also a sphinx (i.e. hairless) and is Ash's niece. She's also quite the kitten, even though she's heading well towards adulthood now. Not only has she been a great companion to Ash but having her around has made losing Ripley less acutely painful.
That's about all I have time for in terms of a sketch of last year. It was a hard one but the seeds planted then are showing all the signs of bearing a good harvest this year.
Hi. I'm back.
It's been almost a year since I've written anything for this newsletter, which coincides with the opening of Borderlands Cafe. As I suspect many of you know, 2010 was a very busy year and one that, despite a number of nice things occurring, I'm not sad at all to see the backside of. During the year I had to cut most of the non-vital frills off of my work and personal life, in some cases with a chainsaw. One of the casualties was this monthly column. But, things are better now and, though I'm not promising to have time every month to write here, I'm going to try to do so. But I make no promises about the quality or cleverness of what I'll produce.
Speaking of 2010, some of the high points, both personally and professionally, were very nice indeed. In no particular order:
I was asked to serve on the board of the Locus Foundation (which, after the death of Locus' founder, Charles Brown, was created to continue to publish Locus Magazine as well as act as an educational organization within our field). I was pleased and flattered that they were interested in getting me involved. I'm very much looking forward to working with such a fine group of people.
Our new business, Borderlands Cafe, has been going for just over a year and is moving along very smoothly for a new business. Though not profitable yet, I have high hopes that we might turn that corner this year -- which is damn fast for a new business. Much of the credit for that goes to the phenomenal staff that work there. They are, in their own way, as hard-working and talented a group of people as the staff at the bookstore, which is high praise indeed. We've received some very nice coverage from the press, most notably a lovely mention in the travel section of the New York Times <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/travel/05SanFran.html?pagewanted=all>.
Business at the bookstore was steady throughout 2010 and we managed to beat the national average for bookstore sales for both the holiday season and the year as a whole. I'm still looking at the growing popularity of ebooks with great concern but, at least for now, we're doing fine.
One of the worst lows of last year also led to one of the highs. In the spring Ripley, Borderlands well known store cat, passed away from cancer. Losing her was extremely painful for everyone at Borderlands as well as many of our customers but it was especially agonizing for Jude and me.
After some of the shock had worn off, Jude and I noticed that Ash, our other cat, was acting a bit strangely. Since Ash had never been an only cat, we decided to get her some company in the form of Frost, the newest addition to Borderlands. Frost is also a sphinx (i.e. hairless) and is Ash's niece. She's also quite the kitten, even though she's heading well towards adulthood now. Not only has she been a great companion to Ash but having her around has made losing Ripley less acutely painful.
That's about all I have time for in terms of a sketch of last year. It was a hard one but the seeds planted then are showing all the signs of bearing a good harvest this year.
March 01, 2008
A Short History of Paperback Books
by Alan Beatts
Something that I love about working in my field is being part of a history that goes back hundreds of years (actually, thousands of years -- the first booksellers were in Egypt before the common era and their original stock was copies of The Book of The Dead). Bookselling in general has been around for a very long time and is full of some of the oddest traditions, characters and incidents. But more than that, the science fiction, fantasy and horror field has been around for quite a long time as well. And it has its own odd traditions, strange history and remarkable persons.
It would be a foolish game to try to spot when science fiction, fantasy or horror first started. One can make a solid argument that science fiction started with Jules Verne in the middle of the 19th century but there are other arguments to be made. However horror has been around much longer. Varney the Vampire also dates from around the same time as Verne's work but there were ghost stories, both written and oral, many, many years earlier. And, if you're willing to call mythology the father of the fantasy novel, you can easily go all the way back to the ancient Greeks (and yes, much of those stories were religious in nature but many of them were simply entertainment with only a hint of religion).
But, there is a point where I'm pretty comfortable saying that original SF and fantasy in novel form as we know it first sent down roots in the US. And there are some remarkable people who did it.
Something that I love about working in my field is being part of a history that goes back hundreds of years (actually, thousands of years -- the first booksellers were in Egypt before the common era and their original stock was copies of The Book of The Dead). Bookselling in general has been around for a very long time and is full of some of the oddest traditions, characters and incidents. But more than that, the science fiction, fantasy and horror field has been around for quite a long time as well. And it has its own odd traditions, strange history and remarkable persons.
It would be a foolish game to try to spot when science fiction, fantasy or horror first started. One can make a solid argument that science fiction started with Jules Verne in the middle of the 19th century but there are other arguments to be made. However horror has been around much longer. Varney the Vampire also dates from around the same time as Verne's work but there were ghost stories, both written and oral, many, many years earlier. And, if you're willing to call mythology the father of the fantasy novel, you can easily go all the way back to the ancient Greeks (and yes, much of those stories were religious in nature but many of them were simply entertainment with only a hint of religion).
But, there is a point where I'm pretty comfortable saying that original SF and fantasy in novel form as we know it first sent down roots in the US. And there are some remarkable people who did it.
November 01, 2007
Origin of the Bookstore, Part the Thirteenth
For the last year, we've been doing a special feature each month about what Borderlands is and how it got that way. This is the last of the special features, showcasing stories from customers about how they discovered the store.
***********
I moved to San Francisco on November 10th, 1997 -- 3 days before my 22nd birthday, and apparently, just after Borderlands opened. I don't remember how I learned about the store, but it must have been a only few days after I arrived. I had an apartment, a small amount of money, no job, and a lot of time to wander around this new city I was already falling in love with. Somehow I found the store, and it's charming owner, and it's wonderful (if smallish, then) selection. It already felt like a great place, and I was impressed with the combination of polish and homeyness -- as much as I appreciate the "scary cave" school of used bookstores, my eyes and sinuses prefer the Borderlands approach. Alan told me to come back for the 'official' grand opening. I did. Books started their inevitable flow from Hayes Valley to the pile next to my bed (and, occasionally, the other way).
Borderlands became a regular haunt, and I proudly introduced others to it when I could -- new friends, old friends, my family when they visited, a charming & lovely woman from the east coast when she did.
***********
I moved to San Francisco on November 10th, 1997 -- 3 days before my 22nd birthday, and apparently, just after Borderlands opened. I don't remember how I learned about the store, but it must have been a only few days after I arrived. I had an apartment, a small amount of money, no job, and a lot of time to wander around this new city I was already falling in love with. Somehow I found the store, and it's charming owner, and it's wonderful (if smallish, then) selection. It already felt like a great place, and I was impressed with the combination of polish and homeyness -- as much as I appreciate the "scary cave" school of used bookstores, my eyes and sinuses prefer the Borderlands approach. Alan told me to come back for the 'official' grand opening. I did. Books started their inevitable flow from Hayes Valley to the pile next to my bed (and, occasionally, the other way).
Borderlands became a regular haunt, and I proudly introduced others to it when I could -- new friends, old friends, my family when they visited, a charming & lovely woman from the east coast when she did.
