I didn't want to go out again Friday night, but I made myself. And to manage this, I had to dangle my favourite carrot: Glancing at a map, I realised that Bookworks was only a few blocks from the arts centre. And I knew from experience it would be open until late.
Which is all good, since the Open House at the Cornelia Arts Centre was a bit disappointing. There seemed to be fewer artists than when I took
his_regard there back in May, and there didn't seem to be much new work of interest from any of them. Joey was genuinely happy to see me and never alluded to my missing his solo show in August (whether out of tact or forgetfulness, I don't know), which was too bad since I'm still confused as to how it happened that he sent me the wrong date. I had a fun chat with a couple of his guests but I wasn't feeling up to repeating that and slipped away.
It was about twice as far to Clark as I'd estimated, but it was a nice night and I enjoyed the exercise. Bookworks was the most crowded I've ever seen. Granted, I don't often visit that late on a Friday and it is in the heart of a nightlife area. The local college freshmen I passed as I made a beeline for the foreign language section seemed a bit drunk as they loudly riffled through the postcard rack. A moment later, I heard one ostentatiously critiquing the organisation of the East Asian history section (undermining his attempted air of authority with repeated references to the "Ming Empire").
I did my best to stay out of the way of two young women who were scanning the foreign language literature with the same intensity as I was, but I broke my silence when one squeed over a copy of Rimbaud in French. Their next exciting discovery were two Harry Potter books in German and I reassured one that her Schweindeutsch would be up to the challenge. This had drawn a third and by the time I heard her say that she already had a copy of the first book in French and the second in Russian, I was beginning to soften their garrulous presence. A moment later I heard someone from the neighbouring aisle say:
"Hey Celeste, what time do we have to leave by in order to make it back to Hyde Park?"
I melted. How could I ever have suspected they were from anywhere else but my alma mater? Who but UofCers would be in a used bookstore in the heart of Lakeview at 9 p.m. on a Friday night?
After that, I jettisoned my reticence at being seen as a creepy old man and asked one of the girls who'd been repeating her desire for some entertaining reading material what she liked to read. She turned down
Oscar and Lucinda despite being intrigued by the blurb but did let me put
Spring snow into her hands. (When I asked if she'd read Mishima before she somewhat abashedly apologised for not having gotten around to it and I had to bite my tongue in order to avoid replying, "That's because you're a foetus!") I remarked on the volume of Frank O'Connor her companion was browsing and he told he was looking for more "twentieth century Irish" literature. I literally rubbed my hands with anticipation before giving him my assessment of the O'Connor, Lavin, Edna and Flann O'Brien, on the shelves and sending him off with a volume of Seán Ó Faoláin in his clutches.
I was feeling so expansive that I even gave him first crack at a larger collection of Ó Faoláin's short stories that I coveted for myself, but fortunately he took the slimmer volume. I added to that an anthology of Lavin, Carey's
Jack Maggs, and a "Gothic novel" of Gombrowicz's that I noticed too late was a retranslation from the French. The clerk was intrigued by it himself--"I've never seen this before, not even the publisher"--and we probably could've chatted a bit if I weren't anxious to get home and get a full night's sleep.