{"id":68806,"date":"2024-06-05T08:15:14","date_gmt":"2024-06-05T12:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=68806"},"modified":"2024-06-05T20:22:02","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T00:22:02","slug":"i-remember-where-i-was-when-i-read-that-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2024\/06\/05\/i-remember-where-i-was-when-i-read-that-book\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I remember where I was when I read that book…’"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Venn diagram of nerdy pursuits, there is a special place where enthusiasm for public space overlaps with the obsessive and irrational drive to collect books. For self-described \u201cbook-besotted troubadour\u201d Corin Raymond<\/a>, books are the keys to unlocking memories of places and the emotions that are felt there.<\/p>\n

His one-man show Bookmarks<\/em>, presented as part of the Provocation Ideas Festival<\/a>, features Raymond telling stories from his past through the lens of the books he las loved and often lost. As Raymond wanders through memories of his childhood and of his life on the road as a musician, books act as mnemonic devices for cities from his past, from Sao Paolo to Montr\u00e9al to Berlin.<\/p>\n

The show opens in the airport bookstore in Melbourne where Raymond is having trouble controlling himself. Pockets heavy with \u201cpre-boarding funds,\u201d Raymond considers buying \u201cgleaming paperbacks I wouldn\u2019t normally allow myself to buy.\u201d His suitcase is, naturally, full of books already, but he falls for a copy of Helen Garner\u2019s True Stories<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI fell in love with Helen,\u201d he says, floored by her first-person descriptions of her life in Melbourne. The book travelled with him through Taiwan and eventually back to Australia. It was there that Raymond had his heart broken by Helen, at the exact same place he first met her. I lost my copy of True Stories<\/em> at the Melbourne airport,\u201d he says, ten years after its purchase, “she left me.” The books\u2019 loss triggered feelings of grief and abandonment, flinging him back to the places he experienced as a child.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Illustration by Nicholas Luchak<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Raymond\u2019s childhood home in Cochenour, Ontario, was a nest made of books. As the distribution hub for his father\u2019s business, Beaverlodge Books, Raymond would explore the stacks and pillars of books piled up in his basement. \u201cI could hide in them,\u201d he explains, casting \u201cbooks as safety, as shelter, as home.\u201d As Gaston Bachelard writes in Poetics of Space<\/em>, \u201cthe house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.\u201d He describes his ritual, enacted decades later, upon entering a new hotel room, of placing books on the bed-side table in a little stack to make the room feel more like home. \u201cI unbook myself,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Moving through his stream of memories, Raymond brings us to a bookstore in London, England. Drawn to a copy of The Collected Works of Tennessee Williams<\/em>, he picks it up only to find that it was previously his, sold to the second-hand bookstore weeks before after a bad breakup. (Don\u2019t fret: after explaining the situation to the bookseller, he bought back the Williams and three of his other books at a fifty percent discount).<\/p>\n

He loops back to the Melbourne airport, dwelling on themes of loss and attachment. Garner\u2019s sudden absence in his life reminds him of the pain he experienced as a child, losing two mothers (one at his own birth and another at the age of seven). Buying books, for Raymond, is a protective mechanism, revealed as \u201ca bid against my own death.\u201d He quotes Warren Zevon here: \u201cwe love to buy books because we believe we\u2019re buying the time to read them.\u201d<\/p>\n

As such, Raymond knows that, at least one day, he must let his books go. His tourmate, folk singer Scott Cook, doesn\u2019t understand Raymond\u2019s obsession with owning books. \u201cScott has one book,\u201d says Raymond, with a curled cover, jammed into the dashboard of his car, \u201cthe one he\u2019s currently reading.\u201d When he\u2019s done, practicing the Buddhist concept of detachment, he\u2019ll give it away to the next person he sees.<\/p>\n

For now though, Raymond still surrounds himself with books and the memories they store. \u201cHow many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I undertook in the pursuit of books!\u201d writes Walter Benjamin in his classic essay \u201cUnpacking My Library.\u201d \u201cOther thoughts fill me\u2026 not thoughts but images, memories\u201d continues Benjamin as he unpacks crates of his books after moving. \u201cMemories of the cities in which I found so many things: Riga, Naples, Munich, Danzig, Moscow, Florence, Basel, Paris.\u201d Raymond\u2019s memories of cities are also catalogued like this, as chapters in a travelogue that grows story by story, book by book.<\/p>\n

He brings us to a laundromat in Parkdale where he gives a boy his copy of The Neverending Story<\/em>, in the original German, purchased some years before and devoured on \u201ca park bench in Berlin.\u201d (Bachelard again: \u201cEach one of us, then, should speak of his roads, his crossroads, his roadside benches.\u201d) His copy of James Ellroy\u2019s L.A. Confidential<\/em>, held together with elastic bands, travelled around the world with a friend, read by dozens of backpackers in hostels and parks. It now acts as an aide-m\u00e9moire that triggers stories from the voyage.<\/p>\n

Raymond includes in his monologue references to books lost and lent introduced with the familiar refrain, \u201cwhere\u2019s my copy of\u2026?\u201d When packing and unpacking his own library for a move, he realizes he has amassed three entire shelves of books he\u2019s borrowed from others but never returned. Those books also pin memories, to specific times, to places, to people. As Jack Lasenby writes, sometimes, “the book reads you.”<\/p>\n

The literary references keep coming: Ray Bradbury\u2019s Farenheit 451<\/em>, John Fowles\u2019 The Magus<\/em>, Keats, The Little Prince<\/em>, \u201c(anything by) James Baldwin.\u201d They all make appearances in Raymond\u2019s travels, like little luggage tags with unique home addresses, woven into a narrative of Raymond\u2019s life that doubles as an homage to the world\u2019s great cities.<\/p>\n

The Provocation Ideas Festival<\/a> continues this weekend, presented in partnership with the Toronto International Festival of Authors<\/p>\n

Saturday June 8, 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm, Harbourfront Centre: <\/strong>\u201cCritical Conversations: Looking for a Familiar Face: The Justice System and Canada\u2019s Diverse Communities,\u201d with Christa Big Canoe, Dr. Julius Haag, Keith Merith, and Kevin Donovan.<\/p>\n

Saturday June 8, 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm, Harbourfront Centre: <\/strong>\u201cCritical Conversations: Through a Mirror Darkly: Why We Love True Crime,\u201d with Kristi Lee and Kevin Donovan.<\/p>\n

Sunday June 9, 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm, Harbourfront Centre: <\/strong>\u201cCritical Conversations: The Real World of Crime Investigation,\u201d with Kerry Watkins, Ralph Steinberg, David Perry, and Arshy Mann.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Venn diagram of nerdy pursuits, there is a special place where enthusiasm for public space overlaps with the obsessive and irrational drive to collect books. For self-described \u201cbook-besotted troubadour\u201d Corin Raymond, books are the keys to unlocking memories of places and the emotions that are felt there. His one-man show Bookmarks, presented asContinue reading “‘I remember where I was when I read that book…’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8493,"featured_media":68822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21952,4,69,3],"tags":[22546,177,22548,22547,22506,22332,454],"class_list":["post-68806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cities-for-people","category-culture","category-curiosities","category-events","tag-books","tag-cities","tag-fiction","tag-novels","tag-storytelling","tag-travel","tag-writer"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n'I remember where I was when I read that book...' - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2024\/06\/05\/i-remember-where-i-was-when-i-read-that-book\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"'I remember where I was when I read that book...' - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the Venn diagram of nerdy pursuits, there is a special place where enthusiasm for public space overlaps with the obsessive and irrational drive to collect books. 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