Politics & Poker

Carla Cohen had a terrible poker face.

When establishing the independent bookstore Politics & Prose, Cohen claimed that she did not want to create an indie driven by political undertones. Instead, she simply desired a bookstore with a name reflective of the surrounding Washington, D.C. area, and to her the word “politics” achieved the connotation she was looking for. It reminded her of the Broadway tune, “Politics and Poker,” which ultimately inspired “Politics & Prose.”

Take a look inside Politics & Prose!

Cohen, along with her co-owner Barbara Meade, denied the bookstore’s supposed political agenda until the day that the former died. And the store’s current owners, Bradley Graham and Lissa Muscatine, proudly advertise the shop’s wide cooking, travel, and fiction selections on their website in an effort, it seems, to prove that they are interested in more than just politics. But we’re calling this bluff.

Politics are clearly at play within Politics & Prose. While this factor isn’t necessarily good nor bad, it does have consequences on the power dynamics regarding the bookstore’s personas, local community, and definition of literature.

Outside of a bookstore, politics is often defined as being the “activities or policies associated with government,” or else as “actions concerned with the acquisition or exercise of power, status, or authority” (“Politics” def. 1 & 2). But language has always been linked to politics, ever since Plato warned the ancient Greeks about the effects of rhetoric on the functioning of the polis. We see this idea in today’s presidential elections, noting the way that Donald Trump’s bold statements impact his campaign. But let’s take a step back from all of these primaries and debates, because, honestly, everyone needs a break from that circus. Instead, let’s explore the ways in which politics as a struggle for power exists at Politics & Prose.

Consider, for instance, physical placement. The bookstore’s location in the nation’s capital literally places Politics & Prose in the perfect position to serve a civic function: a catalyst for the kind of open discussion necessary for the success of a democracy. Early 20th-century bookstore owner Marion Dodd refers to the bookstore as an “arsenal of democracy,” and Cohen did use her bookstore as a sort of democratic haven (Brannon). Before opening the store, Cohen worked for presidential candidate Jimmy Carter, who ended up losing the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan. We actually owe the existence of Politics & Prose to this loss. Bouncing back from a disappointing election, Cohen decided to open her own independent bookstore right in the heart of the most politically influential area of the country. Did Cohen want to recover her party’s previous power through her indie? While we can only speculate, we also cannot ignore the implications of the store’s location.

For instance, Cohen and Meade specifically aimed to position their bookstore as a meeting place where people could share their ideas about serious books and serious issues. And what better place to put that arsenal, that center for popular power and expression, than inside the nexus of American government? But Politics & Prose is a little more approachable than an armory. The cozy armchairs invite customers to take a seat and engage in conversation about climate change, while the refurbished coffee house—which debuted in 1993—allows people the chance to chat about foreign policy over a caramel macchiato and pie fries.

At Politics & Prose, literature becomes an opportunity for robust discussion. As scholar Tim Cresswell says, “places just don’t exist;” rather, “they are always and continually being socially constructed by powerful institutional forces in society” (57). A bookstore is not simply built in a location and left to operate without any influences from the surrounding society. Cohen used to say, “We have built the community and the community has built us.” Cresswell would agree that without the society surrounding it,the bookstore’s edifice would hold little to no meaning. In this way, the U.S. government shapes the particular dynamic present within Politics & Prose.

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JK Rowling signing books

That dynamic manifests itself in the bookstore’s massive author event tradition. Incredibly, Politics & Prose hosts over 400 events per year, many of which can be found here. These book readings and Q&A sessions feature local, national, and global authors, sparking dialogues between customers and writers. All you would need to do is skim the titles of many of the videos to know that politics rests at the heart of these events.

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Still, Cohen would probably argue otherwise. When conservative journalist Matthew Drudge asked to hold an event at the bookstore, Cohen rejected his request and then claimed that her decision was not influenced by political loyalties. Instead she told The Washington Post, “It’s not a question of left or right, conservative or liberal. It’s a question of sleaze versus careful, thoughtful reporting.” From the outside, it’s not difficult to be skeptical of this statement.

New owners, Lissa Muscatine and Bradley Graham, demonstrate a greater awareness of the political implications and consequences surrounding the store’s events. Since assuming ownership, the two are making a public effot to invite more conservative writers to the bookstore. While they may appear to be backpedaling, others see their initiatives in ownership as moving forward. In an interview with the Los Angeles Review of Books, Muscatine said that she and Graham “care about the role of discourse in a democracy. The quality of that discourse is eroding seriously at this point. [Politics & Prose] could and should be a forum for civic and civil discourse.”

Discourse in a democracy is an exercise of power, and those who facilitate or control that discourse are powerful people. Skilled linguists with major connections, the owners of Politics & Prose are qualified to fulfill that role.

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Hillary Clinton and Lissa Muscatin

hillishilary hillary lissa 11402707670hilaryMuscatine served as Hillary Clinton’s chief speechwriter during the latter’s time as First Lady and Secretary of State. The two became close colleagues, and Muscatine recently helped Clinton edit her memoir, Hard Choices. An inside glimpse at the relationship between these two women was provided in a 2014 style article published in The Washington Post, where Graham worked as an editor, reporter, and correspondent since 1978. The article notes that Muscatine and Clinton “spent the past 20 years in the meticulous, maddening pursuit of finding exactly the right words for exactly the right moment.”

Keeping this quote in mind, let’s return to that “Politics and Poker” song. The number comes from the Broadway play, Fiorello!, which is about New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia’s struggle with the Tammany Hall political machine. “Politics and Poker” describes the Tammany Hall machine hand-selecting a Congressional candidate whom they know will fail to win an election, and is sung while the members play a game of poker. The lyrics read “And watch while he learns that in/ Poker and politics/ Brother, you’ve gotta have/ That slippery hap-hazardous commodity/ You’ve gotta have the cards!” And the booksellers at Politics & Prose are not only playing the right cards—the right words—but also dealing the hand.

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Current Politics & Prose owners Graham and Muscatine flank prior owner Barbara Meade and Carla Cohen’s husband, David.

By selecting the kinds of authors allowed to visit the store, Cohen, Meade, Graham, and Muscatine control the construction of discourse. For better or for worse, the conversations within the bookstore are inherently censored.

This conversation isn’t just oral, however; it’s written and physical too. Perhaps the most significant contributor to this discussion is books. And no, we aren’t talking about bookies—book-shaped cookies, for those of you not up to date in your bookstore café lingo.

