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Title: The Left Bank Collective
Author: Jason McQuinn
Date: 1994
Language: en
Topics: Left Bank Books (Seattle U.S.A.), anarchist history, anarchist publications, Jason McQuinn, Alternative Press Review, interview
Source: Alternative Press Review, Spring/Summer 1994 (Part 1), Alternative Press Review, Fall 1994 (Part 2)
Notes: Scanned from original.

Jason McQuinn

The Left Bank Collective

Part 1: Alternative books and zines in Seattle

Interview by Jason McQuinn

Alternative Press Review, Spring/Summer 1994

In late January several Left Bank Collective members took time out to

talk for this APR interview. The Left Bank collective--originally

organized to run the Left Bank Books store located at the Pike Place

Market next to the downtown Seattle waterfront--celebrated its 20th

anniversary in August, 1993. The collective's work is now spread out

between the original downtown bookstore (selling new and used books),

AKA Books (selling a wide selection of used books in the university

district), Left Bank Distribution ("the largest provider of anarchist

and independent radical books in North America"), and the Left Bank

publishing project (with books including John Zerzan's Elements of

Refusal and Raoul Vaneigem's Revolution of Everyday Life). In addition,

Left Bank has been intimately involved in the creation and maintenance

of a national Books To Prisoners project, and most recently with the

opening of the Black Cat Cafe, a collectively-run vegetarian restaurant.

I spoke primarily with long-term collective members David Brown, Kent

Jewell and Russell Puschak while I was in Seattle. Most of our

discussions are included in the following pages. We began by talking

about the Left Bank Distribution project, before moving on to discussion

of the bookstores and other aspects of the collective.

Russell Puschak : "In the last year it's been very exciting to see a

sort of mini-explosion of radical bookshops, or infoshops as they're now

called, around the country...They're springing up all over now, which is

really a great thing, and it hasn't happened for quite a few years, I

guess. And we've been very interested in supporting these projects. In

fact many of them have reported to us that we're the only book

distributor that has given them credit in the United States at this

time. We try to establish personal relationships with the people, get

people to accept responsibility for the books, and then try to work out

payment plans and help them. Because we know how difficult it is to

develop an inventory with the price of books these days."

David Brown : "Since we have our own stores we know only too well what

the other end of it's like."

Russell : "We also encourage people to start distribution networks."

David : "And publishing. I mean that's been the other end of it. You see

so many small radical presses, with just a few titles and no way to get

them out."

Kent Jewell : "And that can be seen in just the last few years, we've

more than doubled the number of titles that we carry [in Left Bank

Distribution]. And that doesn't include just books, but there's a great

increase in the number of magazines and zines, and other things out

there, too."

Russell : "Within the last year I can think of five or six bookshops or

infoshops that have started up, which doesn't sound like a lot, but in

terms of the radical book world, I think it's a significant amount."

Kent : "Especially considering what's happening in places like Britain,

where the number has gone downward. At least in the U.S. it's gone

upward."

Russell : "I think our most crucial function is to serve as a supplier

of books for these things that are just starting out, and to really try

to assist them. We also provide them with the knowledge to develop an

inventory system if they request it, how to pay people properly, how to

get information out to other publishers, how to supplement what we see

as a successful radical bookstore with used books, and perhaps not just

remaining ideological in narrowly defining political books as books that

are about politics, but that there's radical literature, there's radical

magazines, there's radical fiction,...all kinds of things that tie in.

And I think the days where a bookstore could survive as a political

bookstore are gone. Now it's very marginal. It's a very different kind

of thing. You really can't. You have too provide a diverse list of

reading materials for people."

Kent : "And in a sense we're lucky because a lot of these things we've

learned, we've learned the hard way. Because we run a used bookstore, a

new and used bookstore, and distribution. So we get to see a lot of

different angles to things and that helps us out with our distribution.

You know, we can provide answers to people maybe better than other

distributors, because we're also retail booksellers. So we realize what

kind of tips and breaks you might need if you're just starting out."

David : "Yeah, or what kind of books, or what titles, because we know

why books are selling out of our shops for specific reasons quite often.

A lot of people are just starting up and need suggestions, or they're

ordering things, they have no idea what they're doing exactly, and you

can see it. They're just beginners. Clearly, you can tell them that

ordering twenty copies of this pamphlet isn't a good idea, whereas you

should try twenty copies of this one. Right now the Open Pamphlets are

doing very well, whereas the other pamphlets...you just need a couple."

