you heard it here first - from the mouth of my hunny bunny:
Hello book lovers, Prospero's is preparing to get at it again.
What: Book Burning Act II When: Sunday, Sept. 2nd @ 4pm Where: Prospero's Books 1800 W. 39th Street Note: Come dressed as your favorite character from "Fahrenheit 451" Note #2: Forrest Whitlow will provide some great music
HISTORY: On May 27th Prospero's unleashed a bit of performance art that drew national attention: We set flame to a couple dozen books in protest of drastically declining reading trends in America (a trend that's seen nearly a dozen independent bookstores close in Midtown KC over the last decade).
Our protest drew international attention: the NY Times flew in 2 reporters to spend a day with us. There were over 600 US Newspaper stories (including the US Poet Laureate in the Washington Post) and world-wide coverage in places like Russia, India, China, Canada, Venezuela...
Prospero's call for more reading made CNN Headline News & the Colbert report (my personal fave). There were dozens of radio interviews , the BBC (600 US Newspaper stories, 40,000+ blogs, dozens of radio interviews, a new entry in Wikipedia.com, and thousands of emails and phone calls).
Following the burning, we made our collection of 20,000+ unwanted books available, and they have sat in a portable storage container on our curb for the last 3 months.
The odd thing is - even as the public outcry was LOUD, very few people have acted to give these books a home (reminds me of how voter turnout dropped in the US following the patriotic uproar following 911).
So, here we are: I guess we are going to have to burn some more...
Please feel free to drop by and join us - come dressed as your favorite character from "Fahrenheit 451".
NOTE: Over the years, Prospero's has donated 1,000s of books to teachers, charities, jails and those who can't afford a book.
so i got off work early last night and we were randomly watching the colbert report. a couple of seconds in, i glance up to see the prospero's logo on the screen...
we got the tip of the hat! click here. you'll have to scroll down through the recent videos section, it is the one entitled "wag of the finger/tip of the hat -- deep purple"
bill over at rave has posted upan excellent entry regarding last week's book burning at prospero's books. he highlights something that i keep noticing in my jaunts about the net,
"The local outcry about the book burning event makes that point. The Kansas City Star has received a large number of letters to the editor condemning the book burning. The fact that supposedly literate people condemned the event proved the point it made: that people are losing the ability for critical thinking. The complainers only read the headlines or only watched a 30 second TV news story that left out what was said about thought in America.
All that registered in their brains was: Omigod, book burning! Those guys are bad. Why don't they donate the books to charity?
If you attended the event or read the entire story in the newspaper, you would know that they tried to donate the books, that nobody wanted them. You would know that they were trying to give them away or sell them for a pittance. If you paid attention, you would have understood what they were saying by burning the books."
and so it goes... perhaps this NY times article will further clear up the confusion.... or perhaps people will only continue to read a headline and not think about the point of it all. i just don't know. what scares me more than burning a book is that over half of americans don't read anything that isn't required of them - and that 22 million potential readers have disappeared in the last decade. this has been proven to directly link into inaction in community, civic and artistic life. THAT, my friends, is the true disgrace.
by the way - if you want to further literacy efforts in kansas city, i know these folks need you: click here.
A Requiem for Reading in a Smoldering Pyre of Books
By DAN BARRY Published: June 3, 2007
KANSAS CITY, Mo.
Ángel Franco/The New York Times Store owners Will Leathem, left, and Tom Wayne.
A few days ago, over the Memorial Day weekend, Tom Wayne and Will Leathem held a barbecue of sorts in front of their used-book store. A squirt of lighter fluid, the flick of a Bic and — whoof! — flames began to dance from their pyre of books.
Books, they discovered, do not burn well. Books, it seems, tend to smolder.
This is just one of the lessons the men have learned since setting fire to various volumes, including novels by Tom Clancy and Dean Koontz, an antiquated manual for Kansas educators and — Mr. Wayne took particular delight in this — a nonfiction book called “The Hot Zone.”
More books would have gone up in smoke — from “Pat Nixon: The Untold Story,” by Julie Nixon Eisenhower, to “On the Trail of Adventure,” owned long ago by a boy who neatly printed his name in pencil on the inside flap — had not the Kansas City firefighters arrived to point out that the bookstore owners did not have a permit. Not that there is a permit to burn books.