In Politics & Prose you won’t find a section designated to politics. That, of course, would be too easy. Instead, each genre’s space in the bookstore is infiltrated by politics in some form. Whether it is the LGBTQ shelf in the arts section or the trifecta of the International Studies, History, and Religion in the front of the store, political undertones follow you wherever you go on the main floor.

Politics & Prose – First Floor

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In the spirit of their Indie Celebration that happened this past Saturday, Politics & Prose heavily advertised the special books that they’d have available for sale. Among these were an adult coloring book, a collection of essays entitled The Care and Feeding of an Independent Bookstore (wink wink, nudge nudge) and a book about hamburgers signed by Anthony Bourdain. And we can’t forget the children’s book selection featuring a book-making class and Curious George.

Following Cohen and Meade’s attention to good literature, Muscatine and Graham claim, “We are selective about the books that we order, offering what is important to our customers and what is important to us.” The owners of Politics & Prose maintain a strong influence over what their customers have access to, thereby influencing the knowledge and information these customers gain from the store’s collection.

Echoing Muscatine’s desire as a writer to find “exactly the right words for exactly the right moment,” the concluding thought of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is “the right book exactly, at exactly the right time” (Sloan, 288). And echoing that, D.C. political columnist Jill Lawrence wrote, “Somehow [Politics & Prose] always understands which books we want to read, which CDs and greeting cards will appeal to us.”

And the lyrical metaphor stops here, because Politics & Prose really does have “the cards.” Greeting cards, that is. There’s something fascinating about selling this commodity in a bookstore. Specifically, greeting cards, just like books and events, allow for the development of dialogues. In fact, an entire literary tradition is based upon the epistolary structure, and one of its defining characteristics is the uncensored manner in which authors convey information. Likewise, customers can freely express themselves with greeting cards, sparking conversation between sender and receiver. Everything in Politics & Prose comes back to its central function: a place for the exchange of ideas.

Politics & Prose – Lower Level

In addition to greeting cards, journals, calendars, puzzles, t-shirts, and tote bags are also sold at the store. Much of the merchandise is literary-themed, and almost all are made by local vendors or U.S. manufacturers. The owners wrote that they started selling this merchandise to “better meet the tastes and needs of P&P patrons” (Cards, Journals, Totes and More). These items allow bookstore patrons to express their personal politics in supporting small, independent, and environmentally friendly businesses. They also seem to indicate the owners’ personal politics: Support small and local businesses! (Especially your local bookstore Politics & Prose!)

These non-book items don’t come cheap, though; a single box of 12 Blackwing pencils can cost you $22! The owners claim that with the age of technology, pencils “almost became obsolete.” Apparently people all over the world simply threw out their pens, pencils, and tablets of paper in favor of the latest iPad. This, of course, is ridiculous, as is the original cost of a single Blackwing pencil that sold for $40. Although there is certainly nothing wrong about supporting local businesses, we do have to wonder at what point people draw the line due to the cost. Perhaps it’s time to revisit Cresswell’s ideas regarding the importance of place in relation to physical structures.

Like Obama to Biden, Politics & Prose seems to be a great complement to its surrounding neighborhood of Chevy Case. (Though we can’t seem to decide which is Obama and which is Biden.) Cohen herself noted, “We selected the neighborhood for its unusual demographic characteristics, and the store and customers are a perfect fit with one another.”

Chevy Chase is home to well-educated, higher class citizens, with the median income around $100,953 and about 87.5% of the citizens holding a Bachelor’s degree or higher. These statistics suggest that the owners wanted a market with enough disposable income and leisure time to frequent a bookstore, positing literature and the discussion it elicits as accessible to the economic elite.

As the saying goes, more money equals more power. With that power comes opportunities, such as using the store’s Espresso Book Machine, quirkily nicknamed Opus. Opportunities like this let customers share their ideas with others, as well as learn about the concerns of their fellow book-lovers. In theory, Opus democratizes the power of publication; in practice, it does so if you can afford the printing cost.

This seems a little exclusive. Is exclusivity a characteristic of an arsenal of democracy? Or, perhaps, is it a quality reminiscent of the political machine from Fiorello!?

A political machine, according to Britannica, is “a party organization, headed by a single boss or small autocratic group, that commands enough votes to maintain political and administrative control of a city, county, or state” (“Political Machine” def. 1). Don’t get us wrong; the bookstore isn’t a tyrant. But Politics & Prose is a political and cultural institution, one that commands a sort of control over the D.C. area through its book and speaker selections. Yet throwing aside the grave abuses of power that these organizations have become pejoratively associated with, machines gain loyalty by meeting the needs of individuals and their neighborhoods. Cohen and Meade never intended to exploit the wealth of the area; their goal was to serve the community as a quality bookstore. This factor explains Cohen and Meade’s meticulous efforts surrounding the bookstore’s transition of ownership. That is, Cohen and Meade intentionally continued a tradition of female ownership, even though they originally planned to sell the store to a man.

In 2005, Cohen and Meade were looking to sell their store to Dany Gainsburg, so they tried to secretly incorporate him into the business by hiring him as a regular staff member. When he started spending excessive time in the bosses’ office, the staff naturally got suspicious of him. In their minds, either he was a mole being used to spy on the staff, or some other funky activity was going on. As it turns out, the latter turned out to be true. After coming clean about their plans and making an announcement to the staff, Danny received very little positive feedback.

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Danny Gainsburg during his time with Politics & Prose. Here he is seen leading an author event with Margaret Carlson. You can view the video recording of the event here.

Shortly after the bookstore was visited by none other than Bill Clinton, Danny caused a political scandal of his own. Miss McLeod, the store’s publications editor, already felt uneasy around Danny in the store. When he kissed her cheek on her birthday, however, she was so uncomfortable that she felt she had no option but to terminate her 18 months of employment at Politics & Prose. After requiring Danny to take off for a month to cool things down amongst the staff, Cohen and Meade had hoped that he would be able to come back and continue on his path to ownership. As it turned out, the staff formed a micro-democracy within the bookstore, and made sure their voices were heard to prevent Danny from coming back to work at the bookshop, much less take over as the owner.

A few years later, Cohen and Meade turned their attention to Graham and Muscatine. At first, only Graham wanted to buy the store, but he brought Muscatine to his meeting with Cohen and Meade. While chatting, Meade told the two that “there’s got to be a woman. There’s no way that a store that’s been under all-female ownership for some 27 years can go to male-only ownership.” Muscatine liked the sound of this, and soon realized her desire to help run the bookstore.

