Scribe

Cool.

Wow.

Hey, thanks for having me.

That's true.

Well, can I tell the story?

The first time I saw Johnny. You guys want to hear that story?

We were. We were in college. We were taking that music. What, like music for plants? I don't know. We were in that weird music class.

And. And it was at that weird out building because they were doing construction. And I just remember him. He used to smoke at the time. And you were in class and I was friends with Ari already. Or was it. Was that his name? Johnny? What was his name?

Arie. That's right. And. And you were just messing around. This is before class. And he asked you for a lighter or something or. I don't know. He was giving you back a lighter and you were like, thanks. And you're like, oh, I really like your sweater. And you kind of caught his sweater on fire. It just ran up his sleeve. And. And I was like, wow, that guy is crazy and funny. I like him.

Do you want to be friends? Because I like playing with fire too.

So that was. Yeah, that was Johnny back in the day.

You're just gonna be like, hey, guys, it's coffee time. Come on.

Sure. Yeah. I. Well, I hail from Baltimore. More specifically, Dundalk. Dundalk. And, yeah, it's crazy that a lot of people joke. Oh, you own a bookstore now and you're from Dundalk. Those two things are. Apparently don't go together. But I love my home hometown. And, yeah, I'm living in Portland, Oregon. I've been out here several. Well, like 14, maybe 16 years. So not. I'm. I'm a transplant, but I'm starting to have spent more time on the west coast than east coast or starting to add up those years. Yeah. And I have a lovely wife and two kids, and. Yeah, just living the life.

Well, I mean, really, Johnny was the one that was like, pencils are awesome. I think you started getting into them back in. I mean, he was always into what he was writing with. And then he got me into, like. I remember Johnny, like, when the gel pens first came out and you were like, oh, look at these things. I mean, of course, this is like the dinosaur age, but. And then, you know, being good friends with Johnny and a roommate, he started lending me stuff to write with. I was writing poetry at the time and, of course, term papers, and I kind of sprouted from there. And eventually when Johnny got into pencils, he started hooking me up with pencils. But I think pencils specifically, what I'm drawn to is just their simplicity, their easy ability to edit. And I really like that you can. The meditative process of sharpening them. There's something I really enjoy that I think that's great.

Oh, yeah, I agree.

I mean, I just. I think that books. It's maybe a cliche, but, you know, the. The ideas and the perspectives, the different ideas, things that maybe you never would have thought of on your own, and the perspectives that people introduce in books or through books can really change lives. And, I mean, I think Descartes said it best when he said that, you know, reading or what we're. When we're reading someone's thoughts, it's basically the best they have to offer. It's. Our thoughts have been condensed down and they're sharing them with us through this form. And. Yeah, and for instance, there's that. That scene in Wings of Desire. Do you guys. It was later made into that horrible Nicolas Cage film, the American version. Do you guys know the movie I'm talking about, about the angel that falls in love with the woman and then becomes human?

So there's that whole. That whole movie, the original, the Wings of Desire, the German one, is just beautiful. And it has a lot to do with literature. And there's a. There's a scene in there where the angel. The angels spend a lot of time at the libraries. Like, they can hear the human's thoughts. They can. And it's just. I think it's really indicative of how that's maybe, in my opinion, one of our highest forms of what we're bringing to the universe.

Yeah. I didn't write it. I'm just.

Yeah, even better. You should show them the scene. It's just. It's just so cool. It's just all these angels, it's in black and white. I mean, it's just. And if you haven't seen the film, I highly recommend it. It's got a young Nick. Nick Cave in it doing his things. And it has Columbo. What's his name?

Peter Falk, yep. And Peter Fox plays.

Yes, good point.

