Legal Ramblings
[ Saturday, October 1, 2005 (9:35 PM) ] ( link )
David Eggers's pirate store: I was randomly surfing the Internet today when I came across this article on the resurgence of pirate culture. The author notes: I started looking for elements of pirate iconography in American life. And they were absolutely everywhere.
The most obvious example was the success of Pirates of the Caribbean, a film in which Johnny Depp acts like Keith Richards on the Sticky Fingers tour and consequently comes across as the coolest person who ever lived. But this is only the most unveiled example. Daryl Hannah sports an eye patch in Kill Bill. National "talk like a pirate day" (September 19) has become more popular than both Groundhog Day and Rosh Hashanah. In the pilot episode of Fox's new sitcom Arrested Development (which also includes Jason Bateman!), David Cross carouses on a barge full of homosexuals whom he believes--quite understandably--to be pirates. Paul McCartney married a one-legged woman. And perhaps most curiously, post-ironic literary whiz kid Dave Eggers has opened a pirate store in San Francisco. I'm completely serious about this; it's a store that sells authentic pirate paraphernalia (and also doubles as a tutoring center for schoolchildren).
And I thought: Hey! I saw David Eggers's pirate store when I was in San Francisco! It's the 826 Valencia store, which also houses the 826 Valencia project. (The project--which helps students with writing--is an admirable community service outgrowth of McSweeneys.)
But the pirate store is not as random as it might initially seem. As is often the case in large cities, the explanation involves zoning. Supposedly, the 826 Valencia crew got this perfectly lovely property to use for their writing program. But then they discovered that zoning laws required that the property be used for commercial businesses--i.e., businesses selling goods or services--and that their intended project didn't qualify. Faced with a choice between giving up this wonderful location, or coming up with an inane and wholly superfluous commercial purpose for their venture, they chose the latter course. Of course, the choice to sell pirate paraphernalia was arbitrary. But the choice to sell something, rather than just use the space for their writing program, was not.
At least that's the story I heard. This story, on the other hand, suggests that the pirate theme is meant to rope kids into liking writing. So who knows?
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