This tradition of the female-run bookstore brings us back to Marion Dodd. In 1916, she and Mary Byers, both recent graduates of Smith College, decided to open a college bookstore called the Hampshire Bookshop. It served the college, as well as the wider Northampton community. This bookstore was a rarity for its time because it was “one of the first bookselling firms in the U.S. to be founded, owned, and managed by women” (Source Smith.edu).

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Marion Dodd

Dodd noted that she and Smith began their bookstore with the “risk and adventure inherent in the undertaking of such an enterprise by women” (Brannon). This spirit of female empowerment also flows through Politics & Prose, providing Cohen, Meade, and Muscatine with a sense of agency and authority.

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Lissa Muscatine

Publishing historian Barbara A. Brannon felt great love for the Hampshire Bookshop, and it was her research for Bibliographical Society of America that told the story of how Dodd’s bookshop did the government’s job during WWII in gathering support for the war. Whereas Dodd’s female-owned bookshop used its political power to get the people to understand why the war was necessary and support the government’s choices for fighting, Politics & Prose is fighting a battle for a different kind of democratic idea. Politics & Prose may not be a space to gather for a bond party, but it has certainly provided the space for other political enterprises.

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Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade

And these enterprises have demonstrated the complexity of the politics at play within Washington, D.C.’s preeminent bookstore, neither completely arsenal-of-democracy-ey nor political-machine-ey, but definitely discursively driven. The bookstore’s politics inform its definition of literature, and its literature informs its definition of politics, and power is the product of this process—a product in the form of commercial objects and authoritative status.

 

At Politics & Prose, literature is a political and discursive opportunity. Here, literature falls in that gray gutter space between freedom of speech, the booksellers’ influence, and economic privilege. For many book lovers, it is preferential to view books as ends within themselves. At Politics & Prose, however, the books and other verbal aspects of the store are merely providing the vocabulary for the discussion. When put in the context of the bookstore, the notion of power translates into the financial powers of the neighborhood, the owners’ power over the patrons, the struggle for power during book discussions, and the power of ideas within literature.


Sources:

Maps

Google Maps: Chevy Chase

Google Maps: Politics and Prose Bookstore

Articles and Links

“An Indie Celebration on April 30.” Politics and Prose Bookstore. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2016.

Anderson, Tom. “Politics and Prose Social Network: How Much is the Beloved D.C. Bookstore Really Worth?” Washington City Paper. N.p., 29 Oct. 2010. Web. 04 May 2016.

“Book Discussion on [Anyone Can Grow Up].” C-SPAN, 11 May 2003. Web. 05 May 2016.

Brown, Emma. “Carla Cohen Dies; Co-founder of D.C. Bookstore Politics and Prose.” Washington Post. The Washington Post, 11 Oct. 2010. Web. 21 Mar. 2016. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/11/AR2010101102811.html?sid=ST2010101102828>.

“Exhibition: Marion Dodd and The Hampshire Bookshop.” Smith College. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 May 2016.

Hodges, Lauren. “A Community Spine.” The Los Angeles Review of Books. The Los Angeles Review of Books, 14 Oct. 2014. Web. 21 Mar. 2016. <https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/community-spine/?utm_medium=twitter&utmsource=linesandgraphs>.

Muscatine, Lissa and Brad Graham. “Cards, Journals, Totes, and More.” Politics and Prose Bookstore. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2016.

Parker, Kathleen. “Plato would be horrified by Trump’s rise”. The Washington Post. Web. 26 Apr. 2016.

“Political Machine” Definition (1) from Britannica Encyclopedia <http://www.britannica.com/topic/political-machine>

“Politics” Definitions (1 & 2) from Oxford English Dictionary <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/237575?redirectedFrom=politics#eid>

Roberts, Roxanne. “Hillary Clinton and Lissa Muscatine: From First Lady and Speechwriter to Author and Bookseller.” Washington Post. The Washington Post, 15 June 2014. Web. 29 Apr. 2016.

Rosenwald, Michael S. “Politics and Prose Has Found a Buyer.” Washington Post. The Washington Post, 28 Mar. 2011. Web. 28 Apr. 2016.

Sidman, Jessica. “Little Red Fox Owner Will Operate Coffeehouse and Wine Bar at Politics & Prose.” Young Hungry RSS. N.p., 5 Apr. 2016. Web. 08 Apr. 2016.

“The Story of Politics and Prose.” Politics and Prose Bookstore. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2016.

Trachtenberg, Jeffrey A. “Succession Plot At Bookstore Took A Surprise Twist.” The Wall Street Journal. N.p., 21 Mar. 2005. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.

Wildman, Sarah. “Coveted by Jewish Bidders, D.C. Bookstore Finds New Owners.” Forward. N.p., 20 Mar. 2011. Web. 17 Apr. 2016.

Wilwol, John. “What I’ve Learned: Politics & Prose’s Barbara Meade | Washingtonian.” Washingtonian. Washington Media Inc, 28 Mar. 2013. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <http://www.washingtonian.com/2013/03/28/what-ive-learned-politics-and-proses-barbara-meade/>.

Pictures

Bill Clinton  <http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/gallery/100609/GAL-10Jun09-4814/media/PHO-10Jun09-230525.jpg>

Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade <http://www.politics-prose.com/our-history>

Danny Gainsburg <http://www.c-span.org/person/?dannygainsburg>

Hamiltome and Chalkboard <https://www.instagram.com/politics_prose/?hl=en>

Hillary Clinton and Lissa Muscatine <https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_400w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2014/06/14/Others/Images/2014-06-13/hillary%20lissa%2011402707670.jpg?uuid=Yrjx4vNfEeONZgKVmOmK3Q>

J. K. Rowling <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2010/06/09/GA2010060904320.html>

Lissa and Brad w/ Meade & Mr. Cohen <http://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=2336#m25635>

Lissa Muscatine <http://www.politics-prose.com/sites/politics-prose.com/files/bradlissa.jpg>

Opus The Espresso Book Machine <https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6041/6256317164_b132e2154c_b.jpg>

Various Pictures in Timeline and Floorplans <https://www.google.com/maps/place/Politics+%26+Prose+Bookstore/@38.9554759,-77.0718449,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x89b7c9b992f1a9f7:0xb82a9184a0d413af!8m2!3d38.9554717!4d-77.0696562>

Texts

Brannon, Barbara A. The Bookshop as “An Arsenal of Democracy”: Marion Dodd and the Hampshire Bookshop during World War II. New York: Bibliographical Society of America, 1998. Print.

