Joshua Tree‘‘ s strip of local services is just a couple of blocks. It's got a bookstore, one with the eccentric sensibility that appears to come naturally to the desert.
Its name: Space Cowboy. Its focus: science fiction, with a minor specialty in westerns.
Git along, li'l comets, git along.
" You get an idea of the shop from its name," owner Jean-Paul Garnier states with a smile.
As a bookstore maven and sci-fi fan, I mored than happy to lastly see his shop. My very first 2 attempts had been headed off at the pass, as it were, by scenario.
When I visited Joshua Tree in March 2021, the store hadn't reopened yet from the pandemic. A year later when I went to, the shop was closed because Garnier, the sole staff member, was on a book-hunting trip to
San Francisco.
When I returned this April, the 3rd time was the charm.
Area may be large, but Space Cowboy is just 300 square feet. "It's teeny," Garnier tells me a number of days later on when we take a seat to chat.
He approximates he's got 6,000 books, arrayed in bookcases, atop bookcases, in a spinner rack or displayed face-out in plastic sleeves and pinned to the walls like butterflies.
Like a master packer, Garnier tucks items all over: a bin of comic books here, a row of SF absorbs there, figurines atop racks as environment. He discovers room for fiction, poetry, westerns, nature and science, desert guides and regional composing besides all the sci-fi.
Garnier proudly calls his stock "an extremely curated selection without filler."
Books and other items crowd versus each other inside Space Cowboy, a bookshop in Joshua Tree concentrating on sci-fi. (Photo by David Allen, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG).
Space Cowboy got a complete page in the California quarterly Alta Journal's Summer 2022 issue, "85 Bookstores We Love," with an essay by Desert Oracle editor Ken Layne.
Layne applauded how Garnier contributes books to regional schools and teams up with Copper Mountain College on author readings, writing that Space Cowboy "is deeply involved in its community, as a good regional bookshop must be.".
Layne continued: "Local gift shops typically have a collection of tour guide, however Space Cowboy remains the only dedicated bookstore in this sprawling Mojave Desert neighborhood of 6,500 people topped 37 square miles of creosote and sand.".
Visitors keep the shop (and most regional companies) open, for which Garnier is grateful. Throughout COVID, he relied on internet sales and opened by visit only up until he could be immunized and reopen securely. When in the store, he still wears a mask.
" As a small company owner, if I get ill and am out for three weeks, there's no cash coming in," Garnier discusses. "I didn't see a lot of compassion for that.".
To keep income flowing, Garnier expanded his activities as an editor, author and publisher , handling the role of editor for StarLine magazine, and also hosted online events for the worldwide SF neighborhood. Synchronised Times, his podcast of author interviews and brief plays in radio-drama design, simply significant five years.
Garnier, 42, had actually lived up and down the coast, from
Seattle to Orange County, before transferring to Joshua Tree in 2014 with his partner, who opened a catering organization.
A handyman and audio engineer, Garnier introduced Space Cowboy in December 2015 as a hobby, offering books from his own collection. Residents anticipated he would not last three months, but the shop sustains.
Area Cowboy, at 61871 Twentynine Palms Highway, is part of the Sun Alley Shops, a collection of arts-centered little companies a couple of blocks from the primary road going into Joshua Tree National Park. Jean-Paul Garnier points out some of the curiosities in his bookshop, Space Cowboy, which has some 6,000 volumes in a compact 300 square feet.
Garnier and I chat on the main patio area early on a bright weekday early morning, paces from his store and its whimsical plywood cutout of a space alien in a cowboy match.
Science fiction is seen as terrific visual home entertainment, but "there's still a stigma against the books," regrets Garnier. He became a verified fan after reading Frank Herbert's "Dune," whose desert-planet setting prefigured his eventual relocate to Joshua Tree.
He cites "A Canticle for Liebowitz," Walter M. Miller Jr.'s 1959 unique, which concerns a post-apocalyptic America that has actually gone back to the Dark Ages and where a piece of an ancient shopping list ends up being a holy text studied by monks. When skeptics check out that, states Garnier, they understand SF isn't just ray weapons going "seat, bench.".
" We're at a time when we truly need to discuss the future. Science fiction is actually good for that," Garnier states.
The future in SF is generally dystopian, not utopian. Garnier believes current occasions have actually modified that trajectory.
" 2020 undid a great deal of individuals's taste for dystopia. Instead of something climactic," Garnier says of the possible end of the world, "it was Netflix on the sofa.".
He's among the authors with a more hopeful vision. "If we can't envision a more favorable future," he asks, "how are we going to develop one?".
I bring up ChatGPT, a science imaginary idea come to life.
" Certainly that book shop is filled with stories cautioning us versus artificial intelligence," Garnier states wryly of his store. "But did we focus?".
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I ask what there has to do with the desert that motivates him as a science fiction fan.
" We've got the lovely skies above us," Garnier enthuses. It's a peaceful and tranquil location for a writer.
That's a reference to the city refugees and party-minded tourists who are altering the ambience. The desert landscape is becoming less hospitable for book enthusiasts too.
As recently as 2021, my very first check out, the desert had four book shops. That number has been halved after the two used book shops in Yucca Valley closed: Sagebrush Press Books due to retirement, Cactus Wren Book Exchange due to a proprietor who wanted to go upscale.
Only Raven's Bookshop in 29 Palms and Space Cowboy in Joshua Tree stay.
" It's heartbreaking," Garnier admits. "It's indicative of changes in the community that a great deal of us discover disturbing.".
David Allen composes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, more to unsettle you. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on Twitter.
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