by Bill Clunte
The environmental mcvament annoys Laura
Shes Lhrovmg
plastic sacks away left and right at work, every time a
customer doesn , wan, one ’ No bog. they'll soy. ’ save a tre e *
O r. if they sap the hag is plast ic "Save a d i n o s a u r As soon as
they leave, and sometimes even before, Laura grabs a bog and
, brews it aw e/, scwvlmg that scowl, that scowl that infuriates
me so
Laura lies to customers ell the time, too ’ Acting." she calls
It, pronouncing the A' as though it were an "E * Ecting. I
guess they re not big lies, but still I sae so much of it, day in,
day out. that thecum u'eliveeffect ts b»g "Haveyou read this
book9 ’ they II ask ’ is It any good0 '"O h , yes,’ she 11 say ’ It's
excellent ’ She's never read it, I know that She 'll just say
whatever she rxwtj to say to sell the iWnn thing Dr lying the
S a ia , she calls it
And she bes in other ways If the trade edition of ebook is
selling well even after we ve received the cheaper edition,
she'll try to keep the less expensive one beck in the stock room
’ They re buying the big one," she II sa y ’ le t s keep those sales
t now anything about books I mean that. not a thing Really
I'm serious One of the firs t days he worked for us he was with
a customer and I only half-heard whet was going on but he asked
we have it ’
Okay, so Mark's never heard of Hiawatha, he’s probably not
the only one, and it's not as though I think Longfellow is all that
greet anyway. but the thing is, (his is not an isolated incidant
Mark does not know anything about anything when it comes to
books The other day - and this was after he had been with us
for a month, mind you -I overheard him with somebody and all I
beard was Louise L Amour, isn t she the mystery w r ite r 9 ' My
blood chilled, I'm telling you It's not aa though I think Louis
L Amour was a wonderful w rite r or anything, but if one is in
Whet else9 tty god. there s so much mor e You would not
beleive Somebody came in the other day look mg for this new
lite ra ry magazine published locally, Black Wqpl. or Black
SOfiSfi. or something like that, and she just glowered at the
woman and practically wouldn't even answer her question I
had to pop up and tell the customer, "No, we don t ta r r y it. I'm
afraid you might went to try such-and such place ’
Practically before the woman ts even out of nor shot Laura is
snar I idq about how why anybody would want to waste their time
r eadmg the locals Is beyond her When I protest that there are
some fa irly good w rite rs here she just snaps at me ’ If they re
any good why haven t they moved somewhere else9 ' I was
dumbfounded, let me tell you I live in Oregon, in Portland,
admittedly not the culture capital of the Western world, but
For one thing, he is a friend of Yarn's, the District Manager
who hired him They do have a kind of Mutt and Jeff feel to
them Vern is tall and Mar k is short Both have a beefy quality
that comes from their regular workouts together. and both are
always sporting and laughing off little injuries - muscle
strains or pinched nerves which also come from their regular
workouts together Both seem frow n in the late seventies The
feathered hair, the moustaches, the tack iky hip quality to their
sttll We've had enough success stories that we shouldn't be too
embarrassed, and if nothing else so many Californians have
moved up here that our collective hum ility quotient ought to be
fa irly low by now
She'll put Oregon down in other ways, fa irly o ff-th e -w a ll
and somewhat telling ways, I might add 'l m so embarrassed to
live here sometimes," she II soy and i'll just ro ll my ayes
thinking What now? ’ To live in a state with a woman
governor, and a city with a woman mayor It's Just so
ruthless climb up the corporate rope The\ were m the same
fratern ity in college, that much I have learned but Mark
dropped out of school while Vern continued un to get his MBA
They were TEKE s together. members of (he largest c o llty
fratern ity in theoountry, the Tau kappa Epsilon frat M ark, it
9
embarrassing ' I can t believe it and I stalk away, the, s all I
do. and when I'm rude to her a couple times later in the day she
probably doesn l hove a clue why
•
Shall I goon9 I could, you know I haven t even dtscribed the
tip of the iceberg here, not even the point of the tip She lives
on microwave food She bakes herself in a tanning booth all
winter long, and her skin is getting that desiccated look You
know that look Lizardish She'd like to tell the kids in the
So In a nutshell In the Hierarchy of the company we work
for Laura is one notch above me, and she wants a couple more
notches Ultimately she wants a store of her own. and you
would think there's plenty of opportunity for her to get one in
this octopudl,an corporation We have over 1, 10 0 stores
nationwide That s a lot of stores That s a lot of books, you
can't deny that
been a goal of hers for some time now), before Laura can even
catch a glimpse of the! brass ring of authority she has to firs t
places and ways in an overtly puerile manner W ell I don t
know it s true enough I guess I hate admitting It, but she s
