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Scott Timberg on Creative Destruction

Trouble in Portlandia

March 1, 2011 by Scott Timberg

ONE of our favorite places, here at The Misread City, is Portland, Ore., and as much as we love the walkable neighborhoods, the groovy coffee shops, and the excellent local cuisine and Oregon Pinots, we find ourselves trapped helplessly in Powell’s bookstore every time we’re up there. (You may also have heard about the show Portlandia starring a member of one or favorite bands.)

So the troubles at the four-decades-old Portland institution, which has both a strong Internet presence and several locations in and around the city, saddens us. The company recently announced 31 layoffs due to the economy and new technology.

When I went to visit Powell’s a few years ago for an LA Times story, I was struck by a contrast: Every morning, at least a dozen people seemed to be waiting outside the main 68,000 sq. ft. store for its 9 am opening, and even on week days the place was full of people buying books.

But Michael Powell, the company founder, glowered through out interview, worried about the book market, changes in the Internet, and passing over power to his daughter Emily.

“Businesses don’t transition very well,” Powell said. “Most of them fail.” But he didn’t think twice when his daughter, Emily, told him she wanted to come back to Portland and take over. “I didn’t have another option,” he said.


To the naked eye, things did not seem nearly as dark as Powell described them, and Emily was charming, smart and optimistic. Still, maybe he was onto something.

HERE is my full story, which describes much of what Powell’s — both like and unlike other American independent bookstores — is up against.

Filed Under: indie, literary, portland, sleater-kinney, west coast

Scott Timberg

I'm a longtime culture writer and editor based in Los Angeles; my book "CULTURE CRASH: The Killing of the Creative Class" came out in 2015. My stories have appeared in The New York Times, Salon and Los Angeles magazine, and I was an LA Times staff writer for six years. I'm also an enthusiastic if middling jazz and indie-rock guitarist. (Photo by Sara Scribner) Read More…

Culture Crash, the Book

My book came out in 2015, and won the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award. The New Yorker called it "a quietly radical rethinking of the very nature of art in modern life"

I urge you to buy it at your favorite independent bookstore or order it from Portland's Powell's.

Culture Crash

Here is some information on my book, which Yale University Press published in 2015. (Buy it from Powell's, here.) Some advance praise: With coolness and equanimity, Scott Timberg tells what in less-skilled hands could have been an overwrought horror story: the end of culture as we have known … [Read More...]

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