McHuston Booksellers

Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

Category: Uncategorized (Page 7 of 45)

Sometimes history belongs in the past.

September 14, 2011 /

I remember hearing about the Jacqueline Kennedy papers or diaries or interviews – whatever they were – and the fact that they would be sealed up for seventy or seventy-five years before being released. The presidential widow intended to protect the privacy of her children, while realizing that there would still be interest in her thoughts and impressions regarding her time in the White House.

At the time I thought: Well, I won’t live long enough to ever be privy to that information.

Low and behold. The book is on the front counter along with the CD collection that contains Kennedy’s conversations with historian and former White House aide Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. The release is timed to commemorate the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s first year in office.

Apparently, there is still an interest.

More than eight-million viewers took to the sets to watch Diane Sawyer present a program on the book and audio release, not quite NFL football-viewing numbers, but still substantially more than the top-ranked show on Monday evening.

I listened long enough to decide I didn’t want to hear any more.

The audio was recorded in 1964, a time that was stuck in between the I Love Lucy and Ozzie Nelson era and the feminist-movement genesis that followed. In the former, women were – as a rule – happy to stay at home and raise the family while the husband served as the breadwinner. Women weren’t expected to offer much in the way of political opinions. That changed, obviously.

Unfortunately, the part of the Kennedy conversations I heard indicated that the First Lady was mired in the homemaking age, despite her social-status, education, and political position. She made remarks to the effect that “Of course Jack was right. What would I know about politics?” That’s a paraphrase, since I changed the channel quickly enough that I didn’t memorize the quote.

Sometimes the perception held in memory is better than the truth. I was a child when John Kennedy was assassinated, and although some of my recollections of the time are quite vivid, I would have known little of the social framework in which that time was entrenched. Looking back on some things, the time seems so far away as to be fiction.

In 1964, there were still separate drinking fountains at the train station in my home town. Officials tore down the station rather than integrate the facilities. (Maybe that is only my impression, but the timing was suspect, at best.) There were separate high schools for blacks and whites. There were certainly women in colleges, but many considered keeping house as a preferred occupational path.

It was a different time – one so removed from our current state that it is almost impossible to imagine the differences in thinking. The dream of Camelot and its shining example, the wealthy Kennedy and Bouvier families on the throne reigning over the placid masses – were all changed by the assassination.

The widow remarried. Many suspected it was to insure her privacy and her way of life. Later, she returned to the US and New York and made a new image for herself in the publishing world.

The audiotapes of the young widow will provide insights for some, but for me, a taste of what seemed to be little more than shallow gossip was enough to make me search out less bitter fare.

Making an Impression. Or not.

September 9, 2011 /

Get yourself caught up in a juicy scandal. It’s the best way to find yourself at the center of public attention. Some Hollywood press agent once quipped something to the effect that – The only bad publicity is NO publicity. Or, as Oscar Wilde put it, “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”

Unfortunately, if it’s a real scandal, becoming newsworthy is the last thing you want. You’d really rather crawl in a hole and disappear.

For independent booksellers, publicity is good – scandal is bad.

I was disappointed at the bank today, while making a little deposit. The teller counted the sum, printed the receipt, and glanced at the form I’d handed her.

“You sell books?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered. I was somewhat taken aback by the question, and maybe didn’t answer loud enough. She asked again.

“You sell books?”

“Yes,” I replied again.

The pre-printed deposit slip she was reading had “McHuston Booksellers” and the store address right there in black and white. Under the name it says “Antique, Rare, & Otherwise.” I figured that would spell it out pretty well. Before opening for business, I chose the bank because it is down the street from the bookstore. On Main Street in Broken Arrow, OK. Not a big town. Not a lot of banks or bookstores.

McHuston Booksellers is wrapping up five years as a brick and mortar store at this location. Five years is not a long time, but then again… If you had a wanna-cry toothache, would you wait five years for a dentist appointment? Stay on a diet for five years? What about missing a house payment – would the mortgage company think five year’s of non-payment to be nothing more than a drop in the bucket? What if, in raising the kids, the terrible two’s lasted for five years? Five years can seem long enough for a lot of things.

