The other night I dreamed that, once a shopping mall's tenant viability had sunken below a subsistance level, the property had instead repurposed itself as an indoor amusement park. All the interior decor had changed, from walls to flooring to lighting, but it was all still in the same general shell exterior it had as a center of retail commerce ( Read more... )

...or Santa Claus Has Left The Building ( Read more... )

Last night on the TV news (CBS, I think) there was a segment about the closing of the Virgin Megastores music retail chain, and to my thinking the problem wasn't the downloading of music illegally...it was the fact that pop music has been failing as a cultural institution ( Read more... )

( A Possible BRIGHT-side To The Retail Downturn )

( A few realities of holiday shopping. )