Yeah, that's a great question. Powell's is big. It's. I mean, it's like a city block down the one downtown. And there are other ones located throughout the different municipalities of Multnomah County. There's even some at the airport. But Powell's is like a whale. And my shop, or our shop, because it's my wife and my shop. We're more like a minnow. So we're just kind of. We're just following along with the whale. I was talking to somebody recently, and they had a great point that Powell's, that Portland is considered a city that reads. Very many smart people here. Powell's brings in all of the authors. There's so many events. If you go to Powell's website, you'll see everybody of renown. George Sanders to everybody. And they come here and do these readings, and it kind of creates this fertile soil for other things to pop up. So I think, at least my theory is we've only been open a month and a half so far, but that I live in St. John's neighborhood, which is. If you guys ever look at, like, a decal or, you know, Portland's called the city of bridges because there's like, 11, 13 bridges, whatever, throughout that runs along the city, crossing the Willamette. And St. John's is like the northern. One of the more northern points, and it has the St. John's Bridge. And the St. John's Bridge has become synonymous with the emblem of Portland for some reason. Even though we're, like, way north, and a lot of people don't go north this far, it's become this symbol of Portland. And I just. I like being a little neighborhood bookshop. I think that everybody good neighborhood should have a little neighborhood bookshop. Just like there should be a good pub on every corner. There should be a bodega. There should be a good bookshop that you can run to when you have to get a present, have an existential crisis, you know, need your kid to read something new and.

Yeah, we opened November 22nd and we did it in a hurry. It spawned out of a couple things. Mostly it spawned out of an existential crisis. Myself. I was, I was taking the an H and R block tax course because I do bookkeeping. And I was like, I wanted to maybe branch out. And I was probably three weeks into this tax course and I was really not enjoying it. I was just like, I don't want to do this with my life. And I was in St. John's at my favorite coffee shop and I glanced across the street street one morning when I was really feeling low and like I don't know what I'm doing with my life. And I saw this little space available. It's 400 square feet. It's very small. It used to be Wayne the Barber Shop. He was there for 40 some years and he was like kind of a mascot of St. John's and I thought, wow, that space is available. That price is amazing. I want to do this. I talked to my wife Peggy and she said, call the landlord right now. And I met with him like I think that day or the. I think it was that day that afternoon. And yeah, it just kind of blossomed from there. We only had a month to put it together because our neighbor at the shop next door, she suggested November 22nd. And we signed the lease October 16th. And my wife works. My wife works full time at a hospital. I work part time bookkeeping at a nonprofit. We have kids, we have dogs, we have lots of responsibilities and I think it's mostly due to my wife, but it just became our passion and we just took it on.

I don't know if that's the remedy yet, but

sooth it for a moment.

Okay, so it's like remainders or stuff like that.

Yeah.

Well, you know, we are primarily used, but we do have some new titles. There's some stuff we can't keep in used or I can't find used. And, you know, 400 square feet. We're definitely. But there's a couple things I say, but usually I say we're small, but we were selective and we pack a punch and people come in and say, wow, you're very well curated. But for instance, books that I carry new, that I do find used, but they usually just fly off the shelf when they're used. Price is Dune anymore, Commie Books, Octavia Butler, Ursula Le Guin, who's a patron of Portland here. And there's a bunch of other stuff, but I do like the used aspect. We do carry some new stuff, though, and especially we've been focusing lately on trying to carry small press, local stuff.

Well, now you're. You're asking me to reveal my tricks.

You know, it's a really good resource because. Because Oregon is so. And I. I don't know, it's maybe just the Northwest or Maybe it's the West Coast. I mean, there's just so many books. People read so many, so much here. A really good resource is library sales. And library sales typically happen in the. At least here they happen in the fall and then again in the spring, and sometimes sporadically, they're in the winter and stuff like that. And there's a good website I can tell you about to look to actually find your area, and you can find library book sales that are occurring. Yeah, I'm going to go to McMinnville this weekend, for instance. Instance, because it was a great library sale several months ago and they're having it again. So I'm gonna hit that up. There's also something here called the Portland bins. I don't like going too much, but do you guys have the Portland bins? Like, do you down in San Francisco have the bins?

