rep road: dateline kingston ontario

today's lesson: acceptance.  I left Ottawa early on Sunday in a good mood.  I'd booked a room for one night downtown, near my bookstore appointment and the gorgeous waterfront.  I decided to just get there early and to spend the day soaking up local color.

The weather deteriorated and I drove through a monsoon that only got worse as I headed southwest, white knuckle hydroplaning down highway 15.  But I made it to Kingston by noon.

It was pouring even harder in town, rivers of water gushing down streets, my umbrella useless.  But I made a dash for a coffee shop, where the service was rude, and I was already cranky.  "My car, like, broke down last night," bored-with-me waitress said to another server as she held out change in my general direction.  

I was so tempted to ask "Did it actually break down or just "like" break down, because there's a big difference?"   Instead I transferred my hostility to a disturbed man who, eerily, had the same line of bother as the guy who hangs out all day in the Starbux next to Boswell Books in Milwaukee  " Where did you go to high school?" he asked every single person who came in.  I just thought, get me out of here.

The next frustration was even more serious because it was such a rookie rep mistake.  Kingston is packed in summer so it was hard to find a reasonable hotel room.  (Note to self: someday find out a little more about all this history.)  

But the Green Acres (sic) got good Trip Advisor ratings, and it's right on Princess Street, so why not?  i booked it two months ago.  

When it wasn't where I thought it would be I checked my paperwork, only to find in horror that It wasn't 240 Princess Street,  but 2400 Princess.  Major difference.  This put it out on an obnoxious stretch of fast food, big box, six lane exurbian highway, about as far from quaint British army history and cute architecture as you can get.  

No cancellations allowed, and everything downtown booked anyway.  Deep breath, go with the flow, surrender.  If I'd taken the train it would have been much worse to be stranded out there. 

The amazing thing is that it was a cool and charming place.  Feels like an old fifties motel, updated but not fancy and twee.  The people are very nice, the rooms are clean, and despite the highway I heard birds singing in the morning.

And to put MY problems in perspective, I arrived at Novel Idea for my appointment only to find a giant hole outside the store and Princess Street closed for blocks as construction equipment did their best to scare customers away.  This has been going on for awhile.  It's every street retailers nightmare.

Please everybody, if a store you love and patronize becomes a construction  zone, increase your patronage accordingly.  They will be grateful, and you will help insure that they are still there for you when it's over.

rep road: dateline ottawa

Small mistake on my arrival in Ottawa: I mistook the national RCMP Headquarters for the Hampton Inn and drove right past the guard booth. Yes,  the booth should have been a tip-off but I thought it was a parking attendant.  An officer politely called me back, and politely showed me the hotel across the road, which, in my defense, did bear a resemblance. As I drove off I thought about how I'd likely be in custody (or worse) had I tried to drive into the FBI compound.

My last visit to Ottawa was on the coldest two days of the year, so I took advantage of the sunshine and walked to my appointment at the National Gallery- farther than it looks on the map, but through some interesting neighborhoods.

Ottawa is so strange. On one level, it's a national capital, and an international city. You pass a gorgeous old 19th Century French building, perhaps a former school or mental institution, and find that it's now the Chinese Embassy.

But on another level, Ottawa feels like it could be a midwestern rural commercial center of 50,000 people. There are modest blocks of old houses right up to the edge of the complex of big government buildings downtown. My favorite image of the day: a woman hanging laundry to dry in her backyard, just a few feet from the imposing back wall of the Saudi Consulate.

The National Gallery Bookshop is excellent, thanks to a superb buyer. As I arrived, the store was swarming with ninth graders on a field trip. I was feeling judgmental and depressed about how it was more about horsing around- "dude, check this out- Nude Sculptures!"- than art appreciation.
But then I noticed a couple nerdy loners lost in art book bliss, and remembered that this is how it seems to go with books, art, music, culture. Most of these kids will go on with their lives and, maybe, remember something about that visit to the Art Museum; but with luck, for one or two, the discovery might be life-changing, and maybe life-saving.

By the time I got back to the hotel, on a no-man's land stretch of Vanier, my resolution to not get back behind a wheel was at war with my hunger. I asked a man folding towels in the basement where he would go if he wanted pizza, and he suggested Lorenzo's, a walkable distance. His recommended route took me through an interesting working-class neighborhood and, there, on a corner, was a little family-run bar/restaurant with excellent fare. Finding something like that when stuck in hotel hell is a victory to be savored.

Saturday morning couldn't have been better. I worked for several hours with the vivacious Lisa of Octopus Books in her charming backyard in the Glebe neighborhood. She loves Dr Pepper so I stopped to pick up a pack, along with a newspaper. The check-out woman glanced at the headline on the Globe and Mail, and said " so do you think Obama's going to go into Syria?" I was so taken aback I didn't know what to say. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been asked anything other than paper or plastic in a supermarket, and I was very close to slipping into some foolish generalization about how much smarter Canada must be. But Lisa said this was extraordinary- she shops at that store and nothing like it has ever happened.