October 01, 2007
Origin of the Bookstore, Part the Twelfth - The Real Story
For the last eleven months, we've been doing a special feature each month about what Borderlands is and how it got that way. This is the last of the regular features, but we'll be doing a special, final "Origin" next month highlighting customers' stories.
by Alan Beatts
For reasons only dimly understood even now and too complex to get into here, I decided at 17 that I was best suited to some type of work that involved carrying a gun and dealing with violence. Many people might have been worried about such a choice for reasons of their safety or health but at the time I was pretty firmly convinced that I wouldn't live to see 30. I considered the military (too structured and they would make me cut my hair, which has been long for most of my life), the intelligence field (they wanted too much college and I was really sick of going to school), and several other, less respectable, options. In the end I decided to go to college and study what was called either Administration of Justice (community college) or Criminology (UC and Cal State). Through a bunch of twists and turns, I ended up doing what I planned and working all over while doing all kind of jobs -- jobs that ranged from interesting to deadly boring, safe to madly dangerous, useful to utterly pointless. I learned a great deal, met some wonderful people, and I don't regret it for an instant.
And then I hit a wall.
As I was getting better and better at what I did and taking on more and more responsibilities, an essential conflict between my job and my personality become worse and worse. I've always been a bit unconventional and politically liberal -- though my "liberalism" was only on about half the issues, on the other half I've always been "conservative" (i.e. if they want, I'd like my friends to be able to take their concealed handgun to their same-sex wedding) -- but I was in a field that is conservative to an astonishing degree. The two things didn't mix well. A case in point - I went to ridiculous lengths to conceal my real name from my drug-running, motorcycle riding, club-hopping lover of the time because I was (rightly) worried that it could make problems with my security clearance if anyone found out (by the way, my nickname from back then still sticks, to the confusion of many). Living a double life like that is a strain, even for someone who had done their share of undercover work.
And then there was the job stress. I was carrying two pagers, from two different companies, because it was so critical that I be reachable 24 hours a day. At one point, I worked for over a month without a day off. I've always been able to work pretty hard but that was too much. I was falling apart physically and emotionally.
So I quit. Completely. And radically simplified my life.
A few months later the sum total of my possessions (that weren't in long term storage) fit into one mid-sized duffle bag and two motorcycle saddle bags. I was sleeping in a different place pretty much every night and I never slept the same place three nights in a row. I didn't have a job, a mailing address, or a home. Hell, my life was so simple that I only had _one_ key. I spent most of my time in San Francisco. During the days I'd read in cafes, hang out wherever I'd spent the last night, or, if I was tired, I'd go to Golden Gate Park and take a nap. At night, I'd be at some nightclub either dancing or seeing a band. I picked up odd jobs, mostly as a roustabout in clubs. After a while I started working as a DJ and later did some nightclub promoting. Back then I drank a _lot_ and there were plenty of mornings when I'd wake up not knowing exactly where I was or how I got there. That I didn't die in a motorcycle crash can only be marked up to a long run of very good luck (near the end I did crash, but I got away easy with just a few torn muscles in my back, a DUI charge, and a busted-up motorcycle).
At the time, I knew exactly what was wrong with me -- I didn't have any idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life; there was nothing that I was striving for or even trying to accomplish (other than getting enough money to keep me in food, booze and smokes).
In retrospect I've come to believe that along with that, I also was experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It seems very strange and self-indulgent to be saying that. After all, I wasn't in a war and, though there was plenty of stress in my previous career, nothing happened to me that was a fraction as bad as what is happening daily in Iraq. But, in a large part as a result of talking with a friend who was in Vietnam and who suffered a pretty severe case of PTSD, over the past two years I've started to think that, despite there being (as it seems to me) no good reason for it, that was part of what I was experiencing back then. (As a side note, it is interesting that my friend will tell anyone who asks that _nothing_ terribly bad happened to him either.) Whether it is reasonable or justified, I see now that I had all the symptoms associated with PTSD.
Regardless of the details, my state of mind and lifestyle was not one that would have been survivable in the long term. Thankfully I got tired of the nightclub business about the same time that an old employee of mine got in touch because he was opening a motorcycle repair shop. He was a good mechanic but he knew that he wasn't well suited to run the office and customer service side of a business. So he asked me to take over that part. As he put it, "I saw how you used to deal with people when you carried a gun. If you could put up with them, you'll be able to put up with customers. And the best part is . . . no one dies if you make a mistake." For two years I managed the shop and discovered that I really loved running a small business and helping customers. But, I also discovered that I worked harder than the owner and started to resent it. Also, all the same problems were still bugging me. I didn't feel like I was doing anything with my life and I was very depressed most of the time. In fact, the depression was getting progressively worse as relations between me and the owner of the shop were going downhill.
Finally I decided that, if I was going to keep on walking around, I had to do something that I cared about. Opening my own business seemed one of the best choices -- though heading out to Prague and DJ-ing was also a strong contender. At the very least, if I owned my own business I'd have somewhere to sleep every night (after three years, homelessness was wearing on me and it didn't help with the depression). So I thought about it for a long time and decided that there was room in SF for a used bookstore that specialized in science fiction, fantasy and horror. I figured that I could run it by myself, stock it initially with my own books, and make ends meet (significantly aided by my rent-free, motorcycle-riding, Top Ramen-eating lifestyle).
Well, it didn't quite work out that way but it came close. The space was bigger than I had planned (with equally higher rent), I didn't have enough books to fill it so I bought quite a few from another bookseller who had too many, and it was very quickly obvious that I wouldn't be able to make it work with only used books so I added selected new books as well. But over all it worked out well. The space was great. My landlord never asked if I was living there and I didn't tell him.
For those of you who remember the old store at 534 Laguna Street, it was a warren of small rooms -- three total. But what most people never saw were the other three rooms. One was my office by day and at night the couch folded out, the back room concealed a relatively complete kitchen, and there was a full bath in the final room (I still miss the tub there -- it was a huge claw foot and had probably been installed when the building was built in the 19th century). I had blinds in the front windows and at the end of the day I'd close them. Well-meaning customers would always point out that I should leave them open so people could see the window displays when the shop was closed. I just used to smile and think how window shoppers would react to see me wandering around the shop in my bathrobe!
Everything went well for three years. Business grew steadily and after a year or so I was able to hire Jeremy Lassen to help out around the shop. That was a huge relief. From the day that I opened until I hired Jeremy I had worked six days a week, every week except for a few extra days off around Christmas (but it evened out -- the month before Christmas I stayed open seven days a week. I'd been working 28 days straight by the time the holiday rolled around).
Then three things happened all at the same time - my lease ran out, the dot-com boom got going, and I found out what a bastard my landlord was. See, I had a second option on my lease for another three years at the same rent. In December I told my landlord that I wanted to take the option. He said fine and I forgot about it. Then the lease ran out in April and he raised the rent. I mentioned the option and he pointed out that the lease said that I had to ask for it in writing and I had to do so before the first lease ran out. I told him that I'd talked to him about it in December. He shrugged.
I wanted to kill him. Instead I panicked and told all my friends that I was looking for a new space. And shortly thereafter my mom, bless her, found an ad for the business that was selling-out in our current location at 866 Valencia.
