There's a lot of nice bookstores in Brooklyn & Manhattan (and the rare book floor at Strand is basically my real world equivalent of Steam. Poor wallet.), but my favorite is still back at home in Texas. Ladies & gentlemen, Bill's Books:
Gallery
(photos not by me)
That looks wonderful. I love when you can tell a shop has been open a LONG time. Looks like there's a lot of history to this place.
Whenever I go travelling, I make it a point to hit the best bookshops in town. It would be great to see the best places where you guys live!
I'll start with my favourite: the Voltaire & Rousseau Bookshop in Glasgow, Scotland. When you walk into the shop, which is situated in a well-hidden lane, there's an entire room full of books for £1 ($1.55 USD), which can threaten to consume you in deal-finding bliss... until you step into the main shop. Which... well, I think these pictures speak for themselves:
The books are stacked high like this, largely disorganised except by loose genre, and the stacks often fall as people hunt for the best deal. All the books are cheap or competitively priced as well. The owners don't even own an electronic till, they just mark down sales in a large notebook. But the real clincher, especially for a cat lover like me, is this:
I'm currently using the consumer preview. After struggling with Metro for a while, I've come to like it a lot, but it did break OpenGL for me so I can't play a lot of games. Once they iron it all out and the support is there, I'll definitely upgrade all the way.
I would have arrested them for putting on such a shitty performance. Is that what punk sounds like nowadays?
I think they are the most purely 'punk' act to appear in a long time. DIY, anti-establishment, political. Pussy Riot sound more like what I associate with punk than the modern, highly-polished-but-empty pop punk of today. Punk, to me, is supposed to sound dangerous and lo-fi. But that's just my own musical tastes.
As I understand it, Russian society is split down the middle over this issue
They're really not.
Also, none of you know anything about Russia, but I'll happily sit here with some popcorn and watch you all chatter away.
Which is why I prefixed that statement with 'as I understand it'. I'm happy to be proven wrong if you have any insights into the opinion on Pussy Riot within Russia. This is a topic I'm quite interested in personally and I'd like to learn more.
Or you can sit back being a smug prick about how much knowledge you're sitting on and how little the rest of us know. That's okay, too!
Yeah here is the thing, they would have been arrested in America too.
It wasn't what they were saying that is the problem from where I stand, I don't give a crap about their political comments or how they feel about religion they have every right to say what they want as far as I am concerned. The problem was that they were doing it in the middle of a church, while church goers were there, while the church officials clearly didn't want them to be there and were trying to conduct their own business. Even in America freedom of speech doesn't protect you from encroaching on other peoples rights to gather for their own purposes and that is exactly what they were doing. They were interfering in a church gathering and disrupting the Church's ability to hold their own event.
That said the penalty for it in the US would likely be a whole lot less stringent.
My understanding was that the detained members of the band were chased down at their homes a few weeks after the gig in the church. Obviously your point stands, the live video shows that church goers were not happy with Pussy Riot being there, but it seems strange that the Russian government would charge them so long after they had caused the disturbance, if people were so offended.
Kind of blown away that most people here don't realise that Russia's not a democracy...
I know that, especially after last year's blatant election rigging. I just dont want to outright condemn what is going on here (even if I want to) and open it up to discussion instead.
Arrested for blasphemy? That's still a thing? Fuck.
My source was incorrect, the official charge is 'hooliganism'. Edited for truth!
Although Wikipedia has this little addition:
Speaking at a liturgy in Moscow’s Deposition of the Robe Cathedral on March 21, 2012 , the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill I of Moscow condemned Pussy Riot’s actions at Christ the Savior Cathedral as “blasphemous” saying that the “Devil has laughed at all of us.”
Must be where the blasphemy misunderstanding comes from.
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