It's Beginning to Look A Bit Like Christmas

Despite the bright blue sky and the balmy weather, it's beginning to feel a bit like Christmas around the store. Lots of folks browsing in the past week, getting the jump on holiday shopping, buying things obviously meant to fill stockings, or be given out after the lighting of the menorah, or placed on a Wiccan Altar. So the question of the day is, when is the right time to put up the holiday decorations?
People always roll their eyes when they see the decorations go up too soon, but there is a reason stores decorate for the holidays: it reminds everyone that Chanukah and Christmas are right around the corner. I'm told some of the big Union Square retailers had the garland and tinsel out of storage by mid-October.
It's a question we wrestle with every year here at the Apple. We strive to get the holiday decorations up before Thanksgiving weekend, but not a lot before. Don't want to appear desperate. So we'll probably be putting the holiday drapes up some time next week.

Overhead

Sometimes you're standing on a ladder putting books on the very highest shelf in the building and you hear one customer say to another, "This bookstore is better than a lot of sex I've had," and it just sort of makes your night.

Doing Good While Doing Some Bizness

W is out on his author tour, promoting Decision Points, his "candid journey through the defining decisions of his life." As we did last year when Sarah Palin's Going Rogue came out, we will be donating 100% of the profits of Decision Points to a good cause, which in this case is the local V.A. hospital here in the Richmond District of San Francisco. We already send lots of books their way, and this will allow us to send them even more. So if you want to do some good while reading W's side of the story, buy a copy from us (we'll be donating profits from sales from our website too).

BIG STRONG BOSS

After laying on the cement floor of my room, nude, with the lights off, the windows open, the rain blowing in and the newest SWANS album, My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to Heaven, playing at full blast, I have decided that indeed Michael Gira has not lost his touch and that despite about fourteen years between this album and the last, SWANS is nowhere near being a band worth forgetting. Click the link below to hear the second track off their new LP. Feel powerful, like a wild stallion or a cop.

REELING THE LIARS IN