BOOKS AND ARTS JANUARY 11, 2012
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In a country as injured as ours, there is something unseemly about all this sagacious talk of creative destruction. A concept that was designed to suggest the ironic cruelty of innovation has been twisted into an extenuation of economic misery—into capitalism’s theodicy. Where there are winners, there are losers: praise the Lord and pass the Kindle. I have always believed that the losers know more about life than the winners, though I wish affluence upon us all; but it does not romanticize the poor to demythologize the rich, and to propose that sometimes creative destruction is not very creative but very destructive. The brutality of large businesses toward small businesses, for example, is neither brilliant nor heroic. They do it because they can. Last week a record store in Dupont Circle announced that it was closing. The immediate cause of its demise—it had outlasted national and regional chains—was Price Check, Amazon’s new idea for exterminating competition. It is an app that allows shoppers to scan the bar code on any item in any store and transmit it to Amazon for purposes of comparison, and if it compares favorably to Amazon’s price, Amazon’s special promotion promises a discount on the same item. In this way shoppers become spies, and stores, merely by letting customers through their doors, become complicit in their own undoing. It will not do to shrug that this is capitalism, because it is a particular kind of capitalism: the kind that entertains fantasies of monopoly. For all its technological newness, Amazon’s “vision” is disgustingly familiar. (“Amazon is coming to eat me,” a small publisher of fine religious books stoically told me a few weeks ago.) Nor will it do to explain that Amazon’s app is convenient, unless one is prepared to acquiesce in a view of American existence according to which its supreme consideration must be convenience. How easy must every little thing be? A record store in your neighborhood is also convenient, and so is a bookstore. There is also a sinister side to the convenience of online shopping: hours once spent in the sensory world, in the diversified satisfaction of material needs and desires, can now be surrendered to work. It appears to be a law of American life that there shall be no respite from screens. And so Amazon’s practices raise the old question of the cultural consequences of market piggishness. For there are businesses that are not only businesses, that also have non-monetary reasons for being, that are public goods. Their devastation in the name of profit may be economically legitimate, but it is culturally calamitous. In a word, wrong.
WHEN MY FRIEND at Melody Records told me about the death of his store, I was bereft. This was in part because he is my friend—after my father died, I received a letter from the Holocaust Museum informing me that he had made a donation in my father’s memory—and now he must fend for himself and his family and his staff in the American wreckage. But my dejection was owed also to the fact that this store was one of the primary scenes of my personal cultivation. For thirty years it stimulated me, and provided a sanctuary from sadness and sterility. “Going to Melody” was a reliable way of improving my mind’s weather. The people who worked there had knowledge and taste: they apprised me of obscure pressings of Frank Martin’s chamber music, and warned me about the sound quality of certain reissues of Lucky Thompson and Don Byas, and turned me on to old salsa and new fado. They even teased me about my insane affection for Rihanna. When they added DVDs to the store, my pleasures multiplied. (Also my amusements. Not long ago Marcel Ophuls’ great film arrived in the shop, and the box declared: “Woody Allen presents The Sorrow and The Pity.” Beat that.) Of course all these discs can be found online. But the motive of my visits to the store was not acquisitiveness, it was inquisitiveness. I went there to engage in the time-honored intellectual and cultural activity known as browsing.
IT IS A MATTER OF some importance that the nature of browsing be properly understood. Browsing is a method of humanistic education. It gathers not information but impressions, and refines them by brief (but longer than 29 seconds!) immersions in sound or language. Browsing is to Amazon what flaneurie is to Google Earth. It is an immediate encounter with the actual object of curiosity. The browser (no, not that one) is the flaneur in a room. Browsing is not idleness; or rather, it is active idleness—an exploring capacity, a kind of questing non-instrumental behavior. Browsing is the opposite of “search.” Search is precise, browsing is imprecise. When you search, you find what you were looking for; when you browse, you find what you were not looking for. Search corrects your knowledge, browsing corrects your ignorance. Search narrows, browsing enlarges. It does so by means of accidents, of unexpected adjacencies and improbable associations. On Amazon, by contrast, there are no accidents. Its adjacencies are expected and its associations are probable, because it is programmed for precedents. It takes you to where you have already been—to what you have already bought or thought of buying, and to similar things. It sells similarities. After all, serendipity is a poor business model. But serendipity is how the spirit is renewed; and a record store, like a bookstore, is nothing less than an institution of spiritual renewal.
MY FATHER HAD furniture stores. I grew up with the pathos of retail: you throw all your money into a location and an inventory, you hang out a sign, you trick out a window, you unlock a door, and (if you lack the resources to advertise formidably) you wait. If they come in, you use your skill; but they have to come in. When my father was ill, I would quit the library and mind the store. One day I set a house record for sofas sold because the store was located in a neighborhood where many U.N. people lived, and I knew more than most furniture salesmen about the crises in Iran and Cyprus. Eventually the store failed. But the failure of some stores is more repercussive than the failure of other stores. The commerce of culture is a trade in ideals of beauty, goodness, and truth. A hunger for profit exploits a hunger for meaning. If the one gets too ravenous, the other may find it harder to subsist. The disappearance of our bookstores and our record stores constitutes one of the great self-inflicted wounds of this wounding time.
