The Book Store issue

Prager: "Do you know how many girls I picked up in bookstores when I was a kid?"

Dozens, probaby, and they were far more interesting and of higher quality than the sad, dumb girls you meet on Facebook, or MySpace.

When I moved to Westwood in 1973 and started going to college at UCLA in 1974, the Village was full of book stores. There was the ineviable B. Dalton Pickwick, which was the book megastore of its day. Then there were Hennesy and Ingalls, an art and architecture store; there was another megastore soon after that, it might have been Borders, plus another store that had the world's most beautiful coffee table books (and had a sister store) in Palos Verdes). Across the street was a store that carried plenty of teach yourself books and books on (but not in) foreign languages. If you got in the car and drove down Westwood Boulevard you'd pass the astrology and new age stores, the feminist store, the s-f and fantasy store. All the way down at Pico Boulevard were the French books and Spanish books store, I believe owned by a husband-wife pair, and a wonderful children's books and music store (which was originally in West L.A. on SMBlvd but moved into southern Westwood). Two miles to the east was Beverly Hills and several bookstores there. In Century City were a couple of book stores and a number of stores that had pretty decent specialty book sections.

Much of the business of these stores was stolen by Santa Monica's books district on Second Street. Many many used-books shops and specialty shops now line that street. If I were pretty enough to get picked up by some man while I was reading a book--and because of the book I was reading--that's where I would go.

But further, on the issue of whether this is a good place to meet people? I don't think so. Back in the old days, when I used to be reasonably pretty, I was always in book stores (though I can't say I was looking for a guy, except ONE time), always reading, always buying books. I bought books on foreign languages, books on history, books by Jane Austen (never any by any Bronte), biographies, lots of non-fiction. I'm a tomboy, so maybe the fact that I wasn't standing in the sexy novels section but was often in the car repair manuals section labeled me as a wife shopping for her husband, but at other times, wasn't it classy enough for me to be reading books on Agincourt or on 1066?

There is so much embarrassment about meeting strangers or going to a pick-up spot, like the espresso bar at Barnes and Noble, that I have found grocery stores good places to CHAT with people and horrible places to exchange phone numbers. How the hell do you stand talking with someone long enough to know if you want to see them again? I would hope you'd like almost everyone you meet this way well enough to say to yourself, "seemed like a pleasant enough person" but I'd be appalled if you actually exchanged phone numbers this way.

Sounds like a business opportunity for someone. Of course you dislike bars, Dennis, and not just because they're loud and obnoxious, but because the people who go to them are not the kind you'd want to meet. One of these days I'll have a few bucks, fix up my car, and go to the listener group that I joined two years ago. Then I'll have someone to talk with.