The saga of moving the store has been discussed elsewhere and I'll not repeat it here. One epilogue that bears mentioning though -- my old landlord did very well during the dot-com boom. At his height he owned over 20 buildings in San Francisco. But . . . so far as I've been able to find out, when the crash hit he lost everything.
I should feel bad for him but I don't.
One catch about the new location was that it really wasn't very well set up as a place to live. But I'm nothing if not flexible and (on good days) imaginative. Nowadays people sometimes comment on what a nice stock room we have. It used to be a bit more than that. In the back room at Borderlands is a closet. If you move the brooms and ladder you might notice the shower head, the fiberglass walls and the drain in the floor . . . the loft where we now store boxes of used books is almost the exact dimensions of a queen size bed . . . and a bookstore doesn't really need a two-compartment sink in the back room . . . I think you get the picture. It's been a long time since I've lived at the shop but if, years ago, you ever saw a grey shape flitting around in the back of the store late at night -- it wasn't a ghost.
I had never figured out a good way to install a toilet in the back room.
It's about time to end this tell-all account. It's ten years later and I'm not the person who opened Borderlands. I'm hardly ever depressed now and when I am, there's a reason and it passes very quickly. I don't have nightmares anymore and my drinking is very reasonable (hell, I don't have _time_ for hangovers). I wouldn't say that book-selling and Borderlands saved my life -- how could I know that? But I know that I'm happier than I've ever been in my life and I'm very, very proud of what I've been able to build with the kindness and support of my friends (Jet, Bill, Valorie, Jhene, Rain, Hannah, AC, Molly, Tia, Jeremy, Liza, Jason, Loren, Claud, Mikael, Scott, Amanda, Thorn, Cary, Lisa, Heather, Francis, Maddy, Scott, and Ben), my family (Joe, Alexandra, Darran, Steven, Jim, James, Devany and most of all, Valerie and Jude, the two pillars that hold up my world), and you -- my customers. Thank you all.
by Alan Beatts
For reasons only dimly understood even now and too complex to get into here, I decided at 17 that I was best suited to some type of work that involved carrying a gun and dealing with violence. Many people might have been worried about such a choice for reasons of their safety or health but at the time I was pretty firmly convinced that I wouldn't live to see 30. I considered the military (too structured and they would make me cut my hair, which has been long for most of my life), the intelligence field (they wanted too much college and I was really sick of going to school), and several other, less respectable, options. In the end I decided to go to college and study what was called either Administration of Justice (community college) or Criminology (UC and Cal State). Through a bunch of twists and turns, I ended up doing what I planned and working all over while doing all kind of jobs -- jobs that ranged from interesting to deadly boring, safe to madly dangerous, useful to utterly pointless. I learned a great deal, met some wonderful people, and I don't regret it for an instant.
And then I hit a wall.
As I was getting better and better at what I did and taking on more and more responsibilities, an essential conflict between my job and my personality become worse and worse. I've always been a bit unconventional and politically liberal -- though my "liberalism" was only on about half the issues, on the other half I've always been "conservative" (i.e. if they want, I'd like my friends to be able to take their concealed handgun to their same-sex wedding) -- but I was in a field that is conservative to an astonishing degree. The two things didn't mix well. A case in point - I went to ridiculous lengths to conceal my real name from my drug-running, motorcycle riding, club-hopping lover of the time because I was (rightly) worried that it could make problems with my security clearance if anyone found out (by the way, my nickname from back then still sticks, to the confusion of many). Living a double life like that is a strain, even for someone who had done their share of undercover work.
And then there was the job stress. I was carrying two pagers, from two different companies, because it was so critical that I be reachable 24 hours a day. At one point, I worked for over a month without a day off. I've always been able to work pretty hard but that was too much. I was falling apart physically and emotionally.
So I quit. Completely. And radically simplified my life.
A few months later the sum total of my possessions (that weren't in long term storage) fit into one mid-sized duffle bag and two motorcycle saddle bags. I was sleeping in a different place pretty much every night and I never slept the same place three nights in a row. I didn't have a job, a mailing address, or a home. Hell, my life was so simple that I only had _one_ key. I spent most of my time in San Francisco. During the days I'd read in cafes, hang out wherever I'd spent the last night, or, if I was tired, I'd go to Golden Gate Park and take a nap. At night, I'd be at some nightclub either dancing or seeing a band. I picked up odd jobs, mostly as a roustabout in clubs. After a while I started working as a DJ and later did some nightclub promoting. Back then I drank a _lot_ and there were plenty of mornings when I'd wake up not knowing exactly where I was or how I got there. That I didn't die in a motorcycle crash can only be marked up to a long run of very good luck (near the end I did crash, but I got away easy with just a few torn muscles in my back, a DUI charge, and a busted-up motorcycle).
At the time, I knew exactly what was wrong with me -- I didn't have any idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life; there was nothing that I was striving for or even trying to accomplish (other than getting enough money to keep me in food, booze and smokes).
In retrospect I've come to believe that along with that, I also was experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It seems very strange and self-indulgent to be saying that. After all, I wasn't in a war and, though there was plenty of stress in my previous career, nothing happened to me that was a fraction as bad as what is happening daily in Iraq. But, in a large part as a result of talking with a friend who was in Vietnam and who suffered a pretty severe case of PTSD, over the past two years I've started to think that, despite there being (as it seems to me) no good reason for it, that was part of what I was experiencing back then. (As a side note, it is interesting that my friend will tell anyone who asks that _nothing_ terribly bad happened to him either.) Whether it is reasonable or justified, I see now that I had all the symptoms associated with PTSD.
Regardless of the details, my state of mind and lifestyle was not one that would have been survivable in the long term. Thankfully I got tired of the nightclub business about the same time that an old employee of mine got in touch because he was opening a motorcycle repair shop. He was a good mechanic but he knew that he wasn't well suited to run the office and customer service side of a business. So he asked me to take over that part. As he put it, "I saw how you used to deal with people when you carried a gun. If you could put up with them, you'll be able to put up with customers. And the best part is . . . no one dies if you make a mistake." For two years I managed the shop and discovered that I really loved running a small business and helping customers. But, I also discovered that I worked harder than the owner and started to resent it. Also, all the same problems were still bugging me. I didn't feel like I was doing anything with my life and I was very depressed most of the time. In fact, the depression was getting progressively worse as relations between me and the owner of the shop were going downhill.
Finally I decided that, if I was going to keep on walking around, I had to do something that I cared about. Opening my own business seemed one of the best choices -- though heading out to Prague and DJ-ing was also a strong contender. At the very least, if I owned my own business I'd have somewhere to sleep every night (after three years, homelessness was wearing on me and it didn't help with the depression). So I thought about it for a long time and decided that there was room in SF for a used bookstore that specialized in science fiction, fantasy and horror. I figured that I could run it by myself, stock it initially with my own books, and make ends meet (significantly aided by my rent-free, motorcycle-riding, Top Ramen-eating lifestyle).
Well, it didn't quite work out that way but it came close. The space was bigger than I had planned (with equally higher rent), I didn't have enough books to fill it so I bought quite a few from another bookseller who had too many, and it was very quickly obvious that I wouldn't be able to make it work with only used books so I added selected new books as well. But over all it worked out well. The space was great. My landlord never asked if I was living there and I didn't tell him.
