Over at Orange Crate Art Michael posted a link to an interesting new Walrus article, Life in the Stacks: A Love Letter to Browsing. It's an essay on the disappearing joys of browsing record and video shops, bookstores, libraries, and other such places before online browsing more-or-less killed it all. A few of my old Toronto haunts figure prominently, and even the World's Biggest Bookstore makes a cameo appearance.
Lately I've also been thinking about differences between online and old-school browsing, as well as the World's Biggest Bookstore. I figured I should take some pictures of the layout where the WBB model resides before the layout is disassembled since a section of the layout's main drag was designed for the WBB model: the tree lined brick area was to mimic the street outside the WBB.
I'll write something about browsing sometime this summer as the Walrus article, although good, only touches on some things I've been thinking about. So, with the pen set aside, I pulled out the camera for a picture or two. That's the first one at the top. Needs some work, but I think it captures just how large the building was: it was a converted bowling alley after all :-)
Our bowling alley was converted into a crappy too shop. There's a long and painful story about dirty dealings and how the alley managers and community rallied to save it...suffice it to say I'll never shop at a Harbor Freight again.
ReplyDeleteI also wonder if the lack of discretionary spending money has contributed to the death of browsing the stacks. I remember the days of looking through CDs and tapes at the music store. I discovered many artists that way, some of whom I still listen to, some I wish I'd left in the bin.
This quote I found most instructive; "Scrolling has rendered this entire process—an afternoon’s worth of activity—obsolete. Who needs all that tramping around cumbersome cities with boon companions? In a matter of clicks, armed mainly with a thumb, you can call up a consumer report, make your decision, and then head over to Amazon to seal the deal. You have your afternoon back. Not that you’d fill it with quiet reverie, of course: the new efficiencies merely make room for yet more scrolling."
There's the rub - how to fill the afternoon. Like Mrs. Kim used to say to me, "You must master food, not let food master you." We must master technology, not let technology master us. "Appropriate Technology" is the Permaculture term that means using a big diesel powered digger is okay if it builds earthworks that grow trees and recharge aquifers. If the 'net connects us to some Mom and Pop store via Bezos' juggernaut, is that so bad?
Interesting you should quote that particular paragraph as that's one I wanted to address in my own essay. I think the author is a little too flip, at least as far as browsing books and music is concerned. I'd also like to address the act of finding other things one hadn't been aware of while looking for the specific things one is aware of. In the spring I had a few discussions with Dave about recommendation engine software, which for me don't do a very good job of making recommendations other than obvious things, like other books by the same author.
DeleteBut, on the other hand, I agree with Vince when he reminds me that the whole E. L. Moore investigation, which is the heart-and-soul of this blog, wouldn't be possible without the internet and its fantastic browsing. So, I have mixed thoughts on this browsing thing.