Cresswell, Tim. Place: A Short Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2004.

Sloan, Robin. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2012. Print.

Knights of the Long Table

There are a whole bunch of Chatty Cathy’s at Politics & Prose—and I’m not just referring to the full-time employees who love talking your ear off about their new favorite reads. (Offering personal recommendations is, after all, part of the job description.) Since the store’s cash registers and Information Desk are located front and center, no doubt the booksellers will start a conversation with you the second that you walk through the doors. And if by chance you happen to evade them, don’t worry, a large selection on the right wall toward the front of the store features “New and Recommended Nonfiction” (italics added for emphasis). But as you keep wandering, you’ll notice that the space and its contents are just as loquacious as the workers.

When Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade opened Politics & Prose in 1984, they aimed to create a place where people could share their ideas about books and important issues. Today, the indie’s new owners, Brad Graham and Lissa Muscatine, have tasked themselves with continuing this mission and positioning the shop as “a marketplace for ideas.” But Graham and Muscatine aren’t the only forces at play; the store’s interior design is also responsible for maintaining an informed dialogue.

Take, for instance, the selection of nonfiction titles within the store. When you walk into Politics & Prose and turn right, the first three sections you’ll find are Current Events, New and Recommended Nonfiction, and Biography and History. (These sections are featured above.) The particular sequence of these genres suggests a sort of collective investigation, as if the books within these categories are speaking to one another. For instance, a reader can peruse contemporary issues from a national perspective or an individual one (but, really, isn’t the personal political?) and then explore the ways in which history informed or ignored those topics.

Even more telling of the bookstore’s dedication to dialogue is the wide array of book groups hosted by Politics & Prose. The particular texts used by each group are prominently displayed in the very center of the first floor, as if the store revolves around a tradition of discussion.

When communicating with Muscatine about the bookstore’s interior arrangement via email, she quickly listed the different genres located on each floor without any mention of merchandise or additional structures. However, when talking about the lower level, she noted the presence of “a long table where our book groups meet.”

The first time I read this phrase, I thought Muscatine’s emphasis of the long table was a little silly; it seemed like such a random detail amidst the greater genre inventory. But, upon closer examination, Muscatine’s special acknowledgement of the long table signifies her pride in her roles as both a bookseller and a book collector.

In “Unpacking My Library,” Walter Benjamin writes that “inheritance is the soundest way of acquiring a collection. For a collector’s attitude toward his possessions stems from an owner’s feeling of responsibility toward his property” (66). Muscatine, as well as Graham, are the purchasers, or inheritors, of Politics & Prose, an institution that is essentially a mass collection of books. Upon acquiring the store, Muscatine said that both she and Graham “care about the role of discourse in a democracy,” a phrase suggestive of the two owners’ sense of civic duty with respect to the contents of their store. They want to use the literature within their “library” to facilitate conversation. The long table allows them to perform this task, making the object an important component of the booksellers’ collection.

Speaking of democracy, it’s worth mentioning the Washington, D.C. section within the bookstore. Since Politics & Prose is located in the nation’s capital, housing a collection of D.C.-related texts makes sense. In fact, one of the shop’s book groups called District Reads devotes itself to the discussion of books specifically about the capital and its history.

These D.C. texts call to mind a quote from “On Collecting Art and Culture” by James Clifford. He writes about the formation of a sense of self through literal and figurative entities, stating that “identity is a kind of wealth (of objects, knowledge, memories, experience)” (218). The D.C. books at Politics & Prose constitute a form of social commentary on Washington, D.C. identity, suggestive of the ways in which residents view themselves, their city, and their collective history.

This commentary becomes even more telling when you realize that, at one point, the Washington, D.C. section contained Obama bobble heads. This kind of merchandise speaks to the capitalist ideologies underlying the bookstore as an economic institution, nuancing Muscatine’s aforementioned portrayal of Politics & Prose as a “marketplace” for the exchange between goods and currency.

Bill Clinton Chatting with a Customer at Politics & Prose
Bill Clinton Chatting with a Customer at Politics & Prose

In an attempt to push the dialogue even farther, Politics & Prose holds about 400 author events annually. (Keep in mind, there are only 365 days in a year.) Many of these events are book readings followed by Question and Answer sessions. Past visiting authors include former U.S. President Bill Clinton and nonfiction writer Patti Smith, and book subjects range from education to climate change to the Middle East. Understanding that guests have historically leaned toward the left, Graham and Muscatine make a conscious effort to host more conservative authors. In this way, they can craft the most robust, comprehensive, and inclusive discourse.

The Question and Answer sessions during these events are crucial for the flourishment of healthy conversation, serving as an invitation for both authors and readers to debate and discuss relevant, contentious topics. In this way, the people frequenting Politics & Prose become part of the store’s collection. Benjamin notes that a book collection is a “living library,” and the guests of Politics & Prose are an integral part of the bookstore’s vitality (66). Along with the words within the texts themselves, the people of Politics & Prose quite literally give the bookstore its voice.

So, with all this emphasis on political discourse, why the heck does Politics & Prose carry such a large selection of greeting cards?

Yes, that’s correct, greeting cards. Shelves full of colorful cards appear toward the back of the store, waiting to be purchased by customers. The inclusion of this type of merchandise seems really strange—until you realize that a card is a form of verbal communication between a sender and a receiver, just as a book is one between an author and a reader.

The presence of so many greeting cards reminds me of a line from Reluctant Capitalists. Quoting an indie bookseller, Laura Miller notes that the independent bookstore “functions… as a place, in this society, to exchange ideas in a way that nothing else does” (220). The same is true for letters. Many writers throughout history, including Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) and Mary Shelley (1797-1851), have used the epistolary format when composing their works. Centuries later, authors are still writing in this style—evidenced by this neat article about contemporary epistolary novels. Politics & Prose represents this literary tradition—using books, and greeting cards, as a type of correspondence and a medium for intellectual exchange.

Below you’ll find the floorplan for the First Floor of Politics & Prose, followed by the floorplan for the Lower Level. Feel free to “walk around the store” and begin your own dialogue with the interior space.




