[lbo-talk] Re: Tower Records

[Tayssir John Gabbour]

On 1/5/07, Mike Ballard <swillsqueal at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> Well put, Brian.  That's exactly it.  Browsing is something which always
> fascinated me about open stacks at Stanford University Libraries.  The lack of
> same in closed stacks, like Hoover and the Biblioteque Nacional always
> frustrated me.  I used to go to Tower just to peruse the collection, see what
> was there, pick it up, examine the liner notes.  Guess I'm a dinosaur.  I don't
> mind the new formats, Amazon, MP3 or any of that aspect of the commodity
> economy.  I just miss the use-value of browsing stacks of recordings.

Ironically, there are casualties on both sides. The media corps shut
down strong online communities like ShunTV, which helped radicalize
some people a couple years ago. (Initially famous for offering The
Daily Show, and also offered hard-to-find left leaning stuff like "The
Century of Self". It offered community, not just illegal video.)

In contrast, modern bittorrent sites tend to be pretty anonymous; if
people click around, maybe they'll find some discussion area
somewhere, but it's more like an afterthought.

Tayssir