THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 23, 1995 TAG: 9502230021
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CRAIG SHAPIRO, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 215 lines
COLUMBUS VILLAGE is not what its name implies.
Rather than a quaint and quiet little burg, the high-volume shopping center, home to South Hampton Roads' biggest cineplex, biggest music store and biggest bookstore, is Vitamin B12 with an Iron chaser, an entertainment fix to jump-start the senses.
Example: Today, you could see ``Pulp Fiction'' and ``Legends of the Fall'' at the R/C Columbus Movies 12, pick up the soundtracks at Planet Music, then amble next door to Barnes & Noble, where prominent displays feature Quentin Tarantino's ``Fiction'' script and the ``Legends'' novella by Jim Harrison.
And without the hassle.
Saturdays are different. Saturdays get a little hectic at the complex, on Virginia Beach Boulevard across from Pembroke Mall. Saturdays you wait for a crack at Skee Ball at the Movies 12; you queue up to get into Planet's listening center; you reconnoiter Barnes & Noble for one of those comfy couches.
Imagine you are Tokyo and Columbus Village is Godzilla.
Then take the advice of Janice Gato, the bookstore's general manager: ``You have to kind of gear up for Saturdays.''
8:27 a.m. Parking problem? On this cold, wet Saturday morning, 36 cars dot the lot.
Make that 37; a van from the Sugar Plum Bakery just pulled up with the day's menu at the Barnes & Noble cafe. A half-dozen bear claws and sticky buns; two dozen muffins and turnovers; three dozen cookies; pies, cakes and 30 thick sandwiches to be washed down with gourmet coffee and bottled water.
Inside, shelves are being dusted and stocked. Gato is rearranging the plants. Just before opening, she gathers the staff near the Current Fiction and New Biographies for a quick meeting.
9:10 a.m. The smell of fresh-brewed coffee hangs in the air, which is one reason why Pat and Bill Hutchings of Virginia Beach are the first two customers through the door. They get together with friends every Saturday for coffee and small talk at Barnes & Noble.
``It's just four or five of us, whoever shows up,'' Pat says.
``We have coffee and do our Saturday shopping,'' adds Bill. ``They have coffee and go to a movie.''
9:40 a.m. If you didn't know Planet Music doesn't open for 20 minutes, you'd think the sales day is in full swing. The 45-seat listening center is crammed; Desree's dance beat is pumping through the sound system.
``Before we open, the staff listens to what they want,'' says Cindy Ressler, who'll be working the help desk, the sun of the Planet system. She is in early for a staff meeting.
``It will be real quiet the first hour,'' Ressler says. ``By 11, they've decided what they want to hear. For others, it's like Toys R Us: They look for the first (sales)person they can find.''
10:10 a.m. Bob Deal leans over conspiratorially. ``We have customers from Great Britain in the classical section.''
Indeed there are, four Brits including Cliff Bolton from High Wymcomb, about 30 miles outside London. A military man in town for the week, he'd heard about Planet and Barnes & Noble even before he hopped the trans-Atlantic flight.
``Both are very well known back home,'' he says. ``People coming through told us about them. Frankly, we came over here so we could come here.''
Bolton heads for the listening center with a disc of a cappella recordings, but not before checking out the breakfast spread: Bagels and cream cheese, juice and coffee. Because this is going to be a special Saturday, Deal, who manages the classical section, has hauled in a tray of pastries, too.
10:50 a.m. The occasion is a concert by the Hotel Paradise Roof Garden Orchestra, an outfit specializing in jazz and swing music of the '20s and '30s. Jeanne Husman and Connie Crosby drove in from the Oceanfront for the show.
``We come out here and have a nice day,'' Crosby says. ``You can see a movie, then go to Barnes & Noble for a sandwich. We were in the other day to see `Immortal Beloved,' then we both came here to get the soundtrack.''
``But it doesn't sound as good on my stereo,'' Husman says, laughing.
``Today, I'm getting blues,'' Crosby adds, holding up discs by Clarence ``Gatemouth'' Brown and Charles Brown.
11 a.m. Ressler's right. The help desk looks a little like the library: Customers bring up discs and are assigned spots in the listening center. Right now, they're cueing up Kenny G, the Jerky Boys and Soul Asylum. One guy goes through four discs by Tangerine Dream; another spends a solid animated hour, tapping the table and mouthing along with the Rev. Timothy Wright and the New York Fellowship Mass Choir.
11:15 a.m. ``While smoking and shoplifting are certainly prohibited, dancing is not.'' With that, Lynn Summerall, looking sharp in a black tux, takes his Hotel Paradise Roof Garden Orchestra through the ``Henderson Stomp.''
Despite the early hour, the band is in full regalia. Singer Becky Livas wears a royal blue tea-length gown; the 14-piece band, including three violinists and two banjoists, sport white dinner jackets with red carnations.
Before the concert ends, the 50 or so folks happily crowded into Planet's classical section will hear Livas croon ``I Surrender, Dear'' and ``When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain.'' One little girl, age 2 1/2 tops, stands transfixed as Livas sings ``Little White Lies.'' David Kennedy Jr., ``The Tap-Dancing Terror of Tidewater,'' brings down the house during ``Tea for Two.''
11:55 a.m. That crowd has spilled into the main part of the store and now includes the Hutchings, last spotted in Barnes & Noble. ``Our friends brought us over for the music,'' Bill Hutchings says.
