mini-Pearl [mcphee]

This morning’s Morning Edition featured two stories that confirmed for the NPR-listening world the stereotype of Seattleites as the sort of literate people who avoid the elements by sequestering themselves inside to settle down with a book from the library or DVD rented from an independently-owned video store. ¹

Early in the hour, rockstar of the librarian world Nancy Pearl was a guest on the program, providing listeners with a list of her favorite books for a rainy day [npr] in honor of our near achievement of a citywide precipitation record.

A few minutes of sleep later, and I reawoke to hear Wendy Kaufman talking about the challenges facing video stores in the face of competition from Netflix and big chains. Lo and behold, their case study of success was our beloved Scarecrow Video. [npr]. It was a neat story that provided a quick primer on the store’s history and reminded me that I really need to take a trip up to the U-District to find a DVD that I’ve been unable to find anywhere else in town.

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1. Sure, this isn’t the only stereotype. But we can’t all always be retreating into the great outdoors to enjoy the weather on its own terms, can we? Some of us need to keep up our “most literate city” credibility.