There are few places I love shopping for books more than the West County Center parking garage. And I only get to do this once a year, during the St. Louis Book Fair.
I have nowhere to put more books, but I am going to go anyway and will not be able to leave empty-handed (this I know). Though I always dig through the tables for fiction and poetry, I must admit that what I really look for at these sales is weird ephemera, especially paper ephemera and strange old stuff on VHS. It was at the Y booksale last year (Oh, how I miss the Carondelet Y Gym! Suson is fine, but ...) that I dug up a perfectly peculiar documentary on Cuba from the 80s. Also a rather dorky, but very enjoyable, half-hour TV doc on Carneval in the Languedoc region of France. I also look for stuff like this. I don't know why. It takes up space and serves zero purpose. I guess objects like these have a sort of gravitas to them. They're like a Glade plug-in of the ineffiable, diffusing weirdness and mystery just by sitting on a bookshelf, or in my house, stacked up on top of a trunk.
Likely you have less insane reasons for heading to the West County Center tonight (or tomorrow, or this weekend). You may, like this gent, have unconsciously grand reasons for going, and may not even know it yet! --Stefene Russell