Sources

 

Texts

Benjamin, Walter, and Hannah Arendt. Illuminations. New York: Schocken Books, 1986.

Clifford, James. The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-century Ethnography, Literature, and Art. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1988.

Miller, Laura J. Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.

 

Pictures

Bill Clinton < http://cache3.asset-cache.net/gc/51028369-former-u-s-president-bill-clinton-talks-to-a-gettyimages.jpgv=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=OCUJ5gVf7YdJQI2Xhkc2QMe9fPldBXFk7EUDlJUXlLWVtnFV6Q6OorxDc4baIT%2Fh96gYHN39o7h1VVHqvPhJMg%3D%3D>

 

Google Maps

Politics & Prose <https://www.google.com/maps/place/Politics+%26+Prose+Bookstore/@38.9553438,-77.0700071,17z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x89b7c9b992f1a9f7:0xb82a9184a0d413af>

 

Articles and Links

Ballard, Jenna. “Bustle.” Bustle. Bustle, 13 Aug. 2014. Web. 21 Mar. 2016. <http://www.bustle.com/articles/34809-11-contemporary-epistolary-novels-that-are-a-blast-to-read>.

Book Groups. N.p., 2016. Web. 21 Mar. 2016. <http://www.politics-prose.com/book-groups>.

Brown, Emma. “Carla Cohen Dies; Co-founder of D.C. Bookstore Politics and Prose.” Washington Post. The Washington Post, 11 Oct. 2010. Web. 21 Mar. 2016. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/11/AR2010101102811.html?sid=ST2010101102828>.

Events. N.p., 2016. Web. 21 Mar. 2016. <http://www.politics-prose.com/events>.

Hodges, Lauren. “A Community Spine.” The Los Angeles Review of Books. The Los Angeles Review of Books, 14 Oct. 2014. Web. 21 Mar. 2016. <https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/community-spine/?utm_medium=twitter&utmsource=linesandgraphs>.

Politics & Prose Bookstore. N.p., 2016. Web. 21 Mar. 2016. <http://www.politics-prose.com/>.

For Sale: Books (and Small Children, Too!)

As a senior undergrad student I have a hard time imagining that the temptation of discount books and a cozy promise of caffeine could fail to appeal to anyone. Interestingly enough, the owners of the Politics and Prose bookstore seem to believe the same thing. When you enter the bookstore, the stairs to the lower floor are located directly in front of you. Above are large signs advertising the sale books and the Modern Times Coffeehouse awaiting patrons just downstairs.

I initially believed that having the stairs at the entrance that lead to the lower level of the bookstore made for an awkward design in the building layout. After extensively touring the bookstore via Google Maps (which is definitely easier said than done), I decided that perhaps having the lower level stairs at the entrance is not awkward at all. It allows for the checkout area to be located near the entrance, which offers more potential for employees of the bookstore to engage patrons, a surefire indicator that you are in an independent bookstore, not a chain bookstore whose employees tend to keep a distance from shoppers. The stairs at the entrance also offer the bookstore patron another exciting selection of pathways from the moment they walk in the store.

Below are two floor plans of the Politics and Prose bookstore. If you hover over the image, small tags will appear. For the main level, I would recommend following my train of thought by beginning in the Fiction Room and then going around the store in a counterclockwise manner. For the lower level, my experience was more scattered, thanks to the complexity of Google Maps. I would recommend taking a more orderly, clockwise path starting with the discussion tables.

If you are interested in a fictional series, the Fiction Room on your left after entering the bookstore is your main objective. Inside you are not only surrounded on all sides by the store’s fiction selection, but you can also find the Opus machine. There are less than 100 of these machines in the world. Clear walls allow you to see how the machine is printing on the inside, so when Opus is in action it will often draw a crowd of onlookers to the Fiction Room. A so-called Espresso Book Machine, Opus is able to print paperbacks on demand in five minutes or less. With that unofficial slogan that sounds an awful lot like a cheap pizza business, Opus is keeping the printed book relevant in the age of e-books and tablets.

If instead of going left into the Fiction Room you stay on the main floor and go to the right, you will encounter the part of the store that I honestly have the least interest in. This part of my digital tour was what really made me fit the name of the bookstore to its merchandise. Although the rest of the bookstore is not entirely political, it is certainly interspersed with politically associated genres more than your average bookstore. 

PROSE-popup
Susan Tobias, a patron of Politics & Prose, relaxing in the aesthetically pleasing Art section. And yes, tucked away on the Art bookshelf behind her is a book with President Obama’s face on the cover.

At the entrance you will encounter today’s current events in the form of The New York Times, and continue on to the Politics and History section. Passing between the International Studies and Science sections, you find another entire corner of the bookstore designated to Washington, D.C,Finally, at the very back of the store, framed by sunlit windows and an open, aesthetically pleasing space, is the Arts section. If ever there were an instance in my mind of prioritizing the “top shelf,” this would be it; the Arts section located in the most pleasing place on the main floor, and the cheaper books and walking petri dishes section located down below in the lower level.

If you are neither interested in the Fiction Room nor the rest of the politics-infused portion of the main floor, then I would assume you are either a patron looking for affordable books or a mother of young children clambering to get their hands on a new elementary fiction story. Either way, heading straight downstairs to a rejuvenating latte is the way you want to go. Even if the occasional open ceiling concept gives off a more industrial style vibe, all of the shelves and books appear to be kept organized. The designated areas for children are colorful and inviting, whereas the discussion table area is simpler, with an open and clean space meant for work that is separate than what would be done in the coffeehouse. In the coffeehouse, there seems to be a unique energy compared to the rest of the store, where I imagine contemporary jazz would be playing underneath light chatter and the occasional coffee grinder.


After taking this entire tour digitally and with the help of the constantly busy staff members of Politics and Prose, I had to wonder at the placement of all of these genres. As Brown wrote, “The story of objects asserting themselves as things, then, is the story of a changed relation to the human subject and thus the story of ho the thing really names less an object than a particular subject-object relation” (Brown, 4). In less convoluted terms, I believe there is something to be said for housing the sale books with the parenting and children’s books. Sale books tend to have that vibe that less people want them, or else they have seen better days on the market. Putting these books in the vicinity of children could simply have been strategic damage control. After all, if a child gets his or her hands on a sale book, far fewer people are going to worry about the condition of that book in the timeframe of the child picking it up and a parent quickly plucking it out of their hands. Likewise, having a coffee house in a bookshop always poses the potential for spilled drinks or scone crumbs getting near preciously valued books. If a sale book were to get blueberry muffin droppings on it, it would have less value than if it were on a pristine, gold-gilded book set of Shakespeare works.