You guys should look into it because usually they occur at epicenters or like cities. So it's basically like. It's like warehouse for Goodwill. They bring out all these things in bins and you literally go through it. So there's like bins of books and it's like you just dig into it. So that's. I hit that up sometimes. Lately, of course, people have been bringing stuff in because I offer store credit or a little bit of cash. But, yeah, I'd say libraries or library book sales have been my savior.

Yeah, I mean, I think because we are only 400 square feet, I should say we're used books. We have some new stuff, as I mentioned, and some local newer stuff. But we also have records, like used vinyl. It's just a small selection of used vinyl to just kind of give us a little bit of diversity. And actually, it harkens back to my favorite bookshop in Baltimore, which is Normals. And they. Yeah, Normals has, you know, amazing selection of records and books. They're way bigger than us. They're awesome. And when you guys go, Johnny has to take you to Normals. Definitely. But as far as what we try to carry, we try to just cast a wide net. So we carry, like literature because our name is Revolutions. We have leftist writings like Emma Goldman. Occult stuff sells really well, which is cool because that stuff I think is interesting, like occult, esoteric, weird stuff. Tarot. Tarot cards are on fire out here right now. As well as witchcraft, writing and philosophy and like I said, local stuff.

I'm glad you're pronouncing it. I always thought it was Amazon.

Well, I mean, that's a great question. When I would. We, you know, in the process of putting the, you know, once we signed the lease, and I'm like, okay, we're doing this and we start trying to get fixtures and, you know, all this rigmarole and of course, acquire books for it. You know, I start saying crazy things like, do people even read anymore? I don't. It's just a crazy idea. But, you know, we just had this, like, faith, like, if you build it, they will come. We're really lucky because where we're located in St. John's St. John's has like a strip, like an old school, kind of like an old school town. It just has this main avenue and so it's like this main artery and we're on that. So for instance, for the Christmas season, we had a lot of foot traffic and we did very little if any advertising. We just opened one day and people just started coming in. And it helped, of course, that we opened during the holiday season. People are hunting for the perfect gift for themselves and other people and. Yeah, but Amazon, of course, is. It's daunting, how stifling it is, and it's affecting everything. I joined a local with the St. John's boosters. It's basically all the little neighborhood businesses come together and we, you know, have a little talk about, oh, what are we doing? Let's promote this. Let's come together and do the tree lighting and stuff like that. And, you know, there's a owner that owns Ace Hardware there that does, you know, I thought pretty well, but even he's intimidated by Amazon. It's just. It's just so ubiquitous now. But I think what storefronts have is of course, the buy local. And I think as climate changes and things get really bad, we're going to need to be able to get provisions closer to home. We can't be relying on things that are coming from so far away to get to us. Of course, that's a more dire thing. Just in a very happy sense. I think that especially when it comes to books, there's something about walking into a bookstore. Hopefully you've created the right environment that's welcoming. There's something about picking up books, looking, you know, just browsing and being immersed in them. And there's something about seeing a book that you're like, oh, I was looking for this, or I was looking for something like this, or I had no idea there was a book like this. Any of those, I hope. And it seems to be working is a good formula for enticing people to keep coming to a store.

Yeah, I mean, I. I think it could be the climate we're in. It could be that everyone's always on a device. And so my wife is, she's very convinced that people are, are actually tired of getting all their information from the devices that we, we're being so inundated by these things that it's nice to put them down and return to the simple format of holding a pencil, writing out something long form and holding a book. But you know, it's happening in a lot of different forms. I don't know about like, for instance, film, you know, like camera film. But there is a Blue moon camera in St. John's it's. It does really well for itself and it processes film. Camera or. Yeah, film from cameras. And of course you guys probably also heard that vinyl did really well last year. Apparently outsold CDs, which, I mean, who buys CDs anymore? But you know, I don't know why things are taking this turn. There is something, I think in us that we like tactile things. You know, we like holding things. There's something very securing and we, we can communicate with it better, I feel like, than a screen that is glaring at you. That's my theory.

