Before It's Gone

Thursday night the store's Small Press Book Club met to discuss the Pushcart Prize 38th Anthology. In it was an essay entitled "Corn Haze" Pam Houston in which she makes an aside about the denizens of Venice:

"None of the employees can afford to live there, and the whole city shuts down by ten-thirty each night because the waiters have to run for the last boat/train/bus for the city of Mestre, where there are apartments they can actually afford. Eighty percent of the palazzo windows are dark at night because they are all owned by counts or bankers or corporations, and now, because of the waive action of speedboats, the wood pilings that have stood strong under the town for more than a thousand years are finally rotting, and the whole city is sinking slowly but surely into the Adriatic Sea."

Houston's comment reminded me of the macabre post on Fodor's I saw last week, a mashup of the top 10 places to see before they disappear. Antarctica, Easter Island, and for that strange reason that it's just as far away yet seems so much closer in an intimate way, Venice, which really stung. There are also reports that Venice's government, aware of a future cataclysm as regards its massive tourism industry, are in talks to build some sort of massive carnival space outside of the city proper to lure tourists in a different direction. Because according to Fodor's website, Venice is about ready to sink into its canals. One of the biggest tourist attractions in the world may eventually no longer be able to sustain the millions and millions of visitors it receives every year. This is not only sad on an environmental and historical level, but economically as well. A whole industry is built around tourism to Venice that may eventually dry up. But it's only one of many places, as the Fodor's piece and this handy infographic demonstrate. Just as there's that handy tome "1,000 Places to See Before You Die," there are now plenty of places to see before they disappear. Maybe now before it's too late, these local governments should take a page out of Bhutan's book and put a cap on allowed tourists.

Tattoos, Denny's and other Japanese literary symbols

Last week I wrote ad nauseum of my forthcoming trip to Japan. In order to prepare for said trip (and also because I'm super excited) I've been reading all kinds of Japanese literature to get my head in the game as it were. Here are some of my favorites thus far:

Kenneth Roxroth's 100 Poems from the Japanese and One Hundred More Poems from the Japanese, in addition to Ono No Komachi and Izumi Shikibu's poetry compiled in The Ink Dark Moon are some of the most beautifully selected words placed in a deliberate arrangement ever. I wish I could describe to you how beautiful enigmatic it is all at the same time, reading these are like feeling you're made of glass and slowing filling with curls of smoke. I can't do them justice, just read them all.

If we're going to talk about epic literature from Japan I'd be remiss in not including Tale of Genji. One of the first novels in the world, written by a LADY, it really is the coolest thing ever. But I've never finished it. I'm SORRY! Gosh.

What I have finished are some of the best modernist novels ever. Natsume Soseki could teach Raymond Carver a thing or two about deeply psychological interiority belied by understated language. The Gate is an amazing, slim novel in which the main character and his wife live childless in an idyllic picket fence house. But that's about as peaceful as it gets. The main character hates his job. The couple are spurned by their families as they married without consent, and suddenly his wife's reckless little brother squeezes the strained couple for help on top of it all. So taught, so beautiful, suuuch a good book.

Kobo Abe's Woman in the Dunes is unmissable, and Yukio Mishima's short stories in the collected Death in Midsummer are among my favorite reads of all time. His characters have amazing strength and fatal flaws and you'll need to read each story several times for the feeling that there's a detail in one word (or absence of one) that casts everything in a new light. I also recently finished Junichiro Tanizaki's Seven Japanese Tales ... one story in particular, "The Tattooer" has left quite the indelible mark on me (pun fully intended). This man is an expert tattooer and only tattoos on people when he's inspired, and he finds ultimate inspiration in a beautiful maiden walking down the street. Convinced she is a demonic scroll come incarnate he is gripped with the need to tattoo her, and as she consents the art embellishing her back begins to imbue her with magnificent power. KAPOW!

For a more contemporary Japan (the one I'll actually be in) there is the incomparable Murakami. Thus far I've only read After Dark, to be honest it's a little daunting to decide where to go from there. After Dark is amazing. It's set in Tokyo around midnight and follows all the different sorts of people that only come out at night, in addition to a young runaway who may or may not be related to a rebooted magical Sleeping Beauty dozing in the literal center of the novel. But as I said, Murakami's got sprawling epics and copious short stories. I know I'll love them all but how to decide?! Maybe I'll take 1Q84 on my 16 hour plane flight? I might be able to bang it out...

Hipsters, Bookstores, & a Ferris Wheel

I had just left the wood floors of Elliot Bay Bookstore and was walking down a rain-sparkled street to one of my favorite cafes, Bauhaus, already anticipating the dim corners and foggy windows that give Bauhaus its romantic and edgy feel--the perfect blend of stimulation and hibernation needed to write the night away. Across the street on the puddled pavement of an empty court of Cal Anderson Park, a game of bike hockey commenced. I passed a drag queen in an elaborate pink evening dress. There was no doubt where I was: the hipster of Seattle's neighborhoods, Capitol Hill.

While I spent most of my week-long stay in Seattle in the University District, where I used to live and work, I visited almost every neighborhood in the immediate area. Perhaps because of the city's unique topography--houses and businesses are built up into the hills that rise from the surrounding waters of the Puget Sound, Lake Union, and Lake Washington--Seattle's neighborhoods are distinct, each with its own atmosphere, its own sub-culture and its own particular breed of residents populating its streets and cafes.

If you are in the U District, the dominate atmosphere is of course, the student population. A walk around the campus in spring time, particularly in the "quad," is essential--cherry blossoms are everywhere. Be sure to stop in my old stompin' grounds, the University Bookstore, an independent with a great selection of new and used books. Want more? Head down the back alley to Magus Bookstore, full of used books, and grab a coffee at the hole-in-the-wall cafe, Allegro.  Along University Way are the typical student eateries, with a diverse smattering of Asian cuisine.

I spent a full day in Ballard, where I was amazed to see whole streets full of new, hip cafes and shops that had sprung up in the past few years. Among them were the more familiar bars that still give the neighborhood its old fishing village feel--Coner Byrne a particular favorite of mine. This neighborhood hosts a small independent bookstore that specializes in children's books, The Secret Garden.

I lived in Queen Anne for a few years, at the bottom of the hill. When I hiked to the top I found small shops and cafes, pricier than other parts of the city, but delightful to spend a day browsing. Among them, Queen Anne Books, set to re-open under new ownership in February. Just across the ship canal and the shockingly blue Freemont Bridge, is Freemont. If Capitol Hill is the "hippest" of Seattle's neighborhoods, Freemont is the "hippiest" neighborhood in Seattle, defined by its slow pace, its Sunday Market, and of course, more bookshops and cafes. It is all Jamaica Plain aspires to be, and never will be. (I love you JP, I live in you, and I have faith that you will find yourself someday).

I haven't even touched Wallingford, Belltown, Green Lake, the International District, Magnolia, Maple Leaf, Ravenna, West Seattle or Downtown (where I rode the new Ferris Wheel near Pike Place Market to stunning views of Mount Rainer, the Puget Sound, the Olympic Mountains), but I have to leave something for you to discover on your own. We've got a large selection of guidebooks covering the Pacific Northwest to help you on your way.