Barnes and Noble to close Royal Oak, Mi Store
(What a shame indeed)
By Glenn Peppers 3-10-14
Yes they are closing the Barnes and Noble Book Store in Royal Oak, Michigan. After sagging sales, and having to compete with internet e-book sales, and I’m guessing having to deal with the many other online competitors like Amazon, and other forms of electronic competition. In all actually, it was only a matter of time that this superstore would eventually close its doors.
I find this so sad. I loved that place. It was so cozy, and artsy! It reminds me of Detroit’s Main Library downtown, and some of the gathering intellectual places in Berkley, California. When I worked in Royal Oak, I’d go to Barnes and Noble many a day and get coffee and hot chocolate, and read. And not just read, I’d always buy a book (or two) whenever I went!... Always!
Well darn it, soon they'll close everything up, now won’t they? Think about it, we have no more video stores (except maybe some Family Video store outlets north of 8 mile road, and whatever independent video stores that are still hanging on).
Blockbuster Video is gone! Hollywood video is long gone. Now days if you want to rent a video, you have to stand in line outside, in the cold (although I've seen a few of them indoors) and buy or rent videos from a doggone Red Box vending machine, as if you're buying cigarettes, cheetos and a coke! Of course you can go to Wal-Mart or Sam's Club or Target and K-Mart to buy your videos, but what if you don't want to drive that far or walk through a great big warehouse for a DVD or Blu-Ray? Oh well, its one stop shopping, right?
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| Warehouse Shopping |
Don’t you just love the whole idea that now days, you don't have to even go to the grocery store if you don't really want to! Just order up whatever items you want online, and have them delivered right to your door... now if you can pull yourself away from the computer long enough to open the door to receive your items everything would be cool, right? Or you can just simply drive over to Mejiers, Sam's Club, or Costco, and you'll find just about everything you need in those big ole’ warehouse places!
No need to go to your neighborhood supermarket, or local Singer sewing machine store for a thimble and a bobbin. Never mind that good ole’ sporting goods store you’ve patronized since you were a kid! They’ve got Sport SUPERSTORES to go to here in 2014!
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| Out at the Movie |
Some folks (and gladly not all) are too lazy to even go to the movies anymore! They'd rather order the movie on cable's, On Demand! Com'on People! Give me a break! Just because we all have big, screen smart televisions with surround sound (and I've noticed that they’ve managed to somehow cut the surround sound down to what is called a Sound Bar here recently), and TV’s we can talk to (and yes they talk back to us), doesn’t mean we can’t go out sometimes and take in a movie and see real live people; every once and a while, right?... No?
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| Book Store Shelves |
I noticed that folks have slacked off going to libraries anymore (Actually, I noticed that they've shut down quiet a few local libraries). Nor do many folks go to fine bookstores like Barnes and Noble to buy books; I mean a real BOOKS! Hard and/or paper back cover type books, with nice 3D book markers! "Book's?” You say! "Nobody reads books anymore!" I hear a lot of people say here lately. Yeah yeah, I get it. Its all about the Nook, the iPad and the Kindle Fire, or whatever tablet device we use to immerse ourselves into an electronic Matrix with!
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| The Jetsons |
So this is the future? Ho Hum! To be honest about it! Its not exactly what I thought it would be. Yet here it is; and we're all turned on and plugged in real good, aren't we? In a short 7 to 10 years or so, we've become a nation of convenient electronic craving, self absorbed, reclusive Skyped media drones! Walking around with our faces glued to our smart phones and our tablets screens as if we’re the only people in the world walking the streets with our heads down, texting and social media swinging.
Face it. A vast majority of us are largely detached and distracted by our electronic devices. Even when we are driving! Don’t think so? Leave home without your cell phone and tell me you don’t feel totally naked or completely out of sorts all day without it! I’ve known people to get to work, discover they've left their cell phone at home. Sign or punch in. Then drive all the way back home to get their cell phones!
Personally, there's just something about a book. The smell of the ink, and the paper, and the feel of the the binding! Can you imagine reading "The Cat in the Hat" to your kids from a Kindle? well, maybe you can, but I could never do that! Turning the pages of the book is half the experience of discovery for a child. Its like opening a gift package!
Yes, we're all plugged in and switched on! And as I said earlier, we can even buy groceries online now days! How lazy is that? I know people who work online from home, never having to leave their house and go into the office at all if they don't want to! Not even to get their paychecks. In most all cases, payroll is all done electronically, so why leave home to be paid? It goes right into your bank account! Not that there's anything wrong with that of course! Heck, if could earn a living online at home, I'd do it too!
It sounds great doesn't it, all this convenience at your fingertips? Yet at the same time somehow, to me it doesn't. I just never liked the idea of putting all my eggs in one basket is all. To me a book and things hard copied is forever. Think of it this way. Forget to pay your cable or cell phone bill, and all the 4G tablets and reading gadgets in the world suddenly be useless!
Maybe soon we'll all be plugged into one big giant modified human, USB type plug, and will all be fed our nutrients and knowledge, and entertainment byway of some massive Matrix type computer. That wouldn't be so bad, would it? We'd all be comfy and snug in our smart lil’ Potty Pod Diapers and have an occasional showering of bath liquids, bestowed upon our and bodies, washing and rinsing us down, as our minds stay tuned in and turned on to an endless stream of data! We’d be totally online! To what I have no idea!  |
| Let the children read books as well as tablets |
Hmm, I could have sworn I read about something close to this in a book, long long years ago? What it was slips my mind at present. Gee, I wonder what it was! I think it was a book by Ray Bradbury.
Fahrenheit Four Fifty-something or other! Hey, I just had a thought. Instead of searching my mind for the answer, you think I should just say the heck with it and Google it?
By Glenn Peppers
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