Favourite Bookstores, p.6

The part of Munich I love best is between Königsplatz and Universität. In the heat of summer as well as in the knee-deep snow of late January, walking here has always been pure bliss. 

Getting lost inside Neue Pinakothek early in the morning and then, two hours later, dropping into a tiny bakery at the intersection of Theresienstrasse and Turkenstrasse. A cup of coffee, a slice of ginger cake, a few chapters from a book. Then you walk into Pinakothek der Moderne, completely by accident, and the huge white walls are devastating. The bizarre installations - not so much, but you have seen enough galleries of modern art not to be disappointed. And then, after a brief visit to the Victorian tea room whose opulent interior would have pleased Oscar Wilde, you might as well find yourself stepping into Schellingstrasse. And here, just by the subway station and the University library, you will find a bookstore named Words' Worth.  

Words' Worth. The pun is obvious but it has always been lost on me. Oddly, they only bothered to write the name of the shop on the window and what you see on the signboard above is a fairly desperate 'Anglia English Bookshop'. But who cares.

Because the place is delightful. Two floors of books, books, and more books. Granted, there is all the usual paraphernalia you may expect to find in an English bookshop outside England - china cups, Sherlock Holmes calendars, tote bags with Shakespeare, tea towels with the tedious 'Keep Calm' bullshit. But you feel it's only a clever smokescreen to get rid of tourists with no imagination, so you are willing to forgive. Because upstairs - they have all the classics, and to the left - they have the kind of books you came here for. 

In any bookstore I go to, there is a selection of authors and titles I check. It is not that I need those books, not necessarily, it is just that I have to know they are here. I love it when they are around: a collection of poems by Philip Larkin, Herzog by Saul Bellow, Nabokov's Pale Fire, a few of the latest novels by Martin Amis and Ian McEwan. Words' Worth had them all. It's not a huge place, but it had most of my favourite books. They even had a recent and very much impenetrable jungle of words from Will Self. This made me feel at home, a sense intensified by the huge bookcase in the middle of the shop that looked straight from your favourite library.

And then, on top of that, they have a great selection of recently published books you thought were too obscure to sell outside London. But here they were, and I remember being especially impressed by the unexpected appearance of The Clocks In This House All Tell Different Times by Xan Brooks. Xan Brooks has always been one of my favourite Guardian journalists, and to know that he had his debut novel out, and with a name like that, and to see it on a bookshelf in Munich, etc. I was intrigued, and so it was with this book that I found myself on the floor, half-stretched and utterly engrossed. There is a million books in any given bookstore - but for you, there's just one. And I found it.  

There's lots of that German warmth about Words' Worth, and you don't really want to leave. Outside, the August sun has faded, the January snow has gone grotesque, and it feels like you've spent a few weeks inside the bookstore. Outside, Schellingstrasse will either lead you to the Universität subway station or to the recently opened NS-Dokumentationszentrum that will no doubt exhaust you both physically and mentally. It could well be the single greatest museum I've ever been to, but I'd suggest leaving it for another day. Because this one is almost done, and you've grown a world inside of you. 

Me & Orson Welles

I have been in quite a few awkward situations in my life because I generally have the effrontery to say that Citizen Kane is not the greatest film ever made. More than that - I believe that Citizen Kane is vastly overrated. So what if it's cinematically gorgeous? It also happens to be as empty as the world it decries. 

My one salvation, however, is that I view the 1962 adaptation of The Trial as Orson Welles's absolute masterpiece. I watched it as a schoolboy, before classes, late at night, and was mesmerised by the endless rows of identical working desks as well as the impassive features of Anthony Perkins. The love scenes with Romy Schneider were something else, and for two hours at least Franz Kafka was well and truly alive. It was extremely gratifying to learn that Orson Welles considered The Trial his greatest triumph. 

Which is to say, I believe that my relationship with Orson Welles has always been personal and, as such, has spawned two memorable encounters. 

First, there was a rainy day in London four or five years back. As I reached the Elephant & Castle tube station (on foot and with a broken umbrella), I was soaked to such an extent that I was concerned they might not let me into Southwark Playhouse. Because that was one of the two reasons why I was here - to see Orson's Shadow, a somewhat absurdist play depicting Welles's attempts to talk Laurence Olivier into playing the main part in the future production of Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros. A mouthwatering plot, especially for someone who had by that time spent a good five or six years of his life writing about Samuel Beckett and the Theatre of the Absurd. 

And my God it was magical. I was sitting in the second row of this intimate semi-circle, with a small bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and with my feet going numb from all the rainwater they had consumed that day. There was an old lady in front me, dressed like a Woodstock survivor, and she was quite animated throughout the whole performance. Clearly there was a lot to be animated about - after all, at some point I stopped shivering (New Zealand wine might have played a part here) to be blown away by the lordly ways of Orson Welles. It takes guts to inhabit a world that makes no sense, and to do so with such inimitable authority.  

