Jazz, Books & Talking to Strangers in DC

So during my Maryland/DC excursion this past weekend, I had to step inside of a few local bookstores.  The geek that I am wouldn't allow me to pass up a chance to browse through books, some new, some used, all valuable of course.  I first stopped into Busboys & Poets located at 14th and V. St. in DC. I wasn't in the mood to sit down and have a drink. I went straight for the poetry section. There I found books that I've never actually seen because my nose has been in my MFA books for the last 2 years. While in the poetry section, flipping through the glorious pages of several books of poetry I made a list of the books I planned to purchase and read : Femme du Monde: Poems by Patricia Spears Jones, Life on Mars: Poems by Tracy K. Smith, The new black by Evie Shockley, Totem by Gregory Pardlo, Blood Dazzler by Patricia Smith and many others. Some of the books I picked up were signed by the author, others weren't. I found myself feeling like a book groupie. I wanted to chase the words, wherever they might lead me. Perhaps they would lead me to write new poems. That's always good.



Later, I found a gem of a bookstore in the Adams Morgan area, Idle Time Books located at 18th Street, NW.  The store manager, a bright eyed man wearing glasses who looked like a playwright was behind the counter.  I glanced at the DC Jazz Festival poster hanging on the wall near the front door.  A picture of one of the featured artists, Bobby McFerrin caught my eye.  I've never been to the Jazz Fest, always wanted to go. I asked the manager if they had anymore posters (knowing I could look on the internet for the schedule, but what the heck I was in the mood to collect brochures) with the full festival schedule.  "No, we don't generally keep a bunch of them.  If we did everyone would give us stuff and we'd have to lay it out all over the counter..." Yeah, I understand. Bookstores certainly don't need extra clutter.  There were wall to wall books and carts with books in them.  The books outside the store, in a cart, were being sold for somewhere around $1 maybe a little more, maybe a little less.  The sign read that you have to come inside and pay for them.  Makes sense.   

Jazz was playing in the background at the store.  There was an elderly black man talking to the manager.  The man was enjoying the ambiance.  I heard him ask the store manager, "Is that 'Kind of Blue'?"  He was talking about the song playing in the background.  I grew up listening to jazz music.  I knew the song wasn't "Kind of Blue" or even somewhat blue, it was "So What" by Miles Davis - one of my favorite, upbeat jazz songs.  So I said so.   "It's 'So What'," I told the store manager and the elderly man.  "Yep, she's right.  She knows," said the manager.  "So you like jazz?" The elderly man asked me.  "Yes, I do," I said.  We chatted for a few minutes about jazz greats.  He wanted to quiz me, see if I was really a jazz lover.  It was refreshing to talk to random strangers and not worry if they're going to ask me for $1 right after (if you live in NYC you know what I mean).

After talking with the man, I walked the aisles, pulling out all of the books that reached out to me like Mozart and Leadbelly by Ernest J. Gaines, Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, Tina McElroy Ansa's Ugly Ways and Baby of the Family, my friend Gloria Malette's Shades of Jade and a Robert Frost poetry volume.  I felt like I had a touch of literary ADD -- I couldn't focus on sitting down with one book.  The joy of inhaling the smell of old and used books overcame me.  In every aisle at least one person was sitting on the floor reading.  A few people were browsing through postcards.  We were all synced up to these old books, not worried about tweeting or updating our status on Facebook, it was all about the now-of-books.  I kept trying to decide whether I wanted to ask the store manager how a bookstore that primarily sells used and out-of-print books is able to survive in this economy.  Let alone the competition from book lovers who've switched to digital e-readers.  He told me an interesting story of when poet Nikki Giovanni came into the store to browse the poetry section.  "I knew it was her," he said.  He knew it was her after checking a recent photo of her on the internet.  He said she was really nice.  Something else interesting he shared, "authors who come in and buy their own books."  It sounds funny, but I'm sure it's a reality.  If you're an author and your books are out-of-print, it's a blessing to find a bookstore that still carries them!  You may want to round them all up as keepsakes or sell them at some point.  The manager remarked that one author even asked, "Isn't it illegal for you to make me pay for my own book?"  The nerve.  If the author received a book deal, he or she was already paid for the books by the publisher.  Everyone needs to make a dollar, even the independent bookseller.  Buying your books out of a bookstore wouldn't be an odd thing for an author who's not self published or on Kindle.  While browsing, I was amused by the title of a book I had never heard of, Famous Writers School: A Novel.  I wondered what the book was about. Well if you can't be a rock star, perhaps the next best thing is being a famous writer.  But you can't go to school for that.  Can you? (sarcasm).

A couple of hours later after hanging with a friend, I ran into the elderly man I met at Idle Books.  He was sitting on a bench in front of Starbucks, enjoying the breeze.  Probably humming a little jazz too.  "Leaving so soon?" he asked.  "Yeah, but I'll be back."  I smiled and headed to the Metro station.