Wandered through an art fair, took a bus back up to the National Gallery to see the fantastic indigenous art exhibit, then over to Beechwood Books, which were having a local author event and packed. Planning ahead, I picked up groceries at Loblaw's and spent the evening inside catching up on notes, reading, and pondering what new goals I could have for my annual performance review this week, while trying to remember last year's.

rep road: dateline Toronto (4)

Wrapped up the week in Toronto with a delicious and badly needed home cooked meal with my predecessor and friends David and Maria, who are a trove of local bookselling history.

Despite all the current challenges, and at least one big disappointment on every trip (can it really be true that the Art Gallery of Ontario is sacrificing it's excellent book department to more jewelry, umbrellas and toys?), the bookselling community in Toronto would be the envy of many cities.

While every veteran book person can ratlle off a list of the late, great stores which are no more, I was kept extremely busy all week hopping amongst some pretty fine ones which still very much are. 

Contemporary Torontonians can choose their books from an excellent chain of neighborhood indies (a business model that has all but evaporated in the states); from a superb, expertly selected shrine to new books in the financial district; from several still excellent academic stores; from (if you hurry) one of the finest Art Museums in North America; from two of the most eccentric used bookstores I've ever been in; from a wonderful, quirky and completely delightful shop in the Queen West neightborhood, and another one in High Park; and from a host of specialty shops, boasting the finest collection of books on film I've ever seen, to an excellent design and architecture shop, to two bookshops featuring books on cooking and food. And surely I'm forgetting someone. (oh right, Indigo and Chapters. If you like candles and incense with your literature.) 

Add to this the finest public library system in North America, and I'm quite jealous. Given the number of large and medium-sized cities that have become book deserts, I hope the people of Toronto appreciate their good book fortune.

My plan to travel the next few legs of my journey by train were stymied by Via Rail's inflexible bargaining tactics with it's customer service workers, who had called a strike for yesterday, the morning I was to leave. VIA Rail kept sending me confusing emails saying they are certain there won't be a strike, but if there is a strike my train will still be running, but that if I'd like a refund I'd only be able to get it in advance. 

I'm a knee-jerk pro-union guy, except when it comes to my own convenience. So in truth I had decided to take my chances. I didn't even know what the issues were.

But then I read an article about what the workers were asking and realized this is just a variation on the "demonize and penalize public workers" approach that's become so routine at home. The difference here is that the union still has enough clout to bully back a little. I haven't been faced with a decision to cross a picket line in the US in a long while because there are no strikes.

My father worked in a factory and was in the union when I was a child. He earned a decent wage and some benefits for the time, but at some point he got a promotion and was made "a company man," which seemed like an achievement to my mom, though to my sisters and I it just meant that we couldn't go to the fun union picnic. 

But somehow along the way, I absorbed a kind of moral/ethical idea about strikes being sacred. Workers don't resort to them casually. And in this climate where they are always the ones being asked to do the sacrificing, I decided I couldn't enjoy a train ride with that on my conscience. So I cashed in my tickets and rented a car.

The strike was (for now) settled at the last possible moment, so I could have avoided scab-dom aft all. But It was a useful exercise in reviewing my core beliefs. 

And anyway, isn't this situation not so different than what booksellers are asking their customers to do all the time? To think beyond price and convenience. To ponder in a more complex way their commercial actions. To consider buying the book from the indie shop for all the added value they get from its existence rather than online. Or to consider not buying the T- shirt at all if you suspect it's been made in a Bangla Desh sweatshop.

The drive to Ottawa was beautiful, and I didn't feel like a hypocrite when I arrived.

rep road: dateline toronto (3)

There’s one title on the new Yale list which is eliciting groans, guffaws and sarcastic remarks as I pitch it to Toronto booksellers.  It’s not the fault of the book.  It’s a serious argument by a serious scholar that the problems of the world are better solved by cities than at the state, provincial and federal level.  Debatable, but not especially controversial.

But what’s provoking the sad head-shaking here is the title: If Mayors Ruled the World. The wonderful city of Toronto is currently being ruled by a buffoonish gasbag, a civic embarrassment, and it’s the thought of this particular mayor extending his reign in a global direction that has my booksellers choking on  their coffee.  (Professionals that they are, they haven’t taken it out on the book and it's advancing nicely.)

Rob Ford bullied his way into office and has been something of a laughing-stock, offering up gaffes and scandals on a regular basis.  The latest devastating blow-up features the mayor in a video apparently doing crack.   His critics, in disbelief, demand his resignation; his supporters- 30% of the voters at least- only seem to love him more with every new fiasco.

Ford would be a very familiar type to US voters.  He’s a right wing populist who has built a career railing against “the elites,” despite his own life of privilege; he thrives on playing off and playing up popular resentments, driving wedges between communities wherever he finds an opening; and he and his supporters are most at home in a perpetual state of raw victimization, usually by “the media.”