A heated discussion ensued in front of the store. Then came the unrolling of a fire hose and — whoosh! Ashes everywhere, as if to cover in soot those who would dare to burn the written word.
Mr. Wayne, 47, and Mr. Leathem, 45, describe themselves as bibliophiles. They say they often sponsor readings at their bookstore and write poetry in their spare time. Mr. Leathem even owns a small publishing company. “We feel the power of language,” he explains. “You don’t get into used books because it’s the most lucrative work.”
Their holiday bonfire was not intended to pay perverse homage to “Fahrenheit 451,” they are quick to say. But to understand, if not embrace, why book lovers would burn books, they say that one must flip back a few pages.
For years Mr. Leathem was a political consultant who worked for, among others, John Ashcroft, the former Republican governor and senator from Missouri and later the attorney general. But by 1997 Mr. Leathem had detected an inner void not filled by politics, so he and a partner opened a bookstore called Prospero’s Books, in a funky corner of the Westport neighborhood.
The partner dropped out and Mr. Wayne stepped in, earning his partnership through sweat equity. Years earlier he had left the world of commercial real estate to save his soul, he says, and now was a jack-of-all-trades, often seen driving around the neighborhood in a rusty 1971 Olds Delta 88 convertible.
Books are just things, paper bricks of commerce taking up room. But they are also holy vessels, containing the written articulation of our experiences and dreams, allowing us to point to an arrangement of words and exclaim: “Yes! That’s it exactly!”
These were the competing realities of books that the partners soon faced. With a sense of responsibility tinged by guilt, they assumed the inventory of other used-book stores giving up the fight, and accepted the books trundled in by students looking to trade or homeowners looking to tidy with a clean conscience. Soon they had accumulated nearly 50,000 books.
The boxes of books filling a basement corner of their 120-year-old brick building eventually were moved to a storage unit costing $150 a month to rent, and then to a basement of a loft building owned by a friend. “You get to the point where it’s truly Sisyphean, and you don’t want to do it any more,” Mr. Wayne says.
The men say they tried to give away books in bulk that were either not selling or in overabundance — to no avail. When a friend was sent to state prison, for example, they tried to donate books to the correctional system, but were denied. When they donated books to a local fund-raising event, some well-meaning person bought up most of those books and left them at the Prospero’s doorstep.
Then, earlier this year, a thought flickered in Mr. Wayne’s head: Burn ’em.
The two book lovers decided they could make a cultural statement about the decline of literary reading in the United States, where, according to the National Endowment for the Arts, fewer than half the adults read even one novel or play or short story a year that is not required for work or school.
They took comfort in knowing that book fairies do not magically make overstock disappear, that books are quietly but routinely destroyed by publishers. And they adopted as their motto a quote they attributed to the poet Joseph Brodsky: “There are worse crimes than burning books. One is not reading them.”
Last Sunday morning they grabbed some boxes from storage, not caring — or, perhaps, not daring — to see which books were being sacrificed. Then, at 4 p.m., and with the cameras of local television stations rolling, they began to burn books they said no one wanted. As they did so, a few people rushed to rescue some books from the piles of literary kindling-in-waiting.
A few days after the book-burning, Mr. Wayne and Mr. Leathem sat in their upstairs office and discussed the blowback: more than 5,000 e-mail messages already, some angry, some sympathetic, many offering to take books off their hands. A soldier in Iraq wrote to say he needed books, and Mr. Leathem wrote back to say he understood, brother, and would be sending along some books for free.
As they talked about the possibility of another “burn,” a cleaning van across the street suddenly burst into flames. The two men watched as the fire quickly consumed the vehicle, popping the windshield, melting the upholstery. It was frightening, and it was only a car.
the giver of "fucktard of the year award" finds his way to the Thinking spot!
you may remember my mention of fucktardbeing my favorite of all things that will and tom were called... the honor was bestowed by one tod goldman, author and writing professor. his post can be found here. while i disagree with him, obviously, he has a writing style that will most likely delight you... and gosh darn it - he is pretty funny.
i think he raises valid questions in his comment left today, and i'd like to take a shot at replying... i swear i will stop talking about the book burning someday. i know there is a war waging that still needs to be stopped - in the worst of ways... but this is all near and dear to my heart, in the biggest way. so here goes...
