By now, I guess everyone has read Farhad Manjoo's [controversial, incendiary, blasphemous...] article on Amazon vs Independent Bookstores. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2011/12/independent_bookstores_vs_amazon_buying_books_online_is_better_for_authors_better_for_the_economy_and_better_for_you_.html
The response has been...um...strong, I guess you could say.
What strikes me about this debate, and the Independent Bookstore whose demise everyone is urging me to mourn, is the utter foreignness of it from my experience. I have never been turned on to a great book/author because of a recommendation made to me by an employee of a independent bookstore. Not once. In part this is because I am not a very social person (that is why I like books, because reading can be so solitary), and I do not seek out conversations with store clerks. It is also probably in part because I am not big on attending readings. I don't enjoy meeting famous people any more than I enjoy meeting non-famous people. Maybe less. I have also always lived in college towns, so inasmuch as I am interested in things like Seeing a Famous Author Read Her Poems, I have always done that at a university.
Two kinds of people have given me in-person recommendations that have changed my life/habits/knowledge: librarians and video store clerks. Librarians, as opposed to people who work in bookstores (or video rental stores), are generally required to have a masters degree in what they do. And while they might not get paid enough, they usually earn a living wage.
But video store clerks. They are the cultural heroes. These are the guys (and they were mostly guys, in my own personal experience) who could tell you when the next season of The Sopranos would be out, and who might just keep a copy behind the desk, knowing you would probably be looking for it. They could answer a question like "What is the new movie from the guy who directed that movie with the girl who was the friend in the princess diaries?" They were just as passionate and serious and informed discussing who was the best Doctor, which was the most important Kurosawa film, or what country produced the greatest amateur porn. They could explain what the deal was with the subtitles on Let the Right One In, and they had an opinion about whose fault it was.
These guys did not have lofty ideas about "educating the masses" or "creating spaces of cultural literacy" or whatever: they just really loved movies. They were geeks of the highest order. And I will miss them.
p.s. I just heard that Amazon is planning on opening a facility in Chesterfield, and hiring some 1300 Virginians. So does that mean that when I buy from Amazon now, I am supporting my local economy?
3 comments:
As a former video store clerk I'm like "Hey!" because I'm female and "awwww!!!" because, thanks.
In the old, old days, at the original Borders store in Ann Arbor, you could walk in and say something like, "I'm looking for that book they were talking about on NPR....I think maybe's it's blue..." and they would walk you over and pull it off the shelf because they, too, really loved books and knew all about them. It was sad to see Borders lose its way (I won't say "soul") like it did.
On our way to the midwest Thad and I listened to A Christmas Story, the radio special from which the movie was adapted. It was recorded in 1974 and included the original advertisements. It advertised Barnes and Noble as your local bookstore (in New York I believe). We were both confused at first, then we realized it was talking about the store that spawned the chain. It was a bizarre experience, to realize that one of the stores we identify with the ruin of the local bookshop was initially a local bookshop that was so popular it simply expanded.
I'm not sure now where the line is between a local business and a chain. Is it a chain if it has two locations? Four? Where does it get too big?
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/being-here/jean-shepards-original-a-chris.html
Post a Comment