1 post tagged “virgin megastore”

My latest piece for The Escapist is up. I was happy to see that it got the lead spot on the homepage for the week. I don’t know how that decision is made, but it was certainly nice to see. This piece was a bit personal, sprung out of a little reflection last summer about Silent Hill 4. I decided to do some further reading on Hispanic female video game characters only to discover that no one had written it yet.

I read an editorial over the summer by author Steven Saylor, whose Roma Sub Rosa series I read in its entirety last year, where he said something along the lines of: writers are always advised to write what they know, but a writer should write the story he or she would like to read. This was in reference to fiction, but it’s definitely equally applicable to nonfiction. So I saw an opportunity and ran with it.

In other news, I joined Twitter a while back and I’m finally starting to use it a little bit. At first, all I had was Greg Grunberg on my follow list, but now I’ve added some other interesting people. What an amazingly trivial concept, yet such an addictive site. I must say that LeVar Burton has one of the coolest tattoos I’ve ever seen. It’s an ambigram of his first name and “Kunta”, a tribute, of course, to his Roots role. Dan Brown may have brought ambigrams into the popular conscious, but LeVar’s tattoo made them cool.

Finally, the Times Square Virgin Megastore is set to close in April. I haven’t bought a CD there in a while, but that store holds so many memories for me. I went there very frequently as a teen, attended signings, in-store concerts, and sometimes just considered it a throbbing, lively, oasis where I could drop in to listen to some of my favorite new songs and wander around what seemed to me quite the cool location.

The prices were sometimes a tad high, but sale time was the best. Lots of gems to be had. Apparently, a six-million dollar annual profit isn’t enough for the chain’s new owners. The location is set to house a Century 21 discount designer clothing shop. I recall Century 21 liked to advertise itself as “NY’s best kept secret”. Hard to live up to that when you’re taking a prime Times Square area location. No matter. If it hadn’t been C21, it would’ve been another client willing to fork over the cash.

Even for this native kid, this store was a destination. Say what you will about big box type places, but this one going is a loss. I loved how the jazz and vocal section was so quiet, even though the rest of the store had loud, pumping music throughout. The last time I was there was for Christmas shopping last year, and it was still the same chaotic, bright place. And I’m sure it will remain so until April.