tod wrote:
I don't throw around fucktard lightly, so I'm glad you appreciated it. I'm curious, three days later: how has this actually help literacy? Sure, it's a protest, but what was accomplished? The people who care are the same people already reading books in the first place. If they don't care, burning the books has probably had no effect on them.
i think it is too soon to tell. another fine result of this culture - mememe nownownow!!!! as i've said, prospero's thought that this might, maybe start a discussion in kansas city. we're having one now. it's a start. hopefully a seed will be planted, hopefully this will be a catalyst for more people to get involved, for change to occur. if i may ask, as someone who clearly understands the problem, what are you doing in your neck of the woods? have you contacted you local literacy outreach organization? have you donated any of your books? perhaps some of the proceeds from your book sales could go to raising awareness? just a few thoughts... burning books tends to freak everyone out, across the board. non readers are contacting us too. perhaps the NEA study will again be brought into discussion? p/s - that study scared the crap out of me. it is a dire situation. who knows.
we've been more than a little choked up by the response - the phones are still going crazy, the email continues to pour in. prospero's website server almost locked up. we're working on where to go next, what to do. so many people seem to think this was some huge publicity stunt for the store - if it were, don't you think we would've been a little more prepared for the reaction? i think it also bears mentioning, that any act of creation destroys something.
and on the contrary, many of the emails we've received are from people that had given up reading and have sworn to again - they have gone out and bought books! as an activist, i know in my heart that one person can make a difference. many others have asked how to help - we've tried to respond with some ideas, but as i've said, the response has been overwhelming for a little outfit like prospero's - two/three people can only do so much.
and to steal doctor zom's line in your comments section, "the boston tea party was just a bunch of wasted tea..."
we need to shift this discussion from the media's "OMG!!! BURNING BOOKS!!!" to the why. you are absolutely correct. maybe you could write a little something in your blog about the NEA study? your thoughts on the declining readership in america? take it and and RUN, man!!!
Further, I noticed on the YouTube film, which is what actually brought me here in the first place, that not a lot of people were talking about how this was helping literacy. There were some good jokes -- I did laugh at the one about Flicka, for instance --but not a lot of action plans.
the video wasn't shot by us, but by a friend of the bookstore. i can't speak for his angle and what he chose to put in the video. the dude with the flicka comment is one of the best poets i've ever encountered. i think you might even change your mind... again, we weren't prepared on any level for this to turn into national and international news. there wasn't any grand paln, other than to hopefully start a dialogue. we are regular people, living our lives, that love books more than many do. soooo.... what are your action plans? any ideas to throw into the discussion? why is it that so many in this country wish to wait around for someone else to do something about everything? DO IT.
All of us who work in the book world -- be it writing them, as I do, or selling them -- have to be passionate about it because it requires too much heartbreak to do it for any other reason.
believe me, i know. this has been a topic of many of a late night discussion in our casa. i have watched will start a publishing house - from a love of poetry. i know, i know - you think poets aren't worthy of recognition, but, still... it is his heart, his love, his passion. he's a writer. he's the executive director of the writers place in kansas city. he eats, breathes and drinks all things literary. what is so horrible about publishing writers? self-publishing isn't taken seriously in the industry. his book wasn't funded by this, nor will be tom's. did you read the list of the other authors slated to be published as well as those already? better yet, have you read them? they are some of the best this region has to offer. he wants them out there, to be read and appreciated - for people to know that kansas city has a lot of writers worthy of recognition.
do you think that the used books biz is lucrative? he's done this for ten years - in the early days after collecting boxes of books in his house, he worked other jobs to keep it open out of his own pocket. he still works other jobs. we have a bebe and a life that is often not ours due to his commitment to local artists, musicians and writers. we wouldn't have it any other way.
As a writing professor, I'm concerned about the lack of literacy even in the graduate students I teach, so believe me when I say I care deeply about the subject. And as an author, I am always concerned that the currency of words has been traded in for 1st person shooter games, since I know well how books saved me when I was young, edified as I grew older and sustain me today, both emotionally and financially, of course.
amen, brother, amen - on the 1st person shooter games tip. you are lucky to sustain yourself doing something that you love. kudos to you!