For those of you who remember the old store at 534 Laguna Street, it was a warren of small rooms -- three total. But what most people never saw were the other three rooms. One was my office by day and at night the couch folded out, the back room concealed a relatively complete kitchen, and there was a full bath in the final room (I still miss the tub there -- it was a huge claw foot and had probably been installed when the building was built in the 19th century). I had blinds in the front windows and at the end of the day I'd close them. Well-meaning customers would always point out that I should leave them open so people could see the window displays when the shop was closed. I just used to smile and think how window shoppers would react to see me wandering around the shop in my bathrobe!
Everything went well for three years. Business grew steadily and after a year or so I was able to hire Jeremy Lassen to help out around the shop. That was a huge relief. From the day that I opened until I hired Jeremy I had worked six days a week, every week except for a few extra days off around Christmas (but it evened out -- the month before Christmas I stayed open seven days a week. I'd been working 28 days straight by the time the holiday rolled around).
Then three things happened all at the same time - my lease ran out, the dot-com boom got going, and I found out what a bastard my landlord was. See, I had a second option on my lease for another three years at the same rent. In December I told my landlord that I wanted to take the option. He said fine and I forgot about it. Then the lease ran out in April and he raised the rent. I mentioned the option and he pointed out that the lease said that I had to ask for it in writing and I had to do so before the first lease ran out. I told him that I'd talked to him about it in December. He shrugged.
I wanted to kill him. Instead I panicked and told all my friends that I was looking for a new space. And shortly thereafter my mom, bless her, found an ad for the business that was selling-out in our current location at 866 Valencia.
The saga of moving the store has been discussed elsewhere and I'll not repeat it here. One epilogue that bears mentioning though -- my old landlord did very well during the dot-com boom. At his height he owned over 20 buildings in San Francisco. But . . . so far as I've been able to find out, when the crash hit he lost everything.
I should feel bad for him but I don't.
One catch about the new location was that it really wasn't very well set up as a place to live. But I'm nothing if not flexible and (on good days) imaginative. Nowadays people sometimes comment on what a nice stock room we have. It used to be a bit more than that. In the back room at Borderlands is a closet. If you move the brooms and ladder you might notice the shower head, the fiberglass walls and the drain in the floor . . . the loft where we now store boxes of used books is almost the exact dimensions of a queen size bed . . . and a bookstore doesn't really need a two-compartment sink in the back room . . . I think you get the picture. It's been a long time since I've lived at the shop but if, years ago, you ever saw a grey shape flitting around in the back of the store late at night -- it wasn't a ghost.
I had never figured out a good way to install a toilet in the back room.
It's about time to end this tell-all account. It's ten years later and I'm not the person who opened Borderlands. I'm hardly ever depressed now and when I am, there's a reason and it passes very quickly. I don't have nightmares anymore and my drinking is very reasonable (hell, I don't have _time_ for hangovers). I wouldn't say that book-selling and Borderlands saved my life -- how could I know that? But I know that I'm happier than I've ever been in my life and I'm very, very proud of what I've been able to build with the kindness and support of my friends (Jet, Bill, Valorie, Jhene, Rain, Hannah, AC, Molly, Tia, Jeremy, Liza, Jason, Loren, Claud, Mikael, Scott, Amanda, Thorn, Cary, Lisa, Heather, Francis, Maddy, Scott, and Ben), my family (Joe, Alexandra, Darran, Steven, Jim, James, Devany and most of all, Valerie and Jude, the two pillars that hold up my world), and you -- my customers. Thank you all.
September 01, 2007
Origin of the Bookstore, Part the Eleventh - Moving Books
For the next two months we'll be doing a special feature each month in honor of Borderlands' upcoming 10th Anniversary (November 3rd, 2007). We'll share some stories about what Borderlands is and how it got that way.
by Alan Beatts
Anyone who collects books or who is an avid reader knows what a pain moving books can be. But to really appreciate how bad it can get you have to work at a bookstore (or, gods help you, own one). As I write this, Borderlands has a total of 18,937 books in the store. When we moved here from our old location, we only had about half that number. All of which had to be boxed up in alphabetical order and moved over to the current location. We were clever (at least a little bit) and found boxes that were exactly the right size to fit three long rows of mass-market paperbacks (those are the small paperbacks) stacked one deep. At least that meant that the books would stay in order as they were moved. Then it was just a matter of packing them up. And packing them up. And packing them up.
I was busy working on getting the new location into shape and most of the rest of the staff were either working their other jobs or helping me at the new location, so Claud Reich packed almost all the paperbacks by himself. When I left the bookstore that morning, there was a pile of broken down boxes in the middle of the store about five feet high. By the time I got back there in the evening, there were three or four piles of boxes in stacks higher than Claud's head (and he's not a short guy -- taller than my six feet, in fact). When you think of regular moving boxes, that doesn't seem very high, but remember, these boxes were only 4" high. That is a lot of boxes. And then there were all the boxes of hardcovers and trade paperbacks.
by Alan Beatts
Anyone who collects books or who is an avid reader knows what a pain moving books can be. But to really appreciate how bad it can get you have to work at a bookstore (or, gods help you, own one). As I write this, Borderlands has a total of 18,937 books in the store. When we moved here from our old location, we only had about half that number. All of which had to be boxed up in alphabetical order and moved over to the current location. We were clever (at least a little bit) and found boxes that were exactly the right size to fit three long rows of mass-market paperbacks (those are the small paperbacks) stacked one deep. At least that meant that the books would stay in order as they were moved. Then it was just a matter of packing them up. And packing them up. And packing them up.
I was busy working on getting the new location into shape and most of the rest of the staff were either working their other jobs or helping me at the new location, so Claud Reich packed almost all the paperbacks by himself. When I left the bookstore that morning, there was a pile of broken down boxes in the middle of the store about five feet high. By the time I got back there in the evening, there were three or four piles of boxes in stacks higher than Claud's head (and he's not a short guy -- taller than my six feet, in fact). When you think of regular moving boxes, that doesn't seem very high, but remember, these boxes were only 4" high. That is a lot of boxes. And then there were all the boxes of hardcovers and trade paperbacks.
August 01, 2007
Origin of the Bookstore, Part the Tenth - Second-Hand Things
For the next three months we'll be doing a special feature each month in honor of Borderlands' upcoming 10th Anniversary (November 3rd, 2007). We'll share some stories about what Borderlands is and how it got that way.
by Alan Beatts
Much of the furniture and equipment at Borderlands has a curious and checkered past. Almost everything in the store that wasn't purpose-built by me (often with the very patient help of staff and friends) was either A) bought used, B) a hand-me-down, C) a gift or D) scrounged in some other fashion. Here's a little list of some of the notable and interesting items -
The glass cases behind the counter were bought from the science department at the College of San Mateo where they were used as microscope cases 'till I got a hold of them. The cabinets on the back counter came from the same place where they were used for chemical storage (and my, weren't they fun to clean!). The display case at the front counter displayed cigars and fine liquor in a shop in Noe Valley. The laser printer at the counter came from the motorcycle shop I used to manage -- applause to Hewlett Packard since it's eleven years old and still going strong.
