I do this thing in public libraries, aside from borrow books and videos, that I call Power Reading. I named it after the well known habit of successful people called power napping. A "power nap" is a self aggrandizing way of saying "short nap" which is a way of using two words where one will do: "nap." In essence Power Reading means taking a read out of a book, but not the whole book just a bit of the book. I pick up a book, and dip in, while sprawling in one of the chairs in the reading area.
If I like it I skip to the end (non fiction is best for power reading) and when I am bored I put the book down and try another title, selected at random. I get to peruse tons of books like this and have learned to feel less desperate as time goes by about the number of books still left for me to read as I slide ever closer to oblivion. Even our modest library on woodsy Fleming Street, South Florida's first public library seems overly filled with unread tomes:
So there's this writer dude sitting in a hot tub with some friends and a bunch of strangers and he says he thinking about putting together a list of the best places to live but the only problem is he can't think of what the criteria should be. Much discussion apparently ensues among the occupants of the star lit tub (I remember this bit quite well, I think) and finally one of the nude bathers comes up with a truth that the writer grabs and runs with. The Third Space. That's the criteria for the best place to live.Anyway I was spending a happy part of one day several years ago power reading in the library and I came across a book with an unprepossessing title, something like Ten Best Places to Live, and you will have to forgive the hegemony but naturally "best" referred to places in the US. I generally avoid books with lists in the title, but because I was power reading the obnoxious title obliged me to pick up an unlikely candidate: power reading is about broadening the mind after all, not filling it. Thus I learned about the necessity of public spaces. One of my current favorite Third Spaces is inside the Tropic Cinema, our three-screen Art House complete with bar/coffee shop/candy counter:
The book with the crappy title introduced me to this grotesque notion of the Third Space alluded to above. The idea is that your First Space is your home, and your Second Space is your place of work, and these spaces can also be social centers to some extent. But the Third Space is where the social life of the community is on display and available. In other words if you think about places you might like to live you will find they offer vibrant and attractive Third Spaces. The dull, worn out communities don't.This concept resonated with my wife and I because we were contemplating settling down "for a while" or pulling up our anchor and sailing on. One of the things we found wanting in Key West in 2000 was, we realised, decent Third Spaces. Key West had lots of them, but they were drinking holes. People gathered in bars and drank until they were attractive enough to take home. We asked ourselves, where are Key West's Third spaces? The White Street Pier perhaps... 
...a place from which to watch the sunrise or even the sunset, far from the crowds at Mallory Square (which is too commercial and touristy to be a proper Third Space).
...a place from which to watch the sunrise or even the sunset, far from the crowds at Mallory Square (which is too commercial and touristy to be a proper Third Space).The little southernmost city has developed a few that aren't focused on alcohol.Weirdly enough I like Starbucks, which is embarrassing but its one of the few places that offers tables with a view on Duval Street to allow comfortable people watching.
As is obvious in these pictures shot today this is definitely low tourist season in Key West.
As is obvious in these pictures shot today this is definitely low tourist season in Key West. Voltaire Books calls itself the last independent bookstore, and it offers a welcoming environment to sit and read and think: 
What used to be the only independent bookstore in town has competition now and thank god for that. The workers at Voltaire smiled when I remarked how nice it was to have a store with friendly people operating it. "We hear that a lot," they said. And yes I have heard from visitors who buy quite a few books here that Island Books is a perfectly pleasant place to shop. 
We don't frequent all our possible Third Spaces, some I enjoy more than my wife does of course, but there are quite a number of public gathering spaces, that we visit from time to time. Some get too much attention from our residentially challenged population, which rejoices in the mild weather of 24 degrees North latitude, but my attitude is to share the spaces with them and not yield my pleasure to their bullying and if they do bully me, the scruffy hobos who are threatened by middle class disdain, I stand up and say enough and make them yield to my demand for space. Public spaces are open to all, dressed in pressed designer labels or in reeking cerements or anywhere between.
What used to be the only independent bookstore in town has competition now and thank god for that. The workers at Voltaire smiled when I remarked how nice it was to have a store with friendly people operating it. "We hear that a lot," they said. And yes I have heard from visitors who buy quite a few books here that Island Books is a perfectly pleasant place to shop. We don't frequent all our possible Third Spaces, some I enjoy more than my wife does of course, but there are quite a number of public gathering spaces, that we visit from time to time. Some get too much attention from our residentially challenged population, which rejoices in the mild weather of 24 degrees North latitude, but my attitude is to share the spaces with them and not yield my pleasure to their bullying and if they do bully me, the scruffy hobos who are threatened by middle class disdain, I stand up and say enough and make them yield to my demand for space. Public spaces are open to all, dressed in pressed designer labels or in reeking cerements or anywhere between."Drug Free Zone"...There's some governmental wishful thinking for you.
Aside from the Third Space concept every town has gathering points that are advertised as such, places that host events designed to bring people together, like theaters for performances, or even parks for outdoor events, but Third Spaces are simply places where people go and meet people, friends, acquaintances or neither, and chat.
Some people say Key West is going too mainstream, or too upmarket or too glitzy and that may well be the case. For my part I hang on to the bits that please me, and I find I rejoice in the wealth of Third Spaces that the town is, by accident or design, creating. I shall protest, futilely, if money and urban planning submerge or derail the process, but the ways of deliberate destruction are as forceful and more direct than the simplicity and beauty of accidental creation and my protests will fall on deaf ears. So the other lesson of the Third Space is don't get attached because change is inevitable, and not always for the better.
No comments:
Post a Comment