Monday, July 03, 2006

Standing Alone: The Bard and The Photography Book Store in Manhattan

A Solo Affair

After attending an amazing poetry reading which featured several great poets/prose readers, and the master Bard, Jane Ormerod, I literally stumbled upon a what seemed to be just a great art-house bookstore. After looking through several of the fine art books at the store, I spoke briefly with the owner, David Strettell, who was quite friendly and knowledgeable about lower east-side Manhattan and its surrounding real estate, fashion, and art culture. He mentioned a rather unique fact, his store, Dashword Books is the only stand alone photography store in Manhattan dedicated solely to photography. The address to this boutique bookstore is 33 Bond St. NY, NY 10012.

Prior to visiting the book store, I attended a poetry reading at the Bowery Poetry Club, thanks to an invitation from Jane Ormerod, a London native of 20 years. There were several poets/writers who shared their work and often they shared extremely personal and graphic stories. The cleverness and depth of Jane Ormerod's presentation, both challenged and mesmerized the audience. Descriptive yet judicious and yet seductive is how I would describe her word choice and its affect on everyone in the audience. She has a command of word selection, rhythm, and pitch. Here's a couple of her lines from her reading which I wrote down. These two lines come from the prose reading entitled Spellbound:

"vocal tones tipping wires"
"don't take your eyes away, I must see you blush my name" - Jane Ormerod

An event I will not forget.

-PD