I mean, they're doing it now, from what I can tell. I mean, I am not. That is to say, diversity is the flavor of life or whatever that saying is. But I also have an ebook reader. I use it when I travel. I do bike packing, and so I do overnight camping. And especially if it's like going to be a couple nights overnight camping. And it's just nice to. It helps me fall asleep if I read. So I might take my E reader with me. But e readers do have their drawbacks. You can't share a book. It's the same old thing that we've heard for years. You can't gift it or borrow it easily. And there's something, at least from what I saw this holiday season, it seems alive and well that people like finding books that they loved or they think somebody else will love and buying a copy and giving it to them and saying, I was thinking of you, apparently. Somebody even told me this amazing thing that in Iceland, there's a word for like, in Christmas time. It's like, that's all they give is, is books. And it's like, there's a term for it like boat book or it's like a boat full of books. I don't. And it just sounded beautiful to me that this, I wish that our culture would adopt this. Instead of giving each other all these, like, frivolous things, let's all just give each other books.

Oh, did you find it?

Oh, good. So I'm not making it up, but.

Getting back to your point really quickly, I mean, you know, I, I look, I have an ebook. It kind of freaks me out. I'm a very slow reader and it freaks me out that I, I'm sure there's a way to turn it off, but my Kindle tells Me. This is how many more hours of reading you have.

This is how fast far you are in the book. I mean, I really prefer, like, holding the book and like, weighing it and being like, oh, yeah, I'm almost through with this sucker. And I've taken all this in. You don't get that with a Kindle. Instead, I feel like it's always judging me.

No, you go ahead, please.

It's like that when you have a really long book, it really. And especially if you're a slow reader, it's. It's kind of like you're barely ever moving along. Yeah, I, I, yeah, it totally. I think the E books are fine and dandy, but there's also something about it that I don't feel like they're. They're my books. It's like that's the same reason why I'd rather own vinyl than buy, you know, a cd. Well, not CD in that case, but I mean, buy something digitally. I don't even like buying movies digitally online or anything like that. It's just something for me. I'm just old school, like, Johnny referenced, you know, we're pretty old, but speak to yourself. I just like looking at, you know, and saying, oh, yeah, those are my books and I can give them away or I can, you know, I don't ever really feel like anything I buy through Amazon or through ebooks is genuinely mine. I. Even when I was taking classes, I was taking classes at PCC last year for accounting and stuff, and I downloaded textbooks. I bought them. I don't know where they are. They're somewhere in the ether. I'd have to, like, Go through this whole rigmarole of like, where are these things things and what do I do with them? So that's just my two cents.

Yeah.

There is something to be said though. I mean, if we're going to go into like a little bit of a serious note and that is about, you know, altering texts, how easy it is to, you know, if everything were to go digital, that's. That's kind of freaky, you know, so there is, there's something about having something written down on paper that makes it a little more concrete and permanent.

Yep. I mean and yeah, let's hope that doesn't happen in general.

Oh, that's a great name.

Oh yeah. And you're helping out. You're helping out a local shop, which is awesome. I had never heard of that.

But you do you guys hear about the, you know what libraries are having to Go through fighting with these book distributors.

With their loan periods. And they're trying to put all these stipulations on it.

Yeah. It's becoming really bizarre. And it's really a clash of cultures there, you know, because the librarians, they believe in freedom of thought that, you know, they want. And I do, too. You should. Books should be able to be gotten somewhat easily. And these. Yeah, the ebooks are not very democratic, in my opinion, for that.

I. You know, I think it's nice when I first get there and I just, like, walk into it, I'm like, oh, this is my shop, and surrounded by books. And there's something great about being surrounded by books and being like, this is where I'm going to hang out today. I'm going to. This is where I'm going to be. And I really enjoy that. Of course, there's always the aspect of somebody coming in and looking for a particular type of book, and even if you don't have a specific book, you can maybe direct them to something that's similar. And I really like that feeling of somebody walking away happy and being like, oh, this is awesome. I really appreciate this, and I can't wait to come back.