Russell : "One of the problems with distribution, and how people see

distribution is basically, that we wouldn't be surviving if it wasn't

for volunteer help at this time. Although some of us are paid, volunteer

help is crucial. The workload is immense and it's very hard to survive

distributing books and pamphlets. If we didn't have the assistance of

the used bookstore at the same spot, it would be difficult to see if

we'd be able to float by this time. And the assistance we've given to

people is pretty much if they've asked. Or if we can, we've talked about

developing some kind of material that we can hand out like "How to

organize your radical bookstore, or your shop. But we haven't yet done

that, and it's pretty much just people writing letters or asking us, and

we try to assist them that way. Also with some of the new bookstores

that have started up we've assisted them by giving donations of books

and materials, just sending a care package of radical stuff if we can,

although I've found that as more and more of them start, we have less

and less resources to be sending out care packages as frequently as we

were before. But there definitely is a need and desire for this

information to get out to people, and one other thing that is going on

is tabling projects, too...Maybe eight to ten."

David : "Some of them are just hit and miss. They're one time. You know

somebody's doing a conference and they say we'd like to carry a bunch of

books. In fact we do tabling locally ourselves but you never know, it's

erratic. You never know what's coming up. It's a situation that looks

good for us, and also it's volunteer, so we have to have the energy to

do it, and the people. But sometimes they come to us and say they'd like

to have certain books and we supply them. We give them the books."

Russell : "BobbEE in Olympia has also just developed a relationship with

a bookstore, which is something people can try if they're interested. If

you see there's a bookstore that's an independent in your neighborhood

or your city, and they don't carry the kind of books that you're

interested in seeing there, what he has done is he's approached them and

said, 'Look, I'll take responsibility for getting the books--ordering

them, getting them in there--and you can sell them, I know they'll sell

because there's a demand out there.' And a lot of times bookstores are

skeptical. 'I never heard of T.A.Z. or all this kind of stuff.' And what

he does is puts them on the shelf and he basically does it as a labor of

love to get the books out, because he makes like 5 or 8% off of it. He

just wrote us a letter, and he's been doing it for a year, and he's sold

quite a few hundred dollars worth of books, but he's made $40 total off

of it. But it is a way to get books out there, and a way to get

experience working in bookstores."

Jason : "What kind of help can you provide for zine, magazine and book

publishers?"

Russell : "Well, actually, we've just made a few decisions within the

last few months about zines, and alternative periodicals. In the past

we've had enough trouble just maintaining books and keeping them in

stock in inventory. Especially when a lot of our books come from England

and it's quite difficult to figure out how to get them here and keep up

with demand and that kind of thing. But we've decided in the last few

months that we'd like to start carrying more self-produced, alternative

zines. In the same respect we carry a lot of pamphlets that are small

productions. And although we don't make much money on it, it's part of

our commitment to keeping things out there that are affordable, and

different, and interesting, etc."

David : "We've also done the same thing, you know, trying to provide aid

to some of the small presses. Or, if somebody needs equipment, we've

made donations financially. We've helped people buy equipment. And then

also, like with bookstores, for example when Bound Together gets its

windows knocked out, or gets trashed, over the years we've made some

fairly substantial contributions to those things. So that helps other

bookstores in the process. [Examples cited include helping out The

Match! about a year ago with getting some printing equipment, and the

Fifth Estate with materials.] Mainly what we try to do rather than just

floating money out there is we try to provide a very specific, concrete,

tangible object, so that we know where and how the money's being used.

It's like with the Black Cat [a new restaurant collective], you know.

They needed some loans. What we tried to do is eyeball some specific

equipment...an espresso machine, cash register."

Kent : "Back to zines. We've been carrying zines at our retail

bookstores for years and years, and the number of those have increased.

And we have been distributing zines, but as Russell said, we're carrying

more now. And we'd like to encourage that growth. We see distributing

them as an extra step above and beyond carrying them directly at the

bookstore. And a lot of things that we've carried at the retail store

we've liked carrying direct over the years, because it does give

percentage-wise more money to the people who put them out. As opposed to

dealing with some larger distributors which cuts down their percentage

quite a bit."

Russell : "Even though we distribute periodicals, we also encourage

people if they're starting up a bookstore to go direct to the publisher

of the zine or periodical and that way it will help support the project

cause then our 10% will not be taken out...since most things are such

low-budget projects anyway. Part of the problem...we see with

distributing alternative zines is getting the knowledge out to all of

the bookstores that we are picking up zines and carrying them. And since

many of them are dated material, or at least, dated in their cover and

that kind of orientation, it takes awhile--numerous mailings--to alert

people to the fact that you are carrying them. And most of them are so

inexpensive, that if you're going to do distribution of real underground

periodicals, it's mainly a labor of love. And we're interested in

expanding that, but we're also interested in carrying things we

personally like and see value in."

