Let’s Talk About Independent Bookstores

This one isn’t necessarily a call to arms or an advice offering like my last few posts; it is merely a retelling of an experience.

This past week, I took a trip to Breckenridge, Colorado.  For those of you who have no idea about this fine community, it’s pretty much Park City, Utah with more cannabis and with less Sundance Festival.  It’s full of coffee shops, clothing stores, cookie sandwiches costing $4.20 each (tee hee) and restaurants all independently run by locals.  And it’s a lot colder than where I live.

But the best part of the city’s independent Main St. was “Ole Man Berkins,” a used bookstore hidden between two groups of buildings.

Before visiting this store, I didn’t understand what all the hype was about “supporting independent bookstores.”  I had seen a LOT of WordPress posts about it, but I just thought they were the musings of weirdo hippies with a vendetta against Barnes & Noble.  Now I am one of these weirdo hippies because of this awesome store.

This dang store, unlike the “independent” bookstores where I live, had a huge variety of books available.  They had regular fiction, irregular fiction, nonfiction, textbooks, children’s books, you name it, they had it!  They even had records!

Yes, records!  The place was also a record store.

They had classic vinyl LPs, 45s, 45 adaptors (which are found pretty much nowhere nowadays), and even 8-tracks (not even my parents owned these).

Long story short, I ended up spending a lot of money.

Thank you, Ole Man Berkins; if it weren’t for you, I would have continued to harbor contempt for used book stores (since my city only has crappy ones), would not have had the advice necessary to pick out some awesome books and records, and would not have learned the catchphrase, “Kill your Kindle” (which would make a really cool hashtag if I were into that sort of thing).

The moral of my experience is this: give independents a chance.

-T

P.S. And kill your Kindle!

Let’s Talk About Physical Music Vs. Downloads (Pt. 2).

As I said in my previous post, I believe that physical music media (such as CDs or vinyl records) are a better investment then downloads.

“Yeah, and you still haven’t answered me: what if I only want one song on the record?  I don’t want to spend 12 songs worth of money if I just want one!”

This can be considered a disadvantage for CD purchases to some.  In my opinion though, all great albums have more than one good song on them, therefore purchasing the entire package is a good investment.  I mean, sure “Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2” is a great song from Pink Floyd’s The Wall, but you know what else is a good song? … THE ENTIRE REST OF THE ALBUM!  If you just purchase one of those songs, you miss out on the entire construction of Pink Floyd’s wall.  Do you even know why he believes he “don’t need no education” in the first place?  Of course you don’t, because you didn’t hear the preceding songs!

“Okay that makes sense, but what’s wrong with downloading the entire album from iTunes instead of walking all the way to the record store?”

Let me just say this: I love Apple and have many Apple products.  That being said, I think they make enough money.  You know who doesn’t make enough money?  Steve, the owner of the downtown record store.  This is truly a shame, because the record store has a certain atmosphere that no website can copy (this is also the reason why I’m sad that Borders closed).  If we lose the record store, we lose the atmosphere.

Also if you’re not fully convinced to go outside and support record stores, you can also order CDs and vinyls on Amazon without leaving your bed.  And if that ain’t jivin’ enough for you, most CD and vinyl purchases on Amazon come with a free MP3 download (best of both worlds).

To me, there are just really no detriments to purchasing physical music.  I mean sure you lose some bookshelf space, but let’s be honest: if you’re the sort of person who downloads music, do you even own books?

-T

P.S.  Don’t download books either!  Browse Barnes & Noble, darn it!