mariness

Various news agencies are reporting that the busy Barnes and Noble at Union Station in Washington DC is about to close, reportedly because Barnes and Noble and the landlord have been unable to agree on the rent. This news of course has brought out the usual gulp will we continue to have brick and mortar bookstores in the future articles, all of which, I can't help noticing, continue to ignore the existence of Books-A-Million, as if the options for brick and mortar stores are Barnes and Noble and independent bookstores with nothing in between. I get that Books-A-Million is nowhere near the size of Barnes and Noble, but it does operate 250 stores and offers coffee, so let's give it some respect.

Anyway, I couldn't help thinking of the contrast between the closing Barnes and Noble store, by all accounts busy, popular, clean and filled with customers, and my local K-Mart.

For those who may be unfamiliar with K-Mart, it's a large box store on the same idea as Walmart and Target, seeking to occupy a niche slightly above Walmart and slightly below Target. It certainly achieves the goal of being below Target and rarely manages to be better than Walmart. My local K-Mart has exactly one advantage: it's about five blocks away from me, making it one of the few stores I can easily reach via trike or scooter. Yes, it's on the hideous State Road 50, the bane of my existence, but, and this is key, I don't have to cross State Road 50 to get there since it's on my side of the street and I can take a little side street, complete with a little pond that sometimes has ducks or egrets, which should, in theory, make it a very convenient place for me to do my shopping for staples.

In practice a trip more usually ends up like the one I took yesterday. I needed milk, cat litter, and toilet paper, all of which can be in theory found there. The cat litter and toilet paper were there, but the unit that usually contains the milk had been emptied of everything, including shelves. Undaunted, I picked up the rest of the stuff and headed to the register, only to find out that the registers weren't working. So I left with nothing.

This is sadly typical of a visit: various items which ought to be there (including, frequently, toilet paper and aspirin) are not there. The registers don't always work. What is there often has the wrong price on it or is in the wrong place. The clothes just look cheap, and are usually either of worse quality or in worse condition than what's available at the Goodwill in the same shopping plaza. The selection of DVDs and cell phones sucks. Customer service generally sucks, with employees just looking depressed. (The Goodwill in striking contrast has excellent customer service.) Part of the problem is store policy: if the item rings up at the wrong price, Target will usually just change the price right there, or sometimes send someone to check the price and then fix the price for you; Publix after checking the price will give you the item for free. This generally takes a couple of minutes, but otherwise not a big deal. K-Mart sends you to the Customer Service Desk, which is usually unstaffed; if it is staffed, changing the price still requires about three people to check it. The store is technically clean, but always seems to feel dingy.

It's almost always empty.

And yet it survives. Perhaps – probably -- because it's on the opposite side of State Road 50 than the Publix and the Target – making it slightly easier for disabled people and bicyclists and pedestrians to reach, and it does generally have a decent selection of snacks. Or perhaps because the rent is cheap, meaning that it can stay profitable even with few sales. Or perhaps because none of its corporate overlords have noticed.

But I couldn't help thinking: if a lousy economy and few customers and a ragged dingy appearance have not managed to close this place, shouldn't that mean that Barnes and Nobles can survive? Or are their corporate overlords just choosing more expensive rental places? The local Barnes and Noble is in a far, far nicer and better looking location than the K-mart, and I assume the rents reflect that. Or are their corporate overlords demanding a higher profit margin than whatever satisfies Sears/K-Mart?

I'll keep my fingers crossed for that local Barnes and Noble anyway, even if it does have more customers than the K-Mart.

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In completely different news, this has been passed around the internet a lot already, but if you missed it, Games Workshop is claiming that writer M.C.A. Hogarth is infringing on their trademark "space marine."

I'll just let all the gamers here savor the fun that this is coming from the same people behind that model of originality and not borrowing from anyone ever: Warhammer.

Publix moved my favorite type of chips from the snacks/chips/soda aisle to the organic food section and now the chips don't seem like an indulgence any more :( (Also, they're organic? When did this happen?)

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On a slightly less pointless note, I wrote up my grocery list carefully. Check. I brought it with me to the store. Check. I took it out and had it in my hands. Check. I reminded myself that I needed each and every item on the list. Check.

....and I still managed to forget three items on the list, including the most important one on the top.

This may be one of the most headshaking holiday articles I've read this year.

For those that don't want to read it, I'll summarize: the writer is attempting to find the one universal and thoughtful holiday gift that can be given to each and every person on the holiday gift list. So far, so...huh, but moving on. (I am assuming children's gifts are not involved.) After considering and discarding various possibilities (cookies - yes! cookies! who discards COOKIES???? Cookies are the entire point of the holiday season! :: eats cookie JUST TO MAKE THE POINT :: Also, perpetual calenders, umbrellas, memory sticks, plants, and, um, Sarah Palin's autobiography) the article settles upon this as the perfect universal holiday gift:

This brings me, at last, to the perfect universal holiday gift: Good Poems, a collection curated by Garrison Keillor. It's unabashedly middlebrow in the best sense of the word. Keillor isn't for everyone, but these poems are[....]Even people who don't seek out poetry, or people with an overdeveloped poetic muscle who swear they only read late-period Ezra Pound, will find something in here to like. If, that is, they have a shred of humanity. And you should tell your ungrateful wretch of a best friend exactly that if she looks a little crestfallen when she unwraps it.

The book hits a crucial target—it's general, but feels personal. Each recipient will be under the impression you thought long and hard about how to warm his soul this cold winter, when, really, you're working with an industrial-grade furnace. (If you really want to go in for the kill, bookmark a couple of poems that seem particularly well-suited to your giftee's taste.)

Look, I realize that this is meant to be slightly tongue-in-cheek. And yes, like all poets I like to harbor under the happy delusion that everyone loves poetry and my poems in particular. But the truth is, some people just don't like poetry. (Worse, some people don't like my poems in particular.) Even more people do not like poetry assembled for their delight by Garrison Kellior. Were I to gift certain people [names carefully omitted, but you know who you are] with a book of poems for the holiday, regardless of what was in the book of poems, I would be greeted with at best a blank stare and a frantic attempt to express polite gratitude, or more probably, a request for the umbrella.

By all means, if your gift recipients love poetry, give poetry. Otherwise, stick with the cookies.

(You'll all excuse me while I go hunt down those cookies in the kitchen. They are being terribly, terribly loud, and that sort of cookie behavior deserves the appropriate response.)

(Edited to add link. ::headdesk:: I blame the cookies.)