Old bookstores and the Old West
Jul. 9th, 2013 05:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladybug_archive... Dreams are weird. Specifically, my dreams.
So I watched a late-night airing of an American Ride episode I'd missed the first time around. This season has been all about the Old West period, and I've just been eating it up.
Afterwards, I crash for a brief doze. And prove once again that the weirdest dreams come when I'm just taking brief naps.
I dream that for some reason, our house seems to be an old bookstore that used to be in a specific location in the capital city. (It has since moved.) Mom is showering and I'm waiting for her, and watching a different episode of American Ride. Then it and its supplemental material get over and I'm wandering through the bookstore part. It's late and most of the lights are off. I turn some of them on, checking to make sure everything's in order, and then turn them off again.
It wouldn't be a weird dream of mine without some form of getting lost. So the bookstore warps and I wander some more and now I can't find my way back to the starting point. I also discover that even though it's after-hours, there are people in some of the rooms. There's even some lady dozing on a couch! Apparently, I'm told, they're welcome in there and it happens every night.
I wander some more, at one point discovering a room with fake windows where you can look up and see replicas of some awesome rock formations. There's a display in the middle of the room with some objects supposedly used by people during the Old West, including some kind of golden tray/platter.
Continuing my wandering, I find a rack of graphic novels, including a couple of Bonanza ones. I have no idea if such things exist, although I wouldn't be surprised if there were regular comic books back in the day.
Further wandering leads me to some Western books, including one involving the old series Trackdown. I have no idea why my brain would pick that one, since I've only seen part of one episode and that was a long time ago.
There was also some vague remembrance in the dream of how the bookstore is rumored to be haunted (which rumors do exist in real-life). But I didn't see any ghostly manifestations.
A very, very weird dream, filled with nostalgia and longing and something bittersweet.
The bookstore itself seemed to be wrapped up in the Old West. I was deeply associating it with the time period in the dream, and I suppose the reason is because I think it first opened during that time period. I could be wrong about that. But it sells both new and used books, and some of the used ones are very, very old.
The layout really didn't resemble the real bookstore very much, or really any existing bookstore. It looked more like some libraries I've seen. The lighting was kind of dim in places too, I imagine because of it being after-hours. But even the lights that were on weren't terribly bright. It reminded me of a different used bookstore, if that bookstore had not been so small and cramped.
I don't entirely get the nostalgic and longing feelings from the dream. It could be because I'm going bonkers wanting to visit a bookstore again, although the one of choice would be Barnes and Noble. It's been ages since I've been in a bookstore that sells all kinds of books. I've mostly been in some specialty bookstores lately, since B&N is kind of expensive compared to both Borders and Amazon, and usually doesn't have what I want anyway. But I really want to go there again, just to look around if nothing else. Nothing can compare to being in a bookstore, especially not buying books online.
It really seemed like, though, that the feelings had more to do with the Old West than the bookstore setting. And you know, I'm honestly puzzled as to why I've always loved Westerns. I would hate to have lived back then. It was a hard life, and there was no air conditioning or indoor plumbing. I love and treasure those modern things and wouldn't want to be without them. In the case of air conditioning, I honestly don't know how I could get through the summer without it and fans. It's been triple digits and ugh, I just hate the heat! I can handle cold much better than heat.
Still, I've loved Westerns ever since I was around five and watched High Noon on TV. I was entranced, and that feeling has never left me. The marshals, the outlaws, the bounty hunters, the Secret Service agents.... There's something magic in it, and yet, I know that in reality, it was not magic at all. The romanticism of the time period doesn't make sense to me, yet at the same time, I fully accept and embrace and participate in it.
The Victorian era intrigues me too, especially the years during the classic Wild West period. I love whenever Jim and Arte visit high-class hotels and mansions and such and there's all that neat, classy furniture and striking colors. And I love steampunk, which generally takes place during the Victorian and Edwardian eras.
I watch a lot of Westerns these days, since pretty much all of the classic TV actors I currently adore have been in tons of Westerns. And I write for a lot of characters from Westerns, although since some of them have time-traveled to the present, I'm not sure it counts.
So I watched a late-night airing of an American Ride episode I'd missed the first time around. This season has been all about the Old West period, and I've just been eating it up.
Afterwards, I crash for a brief doze. And prove once again that the weirdest dreams come when I'm just taking brief naps.
