Street Culture

Not this kind of Pandemonium.When urbanists and culture critics write about culture in the city, they often use cultural institutions as props for artistic life. David Mirvish’s “John Street Cultural Corridor” refers to the Mirvish Theatres, Scotiabank Cinema, the Four Season Centre for the Performing Arts, and the AGO north of Grange Park. These places tell you that the city values the arts and has a rich “cultural” life. Most of these examples, though, are “event” locations. Attending any event at any of these venues is a deliberate choice. Admission fees mean that these venues aren’t entered casually or “just off the street.”Alternatively, book stores, storefront galleries, bars with stages and venues like these make art accessible in an informal and less structured way. While you may wind up spending twenty dollars in a book store, admission is free. You don’t need to buy tickets in advance or to book the day off to go to a book store. Institutions like the Four Seasons Centre are outside the realm of everyday experience. They belong to a nightlife-tourism model of cultural consumption that makes experiencing art a big event, like a trip to the zoo. Book stores, on the other hand, integrate literature into everyday experience, even if it’s only as a title in a window that catches your eye.Pandemonium has been a destination for art junkies on Dundas West for more than a decade now. Pandemonium has a reputation as an awesome record store and a top notch used book store, and in this reviewer’s opinion, it deserves them both. As a secondhand merchant, Pandemonium can’t quite match Type’s newest and brightest CanLit selection, but it has a lot more space and room to browse unobtrusively, and you won’t find Pandemonium lacking contemporary titles. I asked proprietor Neill a few questions about his sources, his business, and what he thinks of his shop’s role in this neighbourhood where condos are going up and the brunch spots are blooming.Town Crier: For a used book store, you have some incredible finds. I always find things I’ve been hunting down for ages. You often see fresh-looking items from BookThug’s back catalogue, and there’s a whole series of Arturo Perez-Reverte thrillers. Do you hunt down books yourself or do they come to you?Neill Cunningham: At Pandemonium, the finds depend upon your timing and how dedicated you are to discovering them. The stock of over 13,000 books is well organized, but the sheer volume means some familiarity with the store is an asset! I am an active buyer, with a steady stream of people trying to sell me books, records, CDs and DVDs. I have a couple of book and record scouts who often bring me nice things. It is the larger collections from people who are downsizing that can offer a new flavour to the store.TC: Where do you get these books (and records)? What kind of people come and unload their stuff on you?NC: Moving, downsizing, unemployment, digitizing and “going Zen” are some of the reasons for selling your stuff to Pandemonium. Trading up is another, I have a new customer who likes to bring in 40 to 50 decent records to trade for one killer record! Neato fun all around!The book and record scouts are individuals who enjoy the book hunt as a hobby; it is generally not a way to make a living. The Junction has been an excellent source of material for the store—a great mix of incomes and cultures.TC: In my experience, hybrid record store/book stores usually suffer in one section or another, even though they make up the sort of perfect secondhand culture combo. What I really want to know is, which of the two sells better?NC: It has always amazed me that books represent 50% of my sales consistently. This is through the decline of CDs and the rise of records. 50/50 for 13 years!One of the reasons I moved into the new location was so that I could do certain things better. I wanted to be an excellent used book store and an excellent used record store. I had, of course, not foreseen how much work it would really entail to maintain an excellent stock.TC: How long have you been in the neighbourhood? I’ve read that this stretch of Dundas West was a ghost town so many years ago. What was it like when you moved in to your first location on this street?NC: Never quite a ghost town, the Junction has had some challenges as a retail strip. I opened at Keele and Dundas in 2000; the rent was nominal to correspond with the street life. But like most businesses I was able to build up a clientele and keep the business growing until I had outgrown the old location and felt able to take on the challenge of a more massive operation (3.5 times larger than the original location).TC: Do you know what happened to the Rue Morgue next door? [Former mortuary and former home to horror fan magazine, Rue Morgue.]NC: The magazine sold the building to a law firm and moved.TC: Sometimes it’s phrased as praise, and sometimes as blame, but anytime a coffee shop, a book store, or a bar opens on a street full of laundromats and payday loans, they’re dubbed “gentrifiers.” They’re talked about as a kind of urban pioneer bringing civilization beyond the pale, or else as colonialists kicking fixed-income neighbours out of their homes. How do you see yourself influencing the neighbourhood around you?NC: Yes, it is not an argument I like. It is predicated on a lack of culture in the neighborhood prior to the arrival of “x” store. Stores open and close all the time and neighborhoods are in a constant state of flux, I think. There was already one book store in the Junction when I opened up, I felt that I was far enough down the street and offered a different sort of experience than Dencan Books. Luckily for the Junction, some of the fixed-income neighbors are a permanent feature! I do believe I have had some kind of an influence on the neighborhood—maybe not as the thin edge of a wedge, but as a fun vendor, a store that makes you want to buy a turntable or read a book you were not looking for but found randomly.Pandemonium is a used book and record shop at 2920 Dundas West, two blocks west of Keele, specializing in new and used books, CDs, DVDs, and vinyl.