"The Master"
Some summers ago, on a warm night in Harvard
Sq., I wandered past a space that had been empty since Wordsworth Books shut
down several years before. To my surprise, that storefront was well-lit and
active again — in fact, hyperactive: there was a greeter, or barker, posted
outside. It being Harvard Sq., not Coney Island, this was not the norm. I went
in.
This space that had once nattily showcased
thousands of books — classics of fiction, science, philosophy and history;
glossy new titles packed so steamily together it seemed sexual congress among
them was quietly underway; an airy children’s book section — this venue so good
for ogling books and people was now every inch taken up with wall panels,
posters, and texts announcing atrocities and mass murders that had somehow
slipped my notice.
