Housman's book shop

I had been meaning to get to England since I got to Paris, so when I booked trains I booked them so that even if a volcano spewed lava in front of us on our way to London I’d be able to make the connection to Grantham. However there were no spewings of any sort, at least not near me, so I had a 4.5 hour wait in London.

Which was great.

Because Kings Cross is right at the center of London and you don’t have to wander far to get away from Starbucks and McDonalds (though why would you ever, right). So in a few minutes I had wandered down and up a street where there was a book store called "Housman’s something-or-other." And I said to myself Hey. I know a Haussmann. So I went in.

Turns out it was this crazy left-wing radical bookstore with these two great middle-aged men who when I arrived were talking heatedly about the election (though to be fair everyone was–ENGLAND WHAT ARE YOU DOING.) And they had sorted their store by political philosophy–communism, Marxism, non-violence... with stationary and posters interspersed. I really liked that the organization was a bit wonky. I'm sure it wasn't a commentary on Haussmann, but it still made me smile.

Upstairs they had a room for activist groups to meet, and then in the basement they had just this room of piles and piles of lovely great smelling old books and not so great smelling ones and old issues of Communist magazines and propaganda from all sides... though that stuff got quite expensive. The rest of it was £1. But they had original works in Russian and German and French even, though that’s not quite a vocabulary I’ve mastered yet. And actually I found a pretty great old St. Paul’s hymnal with scores for the Messiah in it too.

These guys were great though. I can’t remember the one man’s name but the other was William, and he gave me his mobile number in case I ever needed to find something. They genuinely just wanted to help people and spread knowledge. They knew so much; history, current events, historical literature, literature on history...

The remarkable thing to me was that neither seemed to be the least bit bitter. I feel like if I had read cover to cover, and not just the back flap, of all those books I browsed through I’d be a very cynical, untrusting person. I think I’d hate America, and Britain, and all the empire-ish Western nations. But it’s not as though I’d like to live in a dictator-run country either. Or one with an actual king (unlike our beautiful figurehead Queen).

But really, is any place free? Does there exist a single society free of corruption and entirely for the people?

I want to know what their secret is. I want to know how they can be so informed and entirely aware of these massive injustices and lies and deceptions that aren’t progressing, except maybe in terms of complexity, and remain so chipper. Prozac? Zoloft?

How can they can retain such optimism and happiness in the face of humans at their absolute worst? Maybe that’s what freedom is.