Leon Wieseltier is the literary editor of The New Republic. This article appeared in the February 2, 2012, issue of the magazine.
36 comments
I have a kindle but I refused to buy their Kindle Fire because it’s a gadget that was developed mostly for amazon customers. Most of the book e-readers and Tablets have proprietary content that doesn’t allow you to send an e-book bought at one internet web store to a device developed by another e-book company such as Nook, or Pocketbook, etc. I can therefore understand your sadness with regard to e-book commerce. However, your view of an ideal shopping environment where one can browse and play the flaneur is pure fantasy. Perhaps in New York and one o two other cities such activity was possible. But in most of the country (even Boston) the neighborhood book store had given way to chains long ago. One of my favorite book stores in Harvard Sq. Wordsworth closed many years before Amazon became the America’s bookstore. Before that another fun book store (across the street from Wordsworth) Reading International had closed a couple of years earlier. Then recently a chain book store “Borders” also went bankrupt. I don’t miss Borders because they only carried “contemporary” authors and one or two books by well-known authors like Hemingway or Jim Jones and Bellow. The idea of me going to Borders ro some other chain bookstore for avice on what to read next is as ridiculous as your going to a dry cleaning store to get advice on what to wear on daughter’s wedding. And Barnes and Noble is being taken over by their Nook devices. I don’t miss the demise of the chain book stores. It’s true that browsing in book stores was a great learning experience. For me though that experience came to an end when I moved away from NY City and went into the army. When I came back some of my favorite bood stores in the lower Manhattan were starting to close. There was one book store that carried all the books published by Signet. I know of no other book store that did that. To me it all started to go wrong in the 70’s long before the internet was even thought of. It’s not amazon that killed bookstores, it died a slow death when TV’s started to invade homes and people stopped reading. Amazon Kindle actually is helping resuscitate readers; everywhere I go I meet other people with kindles who tell me that are downloading for free e-books that have gone out of print generations ago. Writers like Edgar Rice Edgar Rice Burroughs and Israel Zangwill, Jack London and Anthony Trollope are being downloaded for free. The new e-commerce is a mixed bag just like the old commerce.
- arnon
January 12, 2012 at 7:02pm
One of your best pieces, Mr. Wieseltier. I have an idea of what you felt like when you wrote it. Back in the Eighties Tower Records, although it was a chain store, had a feeling of intimacy in each individual store. I spent hours each week crafting my small, but quality collection. The store clerks were knowledgeable and friendly, and the return-or-trade policy was liberal. I enjoyed browsing even more than settling on a selection. When I finally bought a record (yes, a carbon disc), I was confident that I had selected a treasure. And most of the time I was right. Nowadays you can download an album while riding on a bus. The shopping experience just isn't the same. Browsing on a computer or a phone, like you said, doesn't lead you to anything by chance, which is, most of the time, the best kind of shopping experience. Thanks for the nostalgia.
- magboy47.
January 13, 2012 at 7:41pm
I enjoyed this piece, but unfortunately I just finished the Robert kagen piece on the Myth of American Decline and have to object a bit. Mr. Wieseltier paints a loving portrait of small town retail from both sides. The causaul joy of browsing and finding something new, and the pressures of the family business. But he misses the opportunites available today. I much more enjoy the browsing on-line to research my music. Between Youtube and Wikipedia I have found much more music today and don't need the ever-changing wardrobe to keep up with the folks in these communites. My iPod now has almost my whole music collection on it. Mr. Wieseltier's 'Record' Store may be wonderful but they didn't innovate these incredible ideas, and really it wasn't Amazon that did them in. He may be too poilite to say it, but really this new generation just doesn't buy music they can get on-line for free. The small shop may look at their competitor as their downfall but it wasn't people buying music that drove them out of business, it was people not buying music that killed them.
- CRS9TNR
January 13, 2012 at 9:30pm
"Mr. Wieseltier paints a loving portrait of small town retail from both sides. The causaul joy of browsing and finding something new, and the pressures of the family business." Small Town retail?" Where does he do that?
