BijouBlog

Are brick-and-mortar bookstores, or gasp, even books, now a thing of the past, like rotary phones, local savings and loans, and milkmen?

Some might argue that the medium of print has evolved into diverse, flexible, electronic formats such as Kindle and will continue to evolve. But I think there's a deeper message here, and to understand it, we need to go back even further, before the days of gay liberation.

I was reading on the precarious faculty blog site (which calls itself an online reading room) that workers' reading and education tradition include Mechanics' Institutes (1800) and Reading Rooms in union halls. Dorothy Day's February 1940 Day by Day column in 61b5310b3bed3The Catholic Worker61b5310b3bed4 specifically mentions the reading rooms in every union she visited. Samuel Gompers' cigar rollers even voted to have a member on the clock read to them as they worked!

Imagine! Someone reading to you as an adult, not a child! And at work!

Now, in the monasteries and convents up to the days before Vatican II, as part of the religious discipline, someone would be assigned to read while the monks and nuns ate meals in the refectory. (I can't fathom something comparable happening in today's virtual offices!)

The experience implied that language was something that was savored patiently, like a gourmet meal or a good sex scene with a partner willing to go beyond slam, bang, thank you ma'am. Whether you experienced it reading out loud or silently, the act was both individual and communal.

In the past, going to a bookstore meant you were both browsing alone but also doing it physically, in a public place where you could, without incurring suspicion, hang out for hours. Going to a LGBT bookstore implied you were also part of a community of shared values, and you not only showed your affinity my physically hanging out there, but also by purchasing a physical source of knowledge and values and taking it into your home environment. Even if you had to hide the book or magazine, it became something sacred because it was taboo, and thus a tangible, living connection with the deepest part of your identity.

Social media is fast and convenient and works wonders to connect others with shared values in crisis situations, but what bothers me about it is that the word element gets lost: the word as both language and also something that a live person embodies in an “I-Thou” dialogue. Kind of like Judaism's idea of the Torah as the eternal voice of God or the Christian theology of the Word made flesh. Something that needs more than a tweet or a non-verbal instagram to express.

Joan Didion predicted something this dynamic would happen in her study of the 1960s counterculture, 61b5310b3bed3Slouching Towards Bethlehem61b5310b3bed4, where she decried that the reliance on images and quick fixes (slogans like" All You Need Is Love") to complex problems, caused a loss of critical thinking: “The ability to think for one's self depends upon one's mastery of the language.” 

In those 1960s, feeling groovy meant you needed to “slow down, you're moving too fast, gotta make the morning last.” In the 21st century, where and when can you even slow down? Definitely not in a tweet. And sadly, no longer in a bookstore.