Is Barnes and Noble helping to kill off bookstores, including itself? Hm. Sounds like a debate we’ve been having for near 30 years. If BN undercuts the price of indie stores, and BN.com undercuts the price of its own retail stores, and if the ad algorithms on BN.com allow Amazon to pop up with ads further undercut BN itself, what hope is there? Where is the incentive to shop any other way?
To make sure the store had Dalio’s book, I went to bn.com and saw that the book, with a publisher’s price of $35, was available at the store and was being sold on bn.com for $27.99. And that $27.99 would have included free shipping to my home, if I had wanted the book sent to me.
When I was checking out of the store, I was surprised to see that I was being charged $31.50 rather than $27.99. That’s the full $35 list price, less the 10 percent discount that I get from my Barnes & Noble membership.
When I told the cashier that I thought the price would be $27.99 because that’s what the website said, she asked me to wait for a few seconds. She did some checking, and promptly and cheerfully charged me $27.99. But if I hadn’t asked for that price, I wouldn’t have gotten it.
When I got home, I went back to bn.com and discovered to my astonishment that there was a pop-up ad from Amazon on the site offering Dalio’s book for $21.57 — more than 20 percent below bn.com’s price. When last I looked, the Amazon price on bn.com was down to $21.09.
(Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
I wanted to see whether Amazon undercutting the price of Dalio’s book with a pop-up ad on bn.com was a one-off fluke.
Millennials love being woke, but also love their Harry Potter and are willing to pay for it right through the nose (aka a feature that doubles hat for their ironic mustache and a shelf for their giant 80s safety glasses);
“How to write in an accent” — ie, how much Spanish that you learned on your day trip to Tulum are you allowed to jam into your novel or poem before someone calls you out on your cultural tourism?;
Man, don’t I know it. Everything I do these days is an attempt to put food on the table without going back to soul-eating work for a company I don’t give a rat’s ass about. Since I started writing I’ve done the following day jobs: bartender, social worker, martial arts coach, bookstore clerk, computer trainer, high school teacher, web designer, policy analyst, communications officer, communications coordinator, communications manager, magazine editor, executive director, adjunct professor, marketing specialist, public relations manager, marketing manager, etc. etc. etc. Now I am trying to run my own company and it’s sort of slightly better for a lot less money. Meh, I’m calling it a win.
In a diary entry dated 1911, Kafka writes that having a day job “is a horrible double life from which there is probably no escape but insanity.” Academia and publishing offer literature-adjacent careers to a small number of writers (who must find time for their own work even within these literary industries), and the rest of us are left to eke out our livelihoods in nontraditional ways, balancing odd hours and demanding labor with creative work (not to mention regular lives of meals, children, exercise, even—dare I say—leisure?).
I asked seven writers about their day jobs and how they manage to produce work in their off hours without losing their minds.
Going to be honest, it’s got to be difficult to be Alice Sebold rn… I mean, not as difficult as being the guy who wrongfully did 16 years of hard time, but difficult… She must be mortified;
I wasn’t going to post today in favour of getting other work done, but this was too good to pass up. Remember when David Gilmour showed his toxic, bigoted plumage to a younger Emily Keeler and things went nuts for a bit? Pre-#MeToo, pre-open letter, pre-“cancel culture”. He said some questionable things that led to more questionable things that slowly revealed he’d made a life of saying questionable things. But after a while it died down and nothing seemed to happen. Well, something has happened. Mr. Gilmour has been fired. Of course, he seems to have accepted this with the grace and dignity only an old White guy experiencing the first big consequence of his life can muster:
Both David Gilmour and Victoria College declined to comment on what the three students from Gilmour’s 2020–2021 class told The Strand. Victoria University spokesperson Liz Taylor Surani stated that “the University cannot discuss or investigate anonymous allegations that were not sent directly to the University.” The Strand did receive an unsolicited email from someone, describing themself as a colleague of Gilmour’s, who praised his teaching style and emphasized his professional accolades. However, this communication did not specifically address any of the incidents reported here. When The Strand followed up with Gilmour about the incident in his 2010–2011 Vic One class, Gilmour replied, “Here’s a quote. ‘Fuck you’ en plus ‘I have been alive too long, endured too many assholes, to be intimidated by a fuck-wit like you guys.’ Am I making myself clear?’”
Victoria College declined to comment on a number of other questions raised by The Strand. These included: whether the College took any internal action against Gilmour in light of his 2013 comments and why Gilmour remained employed at the College after making his 2013 comments. Victoria University’s spokesperson and Principal Esterhammer also declined to comment on Gilmour’s status as an employee. In an email to The Strand, Surani stated that “Victoria University cannot discuss HR-related matters as these are strictly confidential.”
Gilmour, however, did provide his perspective on his departure from the Creative Expression and Society program. “I got the boot, that’s how I left Vic,” wrote Gilmour in an email to The Strand. “That skinny, humourless little bitch, [Vic Administrator], never much liked me—and vice versa—and got rid of me as soon as she could decently do so unlike the great guys who hired me, Prof. Paul Gooch and Prof. Cook, who gave me a life-changing experience. Lord, I loved teaching there under their guidance.”
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Bookninja 