So, for those of you who don't live here, The Stranger is by far the only good alternative weekly in Seattle. Paul Constant writes their book reviews and he is going to be at my bookstore tonight (interviewing author Jonathan Evison about his new bookso if you live in the city and aren't busy tonight at 7, get to University Books.) Needless to say, I'm as nervous as a schoolgirl on prom night. I'm even (sort of) dressed up. Paul Constant may be more of a local celeb than the kind that require their own bodyguards to fend off paparazzi, but I'd take him over Brad Pitt any day of the week. Besides being a critical genius, Constant is also a surprisingly nice guy. A few years back he wrote a feature on shoplifting at bookstores that rubbed me the wrong way, prompting me to send a heated (and more than a little shrill) email. Not only did he respond to my email and apologize for what he'd said (even though he hadn't actually meant it the way that I'd taken it) he posted my email on Slog to let other readers weigh in. Super classy. I was especially impressed given that The Stranger often has a tone of somewhat snarky superiority. It wasn't that he just gave in and said I was right and he was wrong (we both were a little of each) but he demonstrated a willingness to listen to my objections, address them, and apologize for what he concluded were genuine mistakes. That, my friends, is a real man.
While we're on the subject of books, I thought I'd take a minute to eulogize the late great Borders bookstore. (My friend and former boss Peter does a much better job with this, here so you should read that, if you only have time for one sad lament about Borders.) While the final dying gasps may be yet to come, yesterdays announcement of chapter 11 and the attending closure of 200 stores (including store 50, my old DC store) seems to be the sad final throes of a company that started dying years ago. Finding out that store 50 is closing is like finding out the family now living in my childhood home is having it demolished. I applied online at Borders a few weeks before I moved to Washington, DC, and I remember the hiring manager called me the very next morning. He hadn't realized I was still in Seattle and so he called around 9am his time- 6 am for me- and was incredibly gracious in his apology once he realized this. He said I should call him to schedule an interview once I was in town, and then followed up with another call the day I arrived in DC, just to make sure I still wanted a job. One of the best choices I ever made was to accept that offer.
THe DC Borders was where I learned almost every job skill I have. I made friends who still feel like family. I had a boss who pushed me to go back to school at a critical time in my life, when I otherwise might have remained stagnant. I took on my first shoplifters in this store. I learned about books in a city that demands more of its booksellers than probably any other place in the country. I learned more in my year at that store and in that city than I have in any single year of college. We are scattered now, the old crew of that store, some still in the district, others following families and opportunities across the country. Right now, I would give anything to have a few hours back there, at the bar across the street, raising our glasses to the good old days and to absent friends. To my Borders family, past and present, thanks for the memories.
I suppose a big chain store closing isn't as tragic to most people as, say, the death of the lovely local shop Twice Sold Tales. While I agree that the independent bookshop has a personality and community roots that a big box just can't rival, Borders was so much more, to me, than the suits who ran the company and placed so much importance on store-to-store uniformity. Borders will always be about the friends I met there, and about the great books and even greater love of books that brought us together. RIP Borders.
I guess I ought to spend the rest of the day working on homework. Hopefully that will be enough to distract me from the twin threats of overwhelming nostalgia and intense anxiety about maybe meeting Paul tonight.
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