Why "at Shakespeare and Co. Bookstore"?
OK. It's actually at Logan's house in Tucson. BUT, we can pretend. In 1919, Sylvia Beach started the Shakespeare and Company Bookstore in Paris, with the help of her girlfriend Adrienne. It became a base for English speaking writers like Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. Beach is perhaps best known because she took the risk to publish James Joyce's Ulysses, despite the fact that she had little experience as a publisher. Beach's store is a fantastic example of the Do-It-Yourself mentality embraced by Detroit Ho!... and of what our summer is going to look like! A handful of lesbians brainstorming on beg-bug-ridden couches. I am only kidding. There are no bed-bugs in Detroit.
When I was sixteen, my dad and I spent the summer in Paris, and five days out of seven were spent at the Shakespeare bookstore. We sat upstairs listening to Mary Louise tell stories about raising her family in a tent in Italy as she puff-painted portraits of Shakespeare onto black tee-shirts. We ate Chinese food down the street with a group of ex-pats and listened to Finnish poetry. We tried time and time again to get the owner, George (featured topless below), to crack a smile. Artists and writers from all over the world exchanged a few hours at the register for a bed in the apartments above the store. It was one of the first artistic communities I witnessed, and one I'd very much like to emulate in Detroit this summer.
Here are some pictures from that trip (to be superimposed onto the images that come to mind when you think of Detroit):
Funny, when I first saw this event, I thought, "There's a Shakespeare and Company in Tucson? Isn't that kinda...just...copying?" I never knew you spent time there; it's definitely one of my dream destinations (which is probably true for every book lover).
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