David : "There's really no money in this, either. And the other thing is

that we really don't have any business with newsstands...So we just

don't have a huge base, either. It mainly...makes it available to

bookstores, or it lets people know it's available, maybe getting to

individuals so they can pursue it after that."

Russell : "And one of the more exciting things is, for instance, we've

been dealing with some people in South Africa who are running a

bookstore under tremendous harassment from the government. But one of

the periodicals we're very happy to carry is one about the abuse of

psychiatric survivors and victims...and it's called Dendron. And for us

just being a small distributors, we were able to send ten copies into

South Africa of that extremely obscure magazine. And they don't care if

they get it six months late there, if it even goes through the

censorship. And that's something that I see as really valuable, a

valuable function of Left Bank."

David : "The ability to get things to far off places for people that

want them. Not just to get things on the newsstand and to get sales

really quickly for the month that it's out. That's somebody else's

function and we haven't oriented ourselves to that at all."

Jason : "Did the Left Bank collective get any help from other

collectives when it started?"

David : "When Left Bank got started it did not have any help. This was

what...'73. And it was mainly just a few individuals who loaned or

provided the start-up money. Around '78 we started the publishing

project and felt that we were doing one book. And felt that to help get

that book distributed, it would help if we had other publishers as well

so we could offer a number of titles. So we did distribution of, say,

the Freedom Press titles, for example, from England, which were not

getting well distributed in this country at all. There were a few small

mail-order, direct-to-individual distributors, but there were no

bookstores that could easily order titles that were being produced in

England. So we picked up Freedom Press and a number of small pamphlet

presses and a few other books. Around that same period of time in '79 or

'80 we started the Books To Prisoners project. Although the bookstore

had been providing books to prisoners all along for specific requests,

we couldn't meet them all. So we started a specific organized project to

provide books to prisoners free. And we got a very generous grant at

that time to help it get going, a grant to provide mainly postage costs.

Books and other things were being donated, and labor was donated. And

then in '83-'84 we started AKA Books as a used bookstore in conjunction

with Left Bank."

David : "[I got involved in the project] in '78. I used to provide books

on consignment much like BobEE Sweet does with that store [in Olympia].

In around '71 I started Mother Earth, mostly mailorder. And so when Left

Bank started and when Red and Black [another Seattle bookstore

collective] started I used to provide both stores with anarchist books

on consignment, mainly because I was ordering that stuff from England.

I'd order the Freedom titles, the Solidarity titles and I got all the

pamphlets."

Russell : "Just as a side note for a collective history of Seattle, in

the early years in the '60s and '70s there was a tremendous collective

movement here with a collective auto shop and grocery--this is besides

the co-ops--a flour mill, and all kinds of things like that. And at this

point with the introduction of the newest collective, the Black Cat

Cafe, which was started this past September, we're up to three

collectives in Seattle and two of them are bookstores. There's the Red

and Black, which Dave just mentioned, which has been around for twenty

years, and Left Bank Books."

Kent : "And a side note on Seattle. We're lucky to be in Seattle because

Seattle is such a diverse town with a lot of people with a lot of varied

and intensive reading interests. And there's a lot of bookstores, and a

lot of diversity of bookstores compared to most cities in the United

States. We're definitely grateful for that. And we've got a great

location. Our retail bookstore, Left Bank, is down in the Pike Place

Public Market. We wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the city than

there. It's a great spot."

Russell : "It's one of the very, very fortunate things that the people

that started Left Bank Books had the foresight to not only go to one of

the coolest parts of town where the Pike Place--the oldest continuously

operating farmers' market--existed, and get a street-level storefront

that's right there, and people can stumble on us from all over the world

and pick up books that are almost not available in their communities at

all. And that's been a really great thing. It's one of the reason's

we've been able to survive and maintain the kind of bookstore that we've

wanted. We haven't had to make many concessions to bestsellers at all,

or any of the kind of books that we're not interested in. In fact it's

given us the ability to have a tremendous backlist. And one of the

things we really focus on is keeping backlist books--books that are

maybe five years old--that you don't sell more than one copy a year of,

but we find them to be valuable books. There's virtually no other

bookstore in town--in Seattle, even being a booklover's town--that makes

a commitment to backlist books like we do...."

