Warm and Fuzzy World

First, an update: The gun found in our library was in fact a BB/pellet gun type thing, not a real gun. It just happened to be a BB gun that was made to look like a handgun. Yay! Minnesota has a concealed carry law. Isn't America great? Praise God and pass the ammunition.

Last weekend I succumbed to my horrible fascination/curiosity and read an article in the October 22 NYtimes Arts section entitled the 'Starbucks Aesthetic.' The article talks about how Starbucks is using its branding, its aura, if you will, to promote other products like books, CDs and movies, thereby "positioning itself as a purveyor of premium-blend culture." By selling various non-coffee products in a Starbucks, "...customers get a new cultural experience and Starbucks gets a “halo” — the associations people have with beloved music, with “quality, good will, trust, intelligence.”

Those of you who know me well know how I rail about NPR and Whole Foods and Starbucks because I hate feeling like someone is trying to sell me a lifestyle. I just want my world news/organic veggies/coffee without some elaborate and expensive mind game that is supposed to make me feel smug and good about myself. This is not new territory. But here's where things really hit the fan for me:

A woman who selects books for Starbucks sez: "...she says she wants books that provide 'almost an education without being preachy.' Yes, they should be inspiring, but also, she hopes, challenging: 'not racy or dark, but thought-provoking.'" Because I guess Starbucks wants to wrap their customers in a warm, fuzzy blanket of smugness and coziness that keeps out all the bad and dark of the world. (sex, too.) We're supposed to go about and feel good about ourselves for knowing a little bit more than the average joe (well, not me because according to this article, I am not rich enough or white enough to be a typical Starbucks customer...) and not worry too much, not be challenged too much, not have our brows wrinkled by any worries from the real world.

This is all fine and good. We choose what we want to expose ourselves to a certain extent. For example, I can only do about one J.M. Coetzee a year, in the middle of summer when the sunlight keeps me from descending into the deep pit of S.A.D. Because, really, his books are that much fun. I read them because I have piles of respect for the author's ability to weave a tale of gut-wrenching injustice and misery--it's really something to behold--and he did deserve the Nobel Prize. That's fine. But I wonder, are we entitled to shut ourselves off entirely from the bad, dark things in this world? Where does one draw the line?

I recently attended a book discussion group for high school students. As part of my professional duties I asked them what kids were required to read these days for school. Along with a list of titles came a litany of complaints, mostly revolving around the theme "our lives are hard enough, why do we have to read such dark and miserable things?" For reference, titles mentioned include Beloved (Morrison), The Kite Runner (Hosseini) and Death of a Salesman (Miller). One student expressed extra disgust at having to read Death of a Salesman since it had "no socially redeeming values whatsoever." These sentiments are reflected in the decline in popularity of so-called problem books like Speak, Monster, Make Lemonade, etc, and the accompanying rise of chick lit for teens.

I was a little floored by this stuff they have to read. I can barely bring myself to read Toni Morrison just because her characters experience such violence. Again, I can't dispute her skill; it's on purpose that she weaves this smothering web of misery around the reader's head. But hearing these kids I wonder: 1)are they so blown away by the plot that they are unable to appreciate the craft that goes into making a story? 2)is it right to make kids read stuff that might be over their heads a little? 3)is it over their heads, or are they subscribing to the notion that they should be swaddled in the warm and fuzzy?

Finally, this takes the cake:
"Laurence Kirshbaum, founder of something or other sez: 'One of the big problems in the book industry is that outside of Oprah, there’s no really widely accepted authority to recommend books.'"

Yeah, no accepted authority to recommend books. Because you need someone to tell you what is good. Not a person who might be able to divine your interests and recommend something you like (like, say, a professionally trained librarian?) but rather, a person who tells you what you SHOULD like. It's not about making your own identity, complete with all its opinions and frames of reference. Rather, it's about tapping into that uber-consciousness that Starbucks and the like sell us, so that we can feel clever and like we're part of something that is cultured, yet safe.

yeargh.