There were a few things that we'd yet to do or see with our "Fellowship of the Paggi", that we decided to tackle on our own on Monday. In no specific order, they'll appear below, but for a glimpse: Powell's Bookstore; Chinatown; Voodoo Doughnuts; and the historic train station.
Chinatown
There was a cool gate that led to the historic district:
...but the district itself was mostly a quiet letdown. A few chop-suey restaurants, a few more gentleman's clubs (establishments that were in abundance), and many empty lots. The area is certainly ripe and ready for attention.
Union Station
It looked cool, and had some delicious water that we used to refill our water bottle:
I'm not sure how old it is, but the black and white pictures inside give an idea...
Powell's Bookstore
I wasn't sure where I wanted to start with this. I have a weakness for books. Powell's bookstore, as I mentioned in last night, is the de facto King of the Independent American Bookstore. I had reservations about that designation, reservations that grew out of my appreciation and love for the Strand in New York. The Strand had signed copies (as in plural) of Gould's Book of Fish, straight chilling on the shelf.
Whutchoo got, Powell's?
Well...
The Strand didn't have anything like this, an early '60s pocketbook edition of The Crying of Lot 49. Score.
I found the Flanagan section, and while it was robust, it didn't have any signed copies of Gould's...
Not that I'm really keeping score, but this is serious (for me). Powell's had enough Mishima books that you could tell it would be a contender, but their Mo Yan selection made me a believer. They had multiple copies of each of his books except the one I wanted, of which they only had a single copy. It happened to be a first edition hardback and cost fifty bucks.
Too rich for my blood.
They had nearly every Murakami book published by the colorful Vintage editions.
I even found the following David Foster Wallace book I'd been looking for since 2010:
It was a first edition as well, but less than ten bucks.
This was the book that Wallace was writing when he ended his own life. It's about sadness and boredom and tax professionals.
Powell's did have a rare book room. The Strand may have one, but I didn't get over to see it. Powell's was very nice, quiet, clean, and had a handout of sorts, a sheet of paper explaining various things about their rare book collection.
Curious about their oldest book in their rare book collection? Printed in 1480, De Bello Judaica ("The Jewish War"), is their oldest book, printed at a time when book printing was still in its infancy. It only costs $12,500.
I say "only" as a modifier of the cost because it pales in comparison to Powell's current "most expensive book". That title belongs to an 1814 two-volume first edition of Journals of Lewis and Clark, complete with original binding and large, folding map. The original binding and map help make this edition exceedingly rare and expensive: it's priced at $350,000.
The math and science section of Powell's is across the street at Powell's II.
That's the kind of thing that helps me see them as the preeminent independent bookstore.
Voodoo Doughnuts
Home of the famous maple-bacon bar, we stopped by a few times only to see the line fifty people deep. On this Monday, though, it was oddly quiet, so we went inside and took a look at the Big Board:
We did get two of their famous signatures, the bacon-maple bar (a maple bar with two slices of bacon on top), as well as one of our cashier's favorites (it was also my choice for doughnut number two) an Old Dirty Bastard. The ODB is a chocolate frosted doughnut with crushed oreo for sprinkles and a drizzle of peanut butter over it.
I was prepared for the maple and bacon mixing for yummy-ness, but I wasn't prepared for the super high quality of the doughnut itself. I'd taken for granted how good a good doughnut could be. Oh man, was it good...
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