R.I.P. Bob Slate's
Saying goodbye to another Cambridge institution wasn't at first on the programme when my wife and I went into Cambridge yesterday. We had decided to go to the Harvard Museum of Natural History, then try to find cheap eats someplace without a national brand on it. The Slate's visit was an add-on, when I mentioned the store and my wife said, "Oh, did you see the Globe column?"
Slate's is going, going, soon to be gone. We visited the Mass. Ave. store in its final flurry. My Rhodia pads were gone, gone in every style: someone had beaten me to it.
Crap: another step in the homogenisation of Harvard Square. I was a very late comer to Slate's, having been in Cambridge rarely most of my life. I was taking refreshment with the Mass Marrier some months ago and mentioned my frustration at being unable to find an old-fashioned long, skinny reporter's pad. He suggested Slate's. I found what I wanted and became a convert. I usually put this curse only on restaurants I like.
This news has its analog in the trouble I have finding the notebook. Slate's was damaged by Staples, then done in by the Internet. The specialised pads I like never had much of a market beyond writers in general and reporters in particular, so the Staples of the world can't be bothered with them. In any case, reporters don't take notes anymore. They record. This certainly makes one techno-savvy and cool, but I still remember what someone told me long ago. People may become more cautious, more guarded, in what they tell you when you record them. In our world that seems more real and more threatening. The pad? It's just a notebook: what harm is there in that? Perhaps that gambit is obsolete too, given how many people self-destruct via Facebook and Twitter. If reporters were still taking the pad and gathering facts, it might be different, but so many are simply making the story up as they go along.
All right: I'll hobble off to my rocker now and play with my skinny little pads. And I won't say where we got lunch: Putting no curses there.
Slate's is going, going, soon to be gone. We visited the Mass. Ave. store in its final flurry. My Rhodia pads were gone, gone in every style: someone had beaten me to it.
Crap: another step in the homogenisation of Harvard Square. I was a very late comer to Slate's, having been in Cambridge rarely most of my life. I was taking refreshment with the Mass Marrier some months ago and mentioned my frustration at being unable to find an old-fashioned long, skinny reporter's pad. He suggested Slate's. I found what I wanted and became a convert. I usually put this curse only on restaurants I like.
This news has its analog in the trouble I have finding the notebook. Slate's was damaged by Staples, then done in by the Internet. The specialised pads I like never had much of a market beyond writers in general and reporters in particular, so the Staples of the world can't be bothered with them. In any case, reporters don't take notes anymore. They record. This certainly makes one techno-savvy and cool, but I still remember what someone told me long ago. People may become more cautious, more guarded, in what they tell you when you record them. In our world that seems more real and more threatening. The pad? It's just a notebook: what harm is there in that? Perhaps that gambit is obsolete too, given how many people self-destruct via Facebook and Twitter. If reporters were still taking the pad and gathering facts, it might be different, but so many are simply making the story up as they go along.
All right: I'll hobble off to my rocker now and play with my skinny little pads. And I won't say where we got lunch: Putting no curses there.
Labels: Bob Slate's, Cambridge MA
posted by Uncle | 19:41
1 Comments:
Alas, poor Bob, I knew him, Horatio...at least the stores. I too visited and thought a bit of my Red Cross family childhood, visiting disaster sites. Most of the good stuff was gone and it was like walking through rubble.
Most visited to Staples or Office Max are like going to the toy or electronics store. You'd better want what they stock - the most common sellers - or leave. Slates in its time had everything almost every time. They'd happily order what they didn't at no extra charge. It would seem only the supermarkets have a full range.
There's it's the opposite; numerous times folk even order than I ask questions like, "Where's the corn flakes? I can't find the corn flakes among all these boxes."
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