Jonathan C. Lewis
Author and Artist
The Last Bookstore
A fictional travelogue; four minutes to read.
Dear Travel Journal,
Today I braved downtown Los Angeles to visit California’s largest independent and, as it happens, misnamed bookstore: The Last Bookstore.
For the love of books, I plowed through litter, stench, honky-tonk stores, noise, car fumes, all the public indignities of American inner-city existence.
The Last Bookstore is a repurposed bank replete with a vault and colonnaded main floor. The shelves hold 250,000 new and used books. The mezzanine has art galleries, a yarn shop and funky art assemblages. Toss in 10,000 vinyl records and graphic novels.
There’s a walk-thru ‘tunnel of books’ with pretty lights. I saw a Japanese woman wearing a full white skirt with black polka dots and a canary yellow sweater perch next to the tunnel for a selfie. Grinning for the camera, she was every bit the tourist.
Against a tidal wave of e-readers and big box bookstores, The Last Bookstore survives. When I’m not traveling, reading is my armchair plane ticket to the world. I need books for the same reason I need food, water, air. It’s survival for me too.
This coming school year I must remember to tell my students about my Proximity Learning Theory. By the mere physical act of putting myself in the vicinity of knowledge, say a bookstore or library, entirely by osmosis I become a more informed person. I’m sure of this.
If I’m honest with myself, dear diary, I should never go near another bookstore. Multiple stacks of unread books teeter and totter precariously in every room of my house. My library card should be charged with biblio abuse.
There are worse vices, of course. After I get through my reading list, I should try a few, don’t you think?
Around the corner from The Last Bookstore is the Central Market, since 1917 a collection of 40 mouthwatering food stalls. I chowed down on a huge, tender lengua burrito, but I could have ordered lox and bagels. Or a bento box. Or currywurst. Or barbeque. Or craft beer. Or a tostada. Or fresh pasta. Or ice cream. Or fried chicken. Or hot chiles. Or candy. Or ramen noodles. Or warm bread. Or donuts. Or carnitas. Or oysters.
While eating my burrito, I studied L.A.’s finest neon work of art. A full wall of neon signage—a functional, colorful, compelling artwork—adorns one long wall. All my senses—aromas from the cooking pots, the tasty lengua, the eye-popping neon, gritty Los Angeles—were in overdrive.
Waiting for my taxi, back on the street, hustlers everywhere, the down-and-out sleepers on cardboard, the scrounge, the begging, the smell of piss, all the heartache. Something I read in a novel popped into my head: the Undead. I wondered what the Japanese tourist was thinking about American cities.
Out the bookstore, a few blocks away, the phallic 1920’s City Hall pokes into the sky. The building’s movie credits include Superman where it played the Daily Planet, Clark Kent’s employer. Up until 1941, the flashing beacon atop the building guided airplanes into LAX--one of those useless, fun facts I learn when I travel. Perfect for boring people at parties.
Downtown Los Angeles, now there’s a job for Superman.
