Tales of a night out walking

Bridge Street Books //

I came home from work today and dropped off the pastas I’d picked up at the Italian deli during lunch — fusilli col buco, stelline, and this frozen ravioli from Maryland filled with gorgonzola and pear? It sounds horrible, but I have to know what that tastes like. And I'm going to find out in a few minutes, because I forgot to put them in my freezer.

I wanted to write about my evening before I forget it all, because a lot of things happened, and I feel so touched by the places I found myself in and the people I met along the way. 

The plan had been to call Elvira, and so I did. She was with our friend Ethan, who was going through his notes on candle making. He used to sell candles, and they're hosting a candle making workshop this weekend for the education company she's starting. 

A yellow house I saw walking around in Georgetown

I crossed the bridge into Georgetown and saw the sun coming in pink behind the clouds, turned right, and headed north immediately. I've been letting myself get lost among the houses along Dumbarton and the smaller east-west streets lately. There are rose gardens and hedges and shiny black cars, men with dogs, women running, ornate brass door ornaments, real gas lamps, and outdoor spiral staircases that seem too narrow to be legal. I love the light that comes through the old trees in the evenings and stumbling upon little restaurants whose names are hard to figure out, but somehow have no room for a table for one. 

Tonight I wandered further north than I usually do — past the cemetery and almost to the park — because Elvira and I had a lot to talk about. We were going on about friendship and the age we really feel we are, the roles we play in our friend groups, about whether or not we think we're funny. We talked about how we take compliments — the answer for me is: not great, but way better than I used to. 

I like being on the phone when I'm wandering around on foot because I'll start taking new paths just to keep moving. I crossed the street to the south side of Pennsylvania Ave this time, which I normally don't do, but I had this thought that I could take a southbound route out of town to pick up milk in Foggy Bottom on the way home. I only made it a few paces before I found myself at the outdoor sale table for a bookstore I'd never noticed before. 

The shopkeeper, a guy I'd later find out is named Joe and who is turning 56 tomorrow, kept trying to usher me in out of the heat. I kept trying to tell him that I was on a phone call, but I later learned that he was hard of hearing, so he finally got it on the third try, when I used my hands to communicate. 

The bookstore was perfect. I don't know how I'd not heard of it before — it put Kramers (poppy, also a restaurant) and Second Story (used, pretentious) to shame. It was tiny, but the selection felt full. It appeared opinionated but not aloof; it seemed intentional while still being accommodating. Simple labels, clean, easy to see everything. A lot of good shopkeeping, I think, is subtle work. 

When I walked in, a kid with a stutter and skeptical sort of energy about him asked, "Can you tell me why you recommended this one?" Joe answered with warm but firm conviction. They were talking about numerology, about philosophers, about magi. Using words that I didn't recognize. It was hard to tell if they were debating or agreeing emphatically — probably some combination of the two. Joe's closing argument was the fact that the concept of zero had originated in India. The kid was sold. He left the shop and said goodbye in French, which was strange, because he wasn't French. 

The phone rang. I was looking for the music section, but I saw some things along the way, namely a collection of every daily Peanuts strip from the '90s, a book on the CIA effort to smuggle books into Eastern Europe, and a book on how manufacturing shapes our lived reality. The phone rang again. Joe answered the phone eagerly. You know how some people smile with their voice? That's how he sounded. Like it was his absolute pleasure to help you. 

Joe turned and told me and the person behind me, with grace and command, that he would be happy to answer any questions we might have. It's something that's often said, but I rarely believe it. I used to say it a lot when I worked in retail. I feel like most of the time, people don’t mean it. I appreciated hearing it said so earnestly. But I wanted to find the music section on my own.