The two (large, stuffed) cockroach puppets that decorate the cash register came from Community Thrift courtesy of long-time store volunteer Mikael. They are Saints Gulik, messengers of the Discordian goddess Eris, of whom several prominent store employees are adherents. If that last sentence looked like gibberish to you, read THE PRINCIPIA DISCORDIA, conveniently for sale at Borderlands, or click here: <http://jubal.westnet.com/hyperdiscordia/saint_gulik.html>
The light colored bookshelves near the front door were hand-me-downs from my brother when he and his family moved to Japan. The tall one came from his office and the two shorter ones were my niece and nephew's first real bookshelves. I bought the display case in front of the office window from my friend Kelleigh, who was the owner of the Ebb-Tide cafe. She bought it used herself but it never worked in her shop (it was meant to be a pastry case).
Most of the rugs throughout the store have been in my family for generations (my parents and my maternal grandparents were all very fond of Oriental rugs). I remember crawling around on them as a child and tracing the patterns with my finger. The blue rug in the office was a gift from a longtime customer, Guy Johnson. The couch at the rear of the shop (and its larger mate in the back room) were bought via a classified ad in the SF Weekly three days before the store opened in Hayes Valley. I was in a panic because I concluded that there weren't enough places to sit, so I rushed out and bought those couches. I think I spent $75 on the both of them. I still remember the expression on my mother's face when I brought them to the store, where she was helping shelve books. I said, "Look! I got 'em for 75 bucks."
And she said, "Really . . . ." while her expression said, "Holy Christ! What the hell were you thinking?"
I have to admit that they are the least attractive pieces of furniture in the shop but they've grown on me over the past ten years. The cats, like several generations of unknown cats before them, occasionally use them as scratching posts. The chairs at the back of the shop, as well as the sideboard (and the oak file cabinets in the office) all came from Cottrell's Moving and Storage. Now closed, Cottrell's was on Valencia near Duboce and it was _the_ place to get decent furniture for cheap. If people didn't pay their storage bill for too long, their furniture ended up for sale. Based on the age of some of the furniture, Cottrell's had been in the storage business for a long, long time.
In the office, my desk is an old WWII vintage receptionist's desk that my mother bought used and then gave to me when I was in high school. Jude's desk was the one good desk that was left here by the owner of Captain Jacks when I bought him out, prior to moving to the current location.
All the computers and associated bits were either hand-me-downs from my brother, Joe (it's nice to have a computer programer in the family) or were bought used from various sources, notably the nice folks at PowerMax <http://www.powermax.com> or my friend and computer consultant par excellence, Bill Melcher.
by Alan Beatts
Much of the furniture and equipment at Borderlands has a curious and checkered past. Almost everything in the store that wasn't purpose-built by me (often with the very patient help of staff and friends) was either A) bought used, B) a hand-me-down, C) a gift or D) scrounged in some other fashion. Here's a little list of some of the notable and interesting items -
The glass cases behind the counter were bought from the science department at the College of San Mateo where they were used as microscope cases 'till I got a hold of them. The cabinets on the back counter came from the same place where they were used for chemical storage (and my, weren't they fun to clean!). The display case at the front counter displayed cigars and fine liquor in a shop in Noe Valley. The laser printer at the counter came from the motorcycle shop I used to manage -- applause to Hewlett Packard since it's eleven years old and still going strong.
The two (large, stuffed) cockroach puppets that decorate the cash register came from Community Thrift courtesy of long-time store volunteer Mikael. They are Saints Gulik, messengers of the Discordian goddess Eris, of whom several prominent store employees are adherents. If that last sentence looked like gibberish to you, read THE PRINCIPIA DISCORDIA, conveniently for sale at Borderlands, or click here: <http://jubal.westnet.com/hyperdiscordia/saint_gulik.html>
The light colored bookshelves near the front door were hand-me-downs from my brother when he and his family moved to Japan. The tall one came from his office and the two shorter ones were my niece and nephew's first real bookshelves. I bought the display case in front of the office window from my friend Kelleigh, who was the owner of the Ebb-Tide cafe. She bought it used herself but it never worked in her shop (it was meant to be a pastry case).
Most of the rugs throughout the store have been in my family for generations (my parents and my maternal grandparents were all very fond of Oriental rugs). I remember crawling around on them as a child and tracing the patterns with my finger. The blue rug in the office was a gift from a longtime customer, Guy Johnson. The couch at the rear of the shop (and its larger mate in the back room) were bought via a classified ad in the SF Weekly three days before the store opened in Hayes Valley. I was in a panic because I concluded that there weren't enough places to sit, so I rushed out and bought those couches. I think I spent $75 on the both of them. I still remember the expression on my mother's face when I brought them to the store, where she was helping shelve books. I said, "Look! I got 'em for 75 bucks."
And she said, "Really . . . ." while her expression said, "Holy Christ! What the hell were you thinking?"
I have to admit that they are the least attractive pieces of furniture in the shop but they've grown on me over the past ten years. The cats, like several generations of unknown cats before them, occasionally use them as scratching posts. The chairs at the back of the shop, as well as the sideboard (and the oak file cabinets in the office) all came from Cottrell's Moving and Storage. Now closed, Cottrell's was on Valencia near Duboce and it was _the_ place to get decent furniture for cheap. If people didn't pay their storage bill for too long, their furniture ended up for sale. Based on the age of some of the furniture, Cottrell's had been in the storage business for a long, long time.
In the office, my desk is an old WWII vintage receptionist's desk that my mother bought used and then gave to me when I was in high school. Jude's desk was the one good desk that was left here by the owner of Captain Jacks when I bought him out, prior to moving to the current location.
All the computers and associated bits were either hand-me-downs from my brother, Joe (it's nice to have a computer programer in the family) or were bought used from various sources, notably the nice folks at PowerMax <http://www.powermax.com> or my friend and computer consultant par excellence, Bill Melcher.
July 01, 2007
Origin of the Bookstore, Part the Ninth - Sidelines
For the next four months we'll be doing a special feature each month in honor of Borderlands' upcoming 10th Anniversary (November 3rd, 2007). We'll share some stories about what Borderlands is and how it got that way.
by Jude Feldman
"How hard can it be to find a stupid bike messenger bag?!" I threw up my hands in frustration. I'd been looking for days; sending out email queries, flipping through catalogs, staring at low-resolution pictures on-line until my eyes stung and my contact lenses felt glued in place. I felt like the Goldilocks of bike-messenger-bag seekers, except that there was no sign of the "Just Right" one yet, and there seemed to be about 48,000 bears' beds to choose from. This bag was too large, and that one too small. This one was made of cheap nylon and looked flimsy, that one appeared to be made of Kevlar and, if the cost was any indication, it darn well better have stopped bullets, too. That type would be great, except it only came in an eye-offending orange or Army green, and all 53 of those looked too much like computer bags. And I still had to find pens, and pint glasses, and coffee mugs and stickers.
