Photo: Tattered Cover – Photo By: cpchen

Powell’s City of Books, Portland, OR:

Aptly named, the original location in downtown Portland claims to be the largest new and used independent bookstore in the world. It occupies a full city block and has seven branches around Portland. The color-coded rooms make finding a book a bit easier, but it can also be worthwhile to simply get lost in Powell’s maze.

Photo: Powell City of Books, Photo: Gracewandere

City Lights Books, San Francisco:

Co-founded by Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who became famous following for publishing Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems, City Lights hasn’t outlived its counterculture, leftist heyday. It still attracts a colorful cross section of San Francisco residents and passing Beat wannabes.

Liberal propaganda sometimes hangs in the second floor windows, and, of course, City Lights has an impressive collection of Beat literature beyond just the Kerouac classics.

Faulkner House Books, New Orleans:

Squeezed into the French Quarter’s Pirate Alley, this small new and used bookstore operates out of part of the home William Faulkner rented rooms from when he wrote his first novel. Shelves of books reach to the high ceiling. The rest of the building is a private home, and be sure to walk gingerly—the old, cramped house feels fragile.

Elliott Bay Book Co., Seattle:

He warm glow of the exposed brick walls can easily envelop you for hours on a rainy morning in Seattle. Set in historic Pioneer Square among small shops, art galleries, and restaurants, the bookstore hosts an average of ten author readings weekly and has an extensive regional collection.

Photo: Tattered Cover Bookstore, Photo: Cpchen

Tattered Cover, Denver:

the dark wood shelves, exposed beams and overstuffed chairs of the original downtown location are a nice escape from the bustle of 16th Street’s rather tacky outdoor mall. One of the largest independent bookstores in the country, it also has an extensive magazine and newspaper collection.

BookPeople, Austin:

Everything is bigger in Texas, and BookPeople is the state’s largest. The independent bookstore in downtown is a local favorite. Lots of staff recommendation tags hang from the shelves—the most entertaining I’ve ever read in a bookstore.

Strand Books, Manhattan:

Home to “18 miles of books,” Strand is competing with Powell’s for the title of world’s largest collection of used books. It’s the city’s largest collection of rare books and has an entire floor of art titles. Strand also sells tote bags in over 30 designs, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Politics and Prose, Washington, D.C.:

Known by many because its readings are broadcast on C-SPAN, Politics and Prose has more than just political works. The store’s large selection also includes a respectable children’s section. Upcoming author events include Howard Dean and Senator Barbara Boxer.

Do you have a favorite independent bookstore? Share it with us in the comments section below.

Community Connection:

Interview: David Farley On Travel Writing And Holy Genitalia, America’s Most Literate Cities…Really?

Wedding photos by Philip Chang

I could write about how not to spend money on a wedding — getting married at City Hall or eloping to some far flung place. But this is for those who want to have a more “traditional wedding” without having to take out a second mortgage on their home.

Below are some tips on where and how you can save some cash in planning your wedding, and still make it the beautiful and classy one you always wanted.

Free cherry blossoms

1. Keep the guest count down

Do you really need to invite your third cousin twice removed’s little niece? Stick to those who you keep in touch with on a regular basis. If you haven’t broke bread with someone in over a year, it’s probably not appropriate for them to partake in your day. We kept the guest numbers down by limiting the invitees to immediate family and the closest of friends.

Yes, you may rub some people the wrong way, but this is your day. You have your reasons, and they should be respected.

To take that further, we split the wedding in two parts: ceremony/dinner and par-tay. Half the guests came after dinner to celebrate with us, which also helped keep costs down.

2. Make your own invitations

Another nice thing about keeping the guest count down is you need fewer invitations. This means you should have time to make and send them out yourselves. If you’re crafty like my wife, you can make unique and special cards. We included a blank page in the invitation and requested that the guests make it their page in our guestbook and to bring it to the wedding.

With the time they had we received some really thoughtful and colourful pages to insert into our guestbook. Much more personal than just a couple sentences and a signature, or, worse, drunken words of advice.