New people came in, this time a group of girls. Joe did his thing — he gave a lay of the land, then explained that the good stuff is upstairs. "Do you have a bathroom?" One of them asked. "Even!" He said, and gave extremely clear instructions. It is always a good sign when a shopkeeper points girls warmly to the restroom, without qualification.

texts with Trent about Joe

I thumbed through the spines and found two books that I ended up taking home. I sat down cross-legged on the carpet and picked through slowly — good book shopping for me means being slow, being picky, and turning every leaf. It's a form of listening, almost. And no music playing. One was tucked between a protruding book and the wall of the shelf: Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening by Christopher Small. 

Musicking by Christopher Small

I was looking for something about what music is as part of the universal language, something that would help me understand my relationship to it. The back of Musicking says this: 

Extending the inquiry of his early groundbreaking books, Christopher Small strikes at the heart of traditional studies of Western music by asserting that music is not a thing, but rather an activity. This new work outlines a theory of what Small terms "musicking," a verb that encompasses all musical activity from composing to performing to listening to a Walkman to singing in the shower. Using Gregory Bateson's philosophy of mind and a Geertzian thick description of a typical concert in a typical symphony hall, Small demonstrates how musicking forms a ritual through which all the participants explore and celebrate the relationships that constitute their social identity. This engaging and deftly written trip through the concert hall will have readers rethinking every aspect of their musical worlds.

I have no fucking clue what Gregory Bateson thinks about thinking or what a Geertzian thick description is, but what caught my eye was this: "Extending the inquiry." I love authors who are clearly experts, but whose work is framed as an inquiry, or better yet — an extension of a longtime inquiry. Work led by curiosity demonstrates, teaches you how to engage richly with something. 

The definition of the word musicking, which Blogger isn't underlining in red for me (even though it's not liking Geertzian, lmao), is the thing that sold me. And I've been looking for someone who thinks deeply about what it means to participate in music live, both as a performer and as a member of the audience. Musicking forms a ritual through which all the participants explore and celebrate the relationships that constitute their social identity. This hews close to the thesis I have about ceremonies and celebrations and put words to a network of observations I've been circling for two years. This relationship-building ritual has been on my mind this past week especially, as Irish trad music was such a centerpiece of the wedding I just got back from. More on that another time. 

I can't take a book home without reading the first few pages. If I don't like the author's voice, it just doesn't come home — and I didn't need to finish the second page of the prelude to know this was exactly what I'd been looking for. I can't stand experts who struggle to explain the meaning of their work to a lay audience, and one of the testimonials for the book put it well: 

"Christopher Small has something of the guru's gift of saying wise things in the simplest but also most engaging way. The book is instructive and enlightening, interesting to think about, and even to differ with . . . stimulating and rewarding." ~Ross Chambers

It started off with vignettes of people musicking. Full verbs, authoritative word choice, nothing too ornamental. You can read the prelude here. Even Joe seemed to think I picked well — he let out a groan of appreciation when he saw what I'd chosen. "Did you like it?" I asked. "It was... impressive," he said, and shook his head as he rung up the total. (Sidenote: I love it when people respect something so much that their appreciation starts to look like offense. My mom used to do this when she'd watch Nadal and Federer duke it out at the Grand Slams. She'd yell, "Disgusting!" and then lock in for another set.)

The other book was a few shelves down. It's called Keep It Moving: Lessons for the Rest of Your Life by Twyla Tharp, but it actually has an alternate title: 

The title I bought: Keep It Moving 

Alternative title: How to Dance with Time

I noticed the book because of the first title. Being in motion is something I've been exploring separately with two of my friends, Maddy and Sam, over the past month or so.

I've been pursuing motion in two ways. The first is in a literal, immediate, bodily sense. Maddy is a choreographer ("What this means to me is helping people get unstuck,"), and I asked her for help getting me moving in my body earlier this summer; she's going to coach me on movement, on getting unstuck in my body. I'd come to her with a problem: I have this deep and soul-sculpting relationship with music, and yet I can't embody how it makes me feel, I can't let it move through me. So we're going to work on that! 