Noon. Something is clearly missing on the walk over to the Columbus Movies 12: Parking spaces. The lot is bumper-to-bumper, and drivers circle in the steady rain like birds of prey, ready to pounce on any spot.
12:20 p.m. Linda Farynk and Linda Erickson have their afternoon set. They'll catch the next showing of ``Nobody's Fool,'' then cap it off with ``Quiz Show.'' ``She's movie-deprived,'' Erickson, a Beach resident, says of her friend from Radford. Planet Music is on the agenda, too. They heard the Virginia Symphony play a piece by Chinese composer Zhou Long the night before and, between screenings, are going to see if Long's recordings are in stock.
Upstairs, Gary Walker is wishing for a pair of Rollerblades. The morning screenings are about to end, and that means the projectionist will soon be making his rounds.
It's a one-man operation that's as high-tech as it gets: Monitors on the 12 projectors read sound levels and pick up cues that automatically dim the house lights. That doesn't mean Walker can take it easy. Even with staggered starts, he sometimes has five minutes to hustle down the long corridor.
``In school, a lot of people thought all I had to do was pop in a video and press `Play,' '' says assistant manager David Tanielu, who used to be the projectionist at another movie theater. ``It's a little more advanced than that.''
12:40 p.m. The theater lobby - 13,000 square feet of well-lit space - is crawling. On one side, kids are playing Wacky Gator and Skee Ball, winning fistfuls of tickets they will swap for Beef Jerky and ``Power Rangers'' tattoos. Across the lobby, their big brothers and sisters feed tokens into the Primal Rage and Killer Instinct video games.
1 p.m. ``Cool!'' exclaims one burly, pony-tailed patron, throwing himself back into the rocking-chair seat. ``This is the ticket.''
Another moviegoer kills the 20 minutes before ``Legends of the Fall'' with a concession stand lunch: Coke, hot dog, popcorn and Raisinets. The movie may be a long-winded soap opera, but it sure sounds good. That's because the theater is wired for Sony Dynamic Digital Sound, a state-of-the-art job in which the sound is recorded, printed and played back digitally.
It's all part of what Bill Menke, district manager for the Maryland-based R/C chain, calls ``the total entertainment experience.''
3:40 p.m. Every seat at every table in the Barnes & Noble cafe is occupied. A distinguished-looking man is leafing through ``Just Cause,'' the thriller that has been made into a movie starring Sean Connery, and just happens to be playing over at the movie theater. A young woman pores over a map of France.
``We really do encourage people to browse, sit down and peruse a book or magazine prior to purchase,'' says Gato, the bookstore manager.
4:02 p.m. Customers this afternoon have taken her up on that. One young man, dressed for the weather in rubber duck boots, sits in front of a stack of home-repair books; an elderly woman leafs through ``Life Extension'' and Life magazine. ``Romance 101'' evokes giggles from one couple, but the big laughs come from the back of the store. Six boys and girls have found the Humor section.
``Listen to this,'' says one boy, reading from a paperback called ``Snaps'': `` `If ugliness was bricks, your mother would be a housing project.' ''
``Sssssh,'' says his mom, ``you're disturbing the public.''
4:45 p.m. A dozen people in the Planet Music checkout line watch as a young man, his wrists handcuffed behind his back, is led out by Virginia Beach police. He would have done well to have heeded bandleader Lynn Summerall's advice that morning.
5:05 p.m. Everything from Ace of Base to Frank Zappa is getting a going-over in the listening center. One slacker takes Eric Clapton off the CD tray when his bud brings over something by Doc Watson. A fifth-grade girl in a neatly pressed dress holds discs by alternative rockers Weezer and Live. She's waiting patiently for her dad - with shaved head and an earring - to help her use the CD player. Another little girl, about the same age, is singing out loud to ``The Lion King'' soundtrack.
5:45 p.m. It takes more than another high-octane Saturday to ruffle Ted Lyles. Planet's good-natured general manager will be on duty until the store closes at midnight. ``The hardest concept is self-service,'' he says. ``People still resist helping themselves in a music store.''
6 p.m. Back at Barnes & Noble, it's the dinner hour. One man is reading ``The Hippopotamus,'' the new novel by British actor/author Stephen Fry, over a tuna sandwich and iced cappuccino. A couple chats quietly over coffee.
The change of pace is noticeable; the buzz that was in the air two hours earlier is gone. For a few minutes anyway, it seems like all of Columbus Village has stopped to catch its breath.
6:30 p.m. But you'd never know it outside. As one car pulls onto rain-slick Virginia Beach Boulevard, two others jockey for the parking space. MEMO: Planet Music
Opened: November 1993
Size: 32,000 square feet
Staff: 52
Get this: If you laid out Planet's 119,000 CDs and 51,000 cassette
tapes end to end, they would stretch 12.77 miles - roughly a drive from
downtown Norfolk to Tidewater Community College in Virginia Beach.
Barnes & Noble Booksellers
Opened: October 1995
Size: 24,000 square feet
Staff: 60
Get this: Barnes & Noble carries 100,000 titles; the Windsor Woods
branch of the Virginia Beach Public Library stocks 70,000.
R/C Columbus Movies 12
Opened: December 1994-February 1995
Size: 53,000 square feet
Staff: 45-50
Get this: The cineplex seats 3,100. If every Saturday screening was
filled, more than 15,000 people would see a movie. That's nearly double
the population of Franklin*.
\ ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by Joseph John Kotlowski, Staff
obert Bailey allen works the popcorn machine...
Cousins Rebecca and John Lawrence...
Darnell Coleman...
by CNB