[Marxism] Midnight Special: Last Chapter for an Iconic Bookstore

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Midnight Special will be missed by anyone in
Los Angeles looking for left books as it was one
of the few places with a wide selection of these.
They had a wide selection of books on Cuba which
one wouldn't normally find in the big corporate
bookstores.

Begun thirty years ago by supporters of what was
then called the Communist Labor Party, and which
has since then evolved into the League of Revol-
utionaries for a New America, Midnight Special
was both a bookstore and a valued community event
center. Just a couple of weeks ago I went together
with William Mandel one evening to listen to a talk
by David Barsamian. I'd helped organize a promotion
meeting some years ago for Mandel's autobiography,
SAYING NOW TO POWER, which I reviewed favorably in
a local left publication, Change-Links.

For many years the owners of the building where
the MIDNIGHT SPECIAL was housed had subsidized

Rare enough are the local independent bookstores,
and even more rare is the independent local store
with a left philosophy guiding it. It always was
a disappointment to me that they made it a point
of NOT stocking books by Trotsky, a practice of
political exclusionism which I assumed reflected
their political background. Still, the loss of
Midnight Special is a sad day for Los Angeles,
and for everyone who wants to look through a
broad selection of political books and journals.

They're having a going-out-of-business sale for
the next few weeks with all titles at 30% off.
Anyone near Santa Monica should get out there
and stock up for yourselves and help the store
reduce its debt as much as possible.


Walter Lippmann

=================================================

LOS ANGELES
Last Chapter for an Iconic Bookstore
Santa Monica's Midnight Special
announces it will soon close for good.
By Cara Mia DiMassa
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

May 9, 2004

Midnight Special Bookstore was busy Saturday; the clatter
of cash registers and store clerks almost drowned out the
commotion of people buying books. But it was too late to
really matter.

Fifteen months after a rent hike caused the independent
bookstore to leave its longtime location on the Santa
Monica Promenade, and six months after reopening a block
away, owner Margie Ghiz announced Friday "with so much
sadness and even much anger" that the store was closing
soon, this time for good.

Midnight Special, which began in 1970 as a cooperative in a
small space in Venice, grew into an institution that used
its storefront to rail against capitalism, war and the
political status quo. After its landlord on the Promenade
raised the rent, which had long been below market value, to
almost $50,000 a month, the bookstore closed for nine
months while scouting for a new location and then endured a
series of delays in reopening.

In an e-mail to customers, Ghiz wrote that she and her
loyal cadre of employees had tried to make the new
location, on 2nd Street, work.

"Unfortunately, the delay was too great and our debts grew
with the delays," she wrote. " . Though our sales were
steadily growing, it was not fast enough to keep us going
until we could sustain ourselves."

The closing of the store, said Lise Friedman, president of
the Southern California Booksellers Assn., will be "a real
loss to Los Angeles. They were a wonderful bookstore and
had such strengths and such insight."

Most shoppers Saturday had received Ghiz's e-mail and had
come to honor the store - and shop for books at 30% off.
They expressed little surprise about the news but great
regret.

As her husband dropped a stack of books onto the counter,
Sherin Wing said she was devastated by the impending loss
of a place she called "a center for exploring ideas."

Laura O'Rorke gestured to her choices, which included a
work by Octavio Paz in Spanish and a biography of Fidel
Castro.

"I can't find books like this at any other place," the Van
Nuys resident said. "I can always go online, but I like to
see what the books are about."

Monica Morton blamed the store's closing on a national
ethos in which small businesses are overtaken by large
corporations and chains.

"Our whole country is being run like that," said the Venice
resident. "People aren't staying faithful to things that
matter. This store gave me hope because you could see other
like-minded people, thinkers, here."

Morton was using a gift certificate to buy, among other
things, a couple of cookbooks (store personnel said gift
certificates would be honored through June 2). Her husband,
Rex Butters, and son, Miles Butters, had chosen a book
about trucks.

"Why is this place closing?" Miles asked his parents.

It was not an easy question to answer. "It's hard to do
business in Santa Monica," his father said.

Store manager Ruben Perez later said the main reason was
money: "We're in debt," he said. "Otherwise, there would be
no reason for closing."

The going-out-of-business sale, he said, felt "like deja vu
all over again." All store events after June 2 have been
canceled.

The last time the store closed, Perez, who has been with
Midnight Special for 11 years, went on unemployment to wait
it out. This time, he said, "I'll look for a job."

But not in the book business. He said he'd never find
another place like Midnight Special.



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