3. Use your contacts

If you think about it, you probably know someone who has some handy skills you could take advantage of. Maybe even a friend of a friend. An old high school chum who I occasionally ran into agreed to do our flower arrangements (it just so happened she is a florist). In lieu of payment, we invited her to the wedding.

Friends and family were also more than willing to chip in as they could, some coming to the venue early to help set up decorations and chairs. And speaking of venues…

Barclay Manor in Vancouver’s West End

4. Find a cheap venue

While the big ballroom with floor-to-ceiling glass and a panoramic view over the ocean is ideal, it’s going to be expensive. Find a place that doesn’t normally do weddings.

We scored a beautiful heritage house and struck up a nice little relationship with the events coordinator. We negotiated a great deal and had extra access to the venue for planning purposes and also cleaning up post-wedding.

5. Be your own DJ

Sorry DJs of the world, but you aren’t needed here. We sent out an email to our guests and asked them for song requests. I then mixed everything together myself with MixMeister. It was easy to use and it was fun putting it together, plus it makes a great memento. We still have the original file and dance to it on our anniversary.

At the wedding, you can play this mix from your iPod or laptop. We rented a mixing board and big speakers for party level music. We also got a dancing colour light.

Professional DJ for $1000 or this set-up for $80? You decide.

6. Don’t go pro

It’s not always a case of “you get what you pay for”. We’ve all heard the horror stories of professionals providing less than adequate service. But it also works the other way round. You can get some seriously good service for a discounted price.

Photographer: We found one just starting out in the biz and so was offering a deep discount while he built up his profile. He came with an assistant (with his own camera too) and was with us for eight hours.

Plus, he was willing to give us all the images he (and his assistant) took throughout the day instead of just a set amount of prints.

The “homemade” wedding cake

Videographer: Also a newbie, but as this was his first wedding he offered to do it for free to get his portfolio going. The end result was fantastic and he was extremely professional, polite, and took great care of us.

Caterer: Try a culinary school to keep your catering costs down. If you’re in Vancouver, check out Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts. My mouth is watering just thinking of the food they dished up that night.

We found a cheap and cheerful bartender off Craigslist, where we also found the photographer and videographer. Just make sure you meet with them at least a couple times to make sure you’re comfortable with them.

7. Make your own cake

This is not for the faint hearted, but you can save heaps here. Rather than a sugary, fluffy cake, use one you actually like. We used a tuxedo cake (from Save-On Foods) square base, with a round raspberry and white chocolate cake on top, offset in the corner for artistic purposes. And, of course, decorated it.

8. Find some good, cheap booze

Who says you have to spend over $20 a bottle for some good wine? We tested a bottle or two each week, which was fun in itself, and found a red (Chile) and a white (Germany) for around $10. Same goes for the sparkling stuff, no need for the Dom Perignon.

9. Finally, recoup the costs

I don’t care what people say, I think it’s perfectly fine to ask for cash gifts, especially when the guest knows where it’s going (i.e. travel funds). You can also mix it with a registry of sorts for things you actually need.

Other random things we did to keep the costs down:

We rented a white PT Cruiser — modern, classy AND cheap — and I asked a work colleague to be our chauffeur. We “pruned” the cherry blossom trees around town for some free and beautiful center pieces (do this under the cloak of night).

All unopened bottles of booze and mixers were returned to the liquor store and Safeway, respectively.

Also, Yvonne’s wedding dress was so last year. But it was also so not expensive. And it was so gorgeous.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

If you’d rather plan a destination wedding than go the traditional route, Matador has the Ultimate Guide to Planning a Destination Wedding.

And we’ll never leave you at the altar– check out 16 Places to Stretch Your Honeymoon Dollar too.

For those of you who have already passed this stage and are on the next phase, you’d best read the Expectant Mom’s Guide to Travel.

How about you? Do you have any wedding money saving tips to share?

Pop them in the comments below!

Photo: karindalziel

Groceries get around more than you might realize. From farm to fridge, odds are the pineapple in your fruit bowl or the milk in your cereal has racked up even more frequent flier miles than you have.

