Maud's note: A magazine commissioned an article from me comparing New York City's indie bookstores with the chains. Unfortunately, my story included neither revelations about the sexual habits of teenage girls nor insights into the secret anxieties of New York's upper crust. Also, one sentence began, "Maybe I'd get off my lazy ass and go to a bookstore more often if...." Not quite the genteel, knowing tone my editor was looking for. When the piece was axed, I took my kill fee, paid off some dental work and mostly forgot about it. But while most New York indie bookstores -- like St. Mark's, Gotham Book Mart, and Three Lives -- are a pleasure to shop in, I've been simmering since last December about my experience at one hipster establishment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A a recent Craigslist posting inspired me to warn you off.

At Clovis Press, a young woman in a knit hat with dangling pom-poms couldn’t be bothered to respond orally to my greeting or request for a copy of n+1 although I was her only customer. Perhaps if I’d sported a winter hat indoors, too, we could have bonded. But I intentionally wore the same dowdy outfit to every store, under the theory that a modicum of politeness is in order whether or not one adheres to the neighborhood dress code.

In response to my inquiry, she tossed her head, unsmiling, at the table in front of me. When I grew flustered – was it my outfit? – and still couldn’t find it, she sighed and stalked over to the table. The lower half of the magazine was covered by a large piece of cardboard. Three picture books were propped over the upper third, obscuring the title. “That’s not supposed to be there,” she said, snapping up the cardboard but leaving the picture books in place.

“Oh, that’s okay,” I said, hoping her attitude might improve now that she’d been unmasked as not merely a boorish hipster, but a clueless one.

But she’d already turned away. And every new question I asked seemed only to exasperate her further. So I didn’t feel much like sticking around to peruse the scattershot selection of new and used fiction or the racks of tattered fanzines. I did notice a copy of Rupert Thomson’s Soft sitting on the used bookshelves, though, and The Baffler was on prominent display, so if you can brave the hate you’ll uncover some worthwhile reading material. “Fuck Barnes & Noble,” said a sign in the Clovis display case. It should have read: “leave me the fuck alone.”

Dana's note: I am shocked and dismayed that anyone--even Clovis Press' raggle-taggle staff--could possibly be rude to Maud Newton, perhaps the single most polite woman this side of the Queen Mum. However, I want to state for the court that, in my opinion, the Spoonbill and Sugartown** staff are much worse.

I went in to Spoonbill and Sugartown once. I was looking for Bachelard's Poetics of Space. I assumed it would be as good a place as any to find it, seeing as they themselves claim to "specialize in used, rare and new books on Contemporary Art, Art History, Architecture" [their illiterate capitalization, not mine].

But when I approached the Jarvis Cocker lookalike behind the counter, you'd have thought I was asking for the motherfucking DaVinci Code.

"Do you--" I began.

"No," the cashier curtly replied.

"--have Bachelard's--" I continued.

"NO." he interrupted.

"--Poetics of--"

"No. No. No."

I backed away from the counter, discouraged and shamed, cursing myself out over such a plebeian request.

But then, on my way out, I noticed a rather prominently displayed glossy photo book. It was a limited edition pressing of a book of photos, by Harmony Korine, of Macaulay Culkin in his underwear.

I haven't been back there except once, and that was to take a shit. On a book of Anselm Kiefer pencil studies printed on special paper made by blind monks.

*Looks like Maud's not the only one to be slapped with the business end of the Clovis mackerel.
**Or as I like to call them, Sugarpuss and Honkeytown.