Behind the Tents

The above is what Street Fair looks like from a bricks & mortar perspective. Not very inviting, is it? The Fair, as you can see puts its back to us every year. Crowds of determined punters mill up and down the middle of the block in search of family fun: listening to buskers and bands, getting free spinal adjustments, eating kettle-corn, meat-on-sticks, and whatnot, and buying the handicrafts of the booth-holders. For those of us that front the sidewalks, there's not much to be done by way of participation. Oh, a few of the resident merchants put out a table or two, offer a special discount the days of, or string a bit of bunting over their doors, but realistically, there's not much that can be said for our sales when only the parking lots and the public bathrooms are full. Otherwise, the action is elsewhere. Once, a coworker and I made the experiment of putting some books, knickknacks and T shirts on a table and took a couple of chairs and a cashbox out with us to spend the day. The weather was pleasant enough that year, even in the shade. All that could be said for the day, frankly. Another time, a few of us went up and down the street with one-time-only-discount-coupons. That did a little better, but could hardly be said to have justified the number of irritable babies in strollers in the lobby, or the lines of cranky tourists in the neighborhood complaining of the "shocking condition" of the ladies' loo after a few hundred of their fellow Fairgoers had trouped through.

As one might imagine, Street Fair, when it rolls around every year, at least for those of us working in the bookstore that weekend, is not the happiest of occasions. I personally don't have much use for it, as you may have figured out already. (Even my eight dollar BBQ sandwich was indigestible this year.)

Working at the Used Books Buying Desk on Saturday, I was as always amazed to find more than a few single-minded individuals show up with books to sell, crowds, road-blocks and chiropractors be damned. Most of course simply forgot or did not know that they'd picked a most inconvenient day to try to sell a bag of grandma's mysteries or last year's book club selections. I was of course perfectly happy to see such sellers who came. Almost always glad to see people come to the desk with books to sell me. And, it gave me a good excuse to not direct folks upstairs to the restrooms for a minute or two. That was a pleasant respite.

As for sales, I wouldn't know until I see the figures, but while there were unnaturally large crowds in the joint, I should say we saw about the same number of shoppers as might be on a gloomy Spring day. Maybe less. Certainly not more. Can't imagine there were more.

I don't mean to grouse, or begrudge anyone their good time, or their lumpy new vase, or framed photograph of Mount Rainier. Even with, so far as I can see, no direct benefit to the bookstore's bottom-line, it isn't a bad thing to have all these people in the neighborhood on a weekend. Whatever the mess they leave, or the noise they make, it does the neighborhood some good to have folks see it looking festive and friendly. Ours is an area of the city so completely identified with the university now that there are lots of locals who seem to think there really is no other reason to be there. Not true, of course. There are the usual college bars and inexpensive restaurants, but there are also some unique shops, a lovely old movie theater, live music, and yes, bookshops, still, including the finest general bookstore in the city, if I do say so myself.

Still, I confess, every year this wall of tent-flaps out the front windows makes me cranky. I feel no more connection to what goes on out there than to the annoying annual fly-over from the Blue Angels that rattles the glass for an hour or two, come the boating season, I think. Nothing to do with me.

This festival also reminds me, every single year, how this kind of celebration, presumably meant as a promotion of the "local" tends to attract, well, as much bad barbecue from who knows what corner of the primitive South, as it does locals to and from the local businesses. Where exactly is the neighborhood in all of this? Also, I am deeply suspicious of the class of artistic white bohemians who caravan from street fair to street fair, from county fair to flea market, hawking their hand-carved harps and resin jewelry, their comic mugs and patch hats. I don't say they don't deserve their livelihood. They pay for their booths and they takes their chances. They aren't quite carnies, but they still have that lingering atmosphere of the fly by night, the nearly not, and the entirely too temporary to quite be true.

About this, it seems, I may be wrong. A friend and fellow employee of the bookstore stopped by early to the desk on his way elsewhere and told me he'd just seen the man who delivers the Fritos to the branch store where my friend works. It seems the Fritos delivery man, and his lovely lady wife, are both local photographers and every year they buy a booth-space, set up shop at the Street Fair, and sell their admirable pictures of the local scenery. Good on them, I say. What it's all meant to be about, really. I'm a little ashamed to think I was so suspicious.

That lemonade stand, after all, one of 'em anyway, seems to be raising money for something or other hereabouts.

Ignore grouchy old me. Enjoy. Hopefully, we'll see you again sometime. Maybe next Saturday, you know, in the bookstore, buying a book. Stranger things have happened. So, have a good time at the Street Fair, folks.

Just avoid the brisket.