rig h t, okay, fine I've resigned myself to its tru th , actually,
and now I can't even watch a movie anymore without thinking
about it, without being sadly aware, self-awar e, almost, of this
9
Upper management, management above the store level, has
invasive male eye, and l don't want to be a part of it, part of
this male tyranny of peepery . I rcaty Ain't, and what am I doing
here but mak mg my own movie, my very own low-budget
squiggly line of a movie9 And isn't my camera stuck right
there, focused right on that spot, objectifying madly away9 It s
har d to deny, no matter hew much of acraep it makes me feel
But I really can't deny my reality, either It just wouldn t be
right to do that
So lm in the back room at work I've flash cut myself here
I can't ge, the movie industry out of my head, can anyone9
Movies have so overwhelmed every other media that
I can't
even finish that sentence, that's low overwhelmed I'm feeling
here
when they should be out on the floor d riving those sales A
rocent memo from Vern illustretes the current thought
To all booksellers And before we go any fu rth e r, lets
(s ic ) lake a look at that word bookseller Have you noticed that
if you break that word up the selle r part is longer then ( sic)
the book part9 Well from what I've seen we have a lot of people
working for us who know a lot about books but not quite as
much about selling So lets ( sic) get out on the floor greeting
( This Is the end of par, one of 'The East lnation of I aura
C larke' by B ill Clunie The conclusion w ill be in the July issue
of the Upper Left Edge )
those customers, and keep d iving those s a l® 1
.
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Special Events
9
But, before Laura can achieve her final goal, that blissful
state of Store Managerdom, whore she can run things as she
wishes, where she can keep those k ids in the children's section
up off the damn flo o r, where she can eliminate the art section
en tirely ( giving it a single shelf inside Crafts and Hobbies has
I shouldn t even be spending this much time on a nude I aura
Clarke lying on my bed in e flattened cube of light Awhile bark
I reed a piece of film criticism by this French feminist critic
who posits the idea of the camera as an agr essive male eye
objectifying and degrading women, linger ing on their intimate
I am tempted to draw a conclusion here, that the problem
The company line is that we hove far too many bookish, nerdy
types working here standing around pushing their glasses up
their noses talking about, oh. Longfellow or some such thing
9
Bright winter sunlight is pouring through the window like
water out of e downspout and it strikes Laura s leg in an
aggressive rectangle of pure light She has smooth legs My
eyes follow the line of her body, but I think perhaps I should
not go on here I shouldri t because then I would have to explain
why I, is I ever got involved with I aura Clarke, and that could
get me into trouble her e It really could
withAmer icon business is the old toy network, based on
favoritism over ab ility, with the college fraternity system
nestled securely at its rotten core But what I see is just an
isolated incident, I know that I'm hesitant about ctawing large
conclusions from singular situations, that is a practice I
distrust But s till It makes you think
concerning the inhumanity of Laura Clarke and I have asked
myself many, many times in this past month, how, just how,
pray t e ll. did I ever get invloved with this woman9
I really do, I
speak of anything when we re away from work We ra re ly
steak of anything, actually We hove sex, that's what we do
She comes over to my p la v and we do it rapidly and without any
fuss and usually Laura loves immediately afterward with a
terse "See you at work" tossed bark over her shoulder like a
pinch of salt And that's It. usually But today, inexcplicably
and quite out of character , Laura has fallen soundly nslarp on
my tied tier mouth is open She s naked and uncovered and as I
stare at her I think of how it ts I ever got Involved with Laura
Clarke
9
children s section to get up off the flo o r, to stop reading the
books, this isn't the lib ra ry , but our manager. thank god. won t
let h e r. and there Is more, so much more you would not believe
I have th e n g th to remain si lent here
Laura seems to be fitting into the New Way at work better
than I am She can talk dr iving those sales as well as Vern. and
now that M ark, Vern's little bodybu'ldinq buddy, is moving on
to manage his own store, the flagship store of the d istrict, mind
you. a I 8 m illion dollar per year store. Laura's cornflower
blue eyes are edgily set on the soon to be-vacated position of
assistant manager She often speaks of it to me, as much as wa
seems, got something out of his short lived college education,
something apparently more beneficial than knowledge of the
major works of Henry Wadwurth Longfellow
become increasingly disdainful of bonk knowledge lately I must
admit I was befuddled for some time by this - after a l l , books
are our business Why is book knowledge frowned upon of late?