That’s a lot of fossil fuel burned on our food’s account.

The local food movement is out to change that. By only eating foods produced in their community, region or country, adherents, known as locavores, aim to reduce pollution and support ethical farming practices.

With more and more people defecting from supermarket to farmer’s market, a number of websites have appeared to help users find local food in their own communities.

Photo: acnatta

If you’re thinking of going local, these sites can help you make the switch:

1. LocalHarvest

The Google of local food sites, LocalHarvest seems to have everything. Want to find farmer’s markets or farm subscriptions near you? Just enter your ZIP code into the site’s search engine.

Looking for local food-inspired recipes? LocalHarvest has that too. The site even has its own online marketplace, where shoppers can buy locally-grown produce from the comfort of their own homes.

2. Sustainable Table

A collection of resources for conscientious eaters, Sustainable Table provides information on issues ranging from local food to genetically modified (GMO) crops. The site also provides links to a wide selection of U.S. and regional local food guides.

For a good laugh, check out the animated parody “The Meatrix,” in which a group of livestock don trench coats and sunglasses to do battle with Big Agribusiness.

3. FoodRoutes

Photo: Natalie Maynor

A local food website for the activist in you. FoodRoutes, a national non-profit with the goal of “reintroducing Americans to their food,” advocates sustainable farming practices and provides consumers with information on the local food movement.

The site is also home to Buy Fresh Buy Local, a locavore organization with chapters in 28 U.S. states.

4. Eat Well Guide

Eat Well Guide is a spiffy, simple search engine that allows residents of the U.S. and Canada to find organic and local food shops and restaurants in their area, and the site’s guide to organic butchers and locally-raised meats should be especially helpful to the carnivorous crowd. In addition, the site hosts The Green Fork, an award-winning local foods blog.

5. Foodzie

Foodzie is an online marketplace for small-batch and artisan foodstuffs that’s all about craft, offering such delicacies as pumpkin-spice granola from Maryland and smoked sea salt from Maine. Customers can search for products by either name or location produced. However, some vendors are more local food friendly than others, so die-hard locavores might want to double-check before making their final purchases.

Plus one for our European friends:

BigBarn

An interactive map of local food markets around Britain, BigBarn’s Google Maps-based interface is easy to use and packed with information. The site also includes a searchable recipe database, where visitors can learn to make dishes like apple pancakes and wine-braised beef.

Community Connection:

Matador’s archives are full of recommendations about how you can eat local while traveling. Check out Slow Food, Slow Travel: Italy and Munching Montana: A Road Trip Guide to Montana’s Most Unique Local Food just for starters.

Want to volunteer with an organization that places a strong emphasis on local food? Read our profile of the Culinary Corps.

Interested in a more philosophical take on locavorism? How Local Self-Reliance Will Overthrow the System and Do we need industrial fertilizers to weather the food crisis? might be right up your alley.

Feature Photo: Matt Perreault;Photo: Sasha W.

Truer words couldn’t be spoken nor could they have more aptly applied to three unforgettable months living in Costa Rica.

It was December 15, 2008. I had just survived a one month excursion through South America, where I watched my diet regress from jugs of Chilean wine and slabs of Argentinian beef to train station sink water and sleeves of Ritz crackers.

Financially speaking, it was time to make a move.

My buddy and I set our sights on Costa Rica, which promised good surf and job availability. But the tourist-friendly bars, restaurants, and grocery stores we had assured ourselves would be waiting with open arms greeted us with a “No, gracias.” Bank accounts were dwindling. Running short of options, we mulled our future one evening over necessary beers and exotic fruit in hostel hammocks.

Together with my best friend and newly appointed business partner, I was able to create a business that was both profitable and delicious, sans any former sales training or MBA, in seven basic steps.

1. Assess your situation.

Understanding that jobs weren’t going to simply fall into our laps, a makeshift supply and demand economic session got underway as we battled evening mosquitoes. The beaches were still filled with free-spending American tourists; it was just a matter of finding a commodity that would actually turn a profit.

