(I took the following photographs to enter the Strand Photo Contest. Vote for mine and enjoy the outtakes.)
Independent bookstores are wonderful little worlds unto themselves, void of outside interference and the loud influence of ever-changing times. While most businesses worry about maximizing ROI, streamlining efficiency, and improving the customer experience (only if it increases profits, of course), at independent bookstores shelves are still made of wood and books of paper, and the clerk behind the counter still locates George Saunder’s CivilWarLand in Bad Decline without looking it up on an outdated computer with its blinking green eye. What’s trendy in the outside world is meaningless in an independent bookstore. The currency of what’s hot simply has no value in such a place.
One of these little worlds, a very large one, happens to be two blocks from my apartment. The Strand and its famed 18 miles of books. I’ve never measured them by the mile, but I don’t question that the Strand is well endowed in the book department. And they're holding a Photo Contest, forming a Perfect Storm® of my current favorite things: Books, photography and contest entering. Here are some of the moments I captured.
THE PEOPLE. Professors, recluses, hermits. Students of the world we live in and modern-times escape artists. Perhaps society turned its back on them many years ago or perhaps they turned a blind stink-eye to society. Confusing mainstays of the modern age don’t appeal to them: technology, haircuts, designer jeans, pocketbook-sized dogs. Somehow, they’ve managed to escape the soothing spell of today’s pop culture merry-go-round. (Up and down and around, up and down and around, who was Jessica Alba wearing at the Oscars?!? I must know!)
The Stocker
The Searcher
The Readers (my first entry)
The Warhol
The Professor
The Dreaded
The Outsiders
THE SIGNS. Who knows where they came from, who put them there or when they did it. Now they are part of the Strand’s essence, a series of merit badges honoring the test of time and substantiating each aisle’s authenticity.
What computers actually looked like when the Strand opened.
A memorial to a Strand worker who passed away.
It's a problem. I worked part-time at Barnes & Nobles and my sole purpose was to return magazines to their shelves correctly.
THE BOOKS. The things that pulled me through the swinging doors of the Strand in the first place. Rock-bottom prices and easy access to a never-ending story of paperbacks and hardcovers.
(my second entry)
(My third and final entry)
In the end, I spent a good amount of time strolling up and down every aisle of the Strand’s four floors. Tattered book jackets lean off crusty shelves; some form of garnish adorns every inch of surface. The Strand represents the things that stay the same. Patrons walk in looking for one thing, only to discover some memoir or collection of short stories they’ve never heard of. Curious, helpless, their knees crumble, melting Indian-style towards the thin, dark aisle floor, their fingers turning the page.
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