Good morning, Shop Around The Corner.

May I help you?

The Channel 2 truck just pulled up.

In a second. Everyone's read the article.

So you do not have to look to the usual places. .

where good and evil face off the places Herodotus called'the happy land of absolutes.'

We have the perfect example on the West Side where the cold cash cow, Fox Books threatens survival of a temple to one of the twentieth century's most profound truths:

You are what you read.

" I believe that. "Save The Shop Around The Corner .

.and you will save your soul."

Frank, that's charming. Is it a little over the top?

That was The Village Voice.

I told them to come over whenever.

Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee.

One, two, three, four! We don't want your superstore!

Five, six, seven, eight! Go away and close the gate!

One, two, three, four! We don't want this superstore.

-Is that it?-Catchy. Who wrote that? Annoying.

Pissing me off.

Do you want the West Side to become one big, gigantic strip mall?

Do you want to get off the subway at 72nd and Broadway and not even know you're in New York City?

Can we save The Shop Around The Corner?

We're here at The Shop Around The Corner, the West Side children 's bookstore on the verge of having to close its doors because the big bad wolf,Fox Books, has opened only a few hundred feet away wooing customers with its sharp discounts and designer coffee.

They have to have discounts and lattes because their workers have never read a book.

She's not as nice as she seems on TV.

You met her?

Boy, she's a pill! Probably ain't as fine as she look on TV,either No, no.

She's beautiful. But she's a pill.

You don't feel bad " about basically sending her ass back to the projects with food stamps?"

Broke, single, white lady. It's not personal.

It's business. Here's a good-looking guy.

I sell cheap books. I do. So sue me.

That, in a nutshell, is the Fox Books philosophy.

That's what you said? Discount them and sell them.

That's not all I said!

I can't believe those bastards.

I said we were great!

I said you could read for hours and no one will bother you.

I said we had 150,000 titles.

I said we were a goddamn piazza.

A place where people could mingle.

Piazza? I was eloquent! Shit! It's inevitable.

People wantto turn her into Joan of Arc.

And you into Attila the Hun.

Not me personally, but the company, yeah.

I have met Joe Fox.

I've heard him comparehis store to a Price Club and the books in it to cans of olive oil.

The bookstore, tell us about it.