Browsing Around?

Browsing Around?

Tower Records, Borders Books, Patelsons Music, Sam Goody, Virgin, Dalton, and so many other smaller book and music stores have closed their doors.

Too bad, so what, you might say as you go about your daily online ritual, not thinking what may have been lost in the process. Technology has allowed us to comfort ourselves within the bubble of those things we already believe. We no longer have to even step out of our own doorway.

Although perhaps a limited example, book and music stores help to illustrate a bigger picture to which we have come. These were places of ideas, and challenges to look beyond the walls we built for ourselves.

Walking in one of these stores was to enter a world devoted to the entire range of human experience. Classic recordings re-mastered from the world of vinyl waited side by side with CDs of young rising Artists waiting to be discovered. Tangible books full of adventure, and dreams could inspire you towards things beyond your comfort zone.

Musical Theatre, met Opera, Toscanini and YoYo Ma, met Marcus Roberts, Nelly Furtado, and John Mayer.

In the Pop,and International sections, I discovered Mark Anthony, long before Jennifer Lopez found, took and then dropped him.

Losing so many brick and mortar stores is the loss of the joy of browsing and socializing with others in real time.

Comparing and contrasting taste, exploring the thousands of books or cd’s directly at hand, not knowing what literary adventure or musical discovery might be in a bin just around the corner. To suddenly physically come upon a book that made you want to travel to a place you’ve never been, or made you aware of people with beliefs totally different from your own, this was the first step to exploration.

Up and down rows of titles, flipping open one book, reading the liner notes of something else, a discussion with a customer would suddenly lead you to another place entirely.

Cover art like the re-mastered classic “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band”, intrigued and teased. Album notes would take your mind down a path of further exploration into the worlds of a composer, artists, and even other lands.

Of course, if you’re looking for something specific, you can go online and find anything. Google awaits! Technology has the answers…. only IF you know the questions.

But what about the joy of being in the market, in real time and place, touching, searching, looking, exploring, feeling, and taking in hand and home amongst all the choices laid out before you, that one little jewel box filled with possibilities.

Discovering those things for which you did not even know you were looking, but then changing the way you look at the world….

That is the joy of browsing!