Burke's Book Store

Honestly, I don't travel to Midtown. I see bumper stickers that say Memphis is Midtown but immediately dismiss any notion Midtown is better than East Memphis. I believe the crime rate is lower in East Memphis and the homes are better; though Midtown has much more history than East Memphis, which brings me to Burke's Book Store. Luckily, I remembered Wendy mentioning Burke's was in the Cooper Young area because apparently there is one on Poplar Avenue and I initially got the directions for that book store.

Driving and parking at Burke's Bookstore was an entire adventure for me. Driving through neighborhoods that had homes with the same architecture, I felt a homogeneity in Midtown. Parking my car nearly was a nuisance and actually feeling like nothing was going to happen to it gave me butterflies. Upon arriving at the bookstore, I noticed Jenn and Sarah were already there. I said my hellos and went venturing to find a book. In the end, I did find a book called The Fourth Dimension. I am only past the first chapter but I can tell it is going to be a brain beater.

It wasn't until around 7:00 that the show started. After Wendy's opening speech, three people talked in front of the small crowd. My favorite was the second reader. She read an essay on the relevance of the number nine. Throwing in the Beatles and cool facts how if you listened closely to the Beatles songs, you could hear Paul trying to kill someone. It was very odd, but maybe that's due to the fact I didn't grow up with the Beatles. The third reader was a funny looking black dude who was actually shorter than me. So I instantly like him. Out of all the readers, he seemed the most calm and flowing. He read two poems. The first reader read a part of a fiction essay.

Overall, I appreciated what these people brought to read. I got sidetracked at the end though because the man with the camera kept on taking pictures of Jenn and me; I had to put on my game face. :)