City Lights dim
We were quite energized when we first visited City Lights more than three decades ago. How times have changed. Cathy Seipp:
A FRIEND OF MINE took his young daughter to visit the famous City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, explaining to her that the place is important because years ago it sold books no other store would — even, perhaps especially, books whose ideas many people found offensive. So, although my friend is no fan of Ward Churchill, the faux Indian and discredited professor who notoriously called 9/11 victims “little Eichmanns,” he didn’t really mind seeing piles of Churchill’s books prominently displayed on a table as he walked in. However, it did occur to him that perhaps the long-delayed English translation of Oriana Fallaci’s new book, “The Force of Reason,” might finally be available, and that because Fallaci’s militant stance against Islamic militants offends so many people, a store committed to selling banned books would be the perfect place to buy it. So he asked a clerk if the new Fallaci book was in yet. “No,” snapped the clerk. “We don’t carry books by fascists.”
Now let’s just savor the absurd details of this for a minute. City Lights has a long and proud history of supporting banned authors — owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti was indicted (and acquitted) for obscenity in 1957 for selling Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl,” and a photo at the bookstore showed Ferlinghetti proudly posing next to a sign reading “banned books.”
We still get angry sometimes when we see blindness like that of the sales clerk, but we shouldn’t. Now we know that his eyes will eventually see, courtesy of the unrelenting zeal for death of Ahmadinejad, Hamas, the cartoon rioters, and the religious superstructure that supports and nourishes them. It’s only a question of when.
UPDATE
We note that Ace too adopted a world-weary attitude in one post, acknowledging that some of his readers will get it, and others won’t. Hey, the train is coming down the track and you see it or you don’t. It isn’t going to stop just because you don’t, or won’t, see it.
February 27th, 2006 at 6:35 am
No books by Fascists… what would they have used for inventory in the late 60′s and early 70′s? I guess you have to call it something other than Fascism… hmmmm… perhaps Enviromental Activism?
February 27th, 2006 at 4:26 pm
You can find the book at Barnes & Noble online… finding it at their stores is probably difficult because of the type of employees they attract. The young, leftist college student who has no shame in sensoring books that represent the right view.