I do wonder, however, if there is not more to this layout than initially meets the eye. Although both the original owners and the current owners have children (and some grandchildren), all of them are older and grown. Perhaps both sets of owners have a lesser tolerance for young children than they are willing to openly admit, and so decide to put that section of their bookstore downstairs. As Benjamin put it, “inheritance is the soundest way of acquiring a collection” (66). Perhaps when Graham and Muscatine took over Politics and Prose they also took on the original owners’ viewpoints and values for certain genres and clientele. After all, neither set of owners could avoid a children’s section altogether, given the family-filled demographic of the Chevy Chase neighborhood. An idea that I found quite interesting to come out of all of this is that, although they are delegated to the lower level of the store, the children still get their own history section. Clearly political topics are an encouraged reading subject by the owners of Politics and Prose, regardless of the age of their patrons.

 

Sources:

Text

Benjamin, Walter, Hannah Arendt, and Harry Zohn. Illuminations; Edited with an Introduction by Hannah Arendt. Translated by Harry Zohn. London: Cape, 1970. Print.

Brown, Bill. “Thing Theory.” Critical Inquiry 28.1 (2001): 1-22. JSTOR. Web. 2 Mar. 2016.

“Frequently Asked Questions.” Politics and Prose. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2016.

Muscatine, Lissa. “Coffeehouse Renovation Begins in January.” Politics and Prose. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2016.

Righthand, Jess. “Print Your Own Book at Politics & Prose.” Washington Post. The Washinton Post, 15 Dec. 2011. Web. 15 Mar. 2016.

 

Images:

“Politics and Prose.” Map. Google Maps. Google, July 2010. Web. 14 March 2016.

Torbati, Yeganeh June. “Bookstore in Capital Seeks Its Next Chapter.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 22 June 2010. Web. 17 Mar. 2016.

Slaughter-Graham, Nicole. “Eat and See Your Way Through Washington D.C. Like a Local.” Beyond Words: A Lifestyle Magazine Inspired by Sylvia Day. N.p., 02 Mar. 2016. Web. 18 Mar. 2016.

Community Via Individuals: Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade

Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade, 1984
Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade

Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade had chutzpah.

As a precocious child, Cohen insisted upon attending her father’s Americans for Democratic Action meetings that were held in her living room; as a vocal individual, she eventually got herself kicked out of those meetings; and as a persistent personality, she secretly listened to subsequent meetings from the stairwell.

Then there’s Meade, who all alone at four years old, perhaps in pigtails and Mary Janes, marched her little body across R. Street to the Georgetown public library because she wanted to read. Keep in mind, some four-year-old kids aren’t even potty-trained.

Two girls drawn to prose and politics, eventually maturing into two women co-owning the independent bookstore (you guessed it!) Politics & Prose. In the space between 1984 and the present day, depicted in the timeline below, Politics & Prose became Washington, D.C.’s preeminent cultural hub. The history of this indie and of the individuals who cultivated it illustrate the interplay between person and community.

Cohen, who passed away in 2010, was heavily invested in her community. She served on a number of government committees that focused on community planning and housing. While passionate about her work, Cohen, a liberal, was not fond of Ronald Reagan. She resigned from her government position with his presidential election in 1981. Hungry for a new career, she determined to open her own bookstore.

Cohen submitted an ad for a bookstore manager to the Washington Post, and Meade responded to it. The manager of Foggy Bottom’s Moonstone Book Cellar and the previous owner of Potomac’s Bookstall, Meade was the perfect applicant. Soon, she became an equal partner with Cohen.


When brainstorming names for the indie, Cohen believed that the word, politics,” fit well with the storefront’s Washington location. The concept reminded her of the Broadway number, “Politics and Poker,” which then inspired “Politics & Prose.”

But “poker” wasn’t an irrelevant term, as the economic climate of Chevy Chase, Maryland, (the town that borders Chevy Chase, Washington D.C., the neighborhood in which Politics & Prose resides, and shares a similar affluent aesthetic) and the publishing industry positioned the bookstore as a true gamble. A document entitled “The Town of Chevy Chase: Past and Present,” published in 1990 by the community’s History Committee, describes a series of store closings and location changes for well-established independent shops between 1982 and 1986. For example, Community Paint and Hardware opened its storefront in 1880, but closed in 1986 so that the town could build a high-rise in its place.

Additionally, chain bookstores were gaining traction in the business world. In 1977, Crown Books opened its first store in the Washington suburb, Lake Arbor. By mid-1982, Crown Books boasted 81 locations, many of them situated in Washington, D.C.

Yet, despite this ominousness, Politics & Prose not only survived but thrived as both an individual business and a societal phenomenon, essentially due to Cohen and Meade’s innovation. Speaking of these two women, Washington-based literary agent Raphael Sagalyn said, “One cannot exaggerate the influence of these two people on Washington. I would suggest that they have had as much influence on the community life of this city as any two people ever could.” But how?

An Active Community
An Active Community

Always emphasizing the collective, the dynamic duo differentiated Politics & Prose as a place where people could come together and talk about literature. In 1993, the store opened a coffeehouse, providing customers with a space in which to enjoy good food and good conversation. Cohen valued mealtime discussions even outside of the shop, frequently hosting dinner parties and seders at her home.

In 1989, the storefront moved across the street to 5015 Connecticut Avenue. Picture this: as evidence of the community’s involvement with the indie and the indie’s effect on the community, a police officer literally stopped traffic while neighborhood volunteers helped the employees carry boxes of inventory from the old store to the new one.

Gabrielle McNally
Gabrielle McNally
Jason Rosenhouse
Jason Rosenhouse

Cohen and Meade began a massive visiting author tradition at Politics & Prose, and the store now hosts author readings every night. These events created an intimate space for the discussion of prose and ideas. Furthermore, they reflected Cohen and Meade’s dedication to the individual. While both women booked established authors, the owners took risks on emerging writers whose work they found promising. These decisions afforded budding authors the opportunity to distinguish their verbal talents to a receptive audience.

In 2010, the two announced that they were selling Politics & Prose, a decision promptly largely by the worsening of Cohen’s malignancy. This news caused national alarm. In The New Yorker, Hendrik Hertzberg hoped, or rather prayed, that the new owners would embody the same “hands-on, brains-on, hearts-on personal dedication” employed by Cohen and Meade.

