Less harshly, Silliman suggested in an e-mail that "we're simultaneously caught in the wonder of the new and true mourning for the losses of the old."
It's an unsettling if inevitable process. Half a century ago, Silliman said, he would play chess and checkers with his grandfather as they listened to the radio. "That stopped once the TV arrived, because now we all had to face the same direction," he wrote.
Those for whom "browsing" has much more of an online connotation than a physical one barely register the shift.
"Bookstores, small or large, don't carry what I'm looking for," said Logan Ryan Smith, a 29-year-old accountant who publishes a literary magazine and poetry pamphlets. "I'm not going to find an Effing Press or Ugly Duckling Presse book even at City Lights or Cody's."
Smith is a beneficiary of what Chris Anderson, editor of Wired magazine, has dubbed "the Long Tail."
The Internet has transformed American culture from a place where a few sold the same thing to many -- think network television or the Hollywood studios or even booksellers circa 1970 -- to one where the middleman or gatekeeper can be circumvented.
The humblest band, the most amateur moviemaker and the clunkiest poet now have at least a hope of finding fans, and of having fans find them. When diagramed on a chart, this new marketplace resembles a tail extending into infinity.
"The clear lesson of the Long Tail is that more choice is better," Anderson said. "Since bookstores can't compete on choice, many once-cherished stores are going to be road kill."
Not that he thinks this is a big deal.
"A lot of our affection for bookstores is based on a romanticized notion," Anderson said. "The fact that we're not patronizing them speaks more loudly than our words."
Buzbee, who does patronize them, is determined to be hopeful.
"I don't know whether pulling our hair out and bemoaning our fate does any good," he said. "Technology is here to stay, but I firmly believe that we will still have better things to do than sit in front of a computer."
The bookstores Buzbee worked in, Upstart Crow and Printer's Inc., are long gone. The shop where he now feels most at home is the Booksmith. "The perfect urban bookstore," he calls it in "The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop."
Last fall, a weary Frank was contemplating closing the 11-employee store when he finally received a solid offer. A few weeks ago, he signed a tentative agreement to sell the Booksmith for a mid-six-figure price to a partnership led by Praveen Madan, whose previous career involved steering tech firms to profitability.
Madan, 41, calls bookstore owners "reluctant capitalists," saying they're suffering because they haven't innovated. His goal: "Create the store for the 21st century. If you do it well, you'll give customers a reason to come back. But you can't do it by making them feel guilty."
He's full of plans for improving the Booksmith's website, tying the store more firmly to the Haight-Ashbury community, doing more events -- making it both inescapable and irresistible for those who live in the neighborhood.
Frank, who owns the Booksmith building, is helping out the new team by offering a below-market rent. He couldn't think offhand of a store anywhere in the country that has successfully reinvented itself and moved to a secure financial footing, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.
"Someone needs to take bookstores to another level," Frank said. "Because this level sure isn't working."
david.streitfeld@latimes.com
