It feels like the shop is alive. Just look at this New Arrivals email! It’s packed with photos of things happening at the shop. There were a bunch we couldn’t put in here because our email provider says there wasn’t enough space, but look below. A recent event here was full to the brim with cinephiles watching a labour history documentary. They came voluntarily! This proves that your irritating family’s comments about pursuing a life in the arts are all wrong. Sure, you’re still poor as a church mouse but…have you lived until you’ve watched a 16mm film at night in a bookstore? We thought we had lived. We thought all of our piles of experiences added up to something. They did not. There are still undiscovered corners of magic hidden in our city.
And hey! What is that? An event? Like, a real in-the-flesh event! A good one too? David Nemer, MIT published author, and Faculty Associate at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center and Princeton University’s Brazil Lab scholar, is giving a talk AT OUR STORE?!? This is too much class for us. He’s really, really interesting. David is an ethnographer whose fieldworks include the Slums of Vitória, Brazil; Havana, Cuba; Guadalajara, Mexico; and Eastern Kentucky, Appalachia. In partnership with FIMS David is going to be at our shop in the 19th to discuss his research. It will be a fascating discussion touching on technology, resistance, Latin America, and the the relationship of misinformation to radicalization. We are going to wear our best clothes to this, and be on our best behaviour.
If this all wasn’t enough, as if atmospheric film nights and Latin American study superstars at our shop didn’t do it, THE DINER NEXT DOOR IS GOING TO OPEN SOON! There was a truck out front with a big metal arm that lifted a new colourful sign into place. The sign said NEPTUNE. The colours were ORANGE and BLUE. We hear banging. We smell french fries. We peer into the windows and see NEON SIGNS of ALIENS. Have aliens opened a diner next door? Jason prays that this is true. Jason prays that sexy gastronomes from Outer Space have opened a restaurant beside his bookstore. Pot lights buried in the new drop ceiling hypnotically change colour as the sultry light from a jukebox calls us in.
WHAT IS HAPPENING ON RICHMOND STREET? Has the heart of London come alive again? Has Richmond and Albert started beating it’s weird rhythm once more? You’ll have to come down and see. But can you handle this much culture?
Do you dare?
All the love,
Jason and Vanessa
