Protecting the Literary Zeitgeist of Hyde Park’s Indie Book Scene

“A good bookstore sells books, but its primary product, if you will, is the browsing experience…One of the great benefits of the act of browsing is the rumination it evokes.”Source: Jeff Deutsch, “In Praise of Good Bookstores“

If there is a neighborhood in Chicago that reaches for the pinnacle of a book lover’s nirvana, it has to be Hyde Park. Surrounding the University of Chicago and situated just south of the Loop, this epicenter of learning, education, and literature is a bibliophile’s wonderland of Indie bookstores. 

However, just when it felt like the dust had settled from years of fighting off the tentacles of Amazon’s loss-leading blitzkrieg on bookstores, a new threat has set up shop right in Hyde Park’s very midst. This time it’s not a digital menace, but instead a big-box goliath — Barnes & Noble.

Yes, in a free market, competition is supposed to benefit the consumer. But, and this is a big but, at what cost? Price is not and should never be the sole factor, especially in the book realm. What about the value of the experience? What about service? What about variety? What about the discovery of the unexpected? What about home-grown? What about locally owned and operated? What about sanctuary-like ambiance? What about a delicate mix of existing independent bookstores who live and operate as a cohesive draw to Hyde Park?

“The value is, and always has been, at least in the good and serious bookstores, in the experience of being among books–an experience afforded to anyone who enters the space with curiosity and time. And the yield is discovery, not of what we think we know we want, but of that which we have yet to encounter.” Source: Jeff Deutsch, “In Praise of Good Bookstores“

Typically, a big-box store will not draw people from far outside the local vicinity when it has dozens of locations spread all over Chicagoland (21 at last count).  Meanwhile, a unique and varied collection of Indie bookstores can and will do just that (draw customers from further afield) because of the collective experience they offer — and that sublimely satisfying pastime known as “browsing” where one can wander, wonder, discover, ponder, and partake without interruption. Such a unique labor of love [browsing] can never be truly replicated in a big box. Imitated maybe. Replicated, never.

“Big-name box bookstores have installed cafes and armchairs precisely because people like to hang out around books. Next time you’re in one of those cavernous megasellers, see for yourself how they’ve worked yo create ambiance. Look at the shelf placement, how they’ve been arranged to mark off cozy little reading nooks. Somebody’s tried very hard to make you forget you’re in a warehouse.” Source: Wendy Welch, “The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap”

Call & Response, 57th Street, Powell’s, Seminary Co-op, University of Chicago Bookstore, and Build Coffee & Books all combine to fulfill a literarian’s needs in this special corner of the Windy City.  Why, other than to disrupt the curated zeitgeist of Hyde Park, does B &N really need to be there?

Hopefully, over time B &N will find itself out of place in Hyde Park and move on to greener pastures elsewhere. And if they do hang around for longer, it’s as a cohort versus a predator.

My guess is the good people who shop the existing Indie bookstores in and around Hyde Park will continue their time-honored tradition of supporting the stores that germinated in and around Hyde Park and avoid the intruder. May it be so.

In the interim, either the individual store websites or bookshop.org offer easy access for all of us who cannot be physically in Chicago on a regular basis to assist the Indie bookstores in Hyde Park. All of them, except the campus bookstore have a presence on the bookshop.org site (57th Street through Seminary Co-op).

Peace, happy reading, and great browsing!

“Every great bookstore allows the reader to get lost in it.” – Source: Jeff Deutsch, I”n Praise of Good Bookstores“

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Faster?

Technology promises to allow us to do everything faster. Create art faster, write papers faster, get through the checkout line faster, the list goes on and on.

‘Faster’ seems like it can be convenient, but is this rapid pace really making our lives better?

I m’m getting to that age where I start to look around and say, “is this all there is?” to this whole life experience. For all of my life I have enjoyed sitting back and watching humanity do their thing in public. In the past decade or so, there has been a definite ramp up in the “frenetic vibe” that seems to be gripping the society around me. The 2020s feel like an exercise in FOMO, or fear of missing out.

I’m tired.

When Earl and I arrived in Denver for vacation earlier this week, the first thing we did was pick up some groceries for breakfasts and lunches in our rented house. As we made our way through the King Sooper, we picked up the items we needed and Earl started heading toward the self-checkout lines. I swayed him over to the number of open checkouts with an actual cashier. We waited a few moments for the non-committal cashier to finish up the order ahead of us. I don’t feel like I missed any moment of my life by waiting for the cashier to do his thing.

As we started stacking items on the conveyor belt, the two of us swung into gear like it was 1999: Earl started loading items in the order he was going to bag them and I was putting the squishy and non-edible items at the end of the belt so they would go in the bags last. Earl would handle all the bagging, I would handle the payment and the courtesies with the uncommitted cashier, and said cashier would swipe the items across the scanner.

Being a cashier was much more fun and engaging when we had to push buttons on the cash register for every item.

While I know supermarket executives revel in the details of their on-hand inventory as a result of scanning technology, what is really gained by the speed of this same approach? It’s not price accuracy; one has to keep an eagle eye on a display to see if someone entered a price into the back-end computer incorrectly. The cashier is usually so disengaged that they may not notice if something beeped twice. Time for some wit and try to make them smile.

As we trudge toward technology that’s suppose to make our life faster and better, I often wonder if it’s all worth it.

I heard a music producer talk about using A.I. to create the percussion tracks for their latest track, so they didn’t have to loop and place all the tracks manually in their audio editing software. This use of A.I. allows them to make their music faster.

What is gained by that?

One of the pieces of this life experience we seem to be missing as we keep our finger permanently on the fast-forward button is the experience of savoring the moment. Whether it’s something as mundane as standing in the checkout line at the supermarket or waiting for a roll of 35mm film to be processed so we can reminisce about our vacation memories a couple of weeks after it’s happened as we scan through our photos, we’re short changing ourselves by trying to live life as rapidly as possible.

“Slow down, you move too fast.”

Take a moment to slow down and enjoy life around you. Take a moment and get to feelin’ groovy.

#fast #life #pondering

“I spent the afternoon musing on Life. If you come to think of it, what a queer thing Life is! So unlike anything else, don't you know, if you see what I mean.”
― P.G. Wodehouse

#Bot #Quote #Existentialism #Humor #Life #Pondering