- arnon
January 14, 2012 at 2:22pm
I guess I'm lucky to be living in Toronto and near its surrounding municipalities because I have plenty of book stores and record stores, both new and used, where I can and do go to to browse to my heart's content. I can spend hours if I want pouring through books and magazines--I never really spend that long--and can do so sitting in comfortable chairs, even over a coffee. I frequent used record stores and that way have over many years built up an extensive record collection. For most books I buy I don't really browse because I have a good idea of what I want to get but can spend, as I say, virtually any amount of time skimming through them. But then again, not really a buyer of used books, I enjoy going through what has been remaindered to see what treasures I might come across. I love paying less than normal retail. And once in while I'll cheat a bit and read a short magazine article without buying the magazine. For records, which make no sense to me to buy new, I have a few used record stores that I go to and browse through, non descript, dusty places that have the virtue of being companionable, comfortable, easy going, stocked with the kind of music I love--blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, doo wop, old time rock and roll, country and western, blue grass, and other genres of popular American music--- and run typically by oddball proprietors who love the music they sell and love to talk about it. In one mall, not so far from me, the big book store is just across the way from a small used record store. I can't count the portions of Saturday afternoons I have wiled away in those two stores, topped off by a further adjoining rather weird restaurant-- called Cafe Mirage-- where, browsing and buying done, I can sit for a time with a glass of wine and something to eat and browse even more through what I have bought. Heaven is occasionally doing all this browsing and buying and browsing and eating and drinking with my wife one of my kids or a good friend. So no critical analysis of this diarist piece. I was just put by it into a meandering frame of mind, which I've just indulged some. (I have a kindle and an IPad, no IPod mind you, and I find that they all complement each other, each suitable to whatever mood I'm in and how I want to read whatever I'm reading.)
- basman
January 20, 2012 at 1:28am
P.S.I meant to add that I don't subscribe to the magazines I read regularly, except for Commentary, precisely because I love going to book stores to hunt them down and pick them up as part of my spending time in them even though subscription, and online subscription at that, would be cheaper, cheaper being one of the mainstays of my life as a consumer.
- basman
January 20, 2012 at 1:39am
Given what I've experienced and many of my friends in what is now called the Rust Belt over the last three or four decades, this column is the petulant whining of a highly educated narcissist losing his favorite playground.
- rewiredhogdog
January 20, 2012 at 9:36am
Fine column. His description of browsing clarifies a crucial distinction. I do have an Amazon wishlist. When friends or family wonder what to get for me, I refer them to it. (It's also a way to discourage my FoxNews-loving brother from offering me anything else by Glenn Beck or Ann Coulter.) But I've put a note on there which reads: "I ask that anyone buying me something from this list do so, if possible, from an independent bookstore." Given Amazon's tactics, this seems fair; maybe other TNR readers will try it?
- bjones
January 20, 2012 at 10:52am
I agree in my heart with all the sentiments expressed in the article. Moreover, as a long-time record collector in possession of a vast collection of vinyl and compact discs that I've obtained through hours upon hours of used-record-store shopping across decades, I know well the pleasures of browsing among the real and often obscure objects of my desire. But I have to object to the author's characterization of browsing on Amazon. I find it delightful and enlightening - because in the course of my time staring at the screen I manage to identify all sorts of new books, recordings and films that I might otherwise have missed. Indeed, I find it much more efficient and actually useful than browsing in a record or bookstore. Do I enjoy it quite as much? - No, I don't, because I like getting out in the real world and talking to store clerks, etc. But in terms of identifying new stuff to read and listen to? - for my money, Amazon can't be beat. Perhaps it's only me...
- pdiamond
January 20, 2012 at 11:58am
As someone who literally grew up in a local record store that my parents owned and ran in north Denver I can speak a little to the issues that face such endeavors like a local book store or music store. First and foremost, those entrepreneurs that enter into such a business do it not because they will become rich, necessarily, but because they want to turn their hobby/passion into something they can share with others and make an independent living on. My parent's store saw the coming and going of Apple Record stores (a regional chain that pandered to pedestrian tastes) the coming of other regional music chains like Sound Warehouse, Peaches, etc. Most of these went away as the internet retailers like Amazon took off but one of the last great local stores in Denver is Twist & Shout. Which has been around for 30years now and when I return to visit family, I make a special trip there to check out their vinyl collect and CDs and then make my way next door to Tattered Cover (the best local bookstore ever IMHO). My parents record store inventoried a variety of music. New and used records, tape, tour posters, concert memorabilia and well before the advent of CDs. Our store specialized in blues, jazz and the early rock and roll that my father enjoyed most. We had a loyal customer base and plenty of drop-ins that browsed, listened to records, and enjoyed the atmosphere of a local record shop and talking BS with my dad. Imagine holding a rare 10" vinyl single of Lighting Hopkins or the original cut of Fats Domino's "Blueberry Hill" on a 45 and then getting to play that via Amazon? But my father was slow to adapt to changing trends & thought CDs would never catch on at $25 a pop but then realizing it would stay he began to carry a small selection of Audiophile CDs. They closed shop in the mid-80s when for a variety of reasons. Tired of the business, low to no profits, shrinking markets. The local music store business has always been a low profit margin endeavor even in a music rich city like New Orleans. Local book & music stores still flourish here but that is because New Orleans has an outsized and proud tradition of being local, shopping local and staying local. That's also why you find only 5 Starbucks in the entire city that loves it's coffee local. Once you're out of the parish line those chain stores grow exponentially. I've been a lifelong supporter of local book stores and music stores. Because I, like Leon, love to browse but also because I have a fondness for the tangible product. I still buy records, direct from the artists now and I still buy CDs from my favorite artists because even for a $20 record, the cost is outweighed by the lifetime of enjoyment I get. Vinyl has resurged over the last decade (outgrowing CDs actually) and has become the purview of music collectors. I still play my vinyl and have my father's personal collection of rare blues & jazz in conditioned storage until I can move it out to the house. I think if American's want to continue to have a quality of life that is enriched by local businesses that, while not carrying the infinite choices Amazon might have, does bring certain qualities to the neighborhood, folks need to support them in whatever ways they can, even used bookstores. Which, having had worked at one in Denver, is definitely NOT a profit maker. Instead of thinking about the demise of these businesses as another sign of decline, do your best to support them, spread the word, encourage others to shop at these places and buy from these places. They really do make for a better place to live.
