Saturday was my first free day here in sunny Northampton, so I went bookstore browsing. Not like I need more books to read, having brought a backpack full (2 Foucaults, Autobiography of Mark Twain, Orisian Tales, Garrison Keeler, 2 Vonneguts, Borges' Book of Fantasy, ...), or for that matter, like I have time to read other than on weekends, but what can I say? Bookstores are something of an addiction for me. Just the very idea of that many books ... all potentially buyable, all containing insights and characters, wisdom and humor ... and always the possibility of The Great Find lurking just around the bookshelf, the used OED on sale for $20, the Harvard Red Book series or Durant History of Civilization for $1 a volume, etc.
So, after waking up at a decent hour in time for lunch, I walked into town with Heidi and Laura (whom you will remember as the presentors of the Tetris and oriented matriods talks, respectively). They were mostly going into town to see the "A_2 Z Science and Nature Store," but agreed to visit a few bookstores with me. After I spent over an hour at the first bookstore (Broadside Bookstore), however, they ditched that promise and went on ahead. Not that Broadside was that good of a bookstore, even, but I like to take my time when dealing with the important things in life. Part of it is just that I have my various bookstore rituals. Every bookstore go into, I have to check the science fiction section for Shockwave Rider (they never do, though Books In Print assures me that it is still in print. And yes, I know I could order it from any number of bookstores. But I don't want to, partly because it would ruin my ritual, and partly because I will one day walk into a bookstore that has it and it will be as wonderful a surprise as an unexpected letter from an old friend. So just deal.); I have to check the remainders section to see if they have a copy of Cliff Pickover's Chaos, Computers and Beauty book (last fourteen bookstores I went to did); and of course to check out the philosophy section to see if they have any paperbacks which I don't already have.
If my love of books in general is a medium-sized bonfire, then my love of philosophy books is the total output of a career arsonist, and my love of used paperback philosophy books is the city of London burned to a crisp. Let me put it another way. Recently my mother, concerned at what I thought was standard attire for a graduate student, sent my roommates Sheung> and Julia a check. The money was preferably to be used for clothes for me (I freely admit that Julia and Sheung have better fashion sense than I do, but then again, so do many colorblind hedgehogs. Sheung is a regular J. Crew posterchild, and Julia works at Structures. Obligatory Structures joke: If Structures started a new line of underwear, would they call it Infrastructures?), but -- and this is my own dear mother speaking about her first born son -- "under no circumstances was to be used for another damn used philosophy book."
Of course, there is a way to make me quickly leave a bookstore of my own free will (or as the joke goes, "Free Will? But I hardly know the guy.") and volition, and that is to mix "metaphysics" and philosophy sections. This tactic was exhibited by the next bookstore I visited, the Beyond Worlds Bookshop (the name should of been a tip off right away). Let me explain. I have infinite patience for the standard misclassifications, like say putting The Wordly Philosophers in the philosophy rather than the economics section. I have sympathy for the small bookstore which does not have room for separate sections for eastern and western religion, theology, and philosophy. But for a bookstore to have three complete bookshelves dedicated to philosophy and then mix in one part philosophy and two parts new age mysticism bullshit -- to put the Tao of Physics next to Wittgenstein and Seth Speaks next to Hume -- such a thing cannot be tolerated. It chappeth my hide, and it should be cast off into the flames with the wicked.
Luckily, the next bookstore I went to (the Haymarket Cafe) more than made up for my trauma. Made up for is too weak a phrase: the Haymarket Cafe justifies the very existence of Northampton and redeems bookstores everywhere. It is, quite simply, a damn good used bookstore interloven with a better than average cafe. A rather hip place to hang out, from what I hear, and deservedly so. Dark but adequately lit rooms, on the basement level so it's cool during the summer, just sit me down with a good book and a croissant and I will be content.
The Haymarket Cafe plays up a radical socialist image, which is fine by me. The secret to getting bargins, in bookstores and in life, is to figure out which way the other guy is going, and then go the opposite. If you are in a bookstore that leans to the left, buy to the right. In this case, I picked up a copy of Hemmingway (Green Hills of Africa), Paradise Lost, and the Inferno, all for less than a buck. Also, a copy of Ely's Democracy and Distrust for $3, but I had been looking for that for a while.
I eventually worked up the will power to leave the Haymarket Cafe and walk over to the Thornes Marketplace, where the A_2 Z Science and Nature store resides. Laura and Heidi, of course, had long left by the time I got there, but I had a nice time playing with all the toys. Stared at one of those stereographic pictures for about half an hour without any 3-D image popping out at me; I'm convinced those things are a hoax propagated on an unsuspecting public and I'm tempted to write to the D.A.'s office and have the manufacturers investigated on fraud charges. The Science store had all of the standard stuff you would expect, say, the gift shop of a science museum, but also had a large (over two foot) molecular model of DNA a la Watson & Crick which I had never seen before. I ended up buying a dinner mat with the multiplication and division tables on it for my little sister Irene who loves numbers. [Me, being a math grad student and all, hardly touch numbers any more. Last semester, for instance, I took a number theory class -- a class which any sane person would expect to be overloading with numbers -- and it wasn't until half way through that the prof used any number greater than 5. The number used was 163, and the class practically cheered when it was mentioned, so desperate were we for concreteness.]
The last bookstore I visited was something of a surprise; it wasn't listed on the rinky-dink "Guide to Downtown Northampton" that I was given with my conference pack. It was the Globe Bookstore, and it turned out to be quite pleasant, except for the fact that the register clerk glared at me when I had the audacity to buy a copy of Illiberal Education (used for $1.50 -- as I said, when the bookstore's left, buy right.)
My book buying for the day done, only one task yet remained: to buy some shorts. Or rather, to buy shorts or face the horrors of doing laundry (specifically, the horror of having to find eight ($2!) quarters to do a single load of laundry). So I went off first to the Hospice store, which was small, dusty, and smelt of dead people. I had more luck at the Goodwill store, and picked up some shorts there. The Goodwill store also had quite a few books in the basement, including more Reader's Digest Condensed Books than I had ever seen in one place before in my life.
Finally, as I was walking back to the dorm, I noticed a spray-painted picture of Dr. "Bob" Dobbs on the sign for Sullivan Square. I suspect Zvi.