Welcome to the wonderful world of sidelines. What's a sideline, anyway? Other than someplace in sports where you sit when you're not in the game? A sideline, in retail-speak, is a line of products that you sell in your store that is outside your main purview. So Borderlands carries a handful of sidelines; essentially everything in the store that isn't a book.
So that covers greeting cards and Ripley postcards, our cool wooden boxes, all the dragon and skull tchotchke, blank books, jewelry, art prints, sculptures and our Borderlands branded gak. Before starting my career in retail lo these many years ago, it never occurred to me to wonder where stores bought their stuff. I never would have suspected that there were such things as "Gift Fairs," or that they could possibly fill the whole of Moscone Center. (Google "San Francisco International Gift Fair" if you're interested.) I just knew that Alan wanted the sideline items that Borderlands carries to fit with the feel and personality of the store. Some of those items were no-brainers. Cary and I both have a weakness for beautiful boxes, so those were easy, and we ended up with Ripley postcards by customer request. Most of the other stuff we'd seen and admired elsewhere, and it fit right in to the store.
by Jude Feldman
"How hard can it be to find a stupid bike messenger bag?!" I threw up my hands in frustration. I'd been looking for days; sending out email queries, flipping through catalogs, staring at low-resolution pictures on-line until my eyes stung and my contact lenses felt glued in place. I felt like the Goldilocks of bike-messenger-bag seekers, except that there was no sign of the "Just Right" one yet, and there seemed to be about 48,000 bears' beds to choose from. This bag was too large, and that one too small. This one was made of cheap nylon and looked flimsy, that one appeared to be made of Kevlar and, if the cost was any indication, it darn well better have stopped bullets, too. That type would be great, except it only came in an eye-offending orange or Army green, and all 53 of those looked too much like computer bags. And I still had to find pens, and pint glasses, and coffee mugs and stickers.
Welcome to the wonderful world of sidelines. What's a sideline, anyway? Other than someplace in sports where you sit when you're not in the game? A sideline, in retail-speak, is a line of products that you sell in your store that is outside your main purview. So Borderlands carries a handful of sidelines; essentially everything in the store that isn't a book.
So that covers greeting cards and Ripley postcards, our cool wooden boxes, all the dragon and skull tchotchke, blank books, jewelry, art prints, sculptures and our Borderlands branded gak. Before starting my career in retail lo these many years ago, it never occurred to me to wonder where stores bought their stuff. I never would have suspected that there were such things as "Gift Fairs," or that they could possibly fill the whole of Moscone Center. (Google "San Francisco International Gift Fair" if you're interested.) I just knew that Alan wanted the sideline items that Borderlands carries to fit with the feel and personality of the store. Some of those items were no-brainers. Cary and I both have a weakness for beautiful boxes, so those were easy, and we ended up with Ripley postcards by customer request. Most of the other stuff we'd seen and admired elsewhere, and it fit right in to the store.
June 01, 2007
Origin of the Bookstore, Part the Eighth - Inventory
For the next five months we'll be doing a special feature each month in honor of Borderlands' upcoming 10th Anniversary (November 3rd, 2007). We'll share some stories about what Borderlands is and how it got that way.
Being obsessive-compulsive and reasonably technically apt has its upsides and its downsides. Both sides were demonstrated during the first inventory at Borderlands.
When I decided to open the shop, one important part of my business plan was to sell books online. Today, that's a pretty simple matter but at that time it was not. In November of 1997, I had no idea how I was going to sell books online but I did know one thing -- if I was going to, I'd need an accurate database of all the books in the store.
So, in what was going to become my typical dammit-I'll-just-learn-it-myself business model, I decided to brush up on a program called FileMaker (which I had used years previously for databases in, it makes me blush to admit, . . . role-playing games) and set up an inventory myself. It was easy to do, after all, what do you need to keep track of with books? Title, author's name, cover price, selling price, cost, and that should do it. Right? Oh yeah, I figured that I'd better add the date it was published and if it's a first printing, since I guessed that there were some people who cared about that. And, there was this ten digit number on a lot of these books, so I added that too. But beyond that, what else should I need?
(Ten years later: No, that's not quite enough. At this point there are over 50 separate pieces of data we keep about used books. And more than that for new books.)
by Alan Beatts
Being obsessive-compulsive and reasonably technically apt has its upsides and its downsides. Both sides were demonstrated during the first inventory at Borderlands.
When I decided to open the shop, one important part of my business plan was to sell books online. Today, that's a pretty simple matter but at that time it was not. In November of 1997, I had no idea how I was going to sell books online but I did know one thing -- if I was going to, I'd need an accurate database of all the books in the store.
So, in what was going to become my typical dammit-I'll-just-learn-it-myself business model, I decided to brush up on a program called FileMaker (which I had used years previously for databases in, it makes me blush to admit, . . . role-playing games) and set up an inventory myself. It was easy to do, after all, what do you need to keep track of with books? Title, author's name, cover price, selling price, cost, and that should do it. Right? Oh yeah, I figured that I'd better add the date it was published and if it's a first printing, since I guessed that there were some people who cared about that. And, there was this ten digit number on a lot of these books, so I added that too. But beyond that, what else should I need?
(Ten years later: No, that's not quite enough. At this point there are over 50 separate pieces of data we keep about used books. And more than that for new books.)
May 01, 2007
Origin of the Bookstore, Part the Seventh - 10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Borderlands Books
For the next six months we'll be doing a special feature each month in honor of Borderlands' upcoming 10th Anniversary (November 3rd, 2007). We'll share some stories about what Borderlands is and how it got that way.
The origin of the store piece this month is shorter than usual, because I've been so terribly busy building ornate little castles with my writer's blocks!
10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Borderlands Books:
1. Borderlands has a dress code, and it consists of a single rule. You can email office@borderlands-books.com if you want to know what the rule is.
2. The combined age of all six Borderlands employees is 226, and between us we have approximately 43 years of book selling experience, 21 piercings and 14 tattoos.
3. The Borderlands staff includes people who have been: a nightclub DJ, a go-go dancer, a bike messenger, a high school teacher, an accountant, a beef-jerky salesperson, a microelectronics assembly engineer, an Emergency Medical Technician, a Dead-Head, a floppy-disk assembly line operator, an Information Technology professional, a stage manager, voice-over/television/movie actors (2), and hotel maids (2).
4. There are currently 1,177 books in the store that cost $1.75 or less.
5. Ripley has been filmed for 2 documentaries, 1 independent film and a cable-access show.
6. The store backs up to the Mission Playground, and an average of once a day someone on the staff has to toss a soccer ball back over the 18 foot high fence.
7. More than half the staff have been homeless at some point in their lives, and more than half the staff have worked at higher-education institutions.
8. In three years, Borderlands has donated over 4000 books to the guests at Martin de Poores House of Hospitality, a free restaurant that serves meals to those in need. You can find out more about the good work that Martin's is doing here: <http://www.martindeporres.org/>.
9. Borderlands does an average of 50 in-store author events a year.
10. We have had author and/or artist guests in the store who: accidentally broke chairs, smoked marijuana before their readings, left what they were going to read at home and had to improvise, praised the store for "not having s**t all over it," incorporated employees into their novels or artwork, drew Ripley with Ren and Stimpy, and had such a good time they promised they'd be back "until forcibly prevented".
by Jude Feldman
The origin of the store piece this month is shorter than usual, because I've been so terribly busy building ornate little castles with my writer's blocks!