- singlspeed
January 20, 2012 at 12:19pm
Good comment singlespeed.
- basman
January 20, 2012 at 12:30pm
arnon, outstanding first comment. I have laughed like hell at the dry cleaners joke. "It appears to be a law of American life that there shall be no respite from screens." I wonder if Leon is aware of how many of us are reading this on our computer (and how much better it is we have a comment function) As to browsing and shopping. His reality is far different from mine, he can afford the luxury of paying premium for the pleasure of a mid town store, most people can't. As to my own experience, I daresay my going to the open and outdoor Sunday market filled with the wares of the local zapoteco natives is a hell of a lot more of a real sensory experience then his visiting his climate controlled, vacuum pressed plastic retail store. I am not saying what I have his superior, I have the flies, the heat, the barefoot children running everywhere, the dubious quality of the merchandise but at the same time it is a damnsight about as eternal as anything human has ever been. (and is the reality for the overwhelming majority of human beings) so I simply can't get worked up at his loss as somehow representative of an inconvience for the elite of the planet.
- blackton
January 20, 2012 at 1:03pm
somehow representative for all but the elite of the planet. sorry for the typo. And even in the states there are Sunday markets, not far from Manhattan are the Poconos and every Sunday there are huge markets filled with every type of ware. There are also more country stores there then I can shake a stick at so lets keep some perspective.
- blackton
January 20, 2012 at 1:08pm
A wonderful lyrical, steeped in the rich scents of nostalgia and elitism, piece - but rather off the mark analytically. It is not Amazon's rapaciousness that kills the local store, but the fact that it's customers in aggregate don't value it highly enough to keep it in business. Every person who uses that Amazon app knows that in choosing the Amazon deal, they are choosing not to patronize the place in which they are standing, and unless they are plain stupid, they know that their behavior is not sustainable - that refusing to patronize the local store will close it. They choose Amazon anyway. Or, if you'd like to invert the analysis a little bit, the store never managed to convince enough of it's customers of it's value to keep them coming if a cheaper option was offered. Most of their customers were their only because it was the (current) best (cheapest) option to get what they wanted. If Wieseltier needs to point fingers, he need only point them at fellow consumers. Amazon is merely, and rather effectively, exploiting the fact that they value cheapness over ambiance and convenience over serendipity. I used to rail against what Walmart had done to the small town in which I live, until I drove by their parking lot filled with my neighbors and friends cars often enough to realize that Walmart is just a natural exploiter of a harsh fact of small town, unmonied life - most people will happily beggar the shop keepers whose establishments they once patronized (and thus the keepers of one of the small town nostalgic virtues which they often loudly extol) in order to save a few bucks a week. I have spent in total less than $25 at Walmart in the 25 years they've been in my town. Enough have stuck with me in just saying no, we still have one independently owned hardware store (of the 4 we once had), a thriving small grocery, a men's clothing store, and a couple of women's. How long they last only the future can tell, but if they go tomorrow, I won't blame Walmart's rapaciousness, I will blame my neighbor's lack of ability to connect A to B, even when B inevitably follows A, their bred-in-the-bone cheapness, and the stupid economic policies of this country th
- IowaBeauty
January 20, 2012 at 1:57pm
the independent bookstore/record store must do what digital e-commerce cannot: nurture an experience. Leon describes the true - not replicable - benefit to brick and mortar shopping: consultative, personalized shopping advice. This is worth something; the experience is valuable. Amazon does a fairly good job of facilitating browsing and does offer some advice "other people bought this too" and does allow for other people to offer advice through comments. Yet, they cannot recreate the consultative and personalized experience of very good brick and mortar retailers. Easier said than done, but I'd encourage local retailers to abandon competing with Amazon on price or convenience and focus on the experience. There is still a large segment of commerce very interested in how we buy/shop vs. what we buy.