I walked back to my hotel a different man, if only for that one evening spent in the company of Orson Welles.

And then, years later, I saw this title, Me and Orson Welles, on some list of the best obscure films ever made. Something drew me to it (could be the name of Richard Linklater, could be the idea of Zac Efron being in a good film, but most likely it was a rare chance to see Orson Welles inhabit the world of his own), and another evening was spent in the company of white wine and the great man. 

It's a travesty that not too many people have seen Me and Orson Welles because it is such an unlikely triumph. Playful, stylish, unpretentious, with Christian McKay doing this absolutely magical impersonation of the famed director who is trying to adapt Caesar for the theatre stage. Welles is a loveable dictator, by turns charming and ruthless, and you can't resist fading away in his great shadow... Ultimately, it's a bruising experience for everyone involved, not least for an impressionable teenager burned inside by the subtle black and white eroticism of Romy Schneider. 

travelling notes (lxix)

There is a black woman in a book cafe and she is reading the faces of those who sit here, pensively, with their flat whites and their espressos. As soon as I notice her, I try to hide my face by looking straight at her. Swiftly, the black woman turns away, having either read me already or else deeming the book unworthy of her attention.

Album of the Month: GIANT SAND RETURNS TO VALLEY OF RAIN by Giant Sand

Howe Gelb is a daunting man, and I'm not even talking about his formidable physical appearance. It is just that whenever I look at his discography (which includes around seven hundred albums by Giant Sand, some band with an unlikely name or him on his own), I feel overwhelmed. And I tell myself - not just now. 
  
Still, he does make an occasional appearance in my life - like he did that first time, in 2003, when I bought an issue of Uncut with a free CD of Byrds covers and Byrds inspired tunes. Among quite a few classics (not least "The Little Black Egg" by The Nightcrawlers), the CD contained Giant Sand's beautifully sloppy rendition of "Change Is Now". And while I was not exactly hooked, the name of the band stuck - so that years later, when I saw a review of The Coincidentalist by Howe Gelb (of 'Giant Sand'), I knew this should be good. 

It was, too. The Coincidentalist remains an absolute classic, and "Picacho Peak" is still the best song of all time. 

And now I get to meet Howe Gelb for the third time. Technically, Giant Sand Returns to Valley of Rain is not even a new LP - it's a rerecording of the band's debut Valley of Rain from 1985. But it's not like I've heard a better album in August 2018. 

I can actually see why Howe Gelb would do this record 33 years later. This time, there is no rush (Valley of Rain took a day and a half to cut) and there is a chance to make the songs more complete... and fledged-out (I think it's a concept many bands would find interesting). Which is what you get here: something more than Frank Black-esque vocals and rudimentary, though charming, production; a rearranged song list and a song that was not part of the original LP. 

The songs are good. Loose, driving, intense, with a sloppy edge of country punk. They are more than capable of an elegant ballad (the title song is still the standout), but mostly it's "Tumble and Tear" all the way through. Speaking of which, I'm especially fond of "Barrio", "Death Dying and Channel 5" and the closing "Black Venetian Blind". Occasionally, the melodies tend to get lost in the barrage of Crazy Horse-styled guitars, but overall Valley of Rain II is a fascinating listen. Not any less so - I strongly suspect - than it was in 1985.

Howe Gelb. Daunting as hell - but I know we shall meet again.

travelling notes (lxviii)

The best part of travelling is waking up in the morning, on foreign bedsheets, and realising that you have not worked a day in your life and perhaps never will. 

Truman Capote by Henri Cartier-Bresson

My working desk is often a kitchen table, sometimes a cafe table and rarely an actual desk. But what stays, what absolutely has to be next to me when I write, is this picture of Truman Capote as taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson:

It's an iconic image, one that I first saw a month ago at the Lucca Centre of Contemporary Art. It was a lovingly compiled retrospective devoted to Cartier-Bresson's American work that, quite frankly, blew me away like no other exhibition in recent memory. From Igor Stravinsky fondling a dog to the two nuns contemplating Matisse to a small black girl in a white dress, this was black and white photography with an edge. And while I was dizzy halfway through, the image of young Truman Capote provided the final punch. 

There are many things for which I love this image, but really it's all about the way Capote stares at you. It's a look of apprehension, defiance, slight unease. There is a hint of that Kubrick stare about the whole thing but it's too elusive to grasp. 

And this image moves. Every day, it puts me into my writing mood regardless of a desk or a table I may be writing on. 

travelling notes (lxvii)

Usually, when someone tries to please you, there is a sense of gratitude, and only Pakistani vendors who sell you leather bags at a Florence market manage to annoy the hell out of you with their clumsy and inept attempts at making you happy.