Bookstores, Not Amazon

I haven't bought a book from Amazon in a couple years. Long ago, I was so excited that Amazon had pretty much any book I might want. My excitement gave way as bookstores closed. Turns out, hunting for books is more enjoyable than having them all at my fingertips.

I don't buy much of anything from Amazon. Its founder is repugnant, its business model is odious, and its part of a poisonous tech culture. In 2025, I made three Amazon purchases. I plan on never going back.

Last month, we switched from a decades-old Amazon credit card to one unaffiliated with Amazon that provides better benefits.

Amazon's cool Rivian trucks still deliver daily in our neighborhood, but not at our house.

The last book I bought was used. I buy new books by authors I love, getting them locally at independent shops and Barnes & Noble.

Long ago, Amazon was focused on being the best bookstore. Now, they're concerned more with licking the fascist dictator's boots, producing puff pieces about the dicatator's third wife.

I don't want to associate with that. I'll shop elsewhere.

Redemption

I read a New York Times piece about Marjorie Taylor Greene. Robert Draper's' thoughtful piece about her comes after months of coverage, coming to know her, earning her trust, and going beyond headlines and bombast.

The piece moved me.

I may be naive thinking MTG has changed her tune. Even if she has, she still says hateful things. Her history is a strong indictment. I don't typically get past my impressions of someone who has done so much harm.

But Draper's piece has me rethinking MTG and my reactions to such people.

It helps that she has turned away from the orange maggot. She's now facing his wrath and that of his minions. She has received death threats against herself and her family. There's no place for that. The maggot could put stop these things, but he enjoys his vendettas.

He's tougher to forgive, but I find myself pitying someone incapable of feeling love or joy.

None of which excuses a fascist destruction of our fundamental beliefs.

And here's where MTG and I agree. She knows the maggot has no care or love for those who voted for him, hates and fears those who voted against him, and will do anything to stay in power after this second term.

She sees the threat to democracy. And if she's coming late to that party, should I really lock the door and tell her to go away?

Not when I've been hoping for the maggot minions to come to their senses. If I don't accept MTG and those who have come to know better, how do things get better?

Lines from Chris Thile's "I Made this for You" applies:

As we leave the front pages in bed With the war raging on in our heads I could write a swath of humanity off 'cause of something that I just read But I don't want to fight fire with fire And I don't want to preach to the choir Giving just as much hell as I get To people I'd probably like if I met

So whether these days leave you laughing or crying If you're doing your best to be kind This land is as much yours as mine As god is my witness

Draper has helped me to be less likely to write MTG off. I'm grateful. He has provided me with grace. Nothing less than grace. And for my money, there's no more powerful force than grace, the light of which chases away darkness, fear, and even hate.

Disappeared (transitive verb)

• to cause (someone or something) to disappear:
• to abduct and kill or imprison (someone, such as a political dissident) while withholding information about the person's fate

This morning I wanted to hear jazz guitarist Jim Hall's Wonderboy, an album I've listened to many times on YouTube Music. But the album had been disappeared, a jarring reminder that streamed music isn't something I own.

Now spinning on the turntable is Concierto, a Jim Hall record I own and expect will remain in my collection unless a jazz afficianado breaks in some night and makes off with it.

YouTube Music's disappearing of Wonderboy is a bit like the federal government regularly disappearing people as if Constitutional terms of service have been changed as streaming subscription terms do. The American Gestapo, in unmarked armor and masks, disappear people from homes, the courts, places of business, and more, lost to secret prisons and night flights to who knows where.

Have we grown accustomed to such disappearings because our subscriptions and commerce have conditioned us to owning very little, perhaps not even our lives, liberty, or the pursuits of happiness?

Small rebellion then, my vinyl record, but I don't trust my subscriptions and sure as hell don't trust this maggot federal government. Better to take ownership of our possessions and our lives than give the American Gestapo tacit permission to disappear things, friends, neighbors in the dark of night we've allowed them to create.

Only and a Return

I opened my notebook to see that I was only on page fifty. Not on page fifty, but only there, with sixty-plus pages left to fill. That framing got me wondering, would another notebook give me greater joy? Maybe, but the pen felt good against the grain of the page, the ink shined on it, and I couldn't find anything not to enjoy there.

It reminded that it's a poor worker who blames his tools and I suspected things were going on inside me more than because of the notebook.

I told an artist friend this week that I'm not writing much lately and have let creativity fall by the wayside. My writing is all reflection, therapeutic, not creative.

The notebook has that feel. In four months I've filled only fifty pages, all of it seemingly dull and unworthy. I want creative lightning, but this isn't even electric.

The notebook is an imperfect but good tool I've underutilized such that I feel I've been untrue to myself. A new notebook is unlikely to fix me. Lightning is unlikely to strike. The fix is probably in filling one line with ink then another, gently pushing toward something even if I'm not sure what it might be.

See, there's this rock that needs pushing up this hill.

These words filled the last lines of page fifty-two. No only about it. They felt worthy enough to type and refine. This is slow lightning for sure. It's me returning, if only for a moment, to myself.