Small Business Saturday Is BIG

The definition of oxymoron:

figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction

A commonly used example of an oxymoron is "jumbo shrimp."  There's a new one now: "Small Business Saturday," as sponsored by American Express , promoted on facebook and supported by Constant Contact, perhaps the biggest names in "small business."  The tagline says it all: When we all shop small, it will be huge.


Sorry, Books on First does not accept American Express due mainly to the high fees associated with doing business with the organization, but we will be open as usual on Saturday, at 7am. Hope to see you then.

By the by, I have to show you what we'll be eating for Thanksgiving.  Someone snuck up to our farmette and took this picture before four of our heritage turkeys left this mortal coil.  Best wishes for many things for which to be thankful.

Occupying a Private Space versus a Public One

New York City at Thanksgiving time is always wonderful.  One of my fondest childhood memories is spending the morning watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on television, at a time when it was the ONLY one televised, and it was an incredible honor to be a high school band chosen to march and play in the parade.  The parade (as well as the NYC-block sized flagship store in Herald Square) is one reason that New York City remains the greatest city on earth.  The parade remains a private-public partnership started in 1924 and going strong today.

The one advantage that the Occupy Wall Street movement as well as Mayor Michael Bloomberg has had in Zuccotti Park over all other Occupy ____ movements is that in New York City, the protestors have not been camped out in a public park like in Oakland or Chicago.  In Chicago, all public parks close at 11:30pm.  No one is allowed to be in the park after that time.  The City of Chicago police have every right to arrest anyone for trespassing after 11:30pm.  I can't find the hours for Oakland, CA, but again, the responsibility lies with a governmental body, like the police department, the parks district or the Mayor's Office.  In New York City, there has been for as long as I can recall (I have read now that it began in 1961, almost as long ago as I am old), an ordinance that permits private developers to build upward if they also provide (in some formula) open publicly accessible space outward along the street level so that the City would not evolve into narrow canyons of streets lined with skyscrapers.  So, is Zuccotti Park public or private?  It is in fact a privately owned space open to the public, like Books on First.  Freedom of speech only goes so far in a private place.  (After all, Walmart does not sell The Last Testament: a Memoir by God, nor should they have to do so).  The current owners Berkshire Office Properties (who changed the name in 2006 from Liberty Plaza Park to honor its chairman John Zuccotti -- another blog about names in the offing) had been very patient and in fact, canceled its first attempt to "clean" the park after one month's occupation when it was immediately accused of finding some pretext to remover the protesters and then, bar their way back in.  It knew then that the protesters had found sympathy among other New Yorkers and people around the world.   It did not make good business sense to be "the bad capitalists."  Now, the neighbors are getting a little irritated, so Berkshire has changed the rules and in the tradition of honoring private property, the place is clear.  I am not too surprised, though, that Mayor Bloomberg and the courts are still talking about public safety and sanitation versus capitalism; it's a more politically correct way to address the public.

Also, I wanted to share with you a story about another Occupation, one by veterans of World War I and how that too ended with bulldozers to the tents, under MacArthur's command, no less.  The moral of the story -- after awhile, even when people sympathize with the protestors, enough is enough, go home already.

We all have much for which to be thankful, thank God.

How Do You Say "Wimpy Kid" en Espanol?

Now in, the latest installment of Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Cabin Fever.  It reminds of a warmer time, in Spain, when the fifth installment had just been released in Spanish.  I don't know if the concept of "wimpy kid" even translates.  In Spanish, the series is called "Diario de Greg," or "Greg's Diary."  This doesn't quite have the same effect, does it?

An original drawing (take off of the Scratch Scratch frontispiece drawing) by Jeff Kinney along with the colors of the cover of this sixth installment graces the cover of our holiday recommendations, which we do in conjunction with the Great Lakes Booksellers Association.  We are promised that a web version will be available soon and when it is, we will put it up on the website.

Speaking of website, the latest eBook sale ends tomorrow, Sunday, 20 November.  So, stock up now on some entertaining reads for that holiday traveling when you want to have plenty of reading choices, but don't have enough room to carry all the printed bound versions.

Here is an electronic preview of our recommendations.  Yes, I am deliberately choosing books that you cannot possibly want in other than a beautifully four-color printed and bound book.

Dancing with the (Dixon) Stars

You remember Nichole Miller, the brave soul who attempted to spread the word of NIA to Dixon and environs?  She now has The Studio in Downtown Dixon.  NIA instruction is limited to a Wednesday morning class (and that now may have been deep-sixed due to lack of participation), but we continue to keep our fingers crossed.  Meanwhile, she and cohorts are offering Zumba, Swing Dance and Yoga.  In fact, on Friday nights now, The Studio presents Friday Night Social, featuring a different theme of music every week.  There's a half-hour lesson which begins at 7pm and then, it's an open dance until 10:30pm.  All for only $5 per person. 

Thanksgiving is Coming!

Unbelievable but true, it's already November.  And in November is the great American holiday, Thanksgiving, designated to be the fourth Thursday of the month, so every year it is on a different date, but still on a Thursday.  Yet, with so many factured families, or even families blessed with still-living and active relatives on both spouses' and parents' sides, it's hard to get it all in in one day.  So, we begin to hear about "having Thanksgiving on Sunday before" or "they go to her family's house on Thursday and then, we have everyone on Saturday."  "Thanksgiving" is not so much the holiday which falls on the fourth Thursday of November, but a state of mind, a tradition to uphold, a holiday that shouts "family, gosh darn it!"    And what used to dominate the holiday is the turkey.  When I was young, I never saw turkey in the supermarket until the month of November.  And, then, it was usually on sale for pennies per pound, hoping shoppers would pick up the stuffing, the jar of mincemeat and the fixings for green bean casserole all in one swoop.  Butterball created the turkey hotline whose emergency telephone calls were answered by home economic teachers, because while roasting a turkey is relatively easy, doing it but once a year for such a special occasion is so stressful, that would-be tradition-bearers need the calming effect of a true expert's voice of reason to survive the process.  Then, we started seeing turkey franks, turkey drumsticks and ground turkey meat for sale, and on sale, throughout the year.  Having turkey for dinner became nothing special.  To make the Thanksgiving turkey even more dramatic, we began seeing brined turkey and deep fried turkey and turducken -- which according to wikipedia is a revival of an 18th century source of cooking stress. As early as my sophomore year at Vassar, there was a hallmate who came back from Thanksgiving break saying in disdain, turkey is common.  The real treats at the Thanksgiving table are stuffing, mincemeat pie and candied yams.  By golly, I guess she's probably right (although I wonder how much Stovetop Stuffing gets bought and made at non-Thanksgiving dinners).  But, the turkey will always be the symbol of Thanksgiving.