Shoveling another ripe four cent banana down, up came the hovering light bulb over my skull. Noting how the beaches were packed with foreigners constantly harassed by 8 year old children selling ceramic pots, local stoners pretending to offer surf lessons, and old women with cheap shell necklaces, I realized, “We could be those people!”

Brainstorming and high fives ensued throughout the night.

Photo: hiddenloop

2. Realize that timing is everything.

Deciding that our new company would manufacture, market, and sell frozen bananas in various flavors, the next step was opening a factory within our hostel’s walls. What we eventually developed was a finely tuned two-man banana assembly line that would make Chiquita salivate.

We conducted bi-weekly raids upon our local supermercado, collecting about 30 bananas, whatever meltable chocolate was in stock, skewers, and our choice for that week’s toppings. We soon learned the importance of daily visits to the store as a banana’s green-to-yellow-to-brown lifespan seems to accelerate under fluorescent lighting.

Photo courtesy of the author

Assessing that late morning and early evening were prime selling hours, our schedules shifted accordingly. Our well-stocked banana cooler didn’t exactly appeal to the drunken masses when we set up outside a popular bar later at night. Plus, we had to battle with cigarette, gum, and sausage vendors.

3. Name it right.

The catchiness and cheesiness of alliteration works wonders; thus, the Banana Brigade and Potassium Patrol were formed. Using Sharpie markers, we emblazoned our Styrofoam sales cooler with our company name along with fake banana websites and freshly created gmail accounts displaying how legitimate this operation truly was. Our ever evolving menu kept consumer interest high as “chocolate” developed to “Mounds bar,” which later developed to the mysterious “experimental” selection.

4. Play the part.

Knowing that even a cool product with a catchy name would not simply sell itself, we realized that an amicable, crafty nature would be a useful asset. Fellow gringos always welcomed a familiar face and simply striking up a chat about the recession, the weather, or the Red Sox promised future sales.

When my feet were swollen from stingray attacks or mosquito infection I found the silver lining and bandaged and limped as pitifully into the hearts of lounging retired women as one could. Vacationing South Americans responded to our heavily accented cries of “CHOCOBANANOS” after we exuded our bilingual charm. What we lacked in sales experience, we made up with in friendly conversation.

5. Emphasize quality over quantity.

As founder of your own business, pride in your product is essential. After initially trying to cut a few corners and market our aged brown bananas as “double chocolate,” we soon agreed we were jeopardizing the integrity of Banana Brigade.

As our entire livable income depended on customer satisfaction and our advertising was not much more than word of mouth, we harnessed our culinary skills to create the optimal look and taste. Once satisfied, customers returned to our frozen cooler to purchase treats they could make themselves at a fraction of the cost.

6. Remember: Sex sells.

Photo: nyki m

The female creature should never be underestimated. Especially if you have two beautiful, free-spirited Spaniards willing to forego their bikini tops and stroll the sand as temporary saleswomen. This also helped to alleviate the awkwardness of offering grown men our long, sweet, frozen delights.

7. Enjoy your work.

Running my own business turned out to be the best job I’ve ever held. I worked my own hours, accepted a hangover as an excuse for a sick day, never struggled my way through a sales meeting, and literally ate our losses.

While self-employed, you find joy and satisfaction in what you do, which is the best and possibly only reason to hold a job. The recession seems to be nothing more than an excuse by many to stifle their creative selves and play it safe and dull. I’d even suggest that starting a business in a beautiful get-away locale like Costa Rica is more promising than any. Besides the sheer beauty you experience daily, a profit can always be turned in a location where people are showing up fully prepared to spend recklessly and be as lazy as entirely possible.

Step away from that cubicle, fellow dreamer; the world awaits your genius. The risk is worth the reward and the reward has never tasted so sweet.

Community Connection:

Read other inspiring stories from people who have escaped the cubicle! Want some advice about ditching the cubicle. Matador editor Julie Schwietert tells you how to get rid of your 9-to-5 job, and Dana Ranill offers advice for convincing your boss to let you telecommute.

