GPOYW: Sparkly Edition
Our Ruth Maendel original light fixture is now wired and shining. Ruth’s latest exhibition of work opens in Winnipeg on November 20, 2009 here.
Hugo-winning SF writer Robert Charles Wilson and his wife Sharry just walked into Aqua Books. Bob’s here for THIN AIR 2009, and Sharry is researching an article on Winnipeg son Neil Young.
Musician Ben Wytinck
Musician Ben Wytinck
Writer Deborah Schnitzer
Storyteller Jan Andrews
Kelly Hughes Live! September 11/09
GPOYW: The New Hours Sign Edition
People can never figure out our huge hours sign on the right (beautifully designed by Instant Noodles). We’re closed Sundays and Mondays (so we can give our staff two days off in a row), which is confusing for people. On Sunday, I try to keep my marriage from falling apart. On Monday, I work on things that can’t get done when we’re open. As I sit here, people try the door. When it doesn’t open, they pull harder. They look in the window. They step back and look confused. Sometimes they even call the phone number here from their cel phones. Only one in three actually looks at the hours. So we bought a nice new illuminated sign (pictured at left). I was hoping that would help.
The night we put it up, a woman came by at 8:30pm, half-opened the door, stopped, looked at the new sign, and then left. Clearly that was not what I was shooting for, to somehow dissuade people from coming in at all. If you want to go into retail, get a psychology degree first.
GPOYW: ROYGBIV edition. This is what our old book section looks like now…(with apologies to Chris Cobb, although we only moved 300 books to do this, not 20,000)
GPOYW: EAT! bistro does the Manitoba Editors’ Association Windup Dinner Edition (happening right now)
GPOYW: 400 pounds of awesome edition
This is our almost-finished main chandelier. When we bought this Chinese restaurant that we turned into a bookstore/bistro last year, this light fixture was already here, hanging in a drop-ceiling in what’s now the main part of the bookstore. It was a square, 1980s-made chandelier that was blinking like a seizure-inducing Christmas tree. We stripped the whole thing, cleaned all the glass, built the Taj Mahal-style frame around it, and put it back up, with a new sculpted arrangement of the 300 individual pieces. All that’s left is to wire it back up again.
GPOYW: The Bryan Scott Photography Edition
(I pulled a few strings and got Bryan to release this pic for my use.)
Another great pic of Aqua Books
from Bryan Scott. I didn’t put the picture up here out of respect for Bryan, who’s a paid photog.
GPOYW: The Swine Flu Edition
Aqua Books’ own Chandra Mayor has created a remarkably innapropriate window display on….the swine flu. Business in the restaurant has now dropped 25%.