Jason : "Was Left Bank successful from the beginning? Did it pay its

bills?"

David : "When [Left Bank] first got started it was all volunteer. It

paid the bills, but one of the founders, for example, who had the

ability to provide money to buy books, over a period of years put

several thousand dollars into the store, with the hope that he would get

his money back eventually. Which he did, but it took about ten years.

And the first four or five years there was no one paid. It was an

all-volunteer staff. But again, the idea when the store was started was

that eventually it would be able to support a small staff. To be able to

provide better service and get to know the business better by providing

some support for a few people...Out of the collective, I think we have

ten people that are paid."

David : "But you're talking all the projects now: AKA, Left Bank, the

publishing and distribution."

Kent : "Many of those ten are part time workers."

Russell : "Our full-time work week is 32 hours...Our wage compared to

this society is very low. It's at $6.00 an hour for those who get paid.

And if you were to include all the hours we actually put in--which we

have some requirements that we don't get paid for--our wage would be

much lower, maybe down around $4.00 an hour or $3.00 an hour depending

on each individual and how much time they put in. I think we have ten

people that are paid at least partially at this time. There are six men

and four women. But we should right away head off that the collective

does not only include the paid members. We're not a closed collective.

People can get involved in any aspect of the collective whether they're

paid or not."

David : "An example is when we did our inventory recently at AKA

thirty-six people showed up. At Left Bank it was also very high,

twenty-some people, I believe, showed up there, which is pretty good

because it's such a small store."

Russell : "And we have many volunteers at Left Bank Books. And our

success really still goes back to the beginning of the store when it was

volunteer. It depends on volunteer labor, on people that are interested

in learning about books, working with books, and furthering certain

ideals they see as valuable. For instance, a volunteer now can commit to

working three hours a week for a minimum of three months and they

receive training and education concerning books and also a very large

discount on anything they're interested in purchasing."

Russell : "And one of the other things I'd like to say about the

collective is that at this time when people enter the collective, we

still have a process where if you are volunteering you learn skills, and

then if an opening does appear, that's how we select people who join us.

It's sort of a natural process where people are working together

already. We see if we can get along. And then if there's an opening

someone is offered it, if we can afford it."

David : "One thing that should be pointed out is that nobody has a

personal financial stake in this collective. And when you come in it

doesn't cost you anything...and you don't take anything out. So I've

worked here since '78,...and I don't have any claim on the store. When I

leave I go out just like I came in with nothing...It's not like some

collectives where you have to put up a certain amount of capital to get

in, you have to buy into the collective with money and you have shares,

and then when you go out you cash out. We don't have that."

Russell : "We also don't have any form of profit-sharing. If at the end

of the year, if we're lucky enough, to have more money than we started

with, that money gets put back into the different projects that we

sponsor in various ways. We've been fortunate recently to be able to buy

some equipment that we needed, and to also support many different

projects in the city...."

David : "We have...collective meetings every month, and get together to

talk about our business, and the issues that come up. And we do get

requests for donations and that sort of thing."

Jason : "Was that how the decision was made to help Black Cat

collective?"

Russell : "It's sort of off of the German collective model of the

collectives, once they've been established, to help support other

collectives. And that is that they should float a proposal to you and

the other various collectives. Fortunately there they have a lot of 'em,

so every collective doesn't have to kick in much. And if you like the

idea then you can support their start, and they will continue to help

support other new ventures."

David : "I think when Black Cat originally came to us they were looking

for money, start-up money to help make improvements and buy equipment. I

think, as I recall, they came to us with a proposal for a thousand

dollar loan. And we said no, we'd rather do something concrete. And it

ended up being two thousand dollars so they could get their espresso

machine. They ended up getting more, actually."

Jason : "How did it work when AKA was started? Was it like Black

Cat...?"