But this is Canada.  Toronto!  The home of Jane Jacobs, spacing.ca, and (still) one of the most robust centers of sustainable urban politics in North America.  How did Rob Ford happen here? 

I’m no expert, but apparently life really changed after the five large neighboring communities surrounding Toronto- Missisauga, Etobicoke, several others- were amalgamated into one big city in the past decade.  Suddenly, the political character of what we’ve known as “Toronto” is now largely determined by voters who don’t really live in the city, and harbor a laundry list of resentments against it.  For my local Milwaukee friends, this would be like combining Waukesha County with Milwaukee- imagine the type of mayor they’d saddle us with.

Anyway, all very sad for a city many of us love and look to for cutting-edge urban solutions.  I’m assured by some smart booksellers here that it can’t last, that he was elected on a backlash against a previous mayor, and that there are some fine candidates in the wings.

But meanwhile, I will continue to cringe a little as I get to page 39 in my catalog, knowing that the title will inevitably be read by my buyer- for one scary moment- as If Rob Ford Ruled the World.

rep road: dateline toronto (2)

 After a string of one-nighters, it feels like such a luxury to settle into a city for more than a day.  My colleague Adena once remarked that she enjoys being planted in one place for awhile because you get up and go to work like everyone else.  

 It sounds weird but I kind of love Monday mornings for that reason.   It’s a miserable rainy day, and I’m sharing that start of the work week grind, though I suspect I’m secretly enjoying my job more than some of these folks on the subway do theirs.

 The problem is that there are fewer and fewer cities with enough critical bookstore mass to warrant staying for more than a night or two, and my week in Toronto is by far the longest duration I spend in any of the cities in my territory.  Once, a book rep could easily spend a week in Minneapolis, St Louis, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee.  Now I can even do Chicago with a couple day trips.  Sad.

Today I hit three good stores, so no complaints.  Well, maybe one.  

 At one college store, I overheard a customer asking a bookseller to recommend a book.  Obviously, not an unusual occurrence.  But it was one of those frustrating, open-ended requests: “I have to read a novel for a class and it can be anything.”  The student was unwilling or unable to share anything much about her reading tastes.  The bookseller seemed flummoxed, annoyed, unhelpful.  At most of the indie bookstores I call on, staff would be falling over themselves at an opportunity like this.   Doesn’t every bookseller keep a quick mental index of favorites for these situations?

Rep road: dateline Toronto

It’s Saturday!  A lovely morning meeting with Sheila Koffman from Another Story Bookshop, one of my favorite booksellers.   

A long stroll down Dundas West, with its interesting and eccentric shops.

A visit to the uniquely obsessive shrine to literary esoterica,  Monkey’s Paw Bookshop, which was out on the street with a sort of art installation involving tearing up books and pasting them back together.   

Topped off by a visit to my favorite record store in North America, Soundscapes.   

Just finding that it’s still there is a small victory and an omen for a good week ahead.

Rep road: Dateline Hamilton, Ontario

There’s nothing to ruin breakfast at a Canadian hotel like the sound of US businessmen at the next table bad-mouthing Obama.   

Like everyone, I’m shocked- shocked!- by the NSA surveillance, but I wanted to ask these guys three questions: Are you really surprised that something the Patriot Act authorized under Bush is actually being done?  Are you as outraged about how big business is compromising your privacy in a hundred ways every day as you are about government surveillance?  And, come on, haven’t you hated Obama all along?

But I digress, I’m here for books.  I try to stay on guard against generalizations about cities ever since I underestimated Buffalo, a place I now love but once loathed.  Rep travel is almost by definition skimming the surface.  My acquaintance with cities is so superficial and spotty that I should just withhold judgment.  But like the loud Americans in the hotel, I’m entitled to an opinion no matter how ill-formed.

In this case it’s a positive- I love Burlington, Ontario!  The setting is gorgeous, right on Lake Ontario; the downtown is quaint and charming without being cloying; the architecture, despite an encroachment of high rises, is phenomenal; the scale is human, friendly.  I’m aware that there are probably vast neighborhoods I haven’t seen which might stifle my high, but the Burlington of my imagination is a place I’d rather stay than flee.

Best of all, Ian Elliot’s wonderful Different Drummer Bookstore is something every city of 175,000 should have but few do.  While we were meeting a woman wandered in for the first time, remarking that “this just looked like an interesting place.”  I envied her the sense of discovery.  After working on the new lists I wished for more time to hang out and browse the incredibly well-chosen inventory, but duty called. 

From Burlington, a short drive to Hamilton- a bigger city of which I have a much more tenuous grasp-  and another great store, Bryan Prince Books.  One topic of morning conversation was the demise of the Canadian penny, which are no longer being circulated and will be phased out.  One customer was grateful to receive her change in pennies instead of rounded up or down.  “I use pennies and I don’t have a kindle.  I’m actually pretty happy with the 20^th Century,” she sighed.