New Neighbors

[saavedra77]

The view from my living room window has gotten a little more film noir since the Cap Hill Twice Sold Tales moved in across the street. The five-color neon sign glowers through the venetian blinds on a rainy day like the window of Arthur Gwynn Geiger's bookstore in The Big Sleep:



Some neighbors have complained about the faint glare, but the store's owner is considerate enough to turn the sign off when they close at night, so it's not like they're flagrant about it. And having a weakness for that whole trashy neon aesthetic, I kind of enjoy the ambience.

Inside, the new store has a completely different feel, a labyrinthine quality that reminds me of the monastic library in The Name of the Rose: perhaps a dozen rooms full of books winding around almost the entire first floor of the Abonita building. The space is too small for you to actually lose your way, but it almost feels as though you could.

And then there are the cats:

For those of you unfamiliar with Twice Sold Tales, locals know it as the bookstore with all the cats. There are branches in Cap Hill, the University District and on Queen Anne Hill, each with its own feline colony inhabiting the stacks. Izzy originally came from the Cap Hill TST, where she was one of a number of kittens the owner was fostering from Seattle animal shelters. So the fact that the business has now moved in across the way means that Izzy sometimes gets to see some of her former confreres in the adjacent windows. I doubt that she recognizes them after all this time, but she's naturally interested--she looks at the cats over there and switches her tail (with excitement? agitation?):



OK, I couldn't capture Izzy and what she's looking at in one image, so here's the latter:



Also, apropos of nothing, here's an shot I caught a little while later of Izzy and Ozzy grooming one another:



After I took that, they're like "The hell YOU looking at?!":



Sorry to interrupt your little moment, there, guys.

Don't worry: it's not like I'm going to plaster it all over the internet, or anything ...

Comments

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

You have an awesome noir-esque neon sign and it's for a *bookstore*! That's the best ever!

And the cats watching each other through the windows is also awesome.

[saavedra77.livejournal.com]

You have an awesome noir-esque neon sign and it's for a *bookstore*!

If they didn't already know me in there, I'd be tempted to go in and ask whether they "happen to have a Ben Hur 1860" ...

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

Oh, wait 'til they get a new hire and do it anyway. Someone has to.

[il-gattopardo.livejournal.com]

The first edition? ))

[saavedra77.livejournal.com]

"'Third,' I said. 'The one with the erratum on page 116. ...'

"'You do sell books?' I said in my polite falsetto. ..."

Love that scene--in both the book and the movie. :)

[aztecson23.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha . . . I immediately thought of 'Rear Window.'

[saavedra77.livejournal.com]

Which I guess would place Ozzy in Raymond Burr's role. I'd better start locking the bedroom door ...

[aztecson23.livejournal.com]

yeah, and get your camera out. Or, now, i guess it would be your digital cam.

[saavedra77.livejournal.com]

Right! Next time I'll blind them with the flash! :)

[dlasky.livejournal.com]

I gotta check out this new location for TST. If you get to know some of the employees, and hear their gossip -- man, it's a fiercely quirky local chain, with all the odd rivalries, rifts, firings, battles with shoplifters, mysterious merchandise, etc. that one would hope for. I used to love to buy books there, but I no longer really have any more room for books in my little apartment.

[saavedra77.livejournal.com]

I know the owner/manager of the Cap Hill location, the one who fosters kittens sometimes, and she's interesting, eccentric, fun to talk to. But I haven't gotten to know the whole soap opera; I'll have to listen more closely in future.

[dlasky.livejournal.com]

It's probably like the gossip from any similar business. Except that it's right in the middle of Capitol Hill, so there's more quirks to it.

I remember the owner used to tell me that she pays for a trip to Hawaii for every employe (I guess after they've worked a certain number of months) and I was thinking "I wanna work here too."

[saavedra77.livejournal.com]

Wow, nice benny. I've never heard of a retail place offering anything like that.