Opinion: Gone, Baby, Gone ...

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Somehow, these two pieces of news belong together.

Dutton’s Books in Brentwood will be closing on April 30; watch that space for another jumped-up upmarket boutique, another Starbucks, another overdone bistro -- but not another bookstore. The altogether singular place that made browsers into bibliophiles is taking its last bow.

The same day we heard that, we learned that Sunday’s Oscar telecast got the fewest ever sets of eyes since Philo Farnsworth -- the ratings were 14% below the worst year ever. Maybe in short-attention-span America, the Golden Globe awards press conference -- brisk, efficient, dressed-down -- is the future.

In my dreams, I’d like to think that whoever isn’t watching the Oscars is likely out buying books, or at home reading them. Or that the non-book-buying people are hitting the movie theatres. But it’s not happening. So where are they going? Just where is that vast mob of disappearing Americans disappearing to?

I’d put Americans’ faces on a milk carton, but I think they’re giving up milk, too.