10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Borderlands Books:
1. Borderlands has a dress code, and it consists of a single rule. You can email office@borderlands-books.com if you want to know what the rule is.
2. The combined age of all six Borderlands employees is 226, and between us we have approximately 43 years of book selling experience, 21 piercings and 14 tattoos.
3. The Borderlands staff includes people who have been: a nightclub DJ, a go-go dancer, a bike messenger, a high school teacher, an accountant, a beef-jerky salesperson, a microelectronics assembly engineer, an Emergency Medical Technician, a Dead-Head, a floppy-disk assembly line operator, an Information Technology professional, a stage manager, voice-over/television/movie actors (2), and hotel maids (2).
4. There are currently 1,177 books in the store that cost $1.75 or less.
5. Ripley has been filmed for 2 documentaries, 1 independent film and a cable-access show.
6. The store backs up to the Mission Playground, and an average of once a day someone on the staff has to toss a soccer ball back over the 18 foot high fence.
7. More than half the staff have been homeless at some point in their lives, and more than half the staff have worked at higher-education institutions.
8. In three years, Borderlands has donated over 4000 books to the guests at Martin de Poores House of Hospitality, a free restaurant that serves meals to those in need. You can find out more about the good work that Martin's is doing here: <http://www.martindeporres.org/>.
9. Borderlands does an average of 50 in-store author events a year.
10. We have had author and/or artist guests in the store who: accidentally broke chairs, smoked marijuana before their readings, left what they were going to read at home and had to improvise, praised the store for "not having s**t all over it," incorporated employees into their novels or artwork, drew Ripley with Ren and Stimpy, and had such a good time they promised they'd be back "until forcibly prevented".
April 01, 2007
Origin of the Bookstore, Part the Sixth - Off-Site Bookselling, or "Are You a Band?"
For the next seven months we'll be doing a special feature each month in honor of Borderlands' upcoming 10th Anniversary (November 3rd, 2007). We'll share some stories about what Borderlands is and how it got that way.
by Jude Feldman
Borderlands has done (and continues to do) many off-site events, including our well-loved Movie Nights at the Variety Preview Room, the Sonoma County Book Fair in Santa Rosa, and the World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow two years ago, just to name a few. This installment of "Origin" focuses on a few aspects of what it is like to create a miniature version of the store, someplace else entirely.
When the staff travels to a convention or other off-site event that involves airplane transport, we frequently pack the books that we will be selling in large gray trunks. Think of a heavy-duty plastic version of a surplus Army trunk and you've got the idea. Years and years ago, Alan painstakingly modified these trunks with foam and cardboard padding, to make anything packed inside one neigh on indestructible, even in the hands of baggage handlers. An amusing side effect of traveling with these "road cases" is that the traveling staff is continually and repeatedly mistaken for a band. In airports from Seattle to Wisconsin to Kansas City, perfect strangers have approached us and asked "What band are you in?!" Several of these people flatly refused to believe that we were booksellers, and what a surreal situation that was: Them: "C'mon, just tell me!" Us: "We're actually booksellers. There are books in these trunks." Them: "No, seriously -- I won't tell anyone if you want it kept secret! What is the name of the band?" Us: "No, really, we run a bookstore! None of us plays an instrument at all." Them: "Aw, I wouldn'ta told anyone. You SUCK!" Us: <helpless shrugs>.
by Jude Feldman
Borderlands has done (and continues to do) many off-site events, including our well-loved Movie Nights at the Variety Preview Room, the Sonoma County Book Fair in Santa Rosa, and the World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow two years ago, just to name a few. This installment of "Origin" focuses on a few aspects of what it is like to create a miniature version of the store, someplace else entirely.
When the staff travels to a convention or other off-site event that involves airplane transport, we frequently pack the books that we will be selling in large gray trunks. Think of a heavy-duty plastic version of a surplus Army trunk and you've got the idea. Years and years ago, Alan painstakingly modified these trunks with foam and cardboard padding, to make anything packed inside one neigh on indestructible, even in the hands of baggage handlers. An amusing side effect of traveling with these "road cases" is that the traveling staff is continually and repeatedly mistaken for a band. In airports from Seattle to Wisconsin to Kansas City, perfect strangers have approached us and asked "What band are you in?!" Several of these people flatly refused to believe that we were booksellers, and what a surreal situation that was: Them: "C'mon, just tell me!" Us: "We're actually booksellers. There are books in these trunks." Them: "No, seriously -- I won't tell anyone if you want it kept secret! What is the name of the band?" Us: "No, really, we run a bookstore! None of us plays an instrument at all." Them: "Aw, I wouldn'ta told anyone. You SUCK!" Us: <helpless shrugs>.
March 01, 2007
Origin of the Bookstore, Part the Fifth - The Decor, or "Is this a library or do you sell books?"
For the next eight months we'll be doing a special feature each month in honor of Borderlands' upcoming 10th Anniversary (November 3rd, 2007). We'll share some stories about what Borderlands is and how it got that way.
by Alan Beatts
People frequently comment on how nice Borderlands looks. Sometimes they seem a little surprised that the shop looks so good and their surprise often seems to be strangely amplified when they consider our specialty. It was probably best put by Terry Pratchett the first time he visited. He walked in, looked around and declared, "This can't be a Science Fiction shop, it hasn't sh*t all over the floor!"
Though I don't agree with Mr. Pratchett's assessment of Science Fiction shops in general, I do think Borderlands looks good. I'll even go so far as to say it looks better to me than most bookstores. But however nice it looks, the paint scheme, wooden fixtures and floors, oriental carpets, and "old fashioned" touches (like the lock on the bathroom door -- which I think is doing very well for its age, despite the occasional customer who worries about getting trapped in there. What's so complicated about "wiggle the key in, turn counter clockwise to unlock, now turn knob clockwise to open"? I should be so lucky as to be doing that well when I'm 100 years old!) Ummm, what was I saying? Right . . . .
by Alan Beatts
People frequently comment on how nice Borderlands looks. Sometimes they seem a little surprised that the shop looks so good and their surprise often seems to be strangely amplified when they consider our specialty. It was probably best put by Terry Pratchett the first time he visited. He walked in, looked around and declared, "This can't be a Science Fiction shop, it hasn't sh*t all over the floor!"
Though I don't agree with Mr. Pratchett's assessment of Science Fiction shops in general, I do think Borderlands looks good. I'll even go so far as to say it looks better to me than most bookstores. But however nice it looks, the paint scheme, wooden fixtures and floors, oriental carpets, and "old fashioned" touches (like the lock on the bathroom door -- which I think is doing very well for its age, despite the occasional customer who worries about getting trapped in there. What's so complicated about "wiggle the key in, turn counter clockwise to unlock, now turn knob clockwise to open"? I should be so lucky as to be doing that well when I'm 100 years old!) Ummm, what was I saying? Right . . . .
