Tag Archives: signs of the times

A lament for Book Warehouse

0

Posted on by

I’ve been a bit out of the loop with local news lately and so missed last month’s announcement that local bookstore chain Book Warehouse would be closing. You can read the owner’s statement at the Book Warehouse website but I assume that may not be around forever so here it is in full, recorded for posterity.

Dear friends and customers,

Our leases are expiring and so are we. For many years we’ve had a fantastic time bookselling. We’re leaving with no regrets and many, many happy memories of customers, books and colleagues. In particular, I cannot say enough about the support, encouragement and friendship our landlords have given us throughout.

For many years it has been our privilege to be your bookseller in the Lower Mainland. We have been truly blessed to be welcomed into our neighbourhoods and we’ve enjoyed every year we’ve been here.

I would like to express thanks to the many booksellers who have served you so well over the years. We’ve had our joys and even tragedies but throughout we have had a rich and rewarding experience serving you. On behalf of all the Book Warehouse people who have built relationships with you I would like to thank you for all your support over the years. We won’t forget you, and we hope you will remember us as fondly as we will remember you.

Please enjoy our closing sale, and please take the time to chat with us. We’re going to miss you!

Sharman King

This message is much more positive than the “We are doomed” one Duthie’s posted when they closed shop two years ago and that reflects on King’s general optimism. In the end it wasn’t enough to keep the 32 year old enterprise going as the book market undergoes a sea change with ereaders and companies like Amazon changing the way people get books.

I shopped at Book Warehouse semi-regularly, visiting the reference section for books on writing, nabbing the occasional bestseller (always discounted by at least 20%) or something from the fiction section. The staff were always friendly, ready to help and the atmosphere was relaxed. With most of my reading shifting to ebooks I can’t honestly say I’ll miss Book Warehouse in a practical sense but I will miss having the opportunity to walk in and look over the new releases and end up buying something I didn’t even know had existed. That tangible contact, being able to pick up a book and examine its cover, read the blurb, it wasn’t magical or anything, really, but it was nice and now one of my most-frequented places to do this will soon be another memory.

Charlie Smith has written an excellent reminisce for the Georgia Straight. Read it here.

Now hiring (a limited time offer)

0

Posted on by

The HMV store at the corner of Burrard and Robson is sporting some new signs lately, as seen in this photo I took the other day. Compare the small sign on the left to the rather large one on the right.

I guess they need someone to help unload those Everybody Loves Raymond DVD sets at 50% off. And if you get fed up with the job, no problem, you won’t have it for very long, anyway!

Breakfast from Hell?

0

Posted on by

Over on East Columbia Street in New Westminster, the Sapperton Place Cafe offers a menu where ‘All Prices included HST’ (perhaps anticipating the tax’s possible defeat in the recent referendum) that includes a morning snack for a mere $2.50. For that low price you get coffee and your choice of muffin or ‘cheese scorn’, a roll that I suspect is either forged in the fires of Hell, merely disdainful of the cheese it features or perhaps is just generally designed to offer early morning contempt to the world in its own small way. Whichever it is, yum to the delicious cheese scorn!

Why video on demand might be popular

0

Posted on by

It may be a coincidence that services like Netflix and the other video on demand providers are becoming more popular when a night out at the movies no longer considered a cheap evening out. Or maybe it’s because the theater chains aren’t even trying anymore.

Witness this shot taken at Oakridge Centre a few days back. You can see which movies are playing. Good. You also get the ratings. Er, handy if you have young kids and are wondering if Saw 8 is appropriate for a five year old, I suppose. But where are the times?

Look at all that white space on the sign, it is mesmerizing in its starkness, like gazing upon the fields of permafrost at the Arctic circle. At one time this white space was filled with the times they were showing the movies. Now they don’t bother because I guess they figure you’ll just look up the times on your ‘Aren’t you fancy?’ smartphone. Or maybe they figure you’ll actually schlep to the theater box office and check the times there and if they don’t line up for you, you’ll just shrug and walk away, happily thinking about how you were glad to get that little bit of extra exercise walking over to the box office for what turned out to be no reason!

Anyway, lazy theater owners. Bad Empire, bad. Not evil, which would actually sound much cooler, but still…bad.

A sign of the times

0

Posted on by

In this case, the times are of increasing illiteracy. Or maybe this is new lingo I’m unaware of. Spotted outside a restaurant last night on the north side of False Creek:

My other guess is that it was a reserved party for private perverts, though it wouldn’t seem especially private being in a public restaurant with large windows and outdoor seating. The little heart stands as compelling evidence, though! The privert people gathered all seemed happy enough.