I also want to keep myself in motion in a greater sense: I've been having this feeling that the wind is picking up for me and for a group of my close friends. I want to ride the wind alongside them, sharpening my understanding of what I'm meant to be doing and advancing the work that makes me feel like more of myself as they do the same. Sam and I were chatting last week, once again, about being in motion, and I told him that I think of him as someone who's always in motion; he said that I create my own motion just by pursuing my curiosities about the world.

From a quick read of the first few pages, Tharp seems to be pointing at something similar, supported by a bunch of other practical habits. She's a lifelong dancer and choreographer and now a teacher and creator of many things. My sister is a big fan of the book she wrote 20 years before publishing this one, The Creative Habit. (I own it, but haven't really started.) This is her book on staying in motion as you age — her lens on it is about extending your prime in life, rather than extending your youth. She was in her 70s when she wrote it. I think this may get me closer to an articulate understanding of what it means to be in motion, but also what it means to design a life of motion that I can stick with through old age. A few bites out of the introduction have me feeling confident that I'll like the rest.

By the bottom of the staircase at Bridge Street Books was a crate of records — a bunch of what seemed to be first editions of the Beatles, Frank Zappa, and a lot of other midcentury rock and pop. No Beach Boys. I wanted the Beatles stuff, mainly because those would have been the same records my grandfather had. Same editions, inner sleeves intact. They were extremely well-priced, even for the condition — and I like that they had been well-loved. I prefer records that have seen a lot of play to ones that are mint. But I only took one home: Tea for the Tillerman, Cat Stevens, $8. Hard Headed Woman is one of my favorite songs about looking for the one.

I wandered upstairs, and as I turned a bookshelf I ran into a guy I'd seen on the street earlier that day. He'd been dressed like... what do you call a guy who wears a straw hat? He looked like someone who'd have been in a barber shop quartet. 

I told him I liked his jacket. We started talking about clothes, and about how old style had a purpose. I asked him a lot of specifics about what he was wearing, and he had a lot of specific answers, which is a dead giveaway that someone has an opinionated way of living, that they move through the world with intention. He named the color of his shirt, which was light, but not bright, and had a little hint of blush: dark ivory. The type of collar — I forget the name, but it was '30s style, still sold today in the UK. He told me the story of the people who made his straw fedora; his grandfather was friends with the grandfather of the man who sold him this hat back in Portland. He let me hold and inspect it, and he explained how it regulates temperature in the space above one's head.

I asked him if I could have his information to interview him about his relationship to clothing, and if I could take his picture. I didn't ask him if I could post it here, so I won't for now, but it was a really lovely outfit. 

I walked to Whole Foods after that, and I just bought some mangoes and milk. I've been really into smelling my fruit at the grocery store recently — smell where the stem attached to the tree, and if it smells nice and strong and sweet, the fruit will be good on the inside. 

On the way home, as I was entering my building, I took a side path, and just as I was looking for my keys, I turned and saw these two pigeons on the cobblestone walkway that I'd avoided: 

the birds

One pigeon was sitting, the other standing near it. I may have been anthropomorphizing, but the standing one looked worried. I used my camera to take a closer look, and it seemed like one was protecting the other, standing guard, keeping it company. Neither bird was frantic; they just seemed exhausted. 

Something about the bird sticking by his friend really got to me. An older lady I've seen in my lobby a lot stopped to take notice as these two girls on their way home from dinner also paused. Suddenly there were four very concerned women standing a respectful distance away from these two birds, trying to figure out whether or not these two friends were in trouble and if there was anyone in the city who could help. 

The older lady, whose name I learned was Cecile, brought me a little takeout container of water. I poured some into the lid and laid it out as a shallow dish for the birds to drink from. They took a couple cautious steps back, and the one who'd been sitting on its folded legs tried to stand up and tipped backwards. It tried to catch itself the way that humans do, flailing their arms when they lose their balance — it flapped its wings in a circular motion. 

Told my mom about it