On a visit to Logee’s greenhouses in Connecticut, we happened across a bookstore called Wonderland. It was night, we were looking for a place to eat, so only glanced at the window and its shadows within, deciding we would make a trip back into town the next morning to check it out. We did. It was closed. Not because they weren’t open on Mondays or we were too early–they were out of business. There was stock within, but little, with fixtures laying around, rugs rolled up, giftware boxed. I was acutely disappointed. A bookstore with an Alice theme was so perfect for me, that to have it appear and then disappear was really sad. (And very Cheshire Cat-like) The window curtains were checkered, and I
by Jas Faulkner It all started with one of those thrift store finds that moves you to dust off and rekindle an old interest. I was there to do my biweekly stuffed animal grab for Niklas Lidstrom -aka- Destructo the Wonder Shih Tzu when I saw they had cobbled together roughly fifty dollars worth of calligraphy supplies into a ziploc bag and with the asking price of five dollars. This is probably a good place to hit the pause button and admit that I’m a big old typography nerd. It was a love of letters and alphabets of all kinds that pushed me to major in graphic design at one point in my overlong undergraduate career. I am still a sucker for typography books
When ever I’d ask my father what he was doing, he’d answer, ‘writing How to Win Friends and Influence People.’ As a kid, I’d no concept of what that meant–the entire idea of winning friends was beyond me–didn’t they just show up? And how did you ‘win’ them anyway? Like at a carnival game–shoot enough ducks and you win a stuffed friend? And the word ‘influence’ was not in my child’s vocabulary. This phrase and several others–when I’d be hungry and say so–’eat some salt and you’ll get dry’ and if asked the same question about activities my father was engaged in–’playing Tiddelly Winks with man hole covers’ became something rote in my mind, not real. It was a surprise when I found that a
I couldn’t resist the costumes and pomp the trailers promised. So myself and a group of women of a certain age gathered to view the newest incarnation of the novel, The Great Gatsby. I wrote about my trepidation regarding this version when viewing the coming attractions. I saw how gaudy and overblown the production values seem to be, and had that sinking feeling, oh good lord, it’s going to be another Moulin Rogue. Baz Luhrmann directed both, and the outrageous sets, computer graphics, and effects are similar, but with Gatsby, they’re on steroids. All sorts of factual mistakes are made, from the year and make and model of Gatsby’s and other cars, to various fake luminaries at his extravagant parties. Parties that no human could
Fans far and wide, please accept my deepest, most sincere, heart-felt apologies. I had the very BEST of intentions of writing my final pre-opening post one week before Swan’s Fine Books opened its doors, and clearly fell down on the job. Let the side down, old chap, and all of that. We are now one week AFTER the opening, and in an effort to make amends, am offering this post regarding the store opening, thanks to my many wonderful mentors, and some stray thoughts… First, allow me to bring you all up to speed. The four thousand books alluded to in my last post turned out to be 5,000 books – yikes! But what lovely books they are! I was fortunate enough to meet