Prairie Lights

 

During my recent visit to Iowa City, I spent a considerable amount of time reading and thinking and browsing the shelves in IC's famous bookstore, Prairie Lights, the companion bookstore to San Francisco's famous City Lights. While here, I scored a major reading spot in the window overlooking Linn Street--a perfect perch for my Gaston Bachelard The Poetics of Space which is proving enormously helpful in my ongoing thinking about Robert Louis Stevenson vis-a-vis Henri Bergson (see link to my journal article here: “Softened with time”: A (Proto) Bergsonian Metaphysics in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde).

Bachelard's philosophical inquiry into spacial poetics is a beautiful interrogation of architecture, beauty, the quest for human meaning, and the necessity of shelter. I am finding many connections also to my dissertation chapter on Lewis Carroll's Alice books and their Wittgensteinian riddles. More analysis to come...

Prairie Lights

The best study place I've yet to find is Prairie Lights in Iowa City. If I could write my dissertation here I would, but distances, circumstances, and three kids being what and who they are, I now write from home surrounded by my kids' puzzles, board games, and wheelie toys and a stack of library books, style manuals, and outdated NYT newspapers that I vow to read once this dissertation thing is over. (Please let it be over!)

Because I'm a nerd like that, I remember some of my more favorite study moments at Prairie Lights, such as: Studying for my Buddhist literature final while Aimee Mann's Magnolia CD played on repeat for hours and hours. One is the loneliest number, Aimee. And everything is suffering, Gautama. Eavesdropping on Paul Ingram, the iconic book buyer for Prairie Lights, as he met with book vendors at various tables near mine. Spotting Jorie Graham, my undergraduate intellectual idol, reading the shelves of the poetry aisle (how meta is that?!). And the day that I headed into Prairie Lights keenly aware that it was the last time in a long time that I would frequent Prairie Lights' book-adorned halls and tables and stairways and nooks and crannies. I had no idea then what I would be missing forever in Iowa City... Prairie Lights me manque!!!

Santa Fe-vorites

My mom and I recently traveled to Santa Fe and had a fun weekend trip filled with food, food, and more food. The red or green pepper debate continues! Our favorite part of the trip was our afternoon lunch at the Inn of the Anasazi---yummy Southwestern food and an atmosphere that made us feel very Santa Fe hip. We stayed at the okay Eldorado--a good location for shopping, dining, sightseeing, and vista rooftop views of the city of Santa Fe.

In the Plaza, we ogled over the on-trend jewelry and tried on too many designer clothes (Issey Miyake, Dries Van Noten, Missoni) at Santa Fe Dry Goods. We also had fun sampling the too-numerous-to-count olive oil and balsamic vinegar varieties at Oleaceae only to realize that our evoo palates are woefully unrefined.

Overall the trip was a success except for the part where we got ripped off by a small textile boutique next to the Eldorado (Vivi of Santa Fe)---the guy working told us that everything in the store was handmade from local artisans: I bought a pretty raw silk skirt that doubled as maternity clothes and my mom found a bright fleece to wear for the cool Santa Fe evenings. When we got back to our hotel room we found the tags that read "Made in Vietnam": buyers beware (especially unsuspecting tourists from Nebraska)! The whole thing made us laugh at the time, but I still shake my head every time I wear my Santa Fe/Vietnam skirt...grrr!