David : "A fellow had a small used bookstore. He was going out of

business. And we went to look at books for Left Bank. And he offered, he

said he'd sell us the whole store for three thousand bucks, a thousand

up front and two thousand the next year. And we sort of went through the

store and thought that would be reasonable. And since Left Bank was

doing used books already in conjunction with the new books, it seemed

like a logical extension. It was also more space...Until that time we'd

been doing distribution and publishing stuff right out of Left Bank, a

very tiny bookstore. So by opening a used bookstore at that time, it

allowed us to make some shifts in the physical space and to pay another

person. And also it just increases the scope of the kind of books you

can offer. It's wonderful to have all the new books that we think are

valuable and important. But there's lots of books that are going out of

print. And this gave us a way to supply those. Particularly when you get

into radical, or labor, or black studies, or lots of small, obscure

books that there's no way you can find them anywhere. You couldn't find

them anywhere at that time. There was nobody doing any radical used

books here, particularly in any kind of organized way...And it seemed

like a natural extension of what we were already trying to do, with our

mail-order, with our publishing, with our distribution, with Left Bank

for the new books...AKA started out with five hundred square feet. It

had two rooms, plus a huge basement, and that's where we had the prison

project, and the distribution, and the old printing equipment we'd had

in garages. From there between rental problems with the landlord, and

wanting more room, we located a house that was actually cheaper rent

that was twice the size of what we were doing...And then after three

years there, we were again faced with a rental problem where the

building was possibly be torn down, so we decided to move to a better

location and more space, which led us to our present location. And we're

kind of faced with the same problem right now. We're up against an odd

lease situation, where when our lease expires we may have to find

another location. Space is a problem again...."

Jason : "Are you selling more books every year at the stores and through

distribution?"

David : "The last year has sort of leveled off. It's the first year it's

leveled off. It may be the nature of the building, or the business, or

the economy. It's difficult to know."

Russell : "It's very hard to tell exactly where we're at with the

distribution, since most of the books we're holding on a consignment

basis, and we pay quarterly. We'll know a lot more after the end of

January how we're doing. And also, we've taken on a number of new

expenses with distribution this year. The Reading Room/Prison Project

Space/Graphic Arts Area that is a storefront that has no

income-generating possibilities at this time is being funded primarily

by distribution, with also AKA Books and Left Bank Books chipping in

some of the money. So distribution is taking on a large load, and we

really have been very thankful of all the people that have supported us

over the last years. And in particular over the last two years, where

direct mail-order has really helped us out a lot in being able to start

and fund something like the space that we've created there. And we're

hoping that people continue to order books through us and continue to

help us do the kind of work that we're interested in.

One of the things about distribution that's an interesting issue is that

we sell new books mailorder to people at a retail cost. And some

distribution outfits, particularly a lot of the younger ones that have

started up, really try to give people a big discount. And so we supply

books to some of those people and they're mainly all-volunteer

operations. And they just mark things up a minimal amount in order to

keep things going. But we've taken the approach that we...still believe

that we're getting very good books to people at the going price, and we

try to charge the actual shipping cost to people as much as possible. We

don't pad the shipping and handling."

Jason : "If other people are interested in getting together radical book

distribution projects in their own towns, would you recommend checking

out to see if there's already any cooperatives in existence...?"

Russell : "It's a difficult question given the state of our state, the

state of the state in 1994...Our approach has been, for instance, when

we built the storefront space that now houses the Reading Room and the

Books To Prisoners project and graphic arts area, we did that through

asking for help from people in the community. And we had a series of

'barn-raisings' so to speak. Every Sunday we would get there and have

bagels and have a work crew going, and we'd try to get as many people

involved as possible. Not only could you learn new skills about

carpentry, but you could also help out...So I would say that if

anybody's interested in doing any kind of project in your community, you

could do it yourself. But also look around to see what resources you do

have. And look out of state, too. You know, there are different things

that we can help out, and other projects around the country, too, can

help individual projects starting up. Cause it's really difficult to

start up."

David : "On a local level, mainly it's trying to get people to help each

other and working in a mutually beneficial way. Sometimes it's more

difficult than working by yourself or with one other person, because

you're involving lots of different personalities and intentions and

ideals and factors, but the more people you can get involved, the larger

base of support you have towards ensuring the success of your

project...And it's important to talk to other people and other groups

that have attempted to do these things, because it isn't written down.

And no matter what's written down, it never seems to quite have the

realistic touch that personal contact can make. You know, when you call

around and talk to a store that's been in existence for ten years, I

mean that's a lot of experience that they can help supply you with on

different levels. How to organize your project. Are you going to try to

make money or you're not going to try to make money? Are you trying to

do this or trying to do that? Other people have done that already and

can help you in some way. Or can steer you to other people who have done

similar kinds of projects and what their experiences are...."

Russell : "Talk to as many people as possible...In our collective--and

I'm not speaking for all the volunteers since I don't know them

all--we're loosely based as an anarchist collective, and most of us have

a strong affinity to anti-authoritarian and anarchist ideas. But we have

never fallen into--at least in the last five years--the pitfall of

trying to define ourselves as a unified group. And that seems like one

of the biggest pitfalls. People call me up and say they're starting this

project and they're just getting their statements together or their

ideas. And it's not necessary. I mean, all ten of us are different

individuals and we all think differently."