February 01, 2007
Origin of the Bookstore, Part the Fourth - The Leak of the Week Pool
For the next nine months we'll be doing a special feature each month in honor of Borderlands' upcoming 10th Anniversary (November 3rd, 2007). We'll share some stories about what Borderlands is and how it got that way.
by Jude Feldman
As many of you know, Borderlands is housed in an old building. In fact, the building at 866 Valencia turns 100 this year. We like old buildings; their charms and quirks, their character and temperament. Something that we don't like quite as much, though, is their tendency to leak.
After fire and censorship, water is the third greatest danger to books. So when it comes pouring out of the ceiling unexpectedly, you get some pretty frantic booksellers, and for a while we were pretty frantic all the time. The store leaked when it rained, when the wet leaves on the roof above the skylight became too sodden and heavy, when the plumbing in various parts of the apartments upstairs developed problems, and sometimes for no discernible reason at all. The following are three selected episodes from the period in which the Borderlands employees enacted what we called "The Leak of the Week Pool," an unofficial betting pool where we wagered on what part of the store would leak next.
by Jude Feldman
As many of you know, Borderlands is housed in an old building. In fact, the building at 866 Valencia turns 100 this year. We like old buildings; their charms and quirks, their character and temperament. Something that we don't like quite as much, though, is their tendency to leak.
After fire and censorship, water is the third greatest danger to books. So when it comes pouring out of the ceiling unexpectedly, you get some pretty frantic booksellers, and for a while we were pretty frantic all the time. The store leaked when it rained, when the wet leaves on the roof above the skylight became too sodden and heavy, when the plumbing in various parts of the apartments upstairs developed problems, and sometimes for no discernible reason at all. The following are three selected episodes from the period in which the Borderlands employees enacted what we called "The Leak of the Week Pool," an unofficial betting pool where we wagered on what part of the store would leak next.
January 01, 2007
Origin of the Bookstore, Part the Third - Ripley
For the next ten months we'll be doing a special feature each month in honor of Borderlands' upcoming 10th Anniversary (November 3rd, 2007). We'll share some stories about what Borderlands is and how it got that way.
by Jude Feldman
Possibly San Francisco's most famous cat, Ripley joined the Borderlands family in December of 2002. She was a gangly six month old Sphynx catling, selected for her winning personality, semi-hypo-allergenic-ness, and complete and utter lack of "show-cat" cred. Almost everyone knows Ripley, but few know the story of how Alan and I managed to misplace her on her very first night in the bookstore.
Flashback to that misty December eve not so long ago. Alan and I had driven out to fetch Ripley from the East Bay after spending the afternoon shopping for cat food bowls, litter, litter box, small feathered doo-dads, and all the other assorted stuff that you don't realize you need until you decide to get a cat.
by Jude Feldman
Possibly San Francisco's most famous cat, Ripley joined the Borderlands family in December of 2002. She was a gangly six month old Sphynx catling, selected for her winning personality, semi-hypo-allergenic-ness, and complete and utter lack of "show-cat" cred. Almost everyone knows Ripley, but few know the story of how Alan and I managed to misplace her on her very first night in the bookstore.
Flashback to that misty December eve not so long ago. Alan and I had driven out to fetch Ripley from the East Bay after spending the afternoon shopping for cat food bowls, litter, litter box, small feathered doo-dads, and all the other assorted stuff that you don't realize you need until you decide to get a cat.
December 01, 2006
Origin of the Bookstore, Part the Second - The Tale of Minwax Golden Oak and Diamond Finish
For the next eleven months we'll be doing a special feature each month in honor of Borderlands' upcoming 10th Anniversary (November 3rd, 2007). We'll share some stories about what Borderlands is and how it got that way.
The Tale of Minwax Golden Oak and Diamond Finish
Many years ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth, Alan Beatts decided to open a book store. The Alan Beatts then was not like the Alan Beatts you see now. He was younger. He had darker hair, more energy, and a deep-seated aversion to sleeves. He also didn't know much at all about woodworking.
But he needed shelves if he was going to have a bookstore. Lots of shelves.
In the course of a month, he managed to get shelves. About twenty-five of them. All tall and all unfinished. And that's where the problem began.
The Tale of Minwax Golden Oak and Diamond Finish
Many years ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth, Alan Beatts decided to open a book store. The Alan Beatts then was not like the Alan Beatts you see now. He was younger. He had darker hair, more energy, and a deep-seated aversion to sleeves. He also didn't know much at all about woodworking.
But he needed shelves if he was going to have a bookstore. Lots of shelves.
In the course of a month, he managed to get shelves. About twenty-five of them. All tall and all unfinished. And that's where the problem began.
November 01, 2006
Origin of the Bookstore, Part the First - Captain Jack's Tale
For the next twelve months we'll be doing a special feature each month in honor of Borderlands' upcoming 10th Anniversary (November 3rd, 2007). We'll share some stories about what Borderlands is and how it got that way.
Captain Jack's was the funky used clothing store that occupied 866 Valencia Street from 1994 until 2001. The store's owner, a Mr. Hale, was also operating a massage therapy studio in the back of the store. Conveniently, Mr. Hale was looking for someone to take over his lease. (He'd had enough of the used clothing business, he told us, and wanted to move to the Santa Monica beach, live in his van, and become a stand-up comedian.) Hale was uninterested in the used clothing inventory he was leaving and just wanted to go. So Borderlands took over the lease and began excavating 7 years worth of used clothes in preparation for turning the place into a bookstore. A frantic month of progressive mark-down sales and kind-intentioned booksellers (who had never in their lives sold clothes) lying through their teeth to shoppers, ("Does this look good on me?,"; "Um, I suppose so . . . uh, sure, lime green with aqua polka dots really suits you!") followed. Finally, all of the old suits and the cool Che Guevara t-shirts and the feather boas and the fearsome 70's polyester cut-to-the-navel shirts and the size 12 high heels and especially the lime-green-and-aqua-polka-dotted monstrosities were sold, or given away, or snuck into customers' bags when they weren't looking.
Captain Jack's was the funky used clothing store that occupied 866 Valencia Street from 1994 until 2001. The store's owner, a Mr. Hale, was also operating a massage therapy studio in the back of the store. Conveniently, Mr. Hale was looking for someone to take over his lease. (He'd had enough of the used clothing business, he told us, and wanted to move to the Santa Monica beach, live in his van, and become a stand-up comedian.) Hale was uninterested in the used clothing inventory he was leaving and just wanted to go. So Borderlands took over the lease and began excavating 7 years worth of used clothes in preparation for turning the place into a bookstore. A frantic month of progressive mark-down sales and kind-intentioned booksellers (who had never in their lives sold clothes) lying through their teeth to shoppers, ("Does this look good on me?,"; "Um, I suppose so . . . uh, sure, lime green with aqua polka dots really suits you!") followed. Finally, all of the old suits and the cool Che Guevara t-shirts and the feather boas and the fearsome 70's polyester cut-to-the-navel shirts and the size 12 high heels and especially the lime-green-and-aqua-polka-dotted monstrosities were sold, or given away, or snuck into customers' bags when they weren't looking.
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