I bought myself some Time

Today I did something I love to do, and don't do nearly enough (pausing for a minute while you get that thought out of your sick little head). I bought the latest issue of Time magazine.

My dad worked at a newsstand for years, so I think I come by my love of magazines honestly. Right up there with Springsteen concerts, Breaking Bad and eating sushi, buying magazines hot of the presses brings me great joy.

When I fly, I get to the airport early to peruse the magazines at the gift shop. It's especially rewarding because they're always the first to get the latest issues. I give careful consideration to them, but I always walk out with the same ones: usually an Esquire, GQ, People, Fortune and Entertainment Weekly. Occasionally one of the car rags, but because I get enough of those at work they're not always on the top of my list.

I talked here about how I'll never use e-readers and why I prefer the experience of real books and magazines. I still feel that way, even though I admit I find myself doing more reading online on news sites about topics I would've picked up a magazine for in the past.

The reason I picked up this weeks' copy of Time was because it's the Answers issue. Ironically it didn't have the answers I was looking for.

Anyway, this isn't going to be the start of a new magazine subscription frenzy. My family got Newsweek for over forty years, and I continued the tradition right up until they stopped publication. That was the longest magazine subscription I ever had or will have. I even managed to save a few of the more important issues (like the Springsteen cover) and have them locked away in storage ("Hello, eBay?").

Right now I have subscriptions to Fortune, FastTimes, Los Angeles Magazine and Entertainment Weekly.

But unless my bathroom or my coffee table get bigger, I don't see getting more anytime soon.

Borders line sadness

This isn't the Borders bookstore near me. But it may as well be.

The company has filed bankruptcy, and as part of the restructuring is closing 200 of 659 stores nationwide. Including all the ones in my beachside city.

Now I'm the first to admit I'm completely old school about things like books and newspapers. And by old school, I mean I still enjoy reading them. That's the reason this makes me very sad.

I went in to my Borders today, the first day of its going out of business sale, and the line of about 150 people snaked throughout the store. The place was jammed in a way that ironically it never was when it was doing fine.

People were crashing into each other, grabbing everything they could just to save 20 to 50% off books they probably wouldn't have read if the store were not in this situation. They'll be back when the mark downs go to 50 to 75%, then 75 to 90% once inventory dwindles to nothing in the coming days.

I know many people think this is payback for them - along with Barnes & Noble - for putting so many mom and pop bookstores out of business. And it's easy to understand that sentiment. But somewhere along the way, the same public supporting that theory decided to stop supporting mom and pop, and instead shop where they'd get 20 to 40% off everyday hardcover prices. So the argument rings a bit hollow.

Besides, Costco and Target have discounted books almost from the beginning. And before Borders and Barnes & Noble there was Crown Books ("If you paid full price, you didn't buy it at Crown!"). Book discounting isn't new.

But there's a larger sadness for me, and it didn't just start with Borders closing. It started with eReaders.

I can't imagine giving up the tangible, visceral experience of holding a book in my hands while reading it. The texture of the binding, the smell of the print, the sound of the spine cracking when it's first opened. To me it's a deeper, richer and more satisfying experience than reading on a Kindle or iPad (as bitchin' as the iPad is). And since I've read books one at a time my whole life, I've never seen the need to carry a thousand of them with me wherever I go.

Even though sometimes I read the L.A. Times online, for the most part I'm also set in my ways with newspapers.

In one of my versions of heaven - not the one where Halle Berry stops pretending she doesn't know I'm alive, the other one - there's a coffee shop and the Sunday paper fresh off the presses waiting for me. I know some news has happened since the paper was delivered, but not enough to make it not worth spending time with.

If I want up to the minute, I know where to find it.

It'd be an ironic twist that as these giant bookstores begin disappearing, and people like me still want published, physical books, a resurgence of mom and pop stores suddenly start springing up to carry them.

Hopefully it won't be an either/or situation, and there'll be room for brick and mortar as well as digital bookstores to coexist.

We'll see what the next chapter holds.