But until I can see something other than a nice feature story coming out of this -- something other than funding your own press -- that actually addresses the core issue here -- kids don't read and neither do adults -- I will continue to believe that it's fucktarded to burn books for literacy.
dig in! have at it - then it will be beyond a feature story! see how this is supposed to work now? you will witness change with your own eyes, and this will all have meant something to you and countless others. a groundswell can occur. if you choose not to, so be it. it is always easier to throw stones and call names, no? you are, in any event, entitled to your own opinion about my partner being a fucktard, but you're wrong. :) (why isn't fucktard in my spell check?)
as for prosperos helping to further literacy, they have long assisted our local literacy outreach group - in the form of helping with fundraisers, etc. they have always given teachers books at cost - we are a bookstore after all, there has to be some level of selling, but they make no money on those purchases... it isn't as if prosperos isn't already active in those areas. and will also is active through his position at the writers place...
thank you for taking the time to write and for thinking about this. and all best with your writing endeavors!
i want to talk about books. specifically, my life long obsession with the written word.
i've been helping will sort through the thousands of emails and one thing keeps coming up. people from places throughout the world that have little or no access to books are begging for the stockpile. i make it through about 5 before i'm lost in tears, i don't know how much more i can take. the woman in argentina that wants them for a library but can't afford to get them there, the man in africa that speaks of those with an unquenchable thirst for words and there are virtually none to be found. the soldiers, the children... the list goes on and on... i find myself going back and forth between sadness and anger. there is such a disconnect between a culture that reads mainly when it is only required of them, and millions of others that want to and can't. it doesn't seem fair.
i've been reading as long as i can remember. my family chided me for reading books that were "too old" for me. i was often the object of ridicule on the playground. i read books with my grandmother and mother. i wrote my own and illustrated them. in a childhood that was filled with fright on so many levels - i can honestly say that my books saved me - there was always adventure and mystery and a whole new world at my fingertips. i was the encyclopedia - a through z. i was pippi longstocking (note to self - find halloween picture of you dressed as pippi - robin?), sailing the high seas with my monkey. i was eppie in silas marner. i was nancy drew, solving another mystery. much later, i was pecola in the bluest eye... no matter how ugly things got in my life, and they did, escape was but a page away. a new world was possible - sometimes a scary world, but mostly a better world and life - and a beginning, middle, and end.
when someone tells me that they don't read, a little part of me dies inside. there is nothing that can take the place of the workings of one's own mind, of imagination, of painting a picture for oneself and not having it painted for them. when that same person tells me that it is a sin to burn books... well, burned or no, they are not being read. isn't that really the same thing? i understand the frustration, as it is my own when the volumes couldn't even be given away. when i look around and see books stacked up that no one wants to read, insane illiteracy rates in the wealthiest country in the world, people waiting for days in line for the latest release of a video game or the newest biggest plasma hdtv television - all of this when there are hungry minds in countries i've never been to writing us that would give anything for just. one. book. i don't know how to possibly begin to get them to them. books not bombs has never had more meaning to me than now.
there is a rack outside of prospero's filled with books. during the day, they are sold for a dollar. at night, when the windows are dark, they are fair game. it always cracked me up to see a dollar shoved under the door when i'd open the store in the morning. and made me a little sad that more hadn't disappeared in the night. someone, somewhere had the genius to sit down and take command of words - managed to perfectly string them together to create something that no one else could - and bind it all together. the sin is it sitting there, collecting dust - silently screaming, "read me! read me!" to the non-readers, you have no idea what you are missing. it pains me to know that you can read and won't.
for years now, i've set my focus on reading mostly non-fiction. i've been slowly trying to delve back in to works of fiction - one of my final classes at the new school was a short fiction class for that reason alone. i make sorry attempts at writing and stand in awe of those that can use words to paint me a picture - to tell me a story. it truly is a difficult and miraculous thing to me. i watch bebe light up when he moves away from his toys to a book. "THIS one, mommy! THIS one!!!" i feel a deep pang of joy when i turn to see what he's up to from the kitchen and he is sitting on the couch, soaking in the pages of a book - "reading" quietly to himself. he'll ask to read it over and over and over again. and i do. gladly. i want him to know the joy that reading has always brought me, the insatiable hunger and thirst. i want him to feel it somewhere inside - somewhere so deeply that it simply becomes a part of who he is, and he carries it with him for always. he deserves that. i also now want him to know that having books is a luxury he should not ever take for granted. they can disappear, just like that. i want him to know that unmistakable excitement of reading a book and wanting to tell everyone about it - of finding that one masterpiece that changes. his. life. i want that for everyone.
