A Secret Bookstore in New York City

in Books, Literature, Video - Arts & Culture | July 14th, 2011 6 Comments

The Paris Review blog, which just gets bet­ter and bet­ter each week, post­ed Andrew David Wat­son’s love­ly video yes­ter­day about Michael Sei­den­berg, who moved his shop, Brazen­head Books, into his New York City apart­ment after his book­shop rent sky­rock­et­ed. “It’s a con­tin­u­a­tion of just me being a book­seller in the way that I want to be… If it’s all about mon­ey, there’s just bet­ter things to sell. Just sell crack. That’s a much bet­ter busi­ness.” As for where he’s locat­ed, he says “My name is in the phone­book, and any­one can call me… I’m hid­ing in plain sight. Come find me, vis­it me, and I’m yours.”

A spe­cial h/t to Rachel Rosen­felt and The New Inquiry for first intro­duc­ing Wat­son (and us) to Brazen­wood Books.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Books Savored in Stop Motion Film

Going West: A Stop Motion Nov­el

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.


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Comments (6)
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  • Floyd Wilde (@floydwilde) says:
    July 14, 2011 at 2:08 pm

    I think this whole quote is worth repeat­ing, also he did­n’t say “crap”, he said “crack”:

    “I don’t know if it’s my famil­iar­i­ty with fail­ure, but I find ways to sur­vive with out *it* mak­ing enough mon­ey to be what you would call a suc­cess­ful busi­ness.”

    “It’s a con­tin­u­a­tion of just me being a book­seller in the way that I want to be… If it’s all about mon­ey, there’s just bet­ter things to sell. Just sell crack. That’s a much bet­ter busi­ness.”

    Reply
  • anon says:
    July 14, 2011 at 6:50 pm

    As oth­ers have said, I believe he said “crack”, not “crap”.

    I also think his state­ment is prob­a­bly erro­neous. It is prob­a­bly mean’t in jest, but unless you are at the top, you prob­a­bly aren’t doing well sell­ing crack. Any­one who has read Freako­nom­ics knows what I’m talk­ing about.

    Reply
  • Dan Colman says:
    July 14, 2011 at 6:58 pm

    Mea cul­pa on not hear­ing things cor­rect­ly — “crack” it is.

    Thanks for catch­ing that.

    Dan

    Reply
  • Natalie says:
    July 15, 2011 at 1:33 am

    What a love­ly film — beau­ti­ful­ly shot and edit­ed.

    Reply
  • Creative Writing Blog says:
    August 15, 2011 at 10:26 am

    Great busi­ness con­cept. Cer­tain­ly isn’t greedy is he? And as long as his apart­ment isn’t in too obscure of a loca­tion (we are talk­ing about NY here), he should do pret­ty well! Great video!

    Reply
  • Lilian says:
    November 30, 2012 at 12:23 pm

    Chal­lenge accept­ed.

    Nev­er mind vis­it­ing the Met, I am vis­it­ing him.

    Reply

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