September 30, 2008

The Book Selling Man



This is a little bookstand. It is a newsstand, except there are books. I've walked past this a hundred times. Each time, I revel in it. Books stacked to be sold. Piled. In no order - no classification. Books that unfold from the little hut's interiors.

This time I stopped and talked to the guy a bit. He obviously supplements his reading time with a lot of vodka, but once I got past his breath, this was an interesting and crazy guy. He had nowhere to go. Not in a bad or homeless sense, but in a beatnik sort of way. He was content to just sell his books. At the end of our little interaction, I asked him if I could take his photo. He smiled and held out his hand and signaled for me to wait. He pushed against the shelves of books so that they rotated to reveal the guts of the little stand - and he disappeared into them. When he resurfaced, he brought paintings - one by one to decorate the sidewalk around the bookstand.

5 comments:

la_sale_bete said...

what a wonderous hut!

JR said...

I love that the hut has secret places where paintings reside. I also love that the walls of your house are where the crazy wires reside. I wished you resided closer to us!! Or vice versa

Julie

Jill said...

Have you ever purchased a book from this guy? Any American classics among them?

Anonymous said...

I don't know this guy, where is this?

Emilie said...

lauren my dear - where rue d'abbeville and rue la fayette cross - right by the very large church that resembles st. sulpice, just a tinge.

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