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I am absurdly gleeful that I finally bought the twelfth edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary! The last edition I owned was the tenth, which I bought back in 2003 at that bookstore in Harvard Square that I used to frequent. (No, not Harvard Book Store...this was at 30 Brattle Street across from the small plaza, just around the corner from Million Year Picnic. It's a stationery store now.)
I often think about that store, even though it's been gone for years now. It was part of my weekend jaunt into Boston and Cambridge in the summer, hanging out near the Pit, people-watching and listening to the street musicians, hitting Newbury Comics and Million Year Picnic and HMV and that store before taking the Red Line back up to Alewife Station where my car was parked. [This was back when you could park there all day for a super small fee.]
I'd occasionally done these trips in the mid-90s after moving back home, often on Saturdays when I wasn't working at the record store, but they became more frequent during the early 00s, at least once or twice a month. This was during the peak Belfry Years when I was writing the trilogy, which meant that those bookstore visits were a mix of looking for inspiration and wanting to learn more from reference books. One of the reasons I remember buying that book there was a) the price sticker had the store name on it, and b) I bought it in early 2003, and on that day the store was playing Beck's Sea Change album, which I'd been obsessed with even then. I distinctly remember having it hand while browsing, a customer a few aisles away quietly singing along to 'Lost Cause'.
That dictionary got one hell of a workout over the next several years. Cracked spine, worn edges, dented cover.
And now I have a new one, not yet used, shrinkwrap just taken off, already placed on my black bookshelf next to my copy of Kpfer's Flip Dictionary. Ready to go.
I often think about that store, even though it's been gone for years now. It was part of my weekend jaunt into Boston and Cambridge in the summer, hanging out near the Pit, people-watching and listening to the street musicians, hitting Newbury Comics and Million Year Picnic and HMV and that store before taking the Red Line back up to Alewife Station where my car was parked. [This was back when you could park there all day for a super small fee.]
I'd occasionally done these trips in the mid-90s after moving back home, often on Saturdays when I wasn't working at the record store, but they became more frequent during the early 00s, at least once or twice a month. This was during the peak Belfry Years when I was writing the trilogy, which meant that those bookstore visits were a mix of looking for inspiration and wanting to learn more from reference books. One of the reasons I remember buying that book there was a) the price sticker had the store name on it, and b) I bought it in early 2003, and on that day the store was playing Beck's Sea Change album, which I'd been obsessed with even then. I distinctly remember having it hand while browsing, a customer a few aisles away quietly singing along to 'Lost Cause'.
That dictionary got one hell of a workout over the next several years. Cracked spine, worn edges, dented cover.
And now I have a new one, not yet used, shrinkwrap just taken off, already placed on my black bookshelf next to my copy of Kpfer's Flip Dictionary. Ready to go.
