There are no words to describe Green Apple and yet too many at once. They're all over the shelves alphabetically by author or piled on the floor. At Green Apple I read. The selection is maddening. Over my years wandering the store I've amassed an absurd horde of books on all manner of topic, books to sprain and tangle my already convoluted world views. Books on what a political body should be, on what cigarettes do to the mind. Books on feral children, Trappist monks, racist jokes, history of color. And of course as I collected them I read them. I read on milk. I read on Tintin's literary value. Theory of perspective, perception, suicide, cycling, and mother nature as a stone cold bitch. Poetry by Charles Simic and Hanshan. I understand Schrödinger's Cat now and my room is littered with collections of comics, European porno, Japanese horror and fervent American nihilism. I haven't even mentioned the novel after novel after novel of elation, depression, eccentricity or ennui.These books speak for themselves, but the curated amalgamation speaks for the store, as expansive as the human condition. Big and fat and dense. This place is the best.
Sadly, deep within the core of my crappy body rests old Trundle, the verb, capital T. Move right along like mankind. Okay? Four winters ago I was supposed to hitchhike my way to Philadelphia, but when a job opportunity at my then and still favorite independent bookstore in San Francisco arose I was waylaid. That was fine though. It was worth every minute. Green Apple Books has been far more than a paycheck for an overpriced apartment, but at once an anthropology course, cocktail party, and archaeological excursion. There are few places like Green Apple left in the whole world, a labyrinthine catacomb of information and entertainment, and from what I read in the papers maybe fewer every day. There are a million reasons to stay but, though I will miss it, I still quit.
This song can play me to the door. Let's call it graduation. Bye.