How often do you ask yourself where, exactly, your clothes were made?

Matador member Kelsey Timmerman did, and the question turned into an obsession, a global quest, a blog — and now a book!

Now that Where Am I Wearing? has hit the shelves, I contacted Kelsey to ask him a few questions about his travels in the global garment industry, and what he’s learned about becoming a more responsible consumer.

For those who haven’t been following along on your blog, could you tell us a bit about your quest and how it got started?

It started as an excuse to travel. I was in between gigs and living situations. Annie – my then long-time girlfriend and now my wife – and I had just moved back to Ohio from North Carolina.

I really didn’t know what to do with myself, so I decided to pursue an idea I had to follow my clothes to the factories where they were made.

I was in Central America for two months and only dedicated a single afternoon to the t-shirt factory [in Honduras] and meeting the folks who made it. Once I was standing outside the factory face-to-face with Amilcar, a worker at the factory, I completely wussed out.

I didn’t ask Amilcar what his life was like, how much he made making our T-shirts, or whether or not he liked the job. These really aren’t comfortable things to ask a fella, and deep down I think I really didn’t want to know.

Kelsey outside a garment factory in Honduras

After I returned home, my inability to ask Amilcar about his life started to eat at me. I read books about the garment industry and globalization, attended an anti-sweatshop conference. Still, it wasn’t enough to assuage my growing obsession with tags and who and where made our clothes.

So, I booked a ticket to Bangladesh and scheduled a return flight from Hong Kong three months later.

I spent a month in Bangladesh where my “Jingle These” boxers were made, a month in Cambodia where my all-American blue jeans were made, and a month in China where my Tevas were made.

One of the themes of Where Am I Wearing? is that the garment industry is much more complex than it often seems in the media and the popular imagination. Your solution to those complexities is to become an engaged consumer, rather than draw simple lines between “good” and “bad.” What are some steps we can all take to become more engaged consumers in our daily lives?

In the book I offer up how I’ve become a more engaged consumer, but, really, I think there are probably as many ways as there are consumers.

I refer to the decision of what brands and what countries to support as similar to people’s eating practices. Some of us are vegetarians, some are vegans, some are raw foodists, and some are on the junk food diet.

There are a host of reasons – health, ethics, moral, religion, etc – that determine what we consume. The same should go for the consumption of clothing.

Since I’ve become an engaged consumer, I’ve been searching for brands that acknowledge their products are made by folks on the other side of the world.

Some won’t.

I was fact-checking a story on t-shirts for Portfolio magazine and one company wouldn’t even admit that the majority of their t-shirts were made abroad. It was their company policy to not answer such questions. Ridiculous. I told them their competitors were more than helpful. They didn’t care.

Given the choice between two shirts, I’m buying the one where the company at least admits where their products were made.

A garment worker at home in Bangladesh

Other companies like Patagonia are taking great steps to show where their products are made and who made them. If you haven’t checked out their Footprint Chronicles feature, you should.

One thing I do is check out a brand’s website to see if they have a code of social responsibility, monitor the factories from which they source, and are members of the Fair Labor Association.

These things don’t guarantee that the workers making the companies clothes are treated fairly, but they do show that a company is more engaged in the process than ones that aren’t doing them.

Since I’ve returned from the trip, I’ve contacted companies to encourage them to post the country of origin in their catalogs and on their websites. The mysterious “Imported” listing on a product’s info has gotta go.

Why can’t we know where the product was made before we buy it? Once we get it there will be a tag or sticker telling us, so why can’t we know up front?

I’ve also contacted companies telling them my concerns.

Eva, you remember my beef with Ecko Manufacturing and their “Hot Girls Make Great Clothes” campaign, don’t you?

I called and told them why I would never buy a pair of their jeans and how disappointed I was with their ads. I think if we decide that a brand isn’t right for us, we should let the brand know why.

