SeaTxt and the Times
I’m in the process of moving to Seattle, which means I’m living four hundred miles away in someone’s basement and making tough choices like a room of my own or a room with a view? Which sucks. I’m trying to keep myself excited about Seattle and the literary events there, like the show at the James Harris Gallery called “TXT artists investigating language,” and could be called “TXT artists making puns.” One of the (analog, btw) installations looks like a collection of pine-tree air fresheners, reading “Napalm.” Another artist has created textiles to look like the front page of South African newspapers, changing The Mail & Guardian to The Male & Guardian. C’est ne pas une pipe, yeah.
Walter Robinson's Forest smells horribly.
There’s also a bookstore I plan on checking out. I like the bookstore in my basement town, which pretty much does what a local independent bookstore does: Aunties sells books, invites authors to do readings and signings, hosts a book group, and provide space for the local writer’s guild to meet. I was always so satisfied with Aunties that I never thought to dream bigger.
Think about it: What else could a bookstore offer you? If your answer includes yoga, magic shows, beer, and access to a florist, I might have found the bookstore for you.
Third Place Books offers all of these opportunities along with the traditional options of buying a book and talking about it with a group. I want to check it out, mostly to see who goes to a bookstore to do yoga.
I only partially understand the desire of the bookstore to transcend its traditional role and try to become a community space as well. The libraries have been doing the same thing with their “you can’t do that in the library” series of events—movie-showings with pizza, live music, etc. The 1950s are over, and now, at designated times only, you can eat in the library and sweat in the bookstore. Is expanding the types of activities permitted at the store really the way to keep an independent bookseller in business, though? Maybe my expectations have always been too narrowly-defined when I’ve thought about bookstores and what keeps them in business. Whenever I’m in capitalist mode, buying and selling, I’m not thinking of myself as a part of a larger community who has other shared interests, like whether baby’s breath can show off this day lily. I’m not thinking about whether I could exercise here. Maybe my life is too compartmentalized and routine. Maybe once I get out the basement, I’ll better understand it.
I think you’re gonna love Seattle and Third Place Books! Don’t forget to check out Richard Hugo House…
Open Books is a good one, too.
and i used to make a point to visit elliot bay books every time i was in SEA. heard they moved to a new location, but their staff was fantastic – super friendly & always putting out great recommendations on the shelves.
I know it is not a “cool” thing to say, but I sort of like the new Elliott Bay Books better than the old one. The space is large and light and airy. I would happily spend eight hours a day there (I always think of book stores in terms of how pleasant they would be to work in).
Love, love, love Third Place Books. The authors of Female Nomad and Friends had a joint reading there on the day the book came out and the staff couldn’t have been nicer or taken better care of us. I walked away with $50 of other books because of their fantastic selection. Also, the cafe has amazing deserts. Chocolate and books, my favorite things, oh and red wine, which you can also get in the cafe. :-)
Bookstores apparently are another victim of the desire to de-specialize and be everything to everyone. I find it a little sad, because when I go to a bookstore, I want to go to a bookstore, not a mall. There’s a convenience thing, and yes it’s nice to have a cafe in/near a bookstore, and maybe there’s a big chunk of overlapping clientele between a yoga place (shop? gym? temple?) and a bookseller, but I’m stubborn, dammit, and if I’m going to smell sweat in a bookstore I want it to be because I just had to walk 27 blocks in summer weather to get there.
Oh, never mind. A bookstore’s as welcome as anywhere else to experiment with their business model, and I wish them luck. As long as it’s not too noisy, I’m all for the effort.
Also, I’m not sure how a very small bookstore can survive nowadays anyway. Sad.
I second Shira’s sentiments. Seattle disappoints me in some ways but not when it comes to the lit scene. Elliott Bay and Third Place and Hugo House are just for starters… Keep us posted on the move!
Marcus, I was thinking some of those same thoughts, but I guess the only loud part of yoga is controlled breathing, possibly falling over. They might have an outdoor patio space for the exercise space, though. I’ll check it out for sure. Maybe I’ll even use some of my free time in the basement to call around and see what business models indie bookstores are using. Maybe I’ll just continue looking at things on the internet, making assumptions, and letting the mold sprout from my fingertips. (Hyperbole alert!)
When people ask me what I do at work all day, I tell them, “I look at things on the Internet, make assumptions, and–” wait, what? Moldy fingers?
I would strongly recommend checking out Pilot Books on Capitol Hill. Tucked discreetly away in The Alley complex on Broadway, it’s probably what an independent bookstore will have to become – unique in their editorial viewpoint = small and selective NOT all things to all people.