More Genre, Less Filling
I’m sure by now our corner of the blogosphere is bursting with articles about the literary-genre divide which, for the average person, is an invisible crack in the sidewalk. I’m sure you recall avoiding sidewalk cracks, I certainly do, but the invisible variant was created by Billy, the only kid I knew equipped with 3D glasses. Billy called you out for stepping on invisible cracks. I had no idea he would go on to a career in marketing, or that he would wear his special 3D glasses many stories above the pavement in Midtown as a guru hired by industry so that Billy could tell them what it was they did for a living. This is how hedge funds were created. The Shopping Network. Billy did away with tokens to create the Metro Card; tokens were fun because you could stack them on your night table and feel prepared for the week.
Right after he dropped acid, Billy became a publishing guru. Believing the stop lights on 57th Street to be the Aurora Borealis, he set out to bring clarity to the book world. He saw four thousand pin holes in his ceiling tiles and knew that if bookstores were divided into four thousand sections, he could spend the rest of his days drawing helpful diagrams, maps really, to navigate his burgeoning creation with the help of teenagers hired to direct traffic. Thus the wandering customer would be directed to the subcategory their interest demanded, or be told “we don’t carry that,” if the whim struck.
It has occurred to Billy that his device may be confusing to some and that many a weary customer, most of them middle-aged, lack the pioneer spirit to comb through the sections in search of that elusive book. Some are discouraged and leave without buying anything other than water to combat dehydration. Under fire, Billy created a New Releases Table heaped with all sorts of books with only their newness in common. New is the best genre of all. New: it even sounds good.