In San Diego, we have a discount store called GTM that buys Costco closeouts and scratch-and-dent items and resells them for less. It has a loyal base of bargain shoppers, and it feels a bit like a treasure hunt.
You can buy normal or even individual quantities, like a single roll of paper towels, with no membership required. I imagine other big cities have similar stores, probably in lower-income areas, that fill a similar role.
I agree with you on hip-hop. It's very important to me. And it's great that it's become so ubiquitous. But it wasn't always like that. Early hip-hop was just music created extemporaneously at a party or a park jam. It wasn't even recorded. It didn't fit the format of "about 4 minutes and some seconds." And the whole mixtape era was music of the moment, not even an official release, mostly a promotional product.
These forms of media were work-for-hire projects owned by the publisher, paid at a rate per word or page. Assignment turned in and paid for (or not) and on to the next assignment. A volume game.
Comic books, original paperback books (crime/detective stories, westerns, science fiction, etc.), hip-hop,... all intended as disposable entertainment—the commodified, created content of its day.
This was my first computer. I got it for Christmas when I was 9 or 10. Can't remember if it was 1983 or 1984. Mostly used it, and its particular flavor of BASIC, to create graphic images, pixel by pixel. I remember making a fantasy sword picture. What a memory!
Standard Ebooks is my go-to for beautiful, well-formatted Public Domain books. The 2025 page is a wonderful gift to start the year. I'm off to read Red Harvest and The Dain Curse. Happy New Year!!!
You can buy normal or even individual quantities, like a single roll of paper towels, with no membership required. I imagine other big cities have similar stores, probably in lower-income areas, that fill a similar role.