The End of Something Special

If you've followed my blog for awhile you may be aware that until last March I had worked for a bookstore chain for a number of years. I've never specifically named the chain before- we all had to sign a form saying we'd never blog about the company- but I suppose I can now safely reveal that the company I spent the better part of a decade working for was Borders, which no longer exists.

In case you have no clue what I'm talking about, the company filed for bankruptcy at the beginning of this year and closed about a third of their stores at that point (mine wasn't among those closed at then, which at the time seemed like such a relief!) and then announced in July that their efforts to keep the company alive had failed. By mid September all of the remaining stores were closed.

There has been a lot written about what this means for the future of books in the wake of e-readers and digital technology, and I can't comment much about that. All I can really say is that I am a lover of books, the physical, printed objects, and nothing will ever change that.

A lot has also been written about Amazon and the online sales of books sounding the death knell for brick and mortar bookstores, be they chains or independents. While I have been known to buy books from used bookstores online, I can't imagine a world in which I couldn't spend an hour or two browsing in an actual bookstore every week or so.

For all the doom and gloom pronouncements, though, the fact is that no one knows what the future holds. All we can do is hold on to what we love while it's still here. Maybe in that way, we can help it to exist a bit longer.

But this post isn't about the future of books or bookstores. This is about Borders and my own personal experience as a bookseller there, and about what was lost this year when the company closed. Keep in mind that I'm speaking only of my own personal experience, which is limited to one particular Borders store. I can't speak for all employees or any other store.

As I said, I spent the better part of a decade working at Borders. Overall, it was a truly wonderful experience. Yes, there were bad days, some awful customers (it was retail, after all), and a lot of stupid corporate nonsense to deal with. Of the latter, the one that sticks out in my memory the most was a truly wretched period when a new CEO instituted something called Make Titles, which meant that every one of us had to push a specific book on each and every customer that walked through the door, regardless of how ill fitting it was for them. That 'one book fits all' era was the worst time in all my years with the company, the closest I ever came to truly hating working at Borders.

In spite of any bad times, though, I loved my job. I saw a lot of employees come and go over the years and of course there were some terrible ones, but for the most part we had an incredible staff of people. Even though we were mostly part timers who were paid by the hour we truly cared about and enjoyed our jobs (which was especially amazing in the final few years, when raises were frozen and hours cut so badly that few could hope to live on a Borders salary alone). These were people who loved books and could happily spend hours talking about them.

It wasn't all that hard, in fact, to see myself as part of a long tradition going back to the booksellers in ancient Alexandria. That sounds grandiose, I know, but working with people who loved books as much as me, and helping customers who could get just as excited about a new (or old) title as I do, made me feel at home there every single day, made me feel as if I was part of a long history of something very special.

Our customers were great. We had loyal regulars that we saw day in and day out, and then there were the people who may have only come in once but who might strike up a conversation with you about a particular author or book that you'd still be thinking about months later. I never felt like I was there just to push a product (except for the aforementioned Make Title period). There are so many customers I'll never forget, many of whom I never even knew by name, but I certainly knew their face and what they liked to read.

Not long before I left, I had an elderly woman come up to me and tell me that her husband, who'd just passed away, had loved our store. Whenever they'd have an argument, he'd tell her that he was going to go somewhere where he was appreciated, and he'd come to our store and spend a few hours reading. I'm sure there were countless customers like that in every Borders store (and Waldenbooks, which was a subsidiary) that was lost this year.

Many dislike the big chain bookstores, and with good reason. I personally hated the corporate sameness of mandatory displays and certain policies that could be less than customer friendly at times. The loss of Borders, though, should be just as mourned as the loss of any independent bookstore. Most of the many employees who lost their jobs loved books just as much as someone trying to make a go of an independent store does. For many of the customers, it was their home away from home, and in many cases the only bookstore in their area.

My store was a special place, one that I find myself missing every day. Whatever the future of books and bookstores turns out to be, I can only hope that people who care as much for the written word as we did will continue to play a role in it.

A Soapy Jumble

Well, months have passed and we've recently learned that Erica Kane and Viki Lord will not, in fact, be living on. All My Children went out with a cliffhanger ending last September and One Life to Live filmed its own reported cliffhanger ending just days before the news broke that Prospect Park was 'suspending' their efforts to move the soaps online.

That's life, I suppose, though it's a big let down for the those who loved these shows. It's especially sad that both shows will have departed the airwaves with no real resolution for the characters that fans have followed for so many years.

I've come to accept that daytime soaps are ceasing to exist. I think we're already seeing the medium move online in many original soaps, and while it would have been wonderful to see a soap make the transition from TV to the Internet, just as so many years ago Guiding Light made the move from radio to television, it doesn't seem like it's going to happen, at least not right now.

This will leave us with a grand total of four soaps on the air, one of which is the soap I grew up watching, Days of Our Lives. I wrote way back in April that Days was going to be doing a gay storyline at long last, with legacy character Will Horton.

In the months since then, the show has introduced another openly gay legacy character (albeit one who had never been onscreen before) in the person of Sonny Kiriakis. Sonny is played by Freddie Smith, who most recently played a gay character on 90210.

Since coming to Salem, Sonny has faced coming out to his Great Uncle, the powerful business titan Victor Kiriakis, who was surprisingly okay with it. Sonny had come out to his parents, Justin and Adrienne, before coming to Salem and they, too, are supportive.

Once in town, Sonny quickly became friends with the other college aged characters, including Will, but faced some prejudice from Will's good friend T. The cause of T's gay panic was a picture of him and Sonny together, taken before T knew that Sonny was gay, which showed up online and referred to them as having a 'bromance'.

For a few weeks T hung around making homophobic remarks to Sonny's face and muttering threateningly to himself about making Sonny pay, but it seems that particular aspect of the story has now been dropped, which is a relief.

While all of this was going on, fans were left to wonder if the show, which had just changed head writers, was going to drop the Will aspect of the story altogether. While there had definitely been hints that Will was secretly gay (he put off sleeping with his girlfriend, Gabby, as long as he could and hasn't slept with her again since their first time), the show hadn't committed to anything they couldn't easily undo.

Recently, though, actor Chandler Massey has been able to confirm that his character will indeed be coming out of the closet. The show is still staying mum on whether or not Will & Sonny will end up becoming more than friends, though.

All of this is certainly something to look forward to, but the history of gay storylines on the soaps isn't exactly littered with success stories! Call me a glutton for punishment, though, because I'm once more along for the ride.

All of this makes me miss the days when Luke Snyder was coming out on As The World Turns and there was still so much potential ahead for great story telling! The coming out story was so well done and things looked really promising when Noah first showed up. Then, of course, the boys were paired in one stupid story after another, most of which had an end goal of keeping them from ever having sex.

Speaking of Luke, Van Hansis recently had guest starring roles on episodes of Psych and Nikita. He was fantastic in both parts, playing a bloodthirsty victim of the insurance industry in one (below) and a Russian agent in the other (below).
It was so incredible to see Van on my TV screen again! It had been far too long. I thought he was especially good in Nikita, where he not only got to use an accent but also had an incredible scene where a single tear rolled down his cheek and completely killed me. I'd somehow forgotten just how talented Van was. Hopefully these were the first of many roles to come.