- rancilio
January 20, 2012 at 1:59pm
"There is still a large segment of commerce very interested in how we buy/shop vs. what we buy." Clearly not large enough to keep Melody, or most of the small businesses in my town, profitable. There are millions of choices being made by consumers every day, and those choices unambiguously tilt toward favoring lower immediate price over the great brick and mortar experience you value. If 90% of Melody's customers felt as Wieseltier does, they'd still have 90% of their business, and almost certainly could have survived by adding some additional services, or tweaking prices. I'd be willing to wager that for a store like Melody, a substantial majority of actual purchases were always made by people who knew what they wanted before they entered the store, and who considered browsing to be either an occasional pleasure for which they wouldn't pay much, or even just a way to kill time. For years those customers paid a premium so Wieseltier could browse. If it weren't so, if Melody's customers were happy to pay for the experience, Amazon could no more lever customers away from them than they could run their business as a perpetual motion machine. They don't have taxing authority. People willingly make the switch to Amazon.
- IowaBeauty
January 20, 2012 at 3:59pm
Etta James - R.I.P. Indeed and may she find the peace that eluded her in her complicated life.
- basman
January 20, 2012 at 4:46pm
One other thing worth noting - this need not be entirely a one way process. My spouse browses Barnes and Noble and Amazon online, then goes to the local bookstore to order them, or calls in the order and then picks them up a week later. Even though they cost more that way, and are less convenient if you're looking for immediate gratification (it's a seven mile drive for us to get to any store), if you value the store for the browsing opportunity, it's not hard to feed it business even when you know exactly what you want. The local bookstore, BTW, reciprocates this loyalty with slightly better than walk-in prices, and just plain dynamite service.
- IowaBeauty
January 20, 2012 at 5:01pm
I think I disagree with arnon above in his comments about Borders. I always found Borders to offer a rather more imaginative range of books than B&N stores, and I have to say I was was saddened by their demise. Fond memories, too, of the Borders near UCLA, which had a cafe upstairs and a patio overlooking Westwood Avenue, back in the late 90s and early 00s. Sometimes a clueless staff, however. I remember on one occasion I went in to buy Dominick LaCapra's "History and Memory after Auschwitz" and assumed they would have it as I had recently bought another book of his there. I asked the clerk to check their inventory for me -- I had written out the title and author -- and he looked at the slip, seemed confused, then asked me "So the guy's last name is Auschwitz, right?"
- ironyroad
January 20, 2012 at 6:07pm
It really should be pointed out that most people need to save a few bucks because they're money doesn't go qas far as it used to and lots of them aren't getting pay raises.
- lump516
January 20, 2012 at 6:27pm
"So the guy's last name is Auschwitz, right?" Funny, ironyroad, but not so funny either. Bookstore staffs should have a general education, and Auschwitz may be the most famous place in history. I don't know why history is losing favor as a subject. Life only becomes truly interesting when it's in the past. There are too many distractions and interventions and stresses in the modern world to make the present fascinating. There are exceptions, of course. I'll be supremely in the moment on Sunday, while watching the Giants steamroll the 49ers.
- magboy47.
January 20, 2012 at 8:07pm
magboy, I agree -- I was more than a little taken aback and I thought for a brief second the guy was trying to jerk my chain for some reason. He wasn't.
- ironyroad
January 20, 2012 at 8:20pm
A fine piece. But it strikes me that those of us who agree with Leon need to organize, even if informally, and perhaps using the same "screens" that everyone is spending too much time behind. I don't have time to write the manifesto, but point 1 should be: Don't buy on Amazon what you can buy from a local merchant who devotes care and attention to his or her business. I try to follow this rule myself but could do better, and probably would do better, if I knew that there was a movement for this. Perhaps everyone should urge their friends on Facebook to follow this rule.
- LDuncan
January 21, 2012 at 7:59am
I don't agree with any of you, this was a stupid article that sucked. If you think cultural spaces are a public good (and I agree), then how about you know... BUILD CULTURAL PUBLIC SPACES. Here's an idea: Turn the libraries into something totally modern and awesome (maybe like a combo of a Border's and a great record store, complete with turntables/headphones). You can pay for it by voting for tax increases! In fact, homeowners can vote to increase their taxes (or reduce their interest rate deduction) to finance such a thing.
- mmathog
January 21, 2012 at 12:01pm
Oh, make amazon pay sales taxes so they can't destroy others on an unlevel playing field. Also, pass a law that criminalizes explicit "dumping" behavior, kind of like we do with foreign trade or local collusion. Amazon can certainly offer discounts, but by law be required to offer that discount to everyone for some set period of time. In other words, there's no iron law of "capitalism," we can just make some rules and policies and I can be spared wiesleter's (sp?) narcissistic bitching.
- mmathog
January 21, 2012 at 12:06pm
Mmathog, On the sales tax I agree, Amazon has an unwarranted and field-tilting advantage.It's just plain stupid bad policy that Congress has never passed enabling legislation to make mail/web order houses pay their share of sales tax.
