This is hard to talk about, but I feel like I need to.
Back when I was living on the South Side, I developed a little bit of an addiction. I was mostly a clean-cut kid, just trying to stay in school and get ahead, but even those with the best intentions can get swept away by chance. I thought I was just a casual user, but the stuff was so easy to get in Hyde Park. It was everywhere! I found myself hanging around the familiar haunts more and more, just hoping to score a good deal or find that magic trip I’d never taken before.
One of the better things about moving out of Hyde Park is that there just isn’t as much of a trade on the north side. Sure, there are a couple places dealing near where I live (one just around the corner, actually), but it’s not as strong, they don’t have the same sort of stuff up here. I was safe again.
Then I started going to Hyde Park for pub trivia every Tuesday. I was pretty good about going straight to the Pub most nights, but… the old places were so close! If I just got to Hyde Park a few minutes early, I could score some quality stuff. And all of a sudden, I was showing up late for pub trivia, breathless, with a package in my bag distracting me all night long.
That’s right, kids. I’m hitting the bookstores of Hyde Park again.
Powell’s, 57th Street, sometimes the Co-op, I’m looking at you. No matter how many times I go to Unabridged or Myopic or Women and Children First, nothing compares to the books you can find on that dangerous stretch of street. (Though for the overall maximum of attractiveness plus book selection: Unabridged for gay guys, Myopic for straight hipsters, and WCF for either lesbians or sincere glasses-wearing guys who want strong feminist girlfriends.)
Pretty much every surface of my apartment is covered in books right now, including the following to-reads (not a comprehensive list, only those I can think of right now):
Atwood, Cat’s Cradle
Bellow, Adventures of Augie March (terminally unfinished, but a future book club selection)
Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift (unfinished, but currently seems more likely than the above)
Borges, Collected Fictions (a re-read, but from so long ago it’s like a first read)
Bulgakov, Master and Margarita (re-read, but I recommended recently and discovered there’s a new annotated edition, because I clearly need to own three copies of one book)
Hofstatder, Gödel, Escher, Bach (partially read, re-read)
Rushdie, Satanic Verses
Rushdie, Ground Beneath Her Feet (on loan from Susan)
Sontag, In America (partially read)
And yet I have this list, crumpled up in my bag:
Yoshimoto, Kitchen (read while intoxicated, don’t remember)
Young Fem Bookclub books: Mommy Myth, Undivided Rights, Regarding the Pain of Others, Can’t Buy Me Love, Women as Lovers
GB Bookclub books: Dandelion Wine, Nowhere Man, I’m Not the New Me, Division Street: America
Denis Johnson, Fiskadoro
Findley, Famous Last Words
collections by Raymonds Chandler and Carver
More Flaubert!
Lethem?
Heavens. At least this will keep me from buying the DVDs I want. Books are better, right? Right?
This is what happens in a neighborhood with lots of bored students and too much money.
ReplyDeleteShame, really. Hyde Park used to be a good place to watch TV.
you could g0 to Kirsti's bookcrossing meetup at Cafe Mozart tonight and get a bunch of free mass-market mysteries.
ReplyDeleteI think we've already discussed my little book problem, but self-imposed book-buying moratorium aside, I would be up for cruising 57th Street for a fix before pub trivia sometime.
ReplyDeleteI have some Lethem you can borrow. And apparently Hyde Park is overrated.
ReplyDeleteGreg--thank goodness pub trivia is keeping me from that. It's the one redeeming facet, at least until I start winning money at pub trivia.
ReplyDeleteSusan--want me to call you when I get close tonight?
Dave-ooh, we're both over and underrated. But the thing is... there are a bunch of restaurants all owned by the same people, many of which are right in a row. Right, Susan?
Breanne--I adore Midnight's Children. I'm actually quite annoyed because I cannot find my copy of it, and I recommended it to the same person I told to read Master and Margarita. Allegedly his new one, Shalimar the Clown, is supposed to be right up there with MC. I am very excited.
Are you thinking of the Medici empire? I guess I don't really think of the bakery and University Markup as being restaurants per se.
ReplyDeleteI think we're underrated, for what it's worth. Where else can you wander around in the best bookstore in the entire world discussing the new Chronicles of Narnia movie and how you can't remember which individual books the BBC made into films, and have someone pop out from behind the "A"s to give you the list, as well as their opinions on each one?
Oh, and yeah, please call me. I haven't blown money on books in several weeks!
ReplyDeleteApparently my friend Le Foof read the first part of my post, then had to run off and work for awhile, and spent part of the afternoon deducing that yeah, he could see me being addicted to coke.
ReplyDeleteCoke, books, what's the difference, really?