Books. Music. Film.
Several years ago, I toyed with the idea of opening a retail store.
Not just any retail store, you understand. What I had in mind was a representation of something shamelessly personal, a manifestation of the things that had given my life meaning over the years.
I wanted to call the store “Books. Music. Film.”
The order of words was important. Not that I believed books or music had a greater influence on my life than film (they haven’t), but because the order sounded better – to my ear at least – than, say, Film. Books. Music. Or Music. Books. Film. Or Films. Music. Books. You get my drift.
During the course of my life, I’ve harbored myriad passions, too numerous or eye-raising to mention here, but the three recurring ones are books, music and film. They are what I primarily spend my money on, what I seek out each day, what I talk about most animatedly with anyone who is interested. (I’m excluding things like family, sport, politics or religion; at the time, what I was interested in was the creative elements that had helped individualise me and define my life.)
The location of the store was incidental. So was the fitout. I didn’t give two hoots about retail marketing or compartmentalisation, of separating books from film or music, or giving one prominence over the others. Life is random, unruly, serendipitous. And that’s how I thought the store should be shaped.
No, for me, what mattered most was having the right content – selecting my personal canon, if you like. And that required some simple rules and a lot of crate-digging.
Books.
Rule number one. The store would stock no more than 20 titles.
Rule number two. The titles had to be genre-defying – classics, new works, fiction, non-fiction, illustrated, whatever.
Rule number three. Each needed to be complete in its own terms, and able to fulfill some form of visceral and timeless resonance.
Over the years, I’ve sold several collections of books through necessity: I’ve moved overseas and didn’t have the storage, or I’ve simply needed the money. But with each new collection established, I always re-bought the books that I thought I couldn’t live without.
In no order of importance, then, here’s the 20 books that have followed me from share-house to apartment to family home, and that would grace the store…
Ladies and Gentlemen, Lenny Bruce (Albert Goldman); The Magus (John Fowles); City (William Whyte); The Sage of Baltimore (William Manchester); Genius (James Gleick); Wonderland Avenue (Danny Sugerman); Narcissus and Goldmund (Herman Hesse); American Psycho (Brett Easton Ellis); The Demon (Hubert Selby Jnr); Junky (William Burroughs); Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger); Dead Souls (Nikolai Gogol); House of Leaves (Mark Z. Danielewski); The Day of the Locust (Nathanael West); The Thief’s Journal (Jean Genet); Humboldt’s Gift (Saul Bellow); The Rachel Papers (Martin Amis); City of Quartz (Mike Davis); Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad); Dracula (Bram Stoker)
Music.
Similarly, the store would stock no more than 20 releases (LPs only).
But distilling years of listening pleasure into 20 LPs was problematic, given my ongoing love and fascination for jazz and electronic sounds. Frankly, I saw no obvious solution, so the following proved not so genre-defying. Tough.
Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (Wu Tang Clan); Music for 18 Musicians (Steve Reich); The White Album (The Beatles); Fabric 26 (Global Communication); In A Silent Way (Miles Davis); Bitches Brew (Miles Davis); My Favourite Things (John Coltrane); Done by the Forces of Nature (Jungle Brothers); Low (David Bowie); Live at the Witch Trials (The Fall); Horses (Patti Smith); Marquee Moon (Television); Maim that Tune (Fila Brazilia); Incredible (Gilles Peterson); Mushroom Jazz 4 (Mark Farina); Silent Introduction (Moodymann); Beat Konducta 1-2 (Madlib); Donuts (J. Dilla); Endtroducing (DJ Shadow); The K&D Sessions (Kruder and Dorfmeister); Space is the Place (Sun Ra)
Film.
Again, 20 titles would be stocked, but with a healthy bias towards the true golden age of cinema – American films of the 1970s.
I also couldn’t separate Alien, the original “haunted house in space” flic, with its sequel Aliens (director James Cameron this time substituting creepy horror with all-out action) so chose the default option and included both.
The Godfather Part 2 (Francis Ford Coppola); Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola); Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese); Aliens/Aliens 2 (James Cameron); Don’t Look Now (Nicolas Roeg); Night of the Living Dead (George Romero); Touch of Evil (Orson Welles); Deep Throat (Gerard Damiano); Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky); Two Lane Blacktop (Monte Hellman); The Virgin Spring (Ingmar Bergman); Heaven’s Gate (Michael Cimino); American Gigolo (Paul Schrader); I am Cuba (Mikhail Kalatozov); Badlands (Terence Malik); Blue Velvet (David Lynch); Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis); Weekend (Jean-Luc Godard); Enter the Dragon (Robert Clouse); The Exorcist (William Freidkin); The Wages of Fear (Henri-Georges Clouzot)
The final rule was that, once settled, the content could never change. Ever.
The store never got off the ground.
Other things unexpectedly collided in my life, and I resigned myself to vividly imagining it so it almost became real.
Then, a year or so ago, while absently wandering the streets in Los Angeles, I stumbled upon a community store.
Shoebox-sized, funky, pristine copies of Emmett Grogan’s remarkable Ringolevio scattered on the only available chair, the films of Dario Argento arranged above, the emollient sounds of Coltrane soothing passers-by from a pair of tinny speakers rigged up on the outside window pane.
Instantly, I knew where I was.
Stephen Townshend is the publisher of Germinal Press.
Comments
On Friday, May May 2011 Tyler said...
“I know that store!”
On Friday, May May 2011 Chris said...
“My dad wanted to do the same ... Wine, Cheese, Music. I've always had a mad desire to open my own record store but viability has always been the key deterrent. Impressive list of titles there, a million arguments and mutual rants and ravings to be had!”
On Friday, May May 2011 Stefan said...
“There is simply no way I could condense my faves into 20 things. I keep adding to them all the time, which makes your list so restricting. ”
On Friday, May May 2011 Jimmy said...
“Type Your comments here..Outstanding list of influences and the type that would turn out a damn good man. For a minute I thought you'd missed 'Apocalypse Now' but you listed it second I think and my eyes were skimming down to make sure you had included 'Taxi Driver.'”
On Saturday, May May 2011 Cherie said...
“Not much Asian cinema fella!”
On Sunday, May May 2011 Graham said...
“I would have included some early Chaplin, maybe Shampoo, or Kubrick films. I think my list would also include Patrick White or Christina Stead. In terms of music, how can you overlook the Stones of Led Zeppelin, or Dylan. Good lists though, better that some I've sen from "noted" critics.”
On Sunday, May May 2011 Graham said...
“I would have included some early Chaplin, maybe Shampoo, or Kubrick films. I think my list would also include Patrick White or Christina Stead. In terms of music, how can you overlook the Stones of Led Zeppelin, or Dylan. Good lists though, better that some I've sen from "noted" critics.”
On Sunday, May May 2011 Tristan said...
“Aaaah, not a lot of women in this collection. Would have liked to see more in the Books department.”
Post a Comment