I know how I got involved with Laura Clarke, but I won't tell
I'm silent on this subject, at least for now It's my rig h t, you
(hose sates really means, from what I ve seen, is this When
you re around Vern, don , talk about books Don, talk about
titles and authors, no more than you must, at any rate, and for
Pods sake A n t talk about the content of books Talk about
money Talk about high end items Talk about low-end items
Talk about impulse buys Talk about sports or cars. even, but
whatever you (to keep the talk away from books just as much as
you can Because I’ve figured it out This is why book
knowledge is belittled by upper level management They don't
possess that knowledge And rather than consider their
ignorances lia b ility , they have collectively daciitod to consider
it an asset It's the Big I »e, and It's really an effective He
because I think they might actually believe it themselves
w
the customer to spell one of the words in the title she was
looking for because Mark couldo , understand her Mark
carefully wrote the word l * n in h,s almost charming little
block letters and showed me the word on the pad and asked me if
I bad aver heard of it H -l A W -A -T -H -A . was the word
Hiawatha "The Song of Hiawatha9 ' I asked the customer, an
elderly woman She nodded 'The Longfellow poem9 I'll see if
the book selling bus mess one really ought to know who these
people are It's a matter of simple self - respect
So M ark, who would not even be suitable for an e n try -le v e l,
minimum wage position in a bookstore, aa far as I'm concerned.
Mar k . who. aside from his ignorance and his rather slow wit
isn t such a bad so rt. Mark - 1 have to know why was he h ired 7 * 9
W hy9
w
up1 * "
know
hope
None of us are uuite certain what A~ iv ina Lhoae s a le really
means, except for maybe Laura It is. apparently, an attitude,
an attitude that, like abstract expressionist a rt. say. is
ultimately about nothing but itself
It s an attitude generally ex preset) in the presence of a
higher - up. one who has the power to promote What d rivin Q
Our latest assistant manager the guy who is about to move
up, is named Mark Mark is fa irly representative of the new
blood the company wants to manage their stores Mark doesn t
The f esc met ion of I aura C larke
(503) 861 2920 Office
861 0607 Home
-
BUffOOnaTIcs
Creative Costume Services
Gary Brownrigg
P O Box 1091
Astoria. Oregon 97103
move into the assistant manager spot opening up in the next
couple of weeks
Being an assistant manager is a logical stopping place alonq
the route to running your own store Our store has had three
different assistant managers In the pest year and a-h alf All
three were hired with the intent to manage, and all three were
hit ed outside the company
"Hiring outside the company to f ill management positions has
been the trend here at J Johnson Booksellers for the past
couple of years ", he said, adopting the tone of the In-house
newsletter 'BookNotes “ Our D istrict Manager, Vern, had been
with Binyon s Optical, and has no previous book -selling
t
Come In & See Our:
/' >
I v
1 M llllih ^ W
( 3 0 3 ) f .lf i 1 2 6 6
! tuinttn t h i n k ItH 971 to
7 ,.,. O ’ ’
SI. H a WTW i W in » / P v u t ia M». OR / < MU I W 4fcOS
ttiMirx x / C asnos B ia c m . OR 7(W)I 456-1572
Non n t
1 1 a m - 8 pm Mon - Thurs
noon - 9 pm W eekends
|
/O
M S e l|jn
' ’
7 DAYS A WEEK
John W ayne
experience He has done the hiring of the new store managers,
all of whom have also had no previous book-sailing experience
. . . whatever
path you travel,
El M unJo
firr W omen ha>
the clothing for
the journey.
,» NOW OPEN
I rankles me when somebody trie s
Io force somebody to do something
Perhaps, after a ll, America never
hos been discovered
I myself
would soy that it hod m erely been
detected
Oscar W ilde
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