Saturday, March 25, 2006

Dear Starbucks,

Why the music?

Oh, I know why. It's hip, trendy, and helps sell the ubiquitous compilation CDs that compete for space among the laughably overpriced espresso machines and ergonomic thermos mugs. But it's too loud. And it seems to be getting worse.

Tonight I bought a grande Sumatran, sat down to read and, reluctantly, had to leave. You were playing your satellite radio station at full-on dance club volume. Needless to say, concentration -- or even conversation, judging by the shouting and pained expressions I observed at neighboring tables -- was effectively impossible.

You call your music label "Hear Music," which is quite appropriate. Because I can hear it from the damned parking lot.

I fondly remember the evenings I spent sipping joe in your stores while reading or writing. The music was there, but it was ambient and unobtrusive, even enjoyable. Now you seem intent on punishing your customers with it, like some vacuous teenager out to impress his friends with the oversized subwoofers in the back of his modified Honda Civic.

Please explain this behavior to me. Or let me write the text for one of your "The Way I See It" paper cups -- I'd be happy to contribute a short meditation on the solace that accompanies common-sense discretion.

Or simply turn down the music, because it's banished one of the last refuges left to me in this dizzying sprawl of appliance stores, "neighborhood" sports-bars, franchise barber shops, Wal-Marts, and megaplexes.

Sincerely yours,
Mac Tonnies, author

4 comments:

Tim F said...

I live in Bangkok. My favourite coffee shop is called Le Boulange, on Convent Road. It offers good coffee, sinful cakes and the best bread in the city. The quasi-Parisian ambience doesn't quite come off (since none of the waiters speak a word of French) but I like it.

The best thing, of course, is that over the road is a Starbucks. I just love laughing at the fuckwits who sit there, spending two and a half times what I do, for worse coffee.

it's me said...

book stores have joined that club, too--i love to sit and read a bit or browse a few paragraphs --but when the lyrics to various pop tunes invade my space and repeat like ear worms over and over in my brain --it just ruins my concentration--yeah--i know I have ADHD--but it was better when the music was less intrusive

Mac said...

It's Me--

I think ADHD itself, in some instances, is spawned or exacerbated by the incessant need for music and TV in every conceivable public space.

Mac said...

WMB--

"Hell is other people!"