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“So much of culture is chance encounters between human beings.”
Poet and a former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts Dana Gioia is quoted in this article about the role of the video/book/music store clerk and how it relates to creative jobs:
https://www.salon.com/2011/12/18/the_clerk_rip/singleton/
Another interesting read and found on Roger Ebert’s twitter feed.
Jeremy
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13 Replies
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Ironic they would show the two most worthless clerks in history as the example of why they’re worth saving. Every phone call made had to be connected manually by a human once upon a time- do we really miss that or is it simply evolution?
Noah
Call Box Training.
Featuring the Panasonic GH2 and GoPro HD Hero. -
Good read.
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The clerks can now be found blogging away across the twitterverse. They may not be making 7.50 an hour anymore, but their opinions are reaching more people than ever before.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
I think the one on one experience is the important difference.
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[Noah Kadner] “Every phone call made had to be connected manually by a human once upon a time- do we really miss that or is it simply evolution?”
The main problem with today’s evolution though, is that it is being more and more restricted only to some specific vendor’s ecosystem. So, while we had recently a marvelous communication evolution, most of it has to be among a restrict set of users with very few -if any- translation capabilities between different ones.
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[Noah Kadner] “Ironic they would show the two most worthless clerks in history as the example of why they’re worth saving. “
[Herb Sevush] “The clerks can now be found blogging away across the twitterverse. They may not be making 7.50 an hour anymore, but their opinions are reaching more people than ever before.”
Did we read the same article? Sheesh. Bah humbug to you and yours!
I’m sure some of you guys could give a sh*t, but this article hit home as back in my college days I used to work part time at a record importer/distributor (real vinyl and of course CDs). Two of the stores mentioned in that article were big clients of the shop. From this article, I now have a tip on a new book to read.
The owner kept very limited public “store” hours as it was mostly a wholesale distributor, but people did come in to chat and see what arrived that week. We all learned from each other. I was hardly worthy of a clerk, but I had respect for the guys that were. They certainly weren’t the equivalent of operators, but they did connect people with things they might not know about, and a lot of that happened through conversation.
Evolution or not, there’s no way that Amazon/iTunes/Genius Recs could replace some of the knowledge that these guys had. The library is simply not deep enough, and the big companies could care less about the more obscure. I found this to be a good read, but then again, I like some parts of X so I must be weird.
Jeremy
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[Jeremy Garchow] “I found this to be a good read, but then again, I like some parts of X so I must be weird.”
In the case of the article, not weird but a little sentimental.
Look I love bookstores, I love browsing them, I like the rush of opening a book I’ve never read, I like the people who work in them. As for records, well let’s just say that parts of the movie/book High Fidelity (I read all of Nick Hornby’s books, I highly recommend them) felt like my life’s story. I recently contributed to a campaign to save the St. Marks bookstore from being closed down and I’ll happily try again when their lease comes due again. But it will come due, and they will close sooner rather than later. And while I will no longer be able to browse the aisles and smell the paper, I will get the same personal opinions about these books from people I’ve never met on forums just like this one. And many people who live far from cities that have such magical stores will also be able to talk to these interesting souls. The best thing about Amazon are the reader’s reviews – I get more great leads to new books from the reader’s reviews than I ever got in a bookstore. So while the clerks might have to take a turn at waiting tables or serving coffee, I don’t feel the loss of their presence as much as you. Get me on the subject of tearing down old ballparks to put up new ones, and then you’ll see me on an Aindrea’s type howl. We are each of us weird in our own little way.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
Sentimental? Fine. Turthfully, I don’t miss those days. Records are heavy, especially full palettes of them to get sorted.
Doesn’t change anything, I guess. We are all just operators waiting to get replaced by the modern switch board.
For me, the music “store” was different. The records we used to import were somewhat obscure, the owner would bring in 25 records to the whole country. Unlike books, though, someone could digitize it and put it up on the internets for the world to hear. For free.
My buddy owns a bookstore in far Northern Michigan. It’s awesome going in there. It’s also a cultural center as he as book signing/talks with authors, he brings in graphic novelists were kids come in from all over the state. He’s doing his part to keep it running, so far so good.
[Herb Sevush] “Get me on the subject of tearing down old ballparks to put up new ones, and then you’ll see me on an Aindrea’s type howl. “
There’s noises about big plans for Wrigley. I don’t know what they are, but I’m sure it will never be the same, and it sucks (just like the Cubs, ha!). I’m sure when you point out the article that is written about “Wrigley RIP” and I come on and say, “well, at least there’ll be beer vendors in the bleachers now, no more walking down stairs to get beer!” we will then trade more stories.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Doesn’t change anything, I guess. We are all just operators waiting to get replaced by the modern switch board.”
Read “Player Piano”, an early Kurt Vonnegut Sci-fi novel. As humans we are all in love with technology, even the technology that makes us obsolete.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
No, please not Wrigley Field. That really is the last one of its kind left. I knew it would come sooner of later but I’d have appreciated if they waited ’til I was dead.
Tim
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