Lessons in History

The best backdrop for photos are books and laundry mats. Especially an old used book store. My favorite sets of photos are when Scott and I went to Acres of Books long before it closed down.

We actually went in hopes to catch Ray Bradbuy since he was a regular. The rumor was he visited the store every other day. He had this to say about Acres of Books…

Right now there are no bookstores in downtown L.A. That’s terrible. That’s stupid, isn’t it?…There’s no really big bookstore, Pickwick used to be there, it was a very important bookstore….Bookstores should be the center of our life. There’s no bookstore in Venice, California right now. There’s no bookstore in Ocean Park. There’s no bookstore in Beverly Hills. Jesus Christ, how dumb can you get! There’s not one bookstore in Beverly Hills! All those stupid people, wandering around, looking for ideas. That is such a dumb place. That’s why I’m here…This is my home.

If this place could be kept here, if you’re going to build a mall, they should build it around here. They should be the center of the mall. They should be a shrine. They should have a crucifix up in front. I will come and bless the goddamn place. And I mean that. I want this store to remain here and they can build a mall around it…It should be surrounded by other fascinating stores. It shouldn’t be moved. It shouldn’t be changed because it’s the best bookstore in Long Beach and one of the best in California.

There are ten million books here and other bookstores have a couple of thousand, and they don’t smell the same way. An old book smells like Egyptian incense. It’s great. It’s wonderful.

-via

This is at Ikea with my friend, but still a great photo by her

At the Goodwill with some life changing literature