Signposts Near the End of the Road

At some point in the near future, I'll write a longer post about the death of Borders (and of Atlantic Books, a small chain here in the Mid-Atlantic, mostly centered on the Jersey Shore).  But in the meantime, enjoy these two signs I saw at the Montgomeryville Borders before it closed:

Indeed, my fellow bitter ex-booksellers, indeed.

You'll Pry My Butterscotch Krimpets From My Cold Dead Hands

Food of the gods

When I started this blog, I called it "The Philadelphia Preservation Society", mostly as a joke, playing off the Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society, one of my favorite records. Well, maybe we need a Preservation Society now.

A&P, who owns the local chains of Superfresh and Pathmark, declared bankruptcy in December, leaving the fate of 5,500 jobs up in the air. They've already closed several stores around my town (Lansdale). Safeway has closed some Genuardi's, as well, and now apparently Acme--yes, "the Ac-a-mee", my dear North Philadelphians--is closing some stores.

All of this is bad enough--especially for those who live in the city and only have access to public transportation, making getting fresh food that much more difficult. But there are some surprising repercussions, apparently:

TASTYKAKES IS IN BIG TROUBLE

Now, you have to understand--Tastykakes are as much a part of Philly as the Liberty Bell, pretzels, cheesesteaks, Yuengling, and questionable behavior at sporting events. Everyone knows how to scrape all the butterscotch icing from the package of krimpets; and who does love the creamy inside of those little Kandy Kake hocky pucks? And the mini-pies: baked, not fried, and filled with blueberries, or cherries, or apples...

Man, I'm getting hungry.

If we lose Tastykakes, we lose another part of Philly. "It's just snacks," you might say. Well, sure--but since when isn't food part of culture? What's Italy without salami? Ireland without potatoes? India without curry? Food is one of the most elementary things we deal with every day. "But it's just mass produced cakes." Sure, you could say that--but I bet you haven't eaten one.

It's a question of jobs, of course--if Tastykakes gets sold, we could lose even more jobs, or worse--lose the jobs altogether, like when Hershey sent all their jobs to Mexico. That's right, Hershey, PA doesn't make chocolate. If they get sold, the recipe could change, and not taste as good as it does now.

Sure, it's silly to get sentimental about snacks. But it's about identity, and about the loss of regionalism. Tastykakes and Yards tastes better than Twinkies and Bud Light (well, maybe don't eat beer and cakes together). The local almost always tastes better than the national. Smaller scale allows a greater attention to detail than a larger scale.

And hey, I want to win a case of tastykakes next time I see the Flyers.

The Decline and Fall of South Street

Pearl Art is closing at the end of the month. I'm both depressed and not surprised. South Street has been in a rapid decline for several years now, ever since they started raising the rent rates. But there are a lot of causes behind the emptying of South Street, much of it sad.

So let's take an incomplete tally:

• The Brick Playhouse: well, this is a case of mismanagement--I know, because I was a member. But the few years I was part of the Playhouse was some of the happiest of my life.
  
  
• Zipperhead: namechecked in the Dead Milkmen's "Punk Rock Girl, it was, of course, a clothing store. Best part about the place was the exterior (which may still be there, I don't know, I haven't been down that way in a while)--big ants crawling up the side of the building. Apparently they've moved and changed their name, and the fact that I only found out about it in 2010 says something, though maybe it just points out my own ignorance.
  
  
• Spaceboy Records: and when we lost Zipperhead, we lost their neighbor, Spaceboy. I loved Spaceboy--they had a great selection of new indie, new lps, old LPs and CDs upstairs. But with the massive changes in the record industry, even big chains have gone out of buisness. Between the high rents and the decline of record sales, there was no way a place that deals largely in new music products was going to survive, but it still hurts.
  
  
• The Book Trader: not exactly gone; they moved up to 2nd and Arch. But I miss their two-story store on the corner of 5th and South, with the big bay windows where you could look out on the street below, busy with foot traffic, lit up at night. They moved, but it's not the same, and South Street isn't the same.
  
  
• Philadeli: sure, it was pricy, but they sold six-packs, great sandwiches, and now they're gone too.
  
  
• TLA Video: I don't know what got them more--the rise of Netflix, or the decline of South Street? Sadly, I'm going with Netflix overall, because this isn't the only store they've closed; they've also closed the one near my old apartment on Spring Garden St.
  
  

And there's probably lots of others that I can't remember.

There are a lot of causes--South Street's rent is too high, we're in the Great Recession, and media consumption has moved from brick-and-mortar stores to the computer. And there are still places that I like down there--The Bean Cafe, Tattooed Mom, they're still there, and hopefully will stay there. But I've lost a lot of reasons to go down there.

And now Pearl Art, where you could find just about anything you wanted, is gone. And I hear that's as much how the company--not this particular store--is managed.

I don't have to leave my house anymore to buy a book, or find a record, or rent a movie, or talk to friends. Everything can be done right here on my laptop, as I sit on the living room, warm and narcotized by the soft glow of Law and Order in the background, while tabs for Netflix, Amazon, and Facebook are up on the browser. But doing so, I'm losing something. I'm losing real human contact, I'm missing meeting new people, I'm missing finding things by accident.

Update
Den just reminded me of Tower Books, also gone a long time, before even Tower Records, IIRC. He used to sell his zine there.

This looks like a good one

Frontline this week is tackling the market crash/economic meltdown/recession/O-MI-GOD-WTF-HOW'M-I-GONNA-PAY-THE-BILLS-ATHON: