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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 21, 2011)
Street roots 9 Jan. 21, 2011 POWELL'S, from page 8 inventory on the Internet. And a t th at point, 1994, the Internet was a social media, not an economic media. It was against the informal rules, but you could get into a lot of trouble if you tried to sell something on the Internet when we started. But that was changing. We weren’t the first to start selling books on the Internet but we were certainly one of the first And then from 1994 to 2003 or so there was this great gold rush opportunity to sell books on th e Internet, and lots of people saw that happening and it became a very competitive market and a crowded venue. It s been a small part of our business and continues . to be a small part. Then you have Amazon come in with the Kindle and had the market share and the dollars to make it work, and of course now you have the iPad. But it’s only been in the last five years that there’s been a serious competitor to the book. J.Z.: In five and 10 years on, is Powell’s City o f Books going to be the same place? M.P.: It shouldn’t be. I told Emily when I signed the business over that if we’re doing exactly th e same thing in five years I’m going to take it back. Because you have to be constantly adapting, finding new strategies to present material and display it and what material you’re displaying, and the mix between new and used, and all of that needs constant attention and there’s an evolution to all that. And more importantly what’s our strategy for electronics? And she’s hard at work at helping us find a way to be more relevant in that electronic world. This is very much a hold-and-see-what-happens environm ent You watch Borders slowly slide over the precipice and you thank God it’s not you. And you figure out what they did wrong and what you can do to avoid their fate. J.Z.: Are you nostalgic for the way things were? M.P.: I don’t think we’re in the buggy whip business just y e t But I sometimes wonder if we’re going to be the la s t I’m not nostalgic, but I enjoy, and still think most people do, the printed book. It’s a question of how much you have to accommodate the new technologies and how much you continue to make what you do important to people. J.Z.: Wfow we talk about the new climate, I think of WikiLeaks. What are your thoughts about that and the new world o f journalism and distributing information? I know censorship is a bailiwick o f yours. M.P.: It is. I can’t say much about WikiLeaks, but it used to be that publishers, rightly or wrongly - whether they’re newspaper, book magazine, TV, radio — exercised judgment, and th at judgment would be based on quality, social mores. For example, you wouldn’t see pornography or a variety of other things in p rin t Mainstream publishers didn’t print what we call pornography, and there was a holding-back ofO some kind. Across m ost fronts now th at holding back has evaporated, short of what’s illegal, and in some cases what is illegal: Those books were clearly labeled; you could choose to view them or riot. But I would say books, Uke Madonna’s book, began to cross that threshold, and it was in your face, And I think with the Internet and that rush to get anything you can say said, it doesn’t have to be verified for fact, and WikiLeaks is probably an example of th at phenomenon. Whether it’s good for the country or not, I don’t know. I personally have a reservation about publishing something that puts people’s lives at risk. I’m not putting th at standard out there as a First Amendment standard. But diplomacy can’t operate where everything is out in th e public. I ve been in meetings where we’re trying to so rt out Oregonian, nothing would happen, because when you’re looking over your shoulder trying to second-’ guess every word you said and how it’s being viewed. It stifles process. By Jay Thiemeyer J.Z.: How would you assess the current climate for business in Portland? T E R N A T for a decade roughly during th e bulk of the seventies I floated then sat and drank and drank and drank through alleys, dead cars, buildings, highways through the eighties and nineties till 2002 with all that came to that death dealing garbage pail life riot my own by a long shot I merely stood by watching (or sat, rather sat) myself from a distance remote walking a thousand plus miles a day from feed to feed and back again to wait again dropping it wherever, oblivious and content in my drained numb madness I didn’t die but was helped ‘anonymous giving’ I call what they did: intervention the agency called it and it worked after a fashion I still miss th e freedom in that dream state twenty years in the rain I forget I forget all but the freedom me and my myriad thoughts racing nowhere really just derangement, really bad derangement if was and it doesn’t get a bit better no m atter how many times I attempt th at solipsist’s derangement, that dream, never amounts to freedom the dream state become an insult to the brain; lOOo don’t work no more not even when chased with a bit to e a t Once not long ago I stuck my thumb out to follow it wherever it would take me. I carried my dream state derangement on my back • in my knapsack, one long bottle’s worth what I got for my thumb-thinking was a stolen knapsack and a ride home in a squad car. with only an admonition this time: I almost pleaded give me a charge, put some Kinda charge on me don’t treat me like some goddam old man, I said, in a low tired voice. the bubble had burst without me me and my thumb come to a sucked dry place time to reload, someone suggested, we think not we truly think not I’ll leave that childish innocence to another dreamer lost in a bottle floating down through it M.P.: I can tell you right now, the economy is not . great. There are a lot of businesses'hurting and we’re down a little b it How much of that is the e-book world and how much of it is the economy, I have no way of parsing that information. When you have unemployment in excess 10 percent, that’s fewer dollars churning through: Customers are more cautious; they’re buying less expensive books. And so we have to be aware of those situations. I kind of feel like things are beginning to pick up a little bit, and I don’t know why I say th a t This is the only recession where I think people ate their way through it. I don’t go to a restaurant that doesn’t seem to be packed. But I don’t know if the restaurateurs would agree with th a t And there are restaurants closing, but then there are 600 food carts open, too. It will come back, at some level, at some pace, and there’s every indication th at it will be slow. J.Z.: How much is in the hands o f the city, the efforts of the Portland Business Alliance, by fellow businessmen downtown? What can be done by the city to do better? M.P.: There are lots of elements into why a business is downtown and why it’s n o t There are a lot of reasons why people do business in the suburbs: Free parking and lots of it. Streets are arguably less congested, access to the suburban customer, so you have the Washington Squares of the world. I would say that downtown has been relatively healthy. The Business Alliance has done a great job of working on some of the issues that are constraining - graffiti, street cleaning, working with agencies to help on the homeless situation. I think the business community here has a good record to deal with some of the issues that make downtown more challenging. And I think we have a very h ealth y dow ntow n. T h e re are elements that I wish weren’t there. B ut I would say th at compared to other downtowns, it’s a pretty vibrant central city. In my lifetime, certainly in the last 20 years, virtually all th e arterial streets; Mississippi, Alberta ... J.Z.: There are a lot o f adorable shops opening, but they’re also closing. And I wonder how you view these changes in those communities, reflecting on your own entrepreneurial experience when you see these businesses pop up and then close in a year and half. M.P.: Some close, but not all. But overall, I think most people would say they appreciate what happened on these streets and it’s why people move to Portland. It’s economic vitality. T hat kind of move of the new urban infrastructure and grittiness, if you want to call it that, made it exciting. I grew up here and I came back in 1979, and I could count on one hand the number of restaurants I would consider taking out-of-town guests to. That’s all changed. It might be seen as superficial, but people find it fun, and that’s what makes life interesting. And books figure into th a t I’m not unmindful of what Powell’s has meant to this community, sometimes I can’t believe i t It’s a blessing; J.Z.: Wfafr are you reading these days? M.P.: Most recent book I picked up is on th e Norman occupation on England, and I’ve been going through a whole phase of Medieval history. The occasional mystery or thriller. I read a couple of books a week. My reading’s limited to after the dishes are washed. co ffee b e a n I N Floater I O N A L ® We tip our mugs to Coffee Bean International for donating coffee to Street Roots and keeping our vendors warm in the morning! Thank you! U S — '* ■ DETOUR \cafe^x 3035 S.E. Division • Portland, OR 97202 503.234.7499
