An Incredible Book Journey: Time Was Soft There

Over the next six weeks, I will have the joy of visiting independent bookstores in 23 cities. Follow the trip and meet the many wonderful friends, book people and random characters I encounter along the way.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Jonny and Amanda



You’ve already met their dogs, so now here are Jonny and Amanda, two dear friends who fall into the top micro-percentile of all living beings on earth.

Jonny is a fellow Canadian who I met when he came through Paris and Shakespeare and Company back in 2000. We became close when we road-tripped to distribute Kilometer Zero magazine in 2001 (though he still hasn’t forgiven me for trying to pin a car theft on him) and then even closer when he moved into the Chateaudun art squat in Paris in 2002 (we played petanque at 5 am and then watched the sun come up on the squat roof his first morning). He is now a stealth bomber of subversion, slipping all kinds of hyper-progressive material into the columns of The L Magazine where he is executive editor.

Amanda is an artist and editor who Jonny and I (along with this freak of humanity named Adrian Hornsby, but that, as Hammy Hamster said, is a story for another day) met when on the 2001 KMZ distribution tour. Amanda, a fellow Aquarian, owns Clovis Press, the best bookstore in Brooklyn (229 Bedford Avenue - you MUST visit). Since that meeting in August 2001 everyone has become best of friends, except for Jonny and Amanda, who have become best of LOVES and are going to be married in September 2006 in what is certain to be the top wedding held in America at anytime over the past 7 years. (How do we know this? Well, I am the official wedding gardener and I have all the inside bumf and all that inside bumf is sensational.)

Jonny and Amanda came down to Philadelphia for Jim's party and we spent a lovely day wandering the city. This picture is taken in the back of a horse drawn carriage while we were taking the historical tour. We all loved CJ the horse and Amanda even trekked several blocks to buy the horse a rosy apple.