Graduation Day

Today I collect my B.A. -- I'm graduating from the University Without Walls program of the University of Massachusetts. It's thirty years since I started college. Both of my kids are heading away to college this year, and I've told them "Dad took 30 years, so, NO PRESSURE."

Several weeks have passed since my first bookstore bus tour and I suppose the fact that I haven't written about it says something. While the three riders who did come, and I, had fun...it's definitely not good business practice for only four people to spend the day riding around on a 29-seat bus. Such an outcome demands a zippy "lessons learned" approach, which I didn't before now somehow have it in me to simply conjure up.

Of course, I did begin to understand during the course of my marketing work that I'd managed to choose a weekend when everyone in this area (Five-College Region) is frantically writing term papers and studying for final exams. And since I'd assumed that the academic community itself would be a great target market for me, it was pretty stupid to think that such a crowd would be available for a fun day of bookstore hopping on such a weekend.

Which has also led me to conclude that the June 2 trip to New York is an even WORSE idea. Since the Pioneer Valley really empties out after the commencement ceremonies (that is: after this weekend).

So I'm not going to run any trips until late August. I'll put together a fall schedule and publicize this as a coherent block of activity, instead of simply publicizing one trip at a time as I did with the Boston trip on May 6.

I do want to thank Doug, Susan and Brian, the three bookstore lovers who went to Boston with me. Along with our bus-driver, Todd, they all seemed to be having a great time. I think that about half of me was having a great time too. The other half of me was feeling incredibly stupid though.

I did get some lovely video footage of three events organized by Harvard Bookstore, and presented there, and at Grolier Poetry Book Shop, and at Papercut Zine Library. When my daughter finally gets around to teaching me how to move the video from the camera to the computer, I'll post some video clips.

One thing that alarmed me was the realization that there was no WAY a real horde of booklovers could have easily gone simultaneously into some of those stores. I mean -- a successful trip with lots of riders would have required quite a bit of organized into-group-splitting -- to ensure that we didn't all go the same place at the same time. This is one thing I didn't turn out to have to worry about...

Also, I was chagrined to find that Schoenhof's is closed on Sundays. I thought I'd verified that they'd be open, and since one of the riders is a Latinist and had been looking forward to going there, this was pretty embarrassing. Maybe that was another blessing in disguise to having a small group going along on this first trip. Not as many people to see me screw up the planning.

I suppose the virtue of launching a business on your own -- without partners or staff -- without a monthly rent to pay on a storefront, or posted hours of opening -- is that you have the freedom to retreat and lick your wounds. I wouldn't say I've got any wounds, nor have I been particularly moody this past couple of weeks -- mostly I've been busy writing final papers to get this whole degree thing out of the way -- but I haven't minded simply not thinking about BiblioExpeditions. I guess this means that I did get the wind taken out of my sails.

One good thing about canceling the June 2 trip, though, is that I'll be able to simply attend Book Expo America, which I now need to do anyway at the behest of several different organizations with unrelated agendas (Eric Carle Museum; Vox Pop; Pioneer Valley Bookmarks). So, in conclusion, all's for the best in this best of all possible worlds.

Night Before

Last minute preparation: I bought some videotapes for my recorder. Since I've been taking a Visual Anthropology course at UMass I feel hyperself-conscious about videotaping. Funny. I'm thinking such technical thoughts as "experience-near" and "indigenous" and "research questions" and "habitus" and "participant observation" -- I mean -- since it will be a small collection of us going, I figure that effectively we're a focus group for this company. Trying to learn what feels right -- whether the trip is too long -- whether food should definitely be built into the ticket. So that's one level of research. But -- I feel like I'm also curious about something else: a real research question. Which is something like: What happens in "browsing"? What is it about the experience of browsing in a bookstore that is unique? It seems to me that this goes to the heart of the argument against online book-shopping. I think there's an ethnographic film here. Somehow, if it were possible to depict the experience of browsing in a bookstore, in cinematic terms -- as an aesthetic, embodied social enactment (there's the anthropologico-speak...) -- well -- anyway, maybe I'll get some interesting footage tomorrow. Hope so. Will post. Here!