Five years for a business is supposed to be the corner at which make-or-break is turned.

That’s why it was discouraging when my own bank doesn’t realize I’m in business, or what it is I do here. I suppose if I made big deposits instead of small ones, and made them a lot more often – there would be some sort of connection. Being located on the same short Main Street isn’t enough, obviously.

I’ve seen billboards for bookstores. Small newspaper ads. Not so much in the way of television or radio advertising. All that publicity costs dollars – the big ones. I’m still depositing little ones in that bank down the way.

A juicy scandal is still out of the question as to a means of raising a little publicity for the store, but the appeal is growing.

Are we ready for Irene?

August 27, 2011 /

ABC News wants to know. I thought it was a silly question for the anchor to pose, since the fancy graphics clearly showed the hurricane would barely skirt the eastern states, and certainly won’t suddenly swoop into the midsection of the US.

Years ago, I was asked to apply for a job with Associated Press Radio, a news network based in Washington DC. It was flattering to be asked, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to move to the east coast.

Applicants for the job opening were asked to write a sample newscast as it would be delivered over the radio network. I thought it over and then purposely tanked the exam. I wrote a newscast as I thought one should rightly be delivered, with less emphasis on the mundane political coverage that infects most national newscasts, and more attention to non-political events.

You see, I wasn’t sure the east coast was the place for me. Nothing against the geography or the people. It’s the news media, and the self-perpetuating notion that whatever happens in the nation’s capital is of immediate concern to the entire population outside the beltway. Networks of all brands regularly waste coverage time to inform us of what committees are meeting tomorrow, or what reports will be released. Here’s a news flash: We just don’t care.

Tell us something interesting, or something that we can use in our lives. Give us a report about something in OUR world, instead of assuming your insulated bubble-universe is the center of ours too.

Hurricane Irene is reminding me that I made the right choice all those years ago. Had I written the newscast the way the AP wanted newscasts written, I might have gotten the job and then likely would have spent my life trying to change the east coast bias of the national network news. Talk about a frustrating and futile task.

Terry Moran, one of the co-anchors of ABC’s Nightline program, peered into the camera last night and asked dramatically, “Are YOU ready for Hurricane Irene?”

Who are you talking to, Terry?

Lying on the couch watching the fear-franchising reports from up and down the east coast, I wondered if Mr. Moran believed he was addressing a regional audience instead of the entire US. What will we need to do here in Tulsa, Oklahoma to get ready for the hurricane, Terry? Nail boards over our windows? Bag up a supply of sand?

Where was Nightline when the MidSouth was ravaged by tornadoes this spring? There was plenty of time for the ABC reporters to set up their “team coverage” for a weather system that was accurately predicted by meteorologists – in the same way the track of Hurricane Irene has been charted in advance.

Of course, when the tornadoes touch down the networks scurry in to record the aftermath.

Those of us in what the coastal residents call the “flyover states” have become accustomed to getting the short-shrift when it comes to media attention. NPR calls their afternoon program Talk of the Nation, implying that their talkfest is a summation of the country’s current water-cooler gossip. In truth, with rare exception, what they provide is talk of the Beltway and tangential politics.

No doubt, Terry Moran was well-intentioned when he posed his question to the viewers, thinking in the manner of NPR’s myopic programming that his coverage would have the entire nation hanging on his every word. Mr. Moran has spent his entire life in the vacuum of Washington DC and its politics, with ventures out into the fire-zones. It is easy to be a journalist while holding an airline ticket to anywhere in the world where a disastrous event has just occurred.

The 80mph winds associated with Hurricane Irene are no greater than those visited numerous times over course of this summer through the MidSouth. Sure, Irene’s winds are sustained, but the real danger will come from the storm surge – the water.

The east coast media keep mentioning “Katrina” as a hammer to drive home the significance of the weather system. Okay, it is a hurricane, one taking a fairly rare path toward the populous northeast – but weather events happen across the US daily.

They’re only important though, when they affect Mr. Moran’s drive to work.

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