Caffeinated Dreams
What is good coffee without a novel companion? Ng
Kaijie browses through the bookstores near Fremantle’s Cappuccino Strip, and
admires the idealists who continue to resist the superficial tourist culture.
“Books occupy a
space that time doesn’t own, so we find them when we need them.” – Jeanette
Winterson
You can’t judge a book by its cover, and you can’t see the heartbeat of Fremantle by looking at its squeaky clean and freshly scrubbed façade. It’s fake. Tempting, pretty, alluring, but fake.
Fremantle, or Freo, as the locals call it, is famous for its South Terrace coffee stretch that is the heartbeat of the city. The 200 metre strip houses a selection of alfresco cafes, restaurants and pubs in a meticulously preserved 19th century streetscape.
Colonial facades have been maintained, but the buildings are hollow. The pleasure district is one where people dine and drink, to see and be seen. Beneath the bustle of middle-class pleasure, it is hard to see any sophistication in Fremantle’s culture. Overpriced meals herald a period of plenty, when tourists and locals alike, in place of yesteryear’s prospectors, pay the surcharge for over 300 days of sunshine a year.
A touristy bubble world has descended on a fiercely independent Australian culture. In Freo, both tourists and locals are plugged into the same drip – caffeine, microbrewery beer, fish and chips, and in the words of more than half a dozen locals I met, “bloody good weather”. Once you approach the Fremantle Market where the Cappuccino Strip begins, independent thinking ceases, and customers flock to the pleasure abodes with abandon.
Yet, there is a cure. Tourism pretends to be old and significant, but this false front is easily exposed by the real deal. As I wandered beyond South Terrace and onto nearby High Street, I discovered defiant grey-haired exiles - traditional bookstores that inhabit the same district, but offering a counterculture of books and nostalgia.
You can’t judge a book by its cover, and you can’t see the heartbeat of Fremantle by looking at its squeaky clean and freshly scrubbed façade. It’s fake. Tempting, pretty, alluring, but fake.
Fremantle, or Freo, as the locals call it, is famous for its South Terrace coffee stretch that is the heartbeat of the city. The 200 metre strip houses a selection of alfresco cafes, restaurants and pubs in a meticulously preserved 19th century streetscape.
Colonial facades have been maintained, but the buildings are hollow. The pleasure district is one where people dine and drink, to see and be seen. Beneath the bustle of middle-class pleasure, it is hard to see any sophistication in Fremantle’s culture. Overpriced meals herald a period of plenty, when tourists and locals alike, in place of yesteryear’s prospectors, pay the surcharge for over 300 days of sunshine a year.
A touristy bubble world has descended on a fiercely independent Australian culture. In Freo, both tourists and locals are plugged into the same drip – caffeine, microbrewery beer, fish and chips, and in the words of more than half a dozen locals I met, “bloody good weather”. Once you approach the Fremantle Market where the Cappuccino Strip begins, independent thinking ceases, and customers flock to the pleasure abodes with abandon.
Yet, there is a cure. Tourism pretends to be old and significant, but this false front is easily exposed by the real deal. As I wandered beyond South Terrace and onto nearby High Street, I discovered defiant grey-haired exiles - traditional bookstores that inhabit the same district, but offering a counterculture of books and nostalgia.
Looking Inwards - Redefining Fremantle’s Soul
“What I say is, a town isn't a town without a
bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it's got a bookstore it knows
it's not fooling a soul.” - Neil Gaiman, American Gods
The façade of the New Edition Bookshop shows no sign of its 27 years of age. Its front is a perfect rendition of a theme park’s New York Courts of Justice. Indeed, the pillars are so phony and the shop sign’s font so infantile that it might as well be a kitsch copy of Rome-inspired architecture. Yet, there it stands, almost sarcastic in a flamboyance that suits the heritage-and-façade conscious city so well.
The design also symbolises a booklover’s protest against the tide of superficiality. At 40, James Calligaro has spent more than a quarter of his life managing the store and owning it for half that period. His black-and-brown outfit (from spectacles, to long-sleeved shirt, pants, and shoes) make him the stereotypical intelligentsia, while his genteel voice gives the impression of patience and stoicism. Both characteristics, I assumed, were nursed by the store’s setbacks – falling profits and a forced relocation.
The façade of the New Edition Bookshop shows no sign of its 27 years of age. Its front is a perfect rendition of a theme park’s New York Courts of Justice. Indeed, the pillars are so phony and the shop sign’s font so infantile that it might as well be a kitsch copy of Rome-inspired architecture. Yet, there it stands, almost sarcastic in a flamboyance that suits the heritage-and-façade conscious city so well.
The design also symbolises a booklover’s protest against the tide of superficiality. At 40, James Calligaro has spent more than a quarter of his life managing the store and owning it for half that period. His black-and-brown outfit (from spectacles, to long-sleeved shirt, pants, and shoes) make him the stereotypical intelligentsia, while his genteel voice gives the impression of patience and stoicism. Both characteristics, I assumed, were nursed by the store’s setbacks – falling profits and a forced relocation.
 |
| The Mid-Life Mission. At 40, James Calligaro didn't go through a crisis. He made it his commitment.
