Tuesday, July 31, 2018

"Winter Is Coming"

I thought I was so clever to make a 
"WINTER IS COMING"
sign to advertise my Gardening Books Sale at work

––(50 cents each! we've got boxes full, and they've barely sold in the 2 months I've been the Book Lady)––

BUT... 
turns out none of my coworkers recognized the meme, or even the show when I told them what it was from.

Do you know?
It's Sean Bean as Ned Stark in Game of Thrones, the HBO show that's been on 7 (8?) seasons now.


Bean also played Boromir in Lord of the Rings, where he spawned another meme: 
"One does not simply [______]."

I expect some of the customers will know, even though my coworkers didn't.
As I wrote about yesterday, I work with people who have different furniture than I do--in this case, different cultural references.

For instance, a bunch of the guys refer to sports I know nothing about--US sports. 
The only sporting event I've paid any attention to is the World Cup(s--women's too), but none of the guys watch that, though a couple of the women do--women with ties to Mexico or Africa.

I work with a lot of black guys who grew up, as one of them said, "thuggin' and druggin'". They know an entirely different body of music.

The store doesn't play hip-hop & rap, it plays a lot of Motown, Stevie Wonder, even gospel, all of which I like, but one day I was tired of the same old CDs and snuck a Counting Crows CD on.

AS SOON as the first notes started to play, the lead guy in the furniture room called out,
"BOOK LADY! YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO TOUCH THE MUSIC!!!"

Ha!
Furniture Guy and I get along well now, but at first he was wary of me because the previous Book Lady disdained our coworkers for not reading––or so she thought. 

"She was mean," he said.

I'd hope a book person (one of my tribe) would be MORE empathetic, but of course that's a ridiculous hope. (Pre-WWII Germany was plenty culturally literate.)
I grant that she was in pain from ill health,
but she actually expressed her cultural disdain.

Anyway, Furniture Guy does read.

In fact,
he asked me if I could find a copy of Black Panthers Speak, which he read when it came out in 1970.

I immediately found the very edition he wanted on ebay (left).
I placed an order for him. 
(He paid cash.)

Then another guy wanted to order a book--something like, The Bible for Ministers
I had no idea, he's kind of a lay minister, I guess...

Trouble is, a lot of my coworkers, including the old, white Church Ladies, are not computer literate.
So their access to information is limited that way, as that's the key these days. Even to use the library, it's all computerized.


I am curious to go into work and see if gardening books have moved. I have hopes:
When I left yesterday, the cashier told me a woman had just bought six. 

These are just a few of the ones I've displayed:


P.S. I've never watched Game of Thrones, and when I started to read it, I thought, Lord, spare me from Nordic-ish/Celtic-y fantasy.

5 comments:

The Crow said...

If the Black Panther book is still available, I'd like to buy it.

The Crow said...

Sorry, I didn't read down far enough. Hard to do with one eye.

Anonymous said...

Very interesting cultural analysis. I really like the term "furniture" rather than the over-used "baggage." Although I think "baggage" is used differently but "furniture" seems more relevant.

And now another book to look for- The Black Panthers Speak. One of my law school professors was an attorney in Philly and one of their clients was the Black Panthers. Apparently they had different programs depending upon where they were located. He told me about the group in Philly provided breakfast and other social programs to the kids.

I think you have an interesting cultural dynamic going on there at the store.

Kirsten

ArtSparker said...

Regarding GOT, made it through the first episode, couldn't bring myself to do more, even for Peter Dinklage.

Fresca said...

CROW: If one comes in, I'll save it for you.
Meanwhile, if you're interested, there's an newish (2012) book about the Black Panthers that your library should have (mine did)---I only read the intro, but it looks and reviews say it is excellent:
Black against Empire The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party.

KIRSTEN: OMG, Philly! I was just reading about the bombing of the MOVE house there 40 years ago! Wow... Scary spooky horrible stuff.

I've been reading the Guardian's recent series, "Black Power Behind Bars" ("Over two years, Ed Pilkington has interviewed eight of the 20 African American radicals languishing in prison for their actions during the 1970s black liberation struggle."):
www.theguardian.com/us-news/series/black-power-behind-bars

SPARKER: Thanks for saying. I tried the first book and got 100 pages in and just... groan... um, felt like I was in the fantasy in some guy's head where I really did not want to be. So I left. :)