bebe asks to go to the bookstore everyday. we read books in the back. we explore the nooks and crannies. we walk up and down and up and down the stairs. his little hand print is set in the concrete in the basement, painted red. he loves to show it off. i hope that he will be able to do so when he is 20. i hope that books don't become relegated to boxes in attics and basements across the land. i hope... but i do worry about this culture turning its collective back on books. very much. i'd be lying if i said i didn't.
i've spent the last two days fielding myspace messages and comments to the tune of hundreds. the phone keeps ringing - calls from the bbc, cnn, talk shows, you name it. notes and calls from all over the world abound. will answers 1000 emails and 1000 more come in. blogs are popping up left and right about what idiots (fucktards is my favorite so far) will and tom are and how they need to be medicated. i've been scattering to and fro trying to respond as best i can. it looks that about half of the people understand and the other half are simply pissed.
and then i found this, written by the operator of a little establishment i often send people to and think is an important pillar in the community - the kansas city infoshop. after my initial knee jerk response of et tu, brute? - i realized that many people aren't hearing what is being said: too. many. people. aren't. reading. in the ap article, will is quoted as saying that there are homes having estate sales where there is a television in every room and three books. i've seen it during our book hunting adventures. i find this to be dangerous for a culture and a society. when reading dies, so does thought. imagination. that is what book burnings have served for in the past - the censorship of idea and thought. and honestly, when i venture away from my little comfort zone - i find that thought about anything other than what shoes match an outfit or who got traded to what team is fairly non-existent...
i find it really interesting that people are freaking out about books being burned, when the real debate should be why aren't people reading? the library throws books away, as well as bookstores. it happens. where is the outrage? no dialogue can surface this way, when it happens silently, away from the public eye. the burning was an attempt to draw attention to this - to spark a discussion where one is desperately needed. it wasn't a "stunt" to drum up business. the money from the saved books will go publish some of the best regional and local authors around- this is something that will is fiercely supportive of and has been since i've known him - all things local - art, music, literature, free thought. i'm also hearing this was a terrible way to "do it." how else? no one talks about not reading, what to do then? i can honestly say, it is nice to have a conversation about books rather than sports for once. and i don't know that kansas city needed a book burning to look "ignorant and backwards" (overwhelming support of bush's warring in the face of this, crappy mass transit, sprawl, poverty, schools, the unwavering trust in the we're-kinda-the-same-but-different two party system, flag stickers, natural resource addictions) nor do i think this did a disservice to any other local book sellers.
i figured that maybe the media would run the release and a few people would show up to save some books. i never would've imagined that it all would've turned into this. but dialogue is ALWAYS good - even when the details aren't agreed upon.
to answer a few of the more resounding comments that have come my way:
1. these 20,000 books headed for the fire have been stored in a storage area for years after having tried to give them away repeatedly or sell them. the prisons say they could contain contraband and return them, etc. as for the schools that need them, teachers are always given books at cost, sometimes even for free. much of what is in the burn pile isn't child age material...
2. the C02 emissions from the burning! shame on you! that fire produced no more than any of the other millions of bar-b-que grills did on memorial day weekend. prospero's doesn't turn on the a/c until the humidity reaches a point where it is necessary to do so, so that the books aren't harmed. there is coating on the windows, and compact florescent bulbs are used. we are all conscientious of how our ecological footprint. we walk where ever we can. perfect? no. but we try.
3. everyone has an idea of what prospero's should to do with the books, but, what can you do? this is a toughie. prospero's is a bookstore, after all - giving away books after spending even more years trying to figure out who needs them and shipping them off at an added cost would have the doors closed in no time flat. the store is operated by two people. there is no staff. this is bigger than two people. know of a place that needs donations? come and get the books for a dollar and pass them on... or - head out to your own locally owned book shops and start there. they need your support and apparently there are people hungry for books that can't get them, though they are turned away. also, contact your libraries and bookstores where you live, save the books they are going to trash and find a place to donate them to.