I dream that for some reason, our house seems to be an old bookstore that used to be in a specific location in the capital city. (It has since moved.) Mom is showering and I'm waiting for her, and watching a different episode of American Ride. Then it and its supplemental material get over and I'm wandering through the bookstore part. It's late and most of the lights are off. I turn some of them on, checking to make sure everything's in order, and then turn them off again.
It wouldn't be a weird dream of mine without some form of getting lost. So the bookstore warps and I wander some more and now I can't find my way back to the starting point. I also discover that even though it's after-hours, there are people in some of the rooms. There's even some lady dozing on a couch! Apparently, I'm told, they're welcome in there and it happens every night.
I wander some more, at one point discovering a room with fake windows where you can look up and see replicas of some awesome rock formations. There's a display in the middle of the room with some objects supposedly used by people during the Old West, including some kind of golden tray/platter.
Continuing my wandering, I find a rack of graphic novels, including a couple of Bonanza ones. I have no idea if such things exist, although I wouldn't be surprised if there were regular comic books back in the day.
Further wandering leads me to some Western books, including one involving the old series Trackdown. I have no idea why my brain would pick that one, since I've only seen part of one episode and that was a long time ago.
There was also some vague remembrance in the dream of how the bookstore is rumored to be haunted (which rumors do exist in real-life). But I didn't see any ghostly manifestations.
A very, very weird dream, filled with nostalgia and longing and something bittersweet.
The bookstore itself seemed to be wrapped up in the Old West. I was deeply associating it with the time period in the dream, and I suppose the reason is because I think it first opened during that time period. I could be wrong about that. But it sells both new and used books, and some of the used ones are very, very old.
The layout really didn't resemble the real bookstore very much, or really any existing bookstore. It looked more like some libraries I've seen. The lighting was kind of dim in places too, I imagine because of it being after-hours. But even the lights that were on weren't terribly bright. It reminded me of a different used bookstore, if that bookstore had not been so small and cramped.
I don't entirely get the nostalgic and longing feelings from the dream. It could be because I'm going bonkers wanting to visit a bookstore again, although the one of choice would be Barnes and Noble. It's been ages since I've been in a bookstore that sells all kinds of books. I've mostly been in some specialty bookstores lately, since B&N is kind of expensive compared to both Borders and Amazon, and usually doesn't have what I want anyway. But I really want to go there again, just to look around if nothing else. Nothing can compare to being in a bookstore, especially not buying books online.
It really seemed like, though, that the feelings had more to do with the Old West than the bookstore setting. And you know, I'm honestly puzzled as to why I've always loved Westerns. I would hate to have lived back then. It was a hard life, and there was no air conditioning or indoor plumbing. I love and treasure those modern things and wouldn't want to be without them. In the case of air conditioning, I honestly don't know how I could get through the summer without it and fans. It's been triple digits and ugh, I just hate the heat! I can handle cold much better than heat.
Still, I've loved Westerns ever since I was around five and watched High Noon on TV. I was entranced, and that feeling has never left me. The marshals, the outlaws, the bounty hunters, the Secret Service agents.... There's something magic in it, and yet, I know that in reality, it was not magic at all. The romanticism of the time period doesn't make sense to me, yet at the same time, I fully accept and embrace and participate in it.
The Victorian era intrigues me too, especially the years during the classic Wild West period. I love whenever Jim and Arte visit high-class hotels and mansions and such and there's all that neat, classy furniture and striking colors. And I love steampunk, which generally takes place during the Victorian and Edwardian eras.
I watch a lot of Westerns these days, since pretty much all of the classic TV actors I currently adore have been in tons of Westerns. And I write for a lot of characters from Westerns, although since some of them have time-traveled to the present, I'm not sure it counts.
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no subject
Date: 2013-07-10 12:21 am (UTC)Trackdown... I am not familiar with that. Any names in there I might recognize?
And yes, there is nothing quite like a bookstore--especially a secondhand bookstore. You never know what treasures you'll find in there. Like novelizations of lost Doctor Who arcs..
no subject
Date: 2013-07-10 01:01 am (UTC)The one episode I was looking at had William Talman in it.
I'm still not terribly crazy about secondhand books, since I don't know where they've been and they can't really be cleaned (whereas a CD can at least be wiped down). But I do love browsing through the shops anyway. It really is exciting to find a treasure!