- IowaBeauty
January 21, 2012 at 3:17pm
Think of it as "Evolution in Action." We (human beings) are a huge eco-system. We are destroying our competitors in tooth and claw. Individual vs. individual, with only our bodies, none of us would have a chance against a grizzly bear or Great White Shark. However, once we are armed with one of our little toys such as a AK-47 or an RPG, none of them could stop us. With globalization, evolution is escalating. Google has tossed all the other search engines. Anybody remember Alta Vista? Wal-Mart has run over all the downtown family stores. Nike has outrun the other shoe companies. Once USA-Inc. stood over the world like a colossus. Most of us (Americans) were complacent enough, and happy enough to consume a giant share of the world's resources, and not too worried that much of our products were mined, and farmed, and created, often by people working in dreadful conditions at pathetic wages. Now the tables are turning. China can build and grow faster and cheaper than we can. India can out program our software engineers. Brazil is a new colossus in agriculture and manufacturing. Where once Al Copone and his peers ran the rackets and terrorized the neighborhoods, Columbian and Mexican drug lords have far outstripped the classic Mafia in horrific brutality. We invented and developed the atom bomb to vanquish Japan. Now Islamic terrorists have invented their own unstoppable weapon (as demonstrated so potently at the World Trade Center), the human suicide weapon. So while it is a big deal in one sense, Amazon's destruction, consumption and remaking of the publishing business is only one small act in the remaking of our society. And, there is a kind of Amazon "ecology," there are lots of small vendors who are allowed to participate and make a living as long as they put themselves under the big umbrella. This is also true with another triumphant colossus -- ebay. Only a few years ago, there were a variety of on line auction businesses. Yahoo, for example, had a vigorous one. And it's only a matter of time until Microsoft or Google swallows up Yahoo. It's like one of those old dinosaur movies, where the giant monsters battle in titanic struggles and ground shakes as the tiny mammals scurry in the underbrush. Off to scurry...
- skahn
January 21, 2012 at 10:52pm
Rihanna? Why you dirty old man. That reminds me of a quote from Godfather III: "Your sins are terrible, and it is just that suffer" teasing. Change can be sad, it's true, especially when one perceives one's cherished values and way of life cast aside, replaced by what seems at any rate to be a crasser, uglier, or just lamer cultural climate. I myself have never known the joy of a simpatico store owner or clerk who can be relied upon to furnish rare insight. More often, in my experience, one encounters, even in the most knowledgeable and helpful clerk, opinionated and eccentric views that don't mesh with my own opinionated and eccentric views, and associated unwelcome pressure to defer. If I want opinionated, eccentric views I don't agree with, the internet's full of them. I *do* appreciate knowledge and helpfulness, though. What's that book about the guy with the thing that just came out by the British guy? There's nothing like, "Oh, you mean X by Y, and we have five copies, and here it is." Siri can't do that yet. Then again, neither can Auschwitz guy. I recall one Barnes & Noble clerk flummoxed by the question, "Where are fiction new releases?" I also like *real* browsing. Maybe if I did more shopping at a couple of sites, they would have a better read on me. As it is, Amazon -- and websites generally -- are like those annoying acquaintances or rarely-seen relatives whose impression of you was indelibly and comprehensively formed by one two-minute conversation years ago in which you happened to mention your fleeting interest in, say, French cheeses. Forever after, you're the cheese guy. "You may also be interested in: Camembert!" One squints in disgust and thinks or utters the immortal cliche, "You don't know me." I also like the things themselves. Missing from Wieseltier’s musings is acknowledgment of the big pressure when it comes to record stores, and bookstores too -- that is, digital media. Price Check is nothing in the grand scheme. After all, price match guarantees predate internet retail. Amazon does have an unfair advantage when it comes to sales tax, but there's an Amazon-approved bipartisan bill in Congress to fix that. The real problem, as many above note, is that the stuff these stores are selling are becoming increasingly obsolete, so their market will continue to dwindle, so it will cost more to produce them, so only a bulk retailer will be able to sell them profitably until they more or less vanish. The problem is less acute when it comes to books -- for now, anyway -- but it's in advanced stages when it comes to music and, to a just slightly lesser extent, movies. But, as I said, I like the things. It's not that I harbor irrational notions that CDs or (more irrational) records sounds better than a digital download. Much ink is spilled about download "quality," without any real evidence that any normal person can tell the difference. Anyway, you can get high-“quality” or even perfect downloads. As for the record stuff, I remember another nostalgic Wieseltier column in which he called record scratches "marks of ardor." Nonsense. They're marks of misuse of an absurdly delicate medium that decays with each spin. Classical music -- which should sound pure and perfect -- is relative crap on vinyl. When I say that I like the things, I like the things the things offer. Liner notes, for one. Maybe a libretto of an opera keyed to the CD tracks. “Super Audio” (i.e., surround sound) CDs – where the technology does make a noticeable difference – are not available for download. Neither are the special features on a DVD. I would miss the ability to browse at home as I can at the store – by looking at physical stuff. I would miss the ability to pop something in a machine and watch it instantly, instead of going through a more cumbersome digital process that, for movies, requires waiting and “loading” and doesn’t always work smoothly. Although I’ve never tried reading a book on an iPad – I’m told it’s good – I can’t imagine preferring it to a real book. In all of these cases, the digital experience comes increasingly close but doesn’t equal the physical one, at least not yet. One suspects that the digital experience will eventually take care of all of these issues, but it hasn’t yet. In the meantime, I live in the third largest city in the country, where there is amazingly not a single brick-and-mortar music store that sells a respectable collection of classical music, where there is no major bookstore downtown except a lame Barnes & Noble attached to a university on the south end of the Loop, where there is no DVD store downtown except an unpleasant FYE. There used to be two giant Borders, and, yes, they sold everything, including classic literature, and a great Virgin Megastore. My old haunt on the Upper West Side in New York – the big Barnes & Noble at Lincoln Square – is gone, I was horrified to learn recently, replaced by a discount clothing store. They weren’t independent places, but they were go-to places, where I spent much time browsing, looking for gifts, coming across things I didn’t know I wanted, and finding the things I did. The demise of these places may have been inevitable, but it seems premature.
