As we look back down the barrel of 2023, we’re given pause to note the small, irreplaceable moments that occurred in our little bookshop downtown. If you’ve gathered a sense of our style in the past bit (currently being studied, we add, by a mad doctor at the Western University Literature Department) you’ve noticed that we talk big and ridiculous, but plan in small and localized measures. What other vocabulary makes any sense in the Great Awankening? As downtown London remains on fire, and our little window blazes orange as the world burns, we note the small, human experiences of folks wailing through the door, to talk, to rest, to gossip, or complain, and those notes are remembered. They are remembered fondly. How else does a neighbourhood work? Beyond the vapid, neoliberal cries of “shop local” and other bullshit distractions (as fortunes still fall upward) we appreciate those of you who simply want to support an indie bookshop, the ones in love with everything weird, beautiful, and kind.
This is to all of you. Yes, it is to the chatty conservative lawyer who loves to debate honestly but provocatively with young activists in our store. This is to the exhausted young activist who this past year secured a new space downtown for the homeless. This is to the anxious academic who successfully argued their thesis, and now is buying FOLIO SOCIETY BOOKS!!! as a reward. This is to the zine makers who kick shit up on the streets of London and drop in to talk new comics. This is to the quiet, concerned reader who no longer feels they are “living in their time” but in “a time that makes no sense to me anymore,” yet takes a moment with a good book to just rest and feel human. This is to the couple who bought their first house and are buying loads of literature for the winter. This is to the girl who brings in her yappy dog that loves to hang out behind the counter with Jason, as if they own the place. This is to the homeless guy who Jason saved from being stabbed and who now comes into the shop every day to chat and discuss next steps. This is to all of the folks who, in the fucking madness, keep a small part of their soul safe for the worded beauty of things and the patience to just accept mystery.
We see you. We see you every day, and if in our Romper Room list of people above you were not mentioned, please know that it is because we can only test the patience of our friends and customers for so long, but if we had the time we’d remember and list all of you. Hell, we might even write a book one day about this place and you might be mentioned there. All told, we’re grateful that you kept us a part of your lives. You didn’t have to, but you did. We are blushing like a ripe tomato at the truth of it.
If you’ve been following our emails recently then you will know that we have two new projects for 2023, on top of our little downtown bookshop. We are opening a new location and we’re building a bookmobile. Both of these, we hope, will become another part of your lives, as they’ll be a part of ours. Somehow, the public world has been taken over by algorithmic bots bent on our divided destruction, and, in a twist that EVERYONE SAW COMING, little spaces like ours, and the spaces you make too (we’re looking at you writers, zinesters, and open-hearted hustlers), will be the secret, calm, and impassioned places (among many, we hope), of the front-lines of a quiet resistance.
It’s a resistance stoked by the everyday, the patient, and the beautiful. Here’s to an eventful, forthcoming year. Our hearts to yours.
Much love,
Jason and Vanessa