So what.

That's a great question. I mean, because obviously they're not a library. There's something very democratic about libraries. But I think bookstores offer the ability to. Actually, there's something nice about owning a book. Like I've mentioned, I'm a very slow reader. So, you know, if I want to read a really big book, I. I probably going to have to buy it and take it home. But there's also. Bookshops do have that, as you mentioned, Johnny, they're like a. A hub. They. I've already noticed, with just opening Our little book shop that the bohemians, the artists, I would say the cool people started coming out right away to welcome us and try to help us in different ways. And there's something really neat about that. Just how they are a beacon of light and maybe these dark times. Yeah, I don't know if that specifically answers your question, but we just had our first. We had our first event this past weekend. It was three Poets that read and they were amazing. Granted, we're very small. We had like 25 attendees and maybe we could have fit another 10 people. That's it. And we're going to have more events. We're going to have a class on mycology in a few weeks for people that are interested in mushrooms, which are another really hot thing here in the Pacific Northwest. Yeah, yeah. I think there's something about local bookshops that offer that to the community as well.

Oh, I, she's. I, you know, I don't, I can't think of one thing specifically. I mean one person asked about the Kama Sutra, which ironically I haven't come across used and I don't know if I'd want to. Why is this sticky? What's wrong with these pages? But

And it's okay. But during the Christmas season, what I thought was funny and it kind of shocked me at first, some people came into the shop and they, and I was like, hey, you know, I always greet them and I say, let me know if you're looking for anything. And a couple people, like, they were just dropping off a load of laundry to you. They would just like start giving you a description of somebody. Like, well, he's in his 50s and he's a hardcore sci fi addict. So he's read all of that. So. But you know, what else do you have that he might be into? And so I really dug it after it became a cool challenge. I liked that it was like a game. Like, oh, what can we find that uncle would do?

Yeah, I Mean, that's, that's what I mean. There's a close line. Obviously you can't have read everything in the bookstore, but you have to have a good grasp of what is in the bookstore and you can at least point people. You know, you're like people's Virgil to use the Divine Comedy reference. You're. You're just trying to guide them through the way and say, hey, this might work and let's go this way. But, you know, there is one book I have in stock that I could tell you guys about. I don't know if this is. Plays into your question at all, but I have a 1979 Dungeon Master's guide on display. And DND people really love that stuff. I don't know. I've never played dnd, but they really love it. And so, you know, it's. It's something that gets a lot of. Oh, that's cool. And people look at it, but yeah, that's. That, that's pretty fun.

Well, you know, I have, I have aspirations to do. So like I said, we opened so quickly. There were some things that kind of had to just fall by the wayside. I do have like a little spin tray at my front counter and it's filled with. Kind of Inspired by Johnny a little bit. It's filled with. I have like fun erasers, like, you know, just like UFO erasers. I have some pencil sharpeners. I don't have any pencils yet. However, I do have. I did come across some great handmade blank journals that were you. Somebody took some old books that were probably no good anymore and made them into blank journals. So I have those. I do want to get some pencils, though. So I'm trying to figure out who my stationary supplier should be.

Oh, yeah, Yeah, I would love that.

That's a good question. I mean, Stumptown is a. Is a long time. You know, it's been around for years. It's. But Stumptown, I think it's national now. Do you guys. Do any of you guys have Stumptown?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's where I'm a little bit like, is it really Portland anymore? But however, there is one on Belmont. It's a street here in Portland, and I really still love there. It was the first place when I got off a plane, my friend took me. I said, I need a coffee. She took me to Belmont, and I got Stumptown coffee there, and I still love their coffee there. I'm working down the street currently from a place that also brews roast its own coffee, and that's called Cellar Door. I like their coffee, but my hometown favorite is right across the street from Revolutions, and that's affogato. And so do you guys know about the Italian affogatos, what they are?