- JakeH
January 22, 2012 at 1:49am
The loss of Borders was a big blow for me. In addition to the two downtown stores, where I spent time on a lunch break (State and Randolph) or during a general shopping trip (North Michigan Avenue), there was the store in my neighborhood (Clark & Diversey) I would visit before or after the movie at the art house theater across the street or on my way home from the L station, the store near Steppenwolf Theatre (North & Halsted) I'd visit before the play, the stores in my hometown suburb (Oak Park) and another frequented suburb (Evanston). What should we do? was the question, and often the answer was "hang out at Borders" -- look at books, remember something on your list to check out, leaf through the magazines, get a cup of coffee. Other than a pretty kick-ass Barnes & Noble in Evanston, there's nothing that replaces these stores. Well, there is the new Apple store at North & Clybourn....
- JakeH
January 22, 2012 at 2:19am
About that Apple store, all that crap is available online too. But people like basking in Steve Jobs's aura. Someone said it above -- it's about the experience. I find it hard to believe that the barren landscape today, bookstore-wise, truly reflects what the market, at least where I live, would support and prefer if done right.
- JakeH
January 22, 2012 at 2:29am
So do any of you think you might try my approach, described above: "I do have an Amazon wishlist. When friends or family wonder what to get for me, I refer them to it. (It's also a way to discourage my FoxNews-loving brother from offering me anything else by Glenn Beck or Ann Coulter.) But I've put a note on there which reads: 'I ask that anyone buying me something from this list do so, if possible, from an independent bookstore.' Given Amazon's tactics, this seems fair; maybe other TNR readers will try it?" The market-worshipping libertarian types who have posted some of the comments here just shrug and say "OK it's just individual customers choosing what they want" - so my response is that those of us who treasure good bookstores, as Mr. Wieseltier and I do, can and should take actions as individuals which bolster such places. But in the long run the hyper-individualistic worldview which is quite popular both in the Republican Party and on the web, has its limits. We moderates advocate a balance, a creative tension, between individualism and the good of society (and we think "the invisible hand" is fine for setting prices, but beyond that the brain actually has a role to play). There are so many contexts in which focusing purely on "my individual convenience at this instant" is shortsighted: environmental consequences and voting are two such contexts. In recent decades many of us have come to understand that individual actions which, looked at in isolation, are insignificant can have very destructive effects in the aggregate. And I've often thought that one reason Libertarian candidates rarely do as well in the actual voting as they do in polls may be that voting, when looked at in an individualistic light of "my convenience today/likely impact of my vote on the outcome" appears to be not worth the effort; only when we view ourselves as part of a community of voters does it make sense. So it is now with the impact of the internet and other technologies. We all have to consider our daily behavior not only in light of "my convenience at this moment" but in a larger context of community behavior and its consequences. This has implications for how and where we shop, as well as online manners (being as polite in online comments as we would be at a party [before we've had too much to drink at said party]), honoring copyright so that creators get paid, and - well this comment has gone on too long......
- bjones
January 22, 2012 at 11:45am
Guys, I might be showing my lack of knowledge but for some reason I thought that US had anti monopoly laws such as Sherman Law. Could Amazon be accused of monopolistic practices?
