To start this article, I would like to state that I do want to start this article. Or rather, I do not want reason to start this article… Unfortunately the new “Boulder Way” is just going on..and on. Persevering and quickly conquering… Two bookstores this month have fallen to defeat by the hike in rents, or the simple fact of the matter that everyone flocks to Borders these days to find all the New York Times Bestsellers and leave the obscure, older, and unknown behind…
Our friends, High Crimes Mystery Bookstore, and the soon to be closing Happenstance Books & Curiosities have been sadly defeated by the mentality which has somehow ingrained itself into our small society. High Tech Business Forbes magazines are everywhere, and we watch as the institutions, or newer oddities die out and become lost in the sands of ridiculously view obstructing buildings packed to the nines with expensive housing and corporate play things.
High Crimes Mystery Bookstore, has graced the West End of Pearl Street for as long as I can remember, focusing on a genre of a popular past, and consistently holding Author Meet & Greets, something to remind us that Nancy Drew is still alive in each one of us, that instead of watching Law & Order for six hours straight we could still exercise our vocabulary and pick up a beautifully dark and mysterious piece of fiction to get lost in. They officially closed their doors to the public on March 15th, and are now online: Here, no longer gracing the landscape of 9th and Pearl, but instead succumbing to the Amazon-Barnes & Noble-speed the world has propelled into…
Which is the exact same thing that is about to happen to the rustic, collaged, beautiful store of Oddities, Happenstance. On May 31st, the young but reminiscent bookstore will be shutting it’s doors, emptying it’s shelves and entering the online world of Antiquarian Books, no longer gracing us with it’s mismatched presence, bricks, and great worlds made inside of Wine Boxes. If you have the chance to, I highly suggest taking the few dollars you have in your pocket and immediately visiting them before you can no longer do so. The shelves are covered in various old magazines, fiction, classics, rare, and out of print books (including the first edition boxed “Coney Island Of The Mind”) poetry, postcards, clippings and oddities you wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else. They’re located at 1831 Pearl Street, just down the street from where Penny Lane once was. They are currently having a moving sale, which will continue until the last day, with large discounts and certain buy one get one frees’. If you can, please, please do.
Rest In Peace my friends. We’re all trying to stop the pattern, and I only pray this plague won’t spread to the few Independent Bookstores that still grace our presences.