This response reminds me of a quote from Escaped Into Print by Christopher Morley. He writes, “Literature and the great personalities who commit literature start sometimes very strange vibrations” (47). While Morley is speaking of authors, this phrase becomes even more resonant when applied to booksellers, especially Cohen and Meade. The intense reactions elicited by the owners’ decision to sell their store is demonstrative of the two women’s roles as cultural and political forces, vibrations or oscillations that emanated from the storefront of Politics & Prose and out into the national sphere.

On October 11, 2010, Carla Cohen passed. Politics & Prose hosted a memorial for their beloved founder. As testament of Cohen’s significance to Washington, the event was recorded and published on C-SPAN.

The Founder
The Founder, Carla Cohen

Motivated by the task of filling very large shoes, Bradley Graham and Lissa Muscatine, approved by Meade and Cohen before the latter’s passing, purchased Politics & Prose in June of 2011.

New Owners, Lissa Muscatine and Bradley Graham
New Owners, Lissa Muscatine and Bradley Graham

Using the technological advancements of the modern age, Graham and Muscatine have furthered their predecessors’ dual commitments to the community and the individual. In 2011, Politics & Prose acquired an Espresso Book Machine named Opus. (Even the machine becomes individualized.) For a fee, the print-on-demand mechanism allows customers the opportunity to self-publish their work.

Additionally, Opus serves a community function. In 2013, Politics & Prose began releasing District Lines, an annual anthology that publishes the work of local authors.

In Chevy Chase’s intellectual, high-brow neighborhood, Opus aims to democratize literature, affording the power of publication to all, or at least to those who can afford it. By doing so, Politics & Prose approaches Marion Dodd’s conception of the bookstore as “an arsenal of democracy” (Brannon 5). In fact, commensurate with Barbara Brannon’s connections between bookshops, print culture, and freedom of the press, the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association established the Carla Cohen Free Speech Award. This prize honors a children’s book that epitomizes the First Amendment.

Opus The Espresso Book Machine
Opus The Espresso Book Machine

Cohen’s legacy is also observed through the Carla Furstenberg Cohen Literary Prize. Founded in the aftermath of Cohen’s death, this award recognizes extraordinary pieces of fiction and nonfiction by authors writing their first or second book.

These literary prizes are perhaps the best explanations of Cohen and Meade’s success; even posthumously (in Cohen’s case) these women satisfy the ancient mythology of the bookseller. Laura Miller writes, “As part of their desire to spread a genteel culture, the regular bookseller of the early twentieth century took pride in improving people’s lives by introducing them to ‘good’ books” (57).

Likewise, Cohen and Meade were extremely particular about the kind of literature they stocked in their store and recommended to their customers. With spunk and spirit, Cohen often redirected her customers’ selections when they aimed to purchase a less-than-perfect text, saying, “Why would you want to read that; it’s dumb.” She would then rummage through shelves, grabbing a worthier title, and remark, “You would enjoy this a lot more—and it’s a far better book.”

In this way, Cohen and Meade branded themselves as makers of taste and as cultivators of politically conscious citizens. Granted, the location of Politics & Prose, peppered with professors and politicians, allowed them to fulfill a stereotypically snooty role. And this role does complicate the bookstore’s position as “an arsenal of democracy;” through her brash, yet personalized, suggestions, Cohen limited, or at the very least influenced, the populace’s freedom of choice in terms of their book selections.

But what saved Politics & Prose and perpetuated its impact on Washington, D.C., I think, is the very human quality—the very mortal quality—of Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade.

The Dynamic Duo
The Dynamic Duo; Cohen & Meade

Works Cited

Links

Booksmith. “Carla Cohen of Politics & Prose Bookstore, Washington DC.” YouTube. YouTube, 19 Apr. 2008. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQrFBm6Bk74>.

Brown, Emma. “Carla Cohen Dies; Co-founder of D.C. Bookstore Politics and Prose.” Washington Post. The Washington Post, 11 Oct. 2010. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/11/AR2010101102811.html?sid=ST2010101102828>.

Hertzberg, Hendrik. “Politics & Prose & Perfection & (I Hope) Permanence.” The New Yorker. Conde Nast, 09 June 2010. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <http://www.newyorker.com/news/hendrik-hertzberg/politics-prose-perfection-i-hope-permanence>.

“In Memorium – Carla F. Cohen (1936-2010).” Politics and Prose. N.p., 2010. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <http://www.politics-prose.com/carla>.

“Memorial for Carla Cohen.” C-SPAN.org. C-SPAN, 21 Nov. 2010. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <http://www.c-span.org/video/?296926-1%2Fmemorial-carla-cohen>.

“New Owners.” Politics and Prose. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <http://www.politics-prose.com/new-owners>.

Politics & Prose Bookstore. N.p., 2016. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <http://www.politics-prose.com/>.

Righthand, Jess. “Print Your Own Book at Politics & Prose.” Washington Post. The Washington Post, 15 Dec. 2011. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/print-your-own-book-at-politics-and-prose/2011/12/12/gIQAwwXjwO_story.html>.

Torbati, Yeganeh June. “Bookstore in Capital Seeks Its Next Chapter.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 22 June 2010. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/23/us/23prose.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1>.

“The Town of Chevy Chase: Past & Present.” The Town of Chevy Chase. N.p., 1990. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <http://www.townofchevychase.org/184/The-Town-of-Chevy-Chase-Past-Present>.

Wilwol, John. “What I’ve Learned: Politics & Prose’s Barbara Meade | Washingtonian.” Washingtonian. Washington Media Inc, 28 Mar. 2013. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <http://www.washingtonian.com/2013/03/28/what-ive-learned-politics-and-proses-barbara-meade/>.

Video

Politics & Prose. “Politics & Prose 30th Anniversary Video.” YouTube. YouTube, 18 Sept. 2014. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPhOwiE_vAg>.