4. they didn't burn the entire stock of the bookstore. no one "snapped."
and there it is, my cents, for whatever it is worth. i really believe this is a good thing.
and looky there - bebe has a book in hand. i can't think of a better thing to do.
You are beyond wise. You are so smart, you're almost prophetic.
Your inner voice always speaks the truth, and you take the time to listen to it.
You are good at seeing who people are... including the darkness of others.
As a result, you tend to have a rather dark - yet realistic - outlook on life.
A: Carbon dioxide and other air pollution that is collecting in the atmosphere like a thickening blanket, trapping the sun's heat and causing the planet to warm up. Coal-burning power plants are the largest U.S. source of carbon dioxide pollution -- they produce 2.5 billion tons every year. Automobiles, the second largest source, create nearly 1.5 billion tons of CO2 annually.
Q: Is the earth really getting hotter?
A: Yes. Although local temperatures fluctuate naturally, over the past 50 years the average global temperature has increased at the fastest rate in recorded history. And experts think the trend is accelerating: the 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 1990. Scientists say that unless we curb global warming emissions, average U.S. temperatures could be 3 to 9 degrees higher by the end of the century.
Q: Are warmer temperatures causing bad things to happen?
A: Global warming is already causing damage in many parts of the United States. In 2002, Colorado, Arizona and Oregon endured their worst wildfire seasons ever. The same year, drought created severe dust storms in Montana, Colorado and Kansas, and floods caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage in Texas, Montana and North Dakota. Since the early 1950s, snow accumulation has declined 60 percent and winter seasons have shortened in some areas of the Cascade Range in Oregon and Washington. Of course, the impacts of global warming are not limited to the United States. In 2003, extreme heat waves caused more than 20,000 deaths in Europe and more than 1,500 deaths in India. And in what scientists regard as an alarming sign of events to come, the area of the Arctic's perennial polar ice cap is declining at the rate of 9 percent per decade.
Q: Is global warming making hurricanes worse?
A: Global warming doesn't create hurricanes, but it does make them stronger and more dangerous. Because the ocean is getting warmer, tropical storms can pick up more energy and become more powerful. So global warming could turn, say, a category 3 storm into a much more dangerous category 4 storm. In fact, scientists have found that the destructive potential of hurricanes has greatly increased along with ocean temperature over the past 35 years.
Q: Is there really cause for serious concern?
A: Yes. Global warming is a complex phenomenon, and its full-scale impacts are hard to predict far in advance. But each year scientists learn more about how global warming is affecting the planet, and many agree that certain consequences are likely to occur if current trends continue. Among these:
1. Melting glaciers, early snowmelt and severe droughts will cause more dramatic water shortages in the American West.
2. Rising sea levels will lead to coastal flooding on the Eastern seaboard, in Florida, and in other areas, such as the Gulf of Mexico.
3. Warmer sea surface temperatures will fuel more intense hurricanes in the southeastern Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
4. Forests, farms and cities will face troublesome new pests and more mosquito-borne diseases.
5. Disruption of habitats such as coral reefs and alpine meadows could drive many plant and animal species to extinction.
Q: Could global warming trigger a sudden catastrophe?
A: Recently, researchers -- and even the U.S. Defense Department -- have investigated the possibility of abrupt climate change, in which gradual global warming triggers a sudden shift in the earth's climate, causing parts of the world to dramatically heat up or cool down in the span of a few years.
Q: What country is the largest source of global warming pollution?
A: The United States. Though Americans make up just 4 percent of the world's population, we produce 25 percent of the carbon dioxide pollution from fossil-fuel burning -- by far the largest share of any country. In fact, the United States emits more carbon dioxide than China, India and Japan, combined. Clearly America ought to take a leadership role in solving the problem. And as the world's top developer of new technologies, we are well positioned to do so -- we already have the know-how.
Q: How can we cut global warming pollution?
A: It's simple: By reducing pollution from vehicles and power plants. Right away, we should put existing technologies for building cleaner cars and more modern electricity generators into widespread use. We can increase our reliance on renewable energy sources such as wind, sun and geothermal. And we can manufacture more efficient appliances and conserve energy.
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