Tag Archives: Portland

Reader in Residence

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve asked myself, “Goodness, Bryan, couldn’t you just live in a bookstore,” I’d finally be able to afford that immersion therapy to get over my fear of nickels.

Well, I am pleased to announce that this is no longer a hypothetical musing. What started as a surprise weekend trip to Portland, Oregon has turned into (surprise!) a bid to establish residency inside Powell’s, the legendary independent bookstore. There it is, right down there.

And there I am, just prior to never leaving the store again.

Now, don’t worry about me, I’ve got all my basic needs covered.

And for the times I start to lose faith in my mission, a little inspiration….

And just an FYI, I always brush between meals.

I think someone else tried establishing residency here–whatever happened to that guy?

Okay, well, wish me luck! According to Oregon law I only have 364 more days before I’m declared a legal resident of the store. I also could be making that up completely.

No joke, though, I am bushed after all that eating! Guess I’ll bed down right here in the Pearl Room. Good night for now.

Who hasn’t dreamed of sleeping under an SQL guidebook?

Ed. Note: Feel free to send cards, pleas for reason, and bail money to Powell’s City of Books, Attn: Guy Doing His Best To Keep Portland Weird, Blue Room, 1005 W. Burnside St., Portland, OR 97209.

Obligatory Halloween Blog Post

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Fahrenheit 451

I love books. As in actual, tangible, printed books. And recently I had the privilege of roaming a particular bookstore spanning an entire city block, a literary mecca four floors high teeming with over a million books standing strong on twelve foot shelves.

Powell’s City of Books, Portland, Oregon. So nice to see you again.

And now, (commencing obligatory Halloween portion) I imagine for a moment this mighty vessel of ideas empty, a dusty, ghostly warehouse where bumps in the night compete with hot, hissing rat droppings; or worse, a space where imagination and creativity once ruled transmogrified into an Urban Home or Duvets Unlimited or wherever the undead mass-consumers converge these days.

Because, apparently, there’s a spooky future out there where the printed book is extinct.

Okay, okay, it’s hyperbole, maybe, but reading this article from Publisher’s Weekly about major publishers rethinking their commitment to printed books took me to a dark place.

As a writer trying to get published traditionally, as in an analog Bryan Hilson book on the shelf in a bricks-and-mortar store, this is not welcome news. There are financial implications as well, which the above article gets into, but here I’m going to approach the issue as a reader.

I’m no technophobe, I’ve got a Nook (and a Kindle, egads!) but to me there are few greater pleasures than losing one’s self inside a bookstore, encountering, picking up, and flipping through paper pages, not your computer/tablet/smart phone’s best approximation of such. Seriously, browsing on the internet is not even close to a real shopping experience. Even at Duvets Unlimited.

How do you feel about this, fellow readers? Are you okay with physical bookstores (and maybe even libraries?) becoming a thing of the past? Do you accept that all things media inevitably will exist solely as digitized goods? Or are you ready to raise up your hardcovers and reading lights in defense of these invaluable institutions?

Some scary things to consider, my friends. Happy Halloween.

Destination: Powell’s

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Photo by Carolyn Kraft

It began with a vision box.

Similar to a vision board, our box was decorated with images and words linked to and evocative of the place my wife and I were determined to return to after three long years. Our version of Disney World, our Mecca: Portland, Oregon’s very own Powell’s, City of Books! We chose a box to advertise our dream, by the way, as it also carried the books from our private collection that we were going to trade in. For credit. To buy more books from Powell’s to bring home of course. But would we be able to afford the trip?

A few months after finishing the vision box, while returning from a trip home to Wisconsin, we were offered the opportunity to give up our seats in return for two round-trip tickets worth $950. All we needed to know was that the airline flew to Portland and we were all over it. A few months after that, we negotiated a great deal with the Mark Spencer Hotel, which is a mere two blocks from our version of heaven: a bookstore three stories high covering an entire city block. The vision came true. We were on our way.

I’m only able to write this now, as we spent the last six days of December in a book-induced trance. Our trip itinerary was as follows: Wake up; eat breakfast (fast); spend day at Powell’s, browsing and reading; eat dinner? We were engaged in books, immersed in them; in short, we geeked out on them. For us it seemed like time did not exist. Most of my timeless wanderings were spent in the Blue Room (Literature) and the Gold Room (Genre Fiction). The great thing about Powell’s is that they shelve new and used books together, and most of their used books are in great condition. This allowed me to be a bit more adventurous, and I bought some titles by authors I’ve never read before, How the Dead Dream, by Lydia Millet, and Things That Fall From the Sky, by Kevin Brockmeier, and Peter Straub’s Ghost Story. I also wanted to explore more by writers whose body of work I’ve only scraped the surface of. Thus: The Houseguest, by Thomas Berger, The Double, by Jose Saramago, and War Dances, by Sherman Alexie.

The other advantage to taking a trip without a touring agenda or a need for sightseeing was that it forced me to slow down–really slow down–relax and take a break from the hustle and flow of normal life. This is not always easy for me to do. But I did it, and thanks to the great atmosphere at Powell’s Cafe and the Dragonfly Coffee House, I was also able to read two books I’d brought along on our vacation: Unstuck in Time: A Journey Through Kurt Vonnegut’s Life and Novels, by Gregory Sumner, and The Boy Who Followed Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith. Highly recommend both.

Okay, Bryan, enough gushing. Suffice to say this was a great way for me to end a year that I feel was one of my most challenging and rewarding. And now I’m refreshed and ready to get back at it in 2012.

Now how about you? How did you spend your holiday and New Year? Did you keep working through, or did you take a break and stop time for a little while?