Borders Books and Music: Friend or Foe?

I had every intention of opening my very first blog with a comically-sexy and insightfully-witty post.  A sort of loud welcome into the cyber-written world...however, foiled!  I wanted to emulate a modern, but traditional-at-heart writer by perching my artistic pen (via laptop keyboard) at an appropriate place.

You see, all great writers are supposed to have written their masterpieces somewhere worth noting...Shakespeare was probably writing a sonnet or two in-between scandalous sexual escapades, Dostoevsky was noted to write his last greatest novels shut up in his dusky bedroom on the verge of insanity, Austin was of course, in her quaint English country home scowling at the plight of women.  Great writing needs great mediums and great environments.

Great medium? Not so much...any brilliance is contrived from my barely-functioning Dell.  But, great environment?  Maybe I can cook that up!  Hence, I tarry to Borders Books and Music and here, my lucky readers is the birth of my first post!

Gucci and sparkling heart tote in hand, I am grinning ear-to-ear and rushing for dear life to the cafe section of Borders!  Why the anxiety?  There are only 8 outlets in the cafe section and it is nearly 4 p.m. which means I am likely to be competing with high school and undergraduates facebooking. And, in their tedious facebooking, they take breaks by reading unpaid teen and gossip magazines.  Yes, my competition is fierce and to my dismay...I am right!  All outlets are in use and all the teeny-boppers are happily sipping their 32 oz. frappy delights and updating facebook statuses.  I am subjected to an awkward middle table, knowing my Dell has only 2 hours of battery life.  And then I think...what IS Borders Books and Music for?  What IS this place?

Funny that I should be really pondering this question since I've been a patron for as long as I can remember. But just now, I'm plagued with existential questions.  I vehemently oppose the overpowering of e-Readers and e-Books because I revel in the smell of musty books, the sound of sharp crinkling pages, all blended up in the robust whiffs of coffee that muddle throughout the store.  But, I am now rudely awake and my romantic fancies are murdered!  Nearly every aisle...literature, history, graphic novels, etc....are people lazily sitting between the aisles, there are screaming children populating the children's section with scattered and floored books, and then there is the great majority, lustfully partaking of the free satisfaction of books and magazines!

Rape of my beloved books!  Hungry consumers devour these newly-pressed publications, but don't take the time to experience the sensuality of reading.  No, there is an absence of a deep breath of glue and paper, and no loving stroke of the perfectly straight pages.  In this technology age, everything is as akin to a one-night stand: wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am. 

But, while these illustrations of free consumption are found throughout the bookstore itself, perhaps the most horrifying mutation of the traditional perspective of a bookstore is seen in the infamous Seattle's Best Cafe adjacent to the books section.  If Borders Books and Music is a bookstore where one purchases books, music, etc. then what are all these people doing here crowding tables and couches with laptops, studying materials, and other books and magazines picked freely from the store?  WHAT ARE THEY DOING?

Answer: as you can see, all manner of things except mostly utilizing the purpose of a bookstore.  But, maybe with the escalation of technology and fingertip-happy information, what labels we traditionally have for things has gone down the rabbit hole.  Bookstore is now library as we are free to study and freely read to our heart's desire all with the convenience of a fun beverage and fatty bakery item.  And maybe bookstore is sadly, not here in Borders Books and Music, but on the web via amazon.com.  And, maybe these big businesses are on to something with the switcheroo of societal labels.  The idea is often that if consumers can pick up a book and read a couple of pages, then they will purchase.  But, does that work?  What stops someone from sitting there and just reading the first and last pages of a book and being done with it.  If things are so easily within our grasp, we may save our pocket books, but we lose something intangible, the magic of ruddy, toiling thought.  We perhaps don't have occasion to really think about plot lines and to contemplate ominous themes.  Why?  When even the books housed on these bookshelves have been reduced to teen pop and corny dramas? 

The argument maybe is that as a more intellectual society, obviously intellectual because we can come up with all this new age technology, that maybe our tastes are not barbaric just because we want things instantaneously.  Maybe this instantaneousness coupled with a switch in labels has come about because we are too busy and too intelligent to WAIT for information and inspiration? 

But, maybe I am really just one of them: a free-loading and information hungry twit.  You see, I finally found an open socket to revive my paralyzed Dell.  And, in exchange for free wi-fi, a space consisting of a table and 2 chairs, I have purchased a medium strawberry and peach iced tea for $3.12.  Who am I to criticize?  I'm not. What is a blog, but a selfish and personal longing--just trying to usher in a needed artistic purging?  Maybe not a novel perspective on life, but one said outloud while we are all falling down the rabbit hole...