Liberty Hall, in my adopted hometown of Lawrence, has long billed itself as the “last video store on earth.” It has been the place where I go to grab a DVD, chat up the clerks, and generally live my movie-loving life. Streaming services? They’re fine. But you never know when they’re going to betray you — either because they don’t have the movie you’re looking for, or because they might go out of business entirely. Give me something I can hold in my hand, and play on my TV even if the Internet goes out.
And now: That experience is going to be gone. Or, at least, changed.
Coming out of the pandemic (or at least the first lockdown year) I made a pledge to myself: The things I love about my hometown had been put in danger by our collective isolation. So I would do my level best not to be the reason that any place I love — any institution, any business — would have to close.
Liberty Hall was one target of my ardor. I’ve been renting movies here since 2000. Tapes, at first, and the DVDs. It’s where I discovered movies that I love or that startled me and expanded my world: Infernal Affairs and Schultze Gets the Blues and Ong-Bak and — just in the last few months — To Be or Not to Be, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and How Green Was My Valley. It’s where I found out about the Criterion Collection. In each of the last two years I purchased a year-long “uranium option” that paid for 12 months of rentals. Like a streaming service, only you had to leave the house.
I didn’t know how much I’d use it. Turns out I used it a lot
In my early adulthood, I adopted a philosophy that has served me well:
Find a place you like. Become a regular. Benefits will accrue.
So it has been with Liberty Hall. One thing a video store gives you that a streaming service doesn’t: A place to talk about movies. The folks there — Jon and Kalie in particular — would recommend movies to me, listen to me prattle on about the ones I’d seen, and generally chatted. If they were just humoring an old guy, they gave no sign of it. It was fun.
I’ve known about the coming change — away from being a video store where you go in and browse and hang out, to more (as I understand it) a computer-driven service where you pick up what you’ve ordered online — for a couple of months. Truth is, the news plunged me into a bit of a depression. I think this was for two reasons.
I had just turned 50 and was feeling my mortality anyway.
I started my career in newspapers and saw them also give way to the digital world. Everything I love goes away to be replaced by an inferior digital version.
If this seems too much the Luddite to you, well, stuff it. I bet buggy whip makers liked making buggy whips, too. Facing your obsolescence isn’t fun, even if it’s “necessary.”
Why not just surrender to streaming? I dunno. Maybe because there are a lot of movies that aren’t on the major services. Because major streaming services can go away. Because it’s easy to fiddle with a movie in its digital version than one on tape or DVD that’s already in the customer’s hands.
So. I’m going to stick with DVDs. I’ll still be able to check them out at Liberty Hall, even if the experience is different. My local library is pretty well-stocked, too. I’ll keep sticking with the old ways, or what’s left of them, until they disappear.
Until I disappear.
Same people, same service. The name just gives you (or really, me and others who aren't regulars) a better picture now.