independent bookstores (remembering city lights)

The other day I read about an independent mystery bookstore in Massachusetts that was selling (and in all probability, closing). And there were great stories about that this store that made it seem like an institution in the state, and quite possibly in the mystery genre. And it got me thinking and really wanting to go to an independent bookstore again. Thinking about this morning, I thought of City Lights.

My first visit to California was junior year in high school when I went out to San Francisco to visit a friend of mine. One day when she had to work, her friend took me on a tour of the city and we passed City Lights. At the time, my only idea of the beat generation were people I imagined went to the Zodiac in Bell, Book and Candle. I may have known of Jack Kerouac, but I certainly hadn't read anything at that point.

But...it was a bookstore. And it looked cool. So we went back and I was in love. I was in love with the atmosphere, the books that lined the shelves and weren't like many other books in the bookstores I frequented. I may have bought one or two books that day, but I went back.

Another day my friend had to work and I walked around from our hotel, down around Fisherman's Wharf, and up to Chinatown and around to City Lights and bought a big bag of books. I discovered Lawrence Ferlinghetti on this trip and great Spanish poets like Jorge Guillén and Rafael Alberti, and first discovered spoken word (though I read it this time and hadn't yet heard it).

I remember going back to Pier 39 and getting clam chowder in a sourdough bowl at Boudoin bakery and reading for the rest of the afternoon there on the pier. It was almost like reading here at a cafe in the fall. It was cold (for me) in July with that breeze coming in from the ocean, and overcast that afternoon.

I digress. But I can't imagine what San Francisco would be like without City Lights. Unfortunately I don't go to independent bookstores as much as I'd like, but I'll make a conscious effort to amend that. While the big stores are great because they have nearly everything you could possibly want, it's the smaller places where sometimes great discoveries are made. I still look for more Ferlinghetti when I'm at the bookstore, and occasionally there are a few newer collections, but I've yet to see Guillén or Alberti.

And those are wonderful discoveries to make. And that sense of history that are with these places. When I think of City Lights, it's like you could imagine browsing through the somewhat obscure poetry and prose, almost waiting for Ginsberg or Kerouac to walk through the front door. These are magical places, full of creativity and history and dreams. They've been created out of a love of the art form and sustained by that.

And that's what I love about them. And miss about City Lights.

It says a lot about that place that I haven't been back since that summer, in seven years, and I can still vividly remember it.