The Nail File, David Finkle, The
Mighty Organ
Maybe Daid Finkle’s scenario in The Mighty Organ is
familiar to you (just replace the company’s name with the onerous
mega-chain store of your choice: ‘Bloomie Nails has opened a block
away from me. It joins the one that is three blocks away from me
and the one that is six blocks away.’ The nail salons, or what
Finkle calls ‘shops that look like nail-treatment factories’ are
not only ridiculous to him because of their placement in a
neighborhood of ‘lower-middle class families and a notably large
population of homosexual men and women.’ The more sobering
absurdity is its displacement of a beloved neighborhood eatery, a
sad example of how the power of mass retail transforms
neighborhoods: ‘But if the Bendix, which had been on the site for
maybe 10 years, could do a low-cost eggs-however breakfast or
noodle dinner, there was apparently something it couldn’t do. Meet
rent hikes. And that’s where Bloomie Nails came in.’
–Julie Madsen
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