Don't Look Back, You can Never Look Back

"Going out of business" sales make me kind of sad. Borders' downtown Ann Arbor store is closing and their gratuitous signage shows that indeed, they are having a sale. Shopping one of these sales feels like picking through the belongings of the deceased. I'm sure the business owner/bankruptcy entity that administer the sales feels differently, they rely on these sales. I can just imagine the sales people ringing me up thinking, "Wow you saved a two whole dollars on this two year old Vampire Weekend CD. Man too bad you had to wait until the going out of business sale to get it. Our jobs could've been spared, but I understand you needed that two dollars. You know what COBRA costs each month?"

And so on.  (This was just an example, I didn't buy anything from Borders' GOOB sale.The two-year-old Vampire Weekend CD, which I burned from the library, *is* actually quite good, but as you can see, again, I wouldn't pay full price for it.)

So I keep going to Borders each week, and I keep leaving feeling depressed. This is irritating because its a STORE. A business, not a park or a house, an amusement park or anything real. It had gotten tacky over the last few years, with their bargain books piled in boxes outside their front door, and their junky wind-up-toy selection that Leo would gravitate toward every time we visited. (And the super balls displayed at toddler height? Nice try.)

Perhaps the Kindle killed it. Maybe people don't buy physical copies of their entertainment anymore, books included. I'm sure the New York Times or Slate could wax philosophic about The Fall of the Bookstore and What That Means. I know I started to shop on Amazon more, relied on their 99 cent used books with $3.99 shipping. I know I'm part of the problem. It feels like a breakup where both parties were increasingly unfaithful to each other, yet whenever I go back to Borders (hoping for a little taste of what used to be), I'm reminded how over it all is. It's over. That building will be empty then probably it will be an office. It will constantly referred to as the "Old Borders" until five years from now new people in town won't know what that is. "Oh you mean the Initech offices? That used to be a Borders?"

I moved to Ann Arbor in October 2000 and I started to work right around the corner from Borders, and its (to me) the heart of downtown. I bought a Q Magazine in 2003 that had a story in it which inspired a multi-year obsession to write a screenplay. I've bought my pregnancy books there, "how to fix my life" books, "how to write a screenplay" books, book club books, a billion magazines, and CDs. I remember walking down Liberty on a very cold Tuesday in November 2004 to buy "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" because I felt that even back in ye olden days, downloading music was removing an important tangible part of the "listening to music" experience. (Unfortunately, the art for that album sucked along with most of the music on it so I went back to buying digital.) I did go see Ira Glass there when This American Life a short-lived TV show. He wore a disappointing cardigan. But still! A (NPR) celebrity! I had Jennifer Weiner autograph a book for me too and she was sweet and funny in person.

So Borders will be gone shortly. It will probably be forgotten eventually, after all we don't pine for bag cell phones or Laser Disks. Progress, etc. It just is sad when progress leaves your downtown with a hole in its heart.

Good Things (wait is that a trademark infringement?)

These are things that I've enjoyed over the last few weeks. Perhaps I can be like Oprah or Martha Stewart some day, endorsing books or kitchen implements, but for now its just going to be podcasts and music.

WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Marc Maron has been living in my head for the last month. The podcast is addicting, funny, sad and it feels honest. Creative people talk about their craft and their calling, their depression and failures! How novel! Marc has said in interviews about the podcast that he feels its become popular because its recapturing a lost art form: conversation.

Joe Henry's"Odetta" is lovely, perhaps another fantastic album is around the corner. (Please come back to The Ark, Joe!)


"Sweet Land" - this had been languishing in my Netflix instant queue for months, but on vacation last week I finally watched it. What a sweet, earnest, romantic movie with more sexual tension than any movie I've seen in years. Plus, Inge (Elizabeth Reaser), the heroine, rocks her huge brunette hair like a goddess. Power to the curly haired women!

And (ok sorry) U2's 360 Tour is done. This video of "40" (the last song, of their last show) also lovely.  

Arts and Crap

To avoid becoming this blog (which is kind of awesome) or this one (which is a personal favorite) because they've got me beat at that game, I've got more stuff up my sleeve.

Its the third week of July, it feels like Mumbai during a heat wave, so it means that its Art Fair time again. I have worked downtown since 2003 and have had to commute to work through at least six art fairs, and I have historically been smitten in by the whole experience. Its novel to see the streets closed, and to have something new to go look at during my lunch break. Townies bitch about the traffic and the influx people, but Art Fair goers spend money when they come. And I usually see one person driving the wrong way down a one-way street, its usually not that big of an inconvenience.

This year, as I watched a vendor unloading 12-foot-high copper octopus tentacles, I thought, "the whole week is focused on people coming to town to SHOP." This one great civic event is all about shopping, or not shopping (because like the copper octopus tentacles, who buys that?) Then the number of non-art vendors seemed much higher than in years' past, places that sell tacky bedazzled tank tops or crushable hats. So half a million people come to town to wander around the scorching streets, look at fine art, but buy birdhouses, and they go back home.

I was comparing this arts-centered event to Grand Rapids' Festival of the Arts. It too is an arts festival, but its also focused on music and dance. Area schools' jazz bands, dance troops and rock bands fill the downtown and you can really get a wide selection of acts within a block of each other. (Celtic music might be on a main stage, but around the corner a mariachi band will be playing.) The downtown streets are closed, vendors come in to sell elephant ears and food to the 500,000 attendees, but the vendors in this instance are usually non-profit organizations and their booths are their chance to do fundraising.  So as a Grand Rapidian you can come downtown, buy your souvlaki from the Greek Orthodox Church, wander down to the main stage and watch your neighbor's kids perform. Its not all great, there is often lots of bad art or bad music, but its all done in a real spirit of civic-mindedness and arts appreciation. Its an opportunity for organizations to do fundraising, its a way for locals to perform - its not America's Got Talent, but I think that's a positive.

Maybe I'm a homer for GR but they do an arts-festival right. Art Fair seemed so oppressive this year. I'd walk past conversations about the number of attendees, I'd overhear vendors talking in a worried tone about how many people were actually spending their money. I'd love to have a Festival of the Arts in Ann Arbor, a city that prides itself on its love of progressive ideas and altruism. The fact that a community of (mostly, not all) religious conservatives is so progressive with its attitude toward the arts is astounding (*cough* ArtPrize! That's a topic for another day.) But nope, here in our liberal utopia we just have a celebration of the almighty dollar. And birdhouses.