I walked into one of my favorite Big City bookstores, and was surprised to see that everything had been done over in dark mahogany. Darkness visible! A new section of the store, devoted to antique drafting equipment, stood off to one side, accessible through a doorway. The strangest touch was an elevated walkway — in dark mahogany, of course — with a hinged section that could open, like a trapdoor, onto the main floor.
I overheard two employees talking: one spoke of a Huck Finn-themed party she was giving. She had decided not to invite one guest’s spouse, because he was Black and might be offended. “Gee,” I said, “where I come from everybody would be welcome at a party — though I don’t think anyone would think of having a Huck Finn party.”
Possible source: Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City (2003), for reasons I won’t try to explain here. Another: American mythologies and realities.
Related reading
All OCA dream posts (Pinboard)
[“Only fools and children talk about their dreams”: Dr. Edward Jeffreys (Robert Douglas), in Thunder on the Hill (dir. Douglas Sirk, 1951).]
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
Bookstore, trapdoor
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comments: 4
The structure of the bookstore also made me wonder about Robert Moses, with his inaccessible designs designed to be inaccessible
Huh! — I didn’t think of him. I’m not sure how the walkway could be accessed. The trapdoor seems to me to be inspired by the “murder hotel” in The White City (serial killer at work during the expo).
I would have liked to have seen what was in the section "devoted to antique drafting equipment" as those 'antiques' still get regular use here :-)
I wish I’d seen that room too.
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