[Ed. Note: Yes, I remember that campaign. I wrote in about it, and you should, too: eckomfg@ecko.com]

A tool I’ve found useful is this little book titled The Better World Shopping Guide. It’s an easy way to make myself a more engaged consumer and it fits in my pocket.

Kelsey and a garment worker in China

Several times in your book you mention the potentially harmful impact of boycotts on the workers they’re intended to protect – but then, responsible or engaged consumerism is really a more subtle form of boycott, isn’t it? Choosing to support some brands and not others?

How do we find the line between encouraging a more responsible industry and punishing the workers?

Boycotting a country’s industry has resulted in negative consequences – mass unemployment and even garment workers turning to the sex trade – so, I’m not really encouraging any widespread boycott of a country.

In my eyes, if an engaged consumer discovers something they don’t like about a brand they are wearing, they shouldn’t just write off the brand, they should pick up the phone and give them a call or drop them an e-mail.

They should express what their concern is and see what, if any, action or response the brand is taking to correct it.

Have you heard of the term buycott? It’s where you support a brand that you feel is doing the right thing. I think that a buycott isn’t so much a way of protesting, but it’s capitalism at work. Studies have shown that 1/3 of Americans would pay more for clothes made under good working conditions.

There’s a market out there for brands trying to do the right thing. Brands that do, will add value to their products.

You contrast your positive reception, from Levi’s in Cambodia, with a less-than-friendly response from Teva in China. I know it’s tough to generalize, but are there any brands you’d recommend as more reputable than others? And who are some of the bad guys?

Mountain Equipment Co-op, Patagonia, and American Apparel are all doing some pretty cool things. But in general I think that most brands, including these, have a long way to go.

I can’t really comment on what ones are good and bad because that really wasn’t the focus of my travels or my research. Since I’ve returned from my quest, I’ve been trying to answer this question myself. I like to think that my wardrobe is a work in progress.

Scavengers at the Phnom Penh city dump

Where Am I Wearing? is as much about the people you meet as the facts you uncover. Is there one especially memorable moment or character that has stayed with you?

Can I pick two?

1. Amilcar in Honduras. I think about him a lot, even though he’s just a name and a face. What his life is like remains a mystery to me. If I added a chapter to the book, I would try to track him down in Honduras.

2. A little girl I taught to play Frisbee at the Phnom Penh city dump. My heart drops every time I think about her. Seriously, it just did as I was typing this. In all of my travels I’ve never tried to directly change someone’s life, but I regret not trying to change hers for the better.

Have you been able to stay in touch with anyone you met?

A Cambodian garment worker

The internet is a wide-reaching tool, but it hasn’t quite made it into the lives of the garment workers.

Most of them do have cell phones, but there’s the language issue. I stay in touch with my translators and I try to keep tabs on the workers through them.

The latest report in China is that a lot of workers are out of work because of the down economy and they’re moving back to their villages.

In Bangladesh this summer the price of rice skyrocketed and workers were struggling to put food on the table.

And finally, what’s next for you? Do you see yourself continuing to write about the garment industry and engaged consumerism, or is there some new quest on the horizon?

Next for me is that I’m going to be a dad any day now. Zoinks!

My wife and I are really excited. I expect fatherhood will be my biggest adventure into the unknown yet.

As for writing, I’m working with my agent on my next book proposal. So, we’ll see how that goes. I would love to get the research/travel done in 2009 and have another book coming out in 2010.

Some of my first published stories were for a column that ran in my hometown paper in rural Ohio. When I’m home, people still come up to me and recount their favorite stories. The majority of these people aren’t travelers, some haven’t ventured beyond the Midwest.

For me, no advance or byline can compete with knowing someone sat in their farmhouse and, for a few minutes, I took them somewhere they’ll never go and introduced them to someone they can see themselves in.

Whatever my next project is, I hope to have a long career connecting readers to people all over the world.

Thanks, Kelsey!

To learn more about Kelsey’s book, be sure to check out our accompanying review of Where am I Wearing: A Global Tour to the Countries, Factories, and People that Make Our Clothes, over at Matador Goods.