Field Trip... Providence, RI
The rain held off this past weekend in the Northeast, which was great because my partner in crime (the PIC) and I were headed to Providence, RI, to fete daughter #1, who was celebrating birthday number 24. She had said in a phone call earlier in the week that her idea of a great birthday would be visits to bookstores, to her local indie coffee shop, and to a killer bakery. We knew we had raised that girl with solid family values, and we were willing to pick up the tab at every stop along the way just to prove it!
A few snapshots:
If you haven't seen Providence lately, go! What a great vibe, and the town is full of interesting stops (including the Rhode Island School of Design Museum's Asian collection), shops, and restaurants. You can sense a great level of urban energy, and there are lots of places to slow down, plop down, and people watch.
As the home of Brown, RSDI, and Providence College, perhaps it's not surprising that Providence is a strong bookstore town -- with both used and new stores. This trip we didn't make it to the Brown University Bookstore, which always has interesting titles face out in its trade department, but we made 2 other great stops.
The first was a very engaging used store -- Myopic Books. Even as you approach Myopic and see the funky typography and inventive presentation of the business facade, your sense of curiosity and pleasant anticipation grows. The store delivers in both the inventory (full of surprises and interesting twists and turns) and in the ambiance (no surfeit of dust and, for me, frown-inducing, precariously balanced towers of random titles in the aisle...) Daughter #1 got a field guide to plant life in New York (you can take the girl out of New York, but...) and a copy of Thomas Merton's Zen and the Birds of Appetite.
For me the choice was easy. At the top of a pile of titles at the cash-wrap was a copy of a Shambhala Centaur Editions translation by Sam Hamill of Basho's Narrow Road to the Interior. You've seen the format for the Centaur Editions, no? Almost palm-size, they are an inviting travel companion in your coat pocket or bag. The perfect format for an auspicious purchase. Who could say no?
From there we walked up the block to Books on the Square, a simply great Main Street store -- and I don't say that just because they have a wall display of Book Sense Bestsellers and a very engaging end-cap with Book Sense Picks titles and the latest Picks flier, not to mention prominent staff selections at the front of the store, great shelf-talkers through in all sections, and throughout the store clear evidence of smart choices regarding inventory selection, and marketing (I loved all the face-outs).
No, let another customer sum it up.
Just before we paid for our books, I heard a woman at the cash-wrap say to one of the booksellers, "I just love your store because I have such a feeling here of all the titles being curated... someone has picked them out for me."
It wasn't simply a retail space filled with books that had left her feeling so happy about her purchases, no, it was the experience of connecting in a direct and unparalleled way with insight, taste, and surprise. Not an experience very likely to happen when the levers are being pulled from Mission Control in a corporate office far away. (Birthday update: Daughter #1 got a very nice used copy of The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which she is reading to students at her job at Providence's Paul Cuffee Charter School, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007, edited by Dave Eggers, which seemed an unintentionally harmonious paring.)
But what about food, you ask?
First, go to the Seven Stars Bakery and pretty much buy anything. (You can't go wrong with the scones, or a bakery located on Hope Street...). Have coffee, but maybe not too much.
Because, next, you should head over to Coffee Exchange on Wickenden Street, where you can sit inside or out and enjoy some fantastic coffee, roasted on the premises. (And, yes, you can get a gift card...)
That's a memorable day.
Posted at 02:00PM Apr 16, 2008 by Dan Cullen in General |