David : "Practice is more important than all the ideology in the world.

You know, and the ability to work together. Because sometimes you can

have full agreement politically or ideologically, or however you're

gonna put it, but on a personal level you don't get along with somebody

and you can't work with 'em. Or maybe you can socialize with 'em, but

you can't work with 'em. So you have to work those things out. And

really what's important in the long term is the ability of a group of

people to work together around a broad or general kind of idea or

practice."

Kent : "The desire to work together above all is what you need to

survive as a collective, for some common purpose. And even though it may

sound crass, if you want to run a business, you do have to ask other

businesses that are out there...if you want to run a collective business

and have it succeed it is a good idea to ask other people who have done

it in practice, as opposed to setting up a few abstract ideals and

trying to work off that. You have to do what works, basically."

Russell : "We get criticized from some people on the fact that our books

cost money and they're not free, and we're not making them available as

free resources to everyone. Well, there weren't that many books around,

and there wouldn't be that many books around for very long if they were

all free. But I think people's minds are so jumbled about dealing with

capitalism and this society that they don't see that also working for

yourself and doing it in a non-hierarchical way is difficult, but yes,

you're freeing yourself out of the boss mentality. We have a lot of

struggles collectively. It's not always easy. Sometimes it's great and

smooth and excellent, but it's a fight all along. But at least we feel

that we're pulling ourselves out of the traditional capitalistic model

of rat-race,

pull-yourself-ahead-of-the-next-person-as-aggressively-as-you-possibly-can

mentality.

And for that matter, for people who are starting projects, you have to

decide whether or not you're oriented towards selling things and having

a mark-up. And the part that gets confusing is people think that if

you're marking up things and selling them...that you're making a

profit...whereas...it's what you do with that profit that people get

confused about. I mean if the profit only goes back into the project or

to yourselves and you're doing respectable things with the money that's

one thing. But unless it's going to be an all-donation, all-giveaway

project like the Diggers, or something else like that, you're going to

have to charge something for what you're selling. And I don't think

that's necessarily a bad thing, especially if you're looking at

collectives and wanting to pull people out of the rat-race."

Kent : "And in terms of overall access to information, since we do

different projects within the collective, we do charge money for certain

books that go through the mail and all that, but we also balance it out.

The money that we do make from some projects goes towards others. We do

send out a lot of free information. We do send out a lot of free books

to prisoners. We do have a reading room where people are welcome to hang

out and read a lot of the books. Increasingly a lot of the books there

are ones we have from distribution. We're donating some of those so that

people, at least those who live in Seattle, have access to books without

having to buy them."

David : "I personally wouldn't say it gets us out of the rat-race. It

probably helps us buy into the rat-race. We certainly don't work any

less hard. It's just as bad as any place else. Except for the degree

that I can be slinging hamburgers, or I can be doing this other job over

here where I don't have to work for a boss, and maybe some of the things

that I'm working towards I think are important. I can help contribute to

the break-down of the rat-race or the breakdown of capitalism. There's

no guarantee, obviously... Co-ops are very useful and they do undercut

certain notions, but for the most part they're not anti-capitalist or

anti-authoritarian. They see themselves as doing the same job as Safeway

does, only they want to provide a better type of food and maybe make it

a little more democratic. But really the mistake, particularly with a

business project, is to think that you're doing something radical or

revolutionary. I've seen people come in with that attitude, or think

they're going to create something like that. But we're all working

within this commodity capitalist system, the society of the spectacle.

And all we're doing really is choosing our poisons, and hopefully in a

small way contributing to undermining all that. Maybe not so much in the

commodity, but maybe the ideas that are embedded in those commodities.

Maybe we can subvert the commodities, and someday those books will be

free."

This interview will be continued in the next issue of APR.

Write for a free catalog! Left Bank Distribution can be contacted at:

4142 Brooklyn Avenue NE, Seattle, WA 98105 (Phone: 206-632-5870), which

is also the address for AKA Books. Left Bank Books is located at 92 Pike

St., Seattle, WA 98101.

Part 2: Alternative books and zines in Seattle

The Left Bank Collective

Interview by Jason McQuinn

Alternative Press Review, Fall 1994

In late January several Left Bank Collective members took time out to

talk for this APR interview. The Left Bank collective—originally

organized to run the Left Bank Books store located at the Pike Place

Market next to the downtown Seattle waterfront—celebrated its 20th