The road trip to Iowa was nearly cancelled due to an overnight snowfall here in Wichita, but early Thursday morning my friend Byron and I decided to go ahead with the trip. Due to his recent breakup in a 4 year relationship, he was excited to get away and get his mind off of the situation, and I was hoping to meet up with a good friend from high school and a mutual friend of ours who lives in Iowa City.
After visiting Starbucks for my late morning Marble Mocha Macchiato and dropping Maddie, my rat terrier, off at the vet for a “sleepover and spa weekend”, we began the journey to Des Moines in Byron’s pimped out CLK 430 Benz. The supposed 6 hour trek took us only 5, and we arrived at the Iowa State Fairgrounds and home of the Spring Planned Parenthood Book Sale at around 6:30. Unlike most small library sales I frequent here in Kansas, the sale took place in a warehouse sized building and housed approximately 100,000 books. While the books were well-organized by genre, I was overwhelmed by the amount of books, the number of book dealers armed with cellular phones/scanning devices, and the prices of the books. I am not accustomed to paying more than 50 cents for paperbacks and $1 for hardcovers, and most of these books were priced much higher. The first book that caught my attention was Poetry Speaks, a collection of poets reading their poems, accompanied with a text. The price, in red pencil on the front free endpaper, was $20. I passed, and realized that this sale was not going to be your typical money making opportunity.
We were scheduled to pick up our friend Danielle at her restaurant in Iowa City (about a two hour drive east), so I only had about an hour and a half to scour the sale. I ran around, banker’s boxes in hand, like a madman for the first half hour, only to realize that either most of the rare and valuable books had already been bought, or they had been priced accordingly. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the patience to look for them, so instead, I looked to expand my online collection of signed American poetry, along with my personal collection of writing instruction manuals. My most notable finds were a signed collection of Louis Simpson poems, and a scarce hardback volume entitled, The Poetry of the Early T’Ang Dynasty (recently sold via http://www.abebooks.com/ for $150). Nothing spectacular. I did pick up copies of Stephen Dunn’s Between Angels and a copy of the book about the guy who sold everything he owned on Ebay and traveled the U.S. to visit his buyers. I had recently dreamt of finding these two books at a sale, or was it déjà vu?
In any case, I left the sale with only one box of books totaling $80. Compared to most library sales or Saturday estate sale adventures, this was a weak one business wise, but I was satisfied because the whole trip would now be tax-deductible.
Byron made the 2 hour drive to Iowa City in about 1 hour and 15 minutes, in the snow, and I saw my life flash before my eyes as he weaved in and out of a group of semis going 105 mph. I felt like my mother must have when I was learning to drive, holding onto the inside of the door, grasping for dear life. We arrived and met our friend Danielle at Venudo’s World Bistro, and she was glad to see familiar faces. We joined her friends for a casual night on the town that evening.
The next morning, we ate breakfast at an Iowa City institute, the Hamburg Inn. Although I did not partake in the Pie Shake experience (apparently they were lauded in the New York Times travel section) I had the Eggs Benedict and deluxe hashbrowns with mushrooms and green peppers, and left feeling extremely pleased. Perhaps it was the three cups of coffee. The high point in the trip for me was discovering the record shop across the street, called Real! Records, which shared a location with the Northside Book Market. I skipped the books and went straight to the music, due to the fact that there is no music shop in Wichita with a decent indie-rock or college radio selection. I found several gems that have been on my Amazon.com wish list for months, even years, and took advantage of their immediate availability. I purchased albums by Say Hi to Your Mom, Dolorean, Rogue Wave, and Jamie Lidell. The find of the trip was a CD I heard playing in the store- a reissue compilation of eccentric soul music released by the Capsoul label of Columbus, Ohio in the 1970s. There was a young gentleman, and regular in the store, who knew his music well, and recommended the whole Numero series, as did the proprietor of the shop, a content and knowledgeable cat. I returned the next morning and purchased the Capsoul album and the Deep City Label album, both in the Numero Group compilation series. We returned again to the Hamburg Inn for an encore performance which did not disappoint.
I gave the Northside Book Market an unfair 30 minute browsing, and found several helpful writing instruction books on the 50 cent shelf. I also purchased an
Encyclopedia of Frontier Literature for $15, which I could have purchased online for $5, but it felt good to support the local bookstore instead. The owner, whose name I forgot, recommended the works of Farley Mowat, whose interesting brief biography he also relayed to me. The other bookstore in town, the Haunted Bookshop on Washington St., was more my style. The shop was clean, well-organized, quiet, but with interesting discussion of the printing process overheard. I got the feeling I might run into a famous writer in this place. More importantly, the store had fairly sizeable collections of poetry, literature/fiction, short stories, writing instruction and inspiration, and books about books. I asked Neil, who had recently celebrated her marriage in the store, for a recommendation of a local author, and she turned me on to Chris Offut, who was an author I had been meaning to read for awhile. Her recommendation was right on. I purchased a paperback copy of Kentucky Straight for $5 and a signed hardback 1st edition of The Same River Twice for $25. My most exciting book find for the trip, however, was a copy of James Jones and the Handy Writers Colony, which is a nonfiction account of one of the most unusual writing colonies. I read that one method of the colony was to transcribe entire classic novels in longhand. This idea had also been mentioned in Carolyn See’s account of the writing life, and peaked my curiosity. I will report on its effectiveness in the future.
We left for Wichita at around 5pm on Saturday, with the rural Iowa sky radiating a purple glow, which turned to dark blue near Des Moines, and then black before reaching Missouri. I popped in a road trip mix (see previous post) and chugged a Sobe No Fear, the first leg of the trip was my responsibility. After the mix, I popped in the Capsoul Label disc and was immediately entranced in a state of soulful bliss. Track #10 sang, “I Wanna Be Ready…when the hurt….comes my way.” I couldn’t help but reflect on my friend Byron’s situation, and how when you go through a difficult breakup, every song reminds you of her. Elliott Smith has a great song about that too. The healing has begun. That’s a Van Morrison song. I collect these songs and books so that I will have a reference when the occasion presents itself.
You can purchase the highly recommended Capsoul Label reissue album here:
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