Image in Timeline

Politics and Prose Logo <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a7/Politics_and_Prose.jpg>

Google Maps

Politics & Prose Bookstore <https://www.google.com/maps/place/Politics+%26+Prose+Bookstore/@38.9554664,-77.0718584,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x89b7c9b992f1a9f7:0xb82a9184a0d413af>

Photographs

Barbara and Carla in Black and White <http://www.politics-prose.com/sites/politics-prose.com/files/barbaracarla.jpg>

Politics and Prose <http://www.politics-prose.com/sites/politics-prose.com/files/30.jpg>

Brad and Lissa <http://www.politics-prose.com/sites/politics-prose.com/files/bradlissa.jpg>

Carla Cohen <http://static01.nyt.com/images/2010/10/12/us/OBIT-COHEN/OBIT-COHEN-popup.jpg>

Barbara and Carla in Color <http://15128-presscdn-0-60.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/IMG_1537_1.jpg.optimal.jpg>

Opus The Espresso Book Machine <https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6041/6256317164_b132e2154c_b.jpg>

Gabrielle McNally <http://static1.squarespace.com/static/54e6226be4b0a4a2246532c1/t/561d7004e4b0be465244c65a/1444769815180/McNally_Statue?format=2500w>

Jason Rosenhouse < <https://whyevolutionistrue.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/11295599_10152953493305698_5288965846788805780_n.jpg?w=552&h=367>

Texts

Brannon, Barbara A. The Bookshop as “An Arsenal of Democracy”: Marion Dodd and the Hampshire Bookshop during World War II. New York: Bibliographical Society of America, 1998. Print.

Miller, Laura J. Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption. Chicago: U of Chicago, 2006. Print.

Morley, Christopher. Ex Libris Carissimis. New York: A.S. Barnes, 1961. Print.

A Place for the POTUS

I have always been a sucker for alliteration, especially when it’s tactful. That being said, I find the name of Washington, D.C.’s preeminent independent bookstore, Politics & Prose, particularly pleasant to pronounce. But this name serves a much more significant function than aural whimsy. The words “politics and prose” indicate the way in which this bookstore is both a product and a perpetuation of its place within the nation’s capital.

[slideshow_deploy id=’4940′]

Situated at 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW in the affluent neighborhood of Chevy Chase, which is located within the greater Northwest Washington area, Politics & Prose shares an environment with political landmarks like the White House, cultural attractions like the Smithsonian National Zoological Park, and educational institutions like American University. These physical structures embody Washington, D.C.’s historical and national significance. The locations combine to create, what scholar Tim Cresswell describes as, a “[site] of history and identity” (5). Piggy-backing off of that idea, political geographer John Agnew notes that “places… are material things,” comprised of tangible objects and buildings (Cresswell 7). Applying these theories to the capital, D.C.’s stores, monuments, museums, and government offices become representations of the evolution of the United States as a country, in addition to symbols of both the definition and conception of the word, “American.”

Reptile House at Smithsonian National Zoological Park
Reptile House at Smithsonian National Zoological Park
Panda at Smithsonian Zoological Park
Panda at Smithsonian Zoological Park

When analyzing David Harvey’s theory regarding the implications of place, Cresswell writes that “places just don’t exist;” rather, “they are always and continually being socially constructed by powerful institutional forces in society” (57). Washington, D.C.’s landscape informs Politics & Prose, as the store’s name is an obvious nod to the city’s connection with the federal government. However, despite the common misconception, the bookstore’s content is not limited to politically-oriented texts and commodities. Rather, the name “Politics & Prose” characterizes the politically-charged atmosphere of the place to which the indie belongs.

The surrounding neighborhoods (depicted in the map of Washington, D.C. 20008) have a total population of 27,590 people. These residents are well-educated; 87.5% have a Bachelor’s degree or higher, and 57.4% have a graduate or professional degree. In this way, the city’s educational institutions help influence the creation of an intellectual, literate place. The majority of the population is white. The median household income for this area is $100,953, and only 3.2% of the population is unemployed.

Races in Washington D.C., 20008

Educational Attainment, Washington D.C., 20008

 

A variety of small businesses, local restaurants, and chain stores stand alongside Politics & Prose on a commercial strip of Connecticut Avenue NW. Some shops include a tailor, a dry cleaners, a CVS Pharmacy, and a takeout subs and pizza joint called Besta Pizza—an arguable declaration, but I’ll get to that shortly.

Many of the restaurants in this area, such as Little Red Fox, Buck’s Fishing and Camping, and Jake’s American Grille, serve an array of American-style dishes. This culinary aesthetic seems fitting, given that these eateries are located in Washington, D.C. and cater to Americans.

In fact, when brainstorming names for a niche bookstore in the nation’s capital back in 1984, then owner Carla Cohen sought a “Washington-sounding name that wasn’t pretentious;” a name of the people, by the people, and for the people… who read (“The Story of Politics & Prose”). Cohen’s concept echoes scholar Laura J. Miller’s argument that independent bookstores “position themselves as the true representatives of the populace” (115). In light of this rather republican idea, the name “Politics & Prose” situates the bookstore as a place for U.S. citizens, while the actual storefront grounds the business as a place atop American soil.

Now getting back to pizza. As a Long Island native, I will always maintain that the best pizza comes from New York. However, perhaps the coolest part of this neighborhood, aside from Politics & Prose, is Comet Ping Pong. Located a few storefronts down from the bookstore, this innovative pizza place features multiple ping pong tables that customers can play with while they eat and hangout.

Comet Ping Pong

The hip, charming combination of food and fun realizes Yi-Fu Tuan’s conception of place as a “pause in movement” that allows for a “location” to become a meaningful space (Cresswell 8). Amid the hustle and bustle of urban life, especially in a city as fast, dynamic, and intense as the nation’s capital, Politics & Prose, as well as its surrounding businesses and cultural landmarks, provide people with respite from a hectic reality. Shoppers at Politics & Prose can grab a cup of coffee at the café, sit down in a comfy chair, and enjoy a good book. Their movement literally stops, transforming an arbitrary space into a place for relaxation. Even President Barack Obama indulges in this type of break every now and then, visiting Politics and Prose on Small Business Saturday.


 

Sources

Charts

“20008 Zip Code Detailed Profile.” City-Data. Advameg, Inc., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2016. <http://www.city-data.com/zips/20008.html>.

Maps and Images

Google Maps: Politics & Prose, Comet Ping Pong, Washington D.C., 20008, 5073 Connecticut Avenue NW, Smithsonian National Zoological Park

“Google Maps.” Google Maps. Google, n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2016. <http://maps.google.com/>.

Text

Cresswell, Tim. Place: A Short Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2004.

Miller, Laura J. Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.

“The Story of Politics & Prose.” Politics and Prose. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Feb. 2016. <http://www.politics-prose.com/our-history>.