saavedra77 | New Neighbors

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?):