In less than a week we should have our bookmobile parked in front of our Blackfriars office. Best laid plans, of course. But we’ve been putting the final touches on this beauty and if all goes well we’ll be stocking it with our coolest titles.
It’s been a year.
We’re not complaining. Any obstacle is an opportunity for growth (our entrepreneurial overlords tell us) and at our social class what choice to you have? If you’re a church mouse and the janitor cleans your cubby, well, you just find another cubby (see Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH). Our cubby now is a well-lit, climate controlled office in Blackfriars and a retrofitted school-bus painted blue.
Time to go off-grid perhaps. We’ve resisted the bunker life so far, fearing that we’d be creating a self-fulfilling prophecy by prepping perishables. Baby-steps. Baby-steps. Despite the world colliding with history at the moment, we STILL DO want to have a social life. Few things compare to the enthusiastic jam-session of two literate people exchanging titles and ideas. Certainly the response to our requests to visit places with our book bus have been deeply positive.
Speaking of which, the July 1st Holiday Weekend is our debut for the bookmobile! We have kept plans under wraps until we felt secure with everything but that Saturday we’ll be at THREE PLACES! Variety Cafe in the morning, Odyssey Records in the afternoon, and (by invitation from a lovely friend) the East London Optimist Canada Day celebrations in the evening. That’s three nieghbourhoods in 12 hours!
There’s something about this trifecta that pleases us. The Variety Cafe is sincerely hosting the love-cousin of our old bookshop events. The vibe, the artists…they are doing amazing things there. Odyssey Records is a stand-by for our own record collecting. The East Lions Community Centre, with its community kitchen and pools, recalls Jason’s early days at the Thorndale Community Centre where he acted in a local dinner theatre puppet-show (Grade 6) and SLAYED as the Farmer’s Son (photos available upon request).
These are just three of the neighbourhoods we will be visiting over the coming weeks and months. Our goal is to hit EVERYWHERE. So do look out for more event announcements in these emails and on our socials, and send us tips on great places to go.
Again, thank you for all of the support while we change EVERYTHING that we do here at Brown and Dickson…again.
All the love,
Jason and Vanessa
