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.