Okay, cool. Do you want to describe it to the audience?

Right, Right. Yeah, you can get gelato and. Yeah, they make. They make their own gelatos. Now, granted, in the morning, I'm not going there and getting the gelato, but, you know, they still have an affogato there in St. John's in my opinion, has the best coffee.

In North Portland.

Oh, yeah. You get like a cookies and cream gelato or something with your espresso over it. So good.

Yeah, I mean, it is very, very coffee. You know, this town has a lot of. Well, here's the funny thing. It has a lot of bookshops, believe it or not. I didn't mention that. It's a lot of little bookshops around. Even though there's pals, they all specialize in something different. There's a lot of strip clubs. There's a lot of. There's a lot of microbrewers.

Yeah. Grappling.

Well, leather mints are made here. And so, yeah, there's that really cool

I didn't know that.

Oh, well, there you go. Tennessee.

Hey, Tim, I love. I love Tennessee. I have to say. I've been to Knoxville, and I just. I just love that Knoxville for some reason. That was years ago, but, yeah, I love Tennessee.

Okay, cool. Oh, sorry.

Oh, yeah, that was the question. I. I've been reading Octavia Butler's Kindred.

Oh, man. It's good. It's a little dark, so sometimes I have trouble reading that before bed, but I always have, like, a. I have. Also at the shop right now, I always have, like you mentioned before, Andy, I have multiple books, always going at once. So at the shop, I've been reading Elaine Debuton's book on. I think it's called On Anxiety or something. It's about social anxiety or, like, status. That's a. Status anxiety. Yeah. I also have some tarot card books picked out that I need to. Because tarot cards, like I mentioned, are so hot right now. I think there was even a article written about it, how people are using them for more of psychological guidance. Not. Not for, like, psychic things, but more for psychological things. And so they're very hot right now, so I want to understand how they work.

Yeah.

Oh, wow, that's a. That's a good curveball. Well, you know, have any of you read Dune?

I am also negligent. But it's also on my list because it's such a hot seller. And I recently. I think there's, like, a TED Talk, they do a little video on why you should read Dune. And I watched that, and I was like, oh, this sounds fascinating. So Dune might be a good one to turn to. Have any of you guys read. Of course, this is still on the Sci Fi event. Any of our. Ursula Le Guin, who I just a

Yeah, that's a great one. But it depends on what you're looking for for your winter. Some people really just want that hulking big book that they've been putting off. So then, you know, maybe Infinite Jest is the one. I don't know.

It's, you know.

Yeah.

But, you know, I, I, you know, it's tricky when people come in the big. The biggest curveball I find is when people say they want something more lighthearted. But literature. And if you think about it, a lot of literature is not light hearted or I don't think it is.

Yeah. Have you guys ever heard of my, my personal. One of my top five, and this will be my last recommendation, is Flann o'. Brien. He was Irish and he wrote and you know, he was like, I think when James Joyce was around, he was writing. But he wrote this book called the Third Policeman, which is really cool, funny, surreal. It starts out with this guy that kills another guy by taking a heavy, like an old bicycle pump, that's heavy metal lead or whatever, and hitting him over the skull and kills him. And then it kind of just takes off from there. And that's one of my favorite books.

Yeah, it's a fun one.

Oh, are you kidding me? Thanks so much for having me.

What was I going to talk about?

I like pencils and books.

Yeah, I, I have more stories I could tell. The birdhouse story.

No, that is definitely Etsy 17R or something.

Johnny, thanks to you, I can never block it out. I still have trouble eating Boston cream donuts.

Well, because we are Luddites, we're still working on our webpage, but we, we are on Instagram you can follow us on Revolutions Bookshop, on Instagram and. Yeah, otherwise, just come visit us when you're in Portland, in North Portland, 8713 North Lombard street, across from Affogado and the movie theater.

Thanks so much, guys.

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