The New Edition Bookshop specialises in paperback
Penguin classics and modern classics - playfully described by Mark Twain as
books that “people praise but don’t read”. However, James maintains the
necessity of these books in instilling “insightful thought”. This is despite publishers
dropping their prices overnight from AUD$14-50 to AUD$10 as a response to
cheaper e-books. More books were sold, but profits continued to decline.
Even though the New Edition Bookshop has been a veritable
grandfather of Fremantle’s book industry, it has not all been plain-sailing – due
to increasing rentals, the store was forced to move from South Terrace in 2007.
While relocation has thinned the crowds, it has also allowed for a revamp of
the business concept to keep up with the times.
Seeing coffee as “a phenomenon that people do in the
morning”, James decided to merge a café with the bookstore to cater to the
caffeine-loving crowd. A partnership was worked out with the Grumpy Sailor
(which, funnily enough, was also born to adverse circumstances. The name was
intended for a fish and chips shop that didn’t work out) to provide coffee and
cake on its premises. Quality coffee, not the “terrible goop being offered on
that stretch”, was what people would come for and meet up over.
|
 |
| Victorian Coffee Culture. Calligaro's re-creation of a bourgeois salon. |
Books, on the other hand, “sell incidentally in comfortable
and interesting environments”. Coffee was merely the bait that reeled in the
catch. The bookstore’s interior represents James’ private war against “sterile
public spaces”. He points to the Woolstores Shopping Centre that sits beside
the main train station, lamenting, “It is the number one community place, but
it is chock full of generic shops.” In contrast, James envisions the bookstore
as a forum where “people gather and ideas collide”.
He is already halfway there. The store’s interior successfully
melds contemporary library furnishings with old English-style reading furniture.
It is a meeting place where you just feel
intelligent and talkative enough to discuss the significance of some
classic or recommend favourite novels to a total stranger. The harder part is in
the conversion. Sipping a cuppa at the Cappuccino Strip is still remains more
attractive than getting some food-for-thought at the bookstore.
A Business of Nostalgia, Where Books are Sent to Die
With first-hand paperbacks sold at
fire-sale prices, how do second-hand bookstores survive in a lower-tier market
of condemned titles? I found the answer in Bill Campbell Secondhand Books. Its
exterior was refreshingly simple – the words “SECOND HAND BOOKS” in giant letters
fronted the store, leaving no mystery as to what it offered. I was reminded of
Notting Hill’s The Travel Book Co., with grayish-blue paint and full-length
windows that revealed a treasure trove of tomes.
 |
| Old, But Not Out. Antiquity lives on at Bill Campbell Secondhand Books. |
If Hugh Grant ever owned a bookstore,
he would be Bill Campbell. Everything about Bill and the store said old school.
At 55, Bill cuts the figure of an English professor with his poise and measured
tone. There is a subtle charm about someone who has spent more than 7 years in
the book trade, which has also translated to the store’s décor. Bill merely
wanted “something that smelt literary, where people can sit down, read a book,
but also buy one”. It was basic and backward, but that suited him fine. His
renovation plans consist of little beyond “maybe shift the counter over there?”
 |
| Hugh Grant at 55. |
 |
| All in the Family. Ancient mixes with the mature, young, and titles that have just shed their first ink on the bookshelves.
The truth is, he doesn’t need to. Locals and tourists continue
to flock the premises. Even though there are only dark wooden stools and chairs
for the sit-down reader in cramped quarters, there is a certain allure in
imagining yourself as a classic author, sitting cross-legged and smoking an ash
pipe in a great library.
Yet, with
the drastic drop in book prices, why would customers prefer a used copy? Rummaging
through the shelves of books, I hoped to find my own answer. After all, not
everyone is an avid antique collector. Or
are they? The distinct smell of some ancient titles lured me to open them
and smell it, as if uncorking a fine bottle of vintage wine. The aroma of
yellowed paper pulp caught me as times past, complemented by the occasional
written dedications and notes on the margins.
And then it struck me. Bill was in the business of
selling nostalgia, and I was living someone else’s life – the dog’s ears and
creases piece together to reconstruct the tale of its previous readers. This is
the real history of Freo’s past
inhabitants.
I walked away from High Street’s book stretch, feeling
less perturbed. Freo’s touristy
culture may be alive and fed well just a street away, but its antidote lies
here, just waiting to be discovered. While the New Edition Bookstore tries to introduce
sophistication through a nourishing public space, Bill Campbell’s second hand
trade casts light on Fremantle’s forgotten legacies. In these secret vaults,
their custodians persevere in a common purpose, biding their time for the next
golden age.
|
New Edition Bookshop
Monday – Friday, 730a.m. – 6p.m.
Saturday, 8a.m. – 6p.m.
Sunday, 9a.m. – 6p.m.
82 High Street
Fremantle, West Australia
Telephone: +61 (08) 9335 2383
Bill Campbell Secondhand Books
Monday - Friday, 10a.m. – 5p.m.
Saturday - Sunday, 12a.m. – 5p.m.
48 High Street
Fremantle, West Australia
Telephone: +61 (08) 9336 3060
No comments:
Post a Comment