Why Paper Is Eternal - Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press ...

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One afternoon last year, I went to a stationery store in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, to buy some note paper. The store, Papyrus, is near the center
of bustling Harvard Square, a few blocks from the office where I was working
at the time. I had walked over because I wanted to write a condolence note to
my friend Steve, who had just lost his mother. Papyrus is an international chain
based in San Francisco. It is one of several purveyors of high-end paper that
have proliferated in the last decade, popping up on city streets and suburban
shopping centers, as well as on the Internet. Somehow, even in the digital age,
there is a market for handmade Japanese writing paper costing ten dollars a
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I chose a box of basic cream-colored note paper, took it to the counter
and handed the clerk my credit card. “Do you have cash?” she asked,
explaining that the computer was down. I didn’t have enough – couldn’t she
just get the charge approved over the phone? Alas no, she said, waiting for the
approval takes forever. “It can be, like, ten minutes.” We stared at each other
for a moment. “Couldn’t you go around the neighborhood and find a cash
machine and come back?” she asked off-handedly, as if I’d created the problem
and needed to fix it. “You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. She shrugged. I left the
box on the counter and walked out.
It was almost unimaginable: A chain store in a modern American city
demanding payment in paper currency. One of the paramount values of
consumer culture is convenience, and I suppose I was punishing the store for
violating that ethos. But then, think about the errand that had taken me to
Papyrus in the first place. If I care so much about convenience, why was I
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