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(Found) Too Little, (Up) Too Late
Jul. 21st, 2012 09:16 amThe digital age took another chunk out of my heart yesterday. I had a brief layover at my office so I headed over to the nearby Barnes & Noble to see if they had any of several recent CDs I'd heard about on NPR.
For me, for there at least, yesterday was the day the music died. Their entire music department- once the full back 30-40% of the store- was gone without a trace. No signage, no explanation, just a huge circular pod in the middle of the floor, no doubt trying to affect Apple Store sleekness, to push their Nooks. Kids' stuff was moved and expanded into the space behind it, presumably because they're the only ones left who don't order all their shit off of Amazon.
All that remained was one impulse-purchase shelf near the registers. Adele and Tony Bennett and Lady Antebellum. One of the deepest and proudest sources of more-than-WalMart music, my forever go-to for folk and Celtic and jazz- now has a smaller selection than Starbucks. (Possibly smaller than within their own Starbucks- I didn't think to check.)
Yet the weird part? On that impulse shelf was Bonnie Raitt's new album- one of the ones I was looking for. The cashier still tried upselling me on a membership- Why would I, since you've just destroyed the one department I ever came in here for? Apparently you get free shipping with membership, so they've got that going for them, which is nice. Still no discounts on ebooks, though, so, erm, no.
Mary-Chapin Carpenter's and the debut from a new group named Milo Greene await a trip to a real record shop- while we still have any of those.
----
That was a bit before 1 p.m. yesterday. This was me a bit past 1 a.m. today:
"The whole thing" in this case was a half-rack of the beef ribs Eleanor picked out and cooked for her own birthday yesterday, along with some Applebees appetizers that we finally got round to ordering off a gift certificate Cameron got us for Christmas. The distress passed, but the resulting dreams were weirder and more vivid than ever. I was back on Long Island, where a vintage 60s luncheonette was reopening in its original decor in my old home town, but the proprietress didn't even know how to make an egg cream. (Here's a hint: no egg, and no cream.) Then I was waiting for an MTA bus out in front of it, but this was 2012, and I was able to call the number on the bus stop to find out when the next one was.... only it was more like a sports call-in show (I actually said, "First time long time" to the guys) and somehow I wound up rescuing a tropical fish from a hotel room and meeting guys from the Mets and....
Yup. The onion rings are definitely off tonight.
For me, for there at least, yesterday was the day the music died. Their entire music department- once the full back 30-40% of the store- was gone without a trace. No signage, no explanation, just a huge circular pod in the middle of the floor, no doubt trying to affect Apple Store sleekness, to push their Nooks. Kids' stuff was moved and expanded into the space behind it, presumably because they're the only ones left who don't order all their shit off of Amazon.
All that remained was one impulse-purchase shelf near the registers. Adele and Tony Bennett and Lady Antebellum. One of the deepest and proudest sources of more-than-WalMart music, my forever go-to for folk and Celtic and jazz- now has a smaller selection than Starbucks. (Possibly smaller than within their own Starbucks- I didn't think to check.)
Yet the weird part? On that impulse shelf was Bonnie Raitt's new album- one of the ones I was looking for. The cashier still tried upselling me on a membership- Why would I, since you've just destroyed the one department I ever came in here for? Apparently you get free shipping with membership, so they've got that going for them, which is nice. Still no discounts on ebooks, though, so, erm, no.
Mary-Chapin Carpenter's and the debut from a new group named Milo Greene await a trip to a real record shop- while we still have any of those.
----
That was a bit before 1 p.m. yesterday. This was me a bit past 1 a.m. today:
"The whole thing" in this case was a half-rack of the beef ribs Eleanor picked out and cooked for her own birthday yesterday, along with some Applebees appetizers that we finally got round to ordering off a gift certificate Cameron got us for Christmas. The distress passed, but the resulting dreams were weirder and more vivid than ever. I was back on Long Island, where a vintage 60s luncheonette was reopening in its original decor in my old home town, but the proprietress didn't even know how to make an egg cream. (Here's a hint: no egg, and no cream.) Then I was waiting for an MTA bus out in front of it, but this was 2012, and I was able to call the number on the bus stop to find out when the next one was.... only it was more like a sports call-in show (I actually said, "First time long time" to the guys) and somehow I wound up rescuing a tropical fish from a hotel room and meeting guys from the Mets and....
Yup. The onion rings are definitely off tonight.