n aspect of ageing that really sucks is idealising a place that you have moved away from. Often that place changes so much over the subsequent years, to the extent that it no longer is the place of your memories. Sometimes, it is you who has changed, but this dissonant myth remains lodged unchanged in your mind. In either case, you feel that you no longer have a place to come home to. This rant concerns mostly with the former.

Berkeley was the first place I've ever lived in my life where I felt that I had belonged. When I was visting the town of Berkeley back when I was your typical alienated, wannabe-intellectual, geeky fourteen year-old outcast, I decided then that it was the place where I ultimately wanted to be. Places such as Moe's and Cody's on Telegraph had a lot to do with it. Their shelves showed me that there was a much wider world beyond the confines of a typical American suburban life. When I became a Cal student four years later, Berkeley emphatically became my first hometown.

Cody's on Telegraph has been shut since July, and I am not going to go over how and why the store closed. I am not going to bemoan the demise of independent booksellers, the atmosphere of Telegraph Avenue, or the changing student body at Cal. All these issues have been examined at-length in countless places. (The article by Anneli Rufus in the East Bay Express is excellent.) However, when I first saw its space occupied by a vendor selling cheesy Halloween costumes and supplies, you cannot but feel like crying. Sic transit gloria mundi indeed.

For better of worse, Cody's has been instrumental in forming the person I am today. I cannot even begin to fathom the number of hours I've spent browsing its aisles, and I certainly felt that I've learned more from its shelves than from all my undergraduate classes and seminars. Hours easily passed as you parked yourself on its shiny floor with an unexpected, intriguing volume. Besides, buying a book without flipping through its pages and reading its jacket first is like buying clothes without trying them on. Online shopping sucks. Even if you don't buy, you still gained in acquiring some knowledge, albeit in the form of bits of odds and ends. The fun didn't end with just book browsing. How many times have I gone there to see writers who had stopped by to read, lecture, and answer questions? How many times have I became so engrossed by something I was reading that I was late for class? How many times have I decided to meet my friends there, where I can read magazines and exotic periodicals like NME and Melody Maker as I await them? (I mentioned those two in particular because I became a British pop music junkie essentially while I was often waiting to meet my equally pop-obsessed friend Robert to go out for the night.) How many times have blind internet dates and hook-ups started there? Remember kids, this was years before image exchanges over e-mail was common. When I did not have schoolwork or a date on Saturday nights, this is where I headed for an evening of omnivorous reading before I head over to Moe's a few doors down, which closed two hours later at midnight. Those were my routines.

Cody's was there for me during good times and bad, and everything in between. For two years I even lived next door to the store at Rochdale and Fenwick co-ops, and it became an extension of my living room. I started my days by browsing the various broadsheets before classes, and ended them by browsing everything else. Since I lived with three other roommates, privacy was hard to come by. I escaped there when I wasn't getting along with my roommates. Sometimes when I felt distraught or despondent, and just needed time alone, Cody's was the place I instinctively headed. Somehow I needed the reassuring confines of its bookshelves. An aspirational world of knowledge, beauty, and possibilities beckoned and offered a sense of consolation. Now I don’t have a place like that to go to anymore. Sorry fot being so melodramatic. Its closure feels like a little piece of me had died.

15 October 2006