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So, I've been watching Supernatural again - season 12 this time around. I followed the first six or seven seasons pretty faithfully as they aired, but lost interest when the show got stale and started recycling/repackaging the same old plots, like the original Hardy Boys books. The show still has its moments though, and I grin at every geeky/meta reference the writers manage to slip into the episodes. But Supernatural still suffers from Murder, She Wrote syndrome in that like two serial killers, Sam & Dean leave a body count with every town they visit. We all know that back in the 80s, Jessica Fletcher innocently stumbled onto a different homicide every Sunday evening (while Jonathon/Jennifer Hart did the same on Thursdays). Even without the Internet, you'd have thought that SOME detective SOMEWHERE would have thought, "You know what, Earl? Have ya ever noticed that every time someone in Cabot Cove is found dead in a pool of blood, shit, and piss, that ollllllld Ms. Fletcher is always standing nearby hummin' that song from Sweeney Todd?" And to my knowledge, unlike Sam & Dean, Jessica Fletcher never left a pile of charred, blackened corpses burning in a Costco parking lot, like I saw this morning while ironing and watching TV. And today isn't even Black Friday.
Speaking of Black Friday, I've been thinking a lot about retail shopping lately, and how much the Internet has changed the way we buy things. In my 15th year at Barnes & Noble, each day is a battle to convince customers to purchase books within the store, rather than on our website or Amazon.com. Like many old retailers, BN is frantically modernizing to stay viable in the modern world. As I look at my own store - as well as other retailers around me - I can't help but wonder what the world is going to look like in ten years.
I had a serious dose of nostalgia last week when I stopped at Fox Valley Mall in Naperville Il on my way to work; I had to get a watch repaired, and the mall had the only local fix-it-while-you-wait repair shop. While the watch was being fixed, I killed time by walking the corridors and remembering growing up in the 80s, when going to the mall was a pretty big thing. Unlike many indoor shopping centers, Fox Valley hasn't made YouTube's Retail Archeology channel ... yet; it's kept itself relevant since 1975, and even its Sears has somehow stayed open. But I didn't buy any merchandise during my visit. If something caught my attention, I used my iPhone to research the product (and prices) online. I grabbed a quick sandwich in a very expensive food court, and wondered how much the mall's stores must pay in rent and how hard it must be to keep customers engaged in a shopping center that hasn't been cool since Tiffany Darwish sang covers in front of Sam Goody, back in 87'. Even Sam & Dean are getting old, I thought, as I tossed my trash and checked my social apps for messages before heading to work. And I'm getting old, too ...
Speaking of Black Friday, I've been thinking a lot about retail shopping lately, and how much the Internet has changed the way we buy things. In my 15th year at Barnes & Noble, each day is a battle to convince customers to purchase books within the store, rather than on our website or Amazon.com. Like many old retailers, BN is frantically modernizing to stay viable in the modern world. As I look at my own store - as well as other retailers around me - I can't help but wonder what the world is going to look like in ten years.
I had a serious dose of nostalgia last week when I stopped at Fox Valley Mall in Naperville Il on my way to work; I had to get a watch repaired, and the mall had the only local fix-it-while-you-wait repair shop. While the watch was being fixed, I killed time by walking the corridors and remembering growing up in the 80s, when going to the mall was a pretty big thing. Unlike many indoor shopping centers, Fox Valley hasn't made YouTube's Retail Archeology channel ... yet; it's kept itself relevant since 1975, and even its Sears has somehow stayed open. But I didn't buy any merchandise during my visit. If something caught my attention, I used my iPhone to research the product (and prices) online. I grabbed a quick sandwich in a very expensive food court, and wondered how much the mall's stores must pay in rent and how hard it must be to keep customers engaged in a shopping center that hasn't been cool since Tiffany Darwish sang covers in front of Sam Goody, back in 87'. Even Sam & Dean are getting old, I thought, as I tossed my trash and checked my social apps for messages before heading to work. And I'm getting old, too ...
It's hard not to be just a little melancholy as a man pushing 50 in the world right now. I like to think I'm up to speed on technology and trends, but "awareness" of such things isn't the same as enjoying them - and I often feel curmudgeonly as I search the car radio for songs from Tiffany's era to which I know the words to by heart. It's eerie that he culture of my youth is now considered nostalgic, and shows like Supernatural & Stranger Things unintentionally hammer that home. I still have my old Star Wars toys on display (the same ones that Eleven levitated on Netflix) and the older I get, the more fondly I revere them, searching Ebay for good prices to add to add to my collection. Chuckling ... regarding shopping for old pop culture, I'm actually a little afraid of going into an antique store because I might find the watch that I just had repaired in the mall.
Slightly off topic, I recently watched the movie Valerian, a mess of a story from the folks who gave us The Fifth Element (my all time favorite film, though sadly the new movie wasn't as strong as the old). In Valerian, we saw a glimpse of a future that's become common in recent stories: the galaxy is teeming with friendly life, but humanity keeps fucking things up. Valerian's "City of a Thousand Planets" was like a giant shopping mall in space, where aliens & humans coexist in a world of computers & social apps (sort of like what Babylon 5 might have looked like, had the show been produced by Apple). It was a story of forced harmony, a world that like our own is struggling with growing pains - and technology that keeps us apart, rather than bringing us together. I hate films that make humans the bad guys, the invaders of worlds that shit on Avatars' trees. But I do find it interesting that almost all of these stories romanticize a simpler way of life, as our own world gets more complicated by the day ... with technology that continues to reduce the need for human connection. And you don't have to be a curmudgeon to see the truth in that.
Slightly off topic, I recently watched the movie Valerian, a mess of a story from the folks who gave us The Fifth Element (my all time favorite film, though sadly the new movie wasn't as strong as the old). In Valerian, we saw a glimpse of a future that's become common in recent stories: the galaxy is teeming with friendly life, but humanity keeps fucking things up. Valerian's "City of a Thousand Planets" was like a giant shopping mall in space, where aliens & humans coexist in a world of computers & social apps (sort of like what Babylon 5 might have looked like, had the show been produced by Apple). It was a story of forced harmony, a world that like our own is struggling with growing pains - and technology that keeps us apart, rather than bringing us together. I hate films that make humans the bad guys, the invaders of worlds that shit on Avatars' trees. But I do find it interesting that almost all of these stories romanticize a simpler way of life, as our own world gets more complicated by the day ... with technology that continues to reduce the need for human connection. And you don't have to be a curmudgeon to see the truth in that.
Btw, at risk of sounding like an old fart, as I look at my watch, after 14 seasons of Supernatural, I reeeeeally think it's time for Sam & Dean to go. I mean, they didn't even have iPhones when the show got started ...