- rmakover@swbell.net-OLD
January 22, 2012 at 3:57pm
From your intrepid reporter browsing at the Kennedy Commons Mall. I Saw Shame, very good, tough and tough minded movie, maybe thematically muddled, stilll thinking about that--addiction versus will--with superb shots of down trodden New Yorkers riding the subway as a counterpoint to Fassbneder's psychosexual problem. Movie, over, saw it with my wife, we went to Indigo, a Borders like book store, where I got myself an Americcano couldn't find the NYR I wanted to get, sat for a quick minute--wanting to get home to watch the ball games as my post Eason interest revives--and read Rmenick's review of Jodi Kantor's book, which I won't read. Then went into the used record store-- Deja Vu Discs-- and, well, began browsing and had an epiphanic browsing experience. Flipping through used blues CDs, labeled "Various," I found a sound track of a made for tv I had never heard of, Warming By The Devil's Fire--http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1065628/-- which sounds like its right up my blues loving alley. So one of the essences of great browsing is serendipity. Got a few others discs too while I was at it, including a dolorous Bluegrass compilation called Plum Pitiful, a soundtrack from The Sopranos and a record made by the daughter in law of a guy I know, a local Toronto roots and bluegrass singer called Jenny Whiteley. Tremendous haul, fantastic, if truncated browsing experience, wherein I got stuff igniting my excitement and opening a new vista to me, the blues movie. Driving home, I stuck the blues soundtrack into my cd player and replayed Son House's Death Letter Blues over and over till I got home. I have it on CDs of Son House, but every time it hear it it's fresh and compelling. (Raging question: whose cover is better: Cassandra Wilson's or Rory Block? I can see that argued both ways.) Two final thoughts as an adjunct to the experience of browsing for books and records as worth more--priceless-- than than the sterility of buying online: one is getting online used books at great prices that you can't find as an ebook or in stores; ( I love it when I get them, all worn and well thumbed and faded with notes and underlining--I couldn't care less, just the opposite--implying some history of tales of personal reading and intellectual and emotional discovery); and two going to down scale, at hand blues and jazz clubs, usually with no cover, to here tremendous local talent-- in Toronto, places like Gate 403, The Rex, The Pilot, The Silver Dollar--where in the bad old days there were two unrelated homicides in one night,as local legend has it. I see visiting these clubs, while people are paying top dollar to see shlocky musicals and like mediocrity, as part of a continuum of experience which includes the kind of browsing Wieseltier bemoans the fading away of.
- basman
January 22, 2012 at 5:16pm
mmathog says "If you think cultural spaces are a public good (and I agree), then how about you know... BUILD CULTURAL PUBLIC SPACES. Here's an idea: Turn the libraries into something totally modern and awesome (maybe like a combo of a Border's and a great record store, complete with turntables/headphones). You can pay for it by voting for tax increases! In fact, homeowners can vote to increase their taxes (or reduce their interest rate deduction) to finance such a thing." If this comment just doesn't bleed ignorance and does so with ALL CAPS TOO! mmathog when was the last time you actually entered a public library? I mean really went into a public branch library that has been renovated or built in the last 10 years? They have all of these things that you claim would make them "totally modern and awesome." And that other novel idea of people voting to increase their taxes to do it already happened! I could give you some fine examples of cities in America and suburbs too that have updated and expanded their library services including movie rentals, job resume classes, etc. In fact, since the downturn, libraries have seen an increase in library users. But I suggest instead, you make use of yourself and visit a local library or heck, google the Seattle, Denver, or Phoenix main public libraries. Heck even little places like Con Costra County, CA built one of them new fangled mulit-media libraries you just dreamt up. So you don't like the "narcissistic" tone of Leon's pining for his local bookshop. Who says that he doesn't or didn't also use his local library? But alas, maybe some of us enjoy owning our own copy of Don Quixote with engraved illustrations by Gustov Dore? Or perhaps a used copy of Howard Pile's 'Robin Hood' bought from a library sale? But you miss the entire point of the piece. It's not so much what Amazon did or does as a 'book' seller, it's what Amazon doesn't do as a book seller that people are commenting about. Amazon doesn't have presence. It doesn't contribute to the built fabric that is part of the 'public realm'. Heck even Borders and B&N do that (although I don't much miss Borders) at some level. Like many of us have posted here already, making the choice to support your local book store or music store or hardware or clothing store is relevant if you want to maintain a vibrant quality of life where you live, work, eat, raise children, etc. including their contributions to the public realm as a whole. If that makes us narcissistic then so be it.
- singlspeed
January 24, 2012 at 2:41pm
I respond to Wieseltier's outstanding piece in a blog titled "Wieseltier's 'Going to Melody' and the Language of Lament." http://open.salon.com/blog/dianasenechal/2012/01/24/wieseltiers_going_to_melody_and_the_language_of_lament And I'll say it again here: kudos to Wieseltier for making his points without citing brain research.
- dlsenechal
January 26, 2012 at 10:12am
While I enjoyed Mr. Wieseltier's piece immensely, if you are going to interject French words to demonstrate erudition, it is a bit self-defeating to get the spelling wrong. It is flâneur, not flaneur, etc.
- bruno&
January 31, 2012 at 4:40am