Geographically, a tombolo is the sand bar and gravel that connects an island to the mainland or connects two islands. If it were punctuation, it would be a hyphenated dash as hybrid as a bird, the lyric between sentenced bodies, a landline matchmaker that links the head to the spine, book spines. Tombolo, open daily, vowel powered. Made of identity repair kits, made of caught feelings, made of pronouns. If we place it in the local community and conjugate it, it becomes a verb, a vein of literary activism, the new merger between genre and gender, an ampersand as fluid as Florida. Continuous flow, a flipbook thumbing the illusion of zine mileage. A tom-tom, Tombolo. Rudiments defying definitions, rhythm-meaning, mood. Lo and behold, Tom-tombolo, double carrier of the sacred om. Tote bags of lit chat to nourish the temperament, micro and flash. As one of the ways to prepare a face to meet the faces, they say gay, the entire universe in an author’s photo. Tombolo, Tombolo, Tombolo, the dream-drumming begins.
I found the sculpture of the perfect reader, face in a book, sitting on a bench. Without announcing its author, the book cover attracted the camera. A serif font posed with a dingbat. Freedom cloaked in form; the spell is cast in rows. From a manuscript, a book is born. An ageless page-turner, pitch perfect as the playlist of staff picks. Mutual as co-worker affection, Sula be with Mama Z but only in the remix. Snapshot, shutter. Alsace is a wandering star. Serena, love knotted. Nicole has more divine rivals than lessons for survival. The heaven and earth grocery story is the reason Candace protects Inkslingers. There, there, Amanda, all ministries emancipate time. Fangs for Mekhala, the Soul Sista of sloth. From flowers, fresh water for Kelsey. Bluesy as August, Ryan’s crowd behaves. Rachel, chorus in throat, opens to the lives of church ladies. A Sagittarian on the cusp of nothing but can-do, Tombolo will celebrate its five-year anniversary in December.
O Tombolo, thou art a gypsy in an alley between caffeinated bell ringers, Esmeralda’s kicked tambourine, her ballet of reading groups, her new and noteworthy variation on the romance of self-blame. No boiled moto just Tombolo, the first tomboy to survive Amazon’s barcode of tombs. Marquee of bell jars, blackboard of Book Clubs, all the thrills and chills of magical thinking, the horror and fantasy twins. No need to run the voodoo down again, just Google the origin story. Mom and Pop swallowed whole by the Zeitgeist Petting Zoo, way above bright Bethlehem, another Moravian descendent making its mythological debut. Every cartographer without a library card makes mistakes, but a good bookstore is reconfigured by community. Tombolo is a nurturing nest, nerd hip but not overly academic, the vibe of the village not the university. A bookstore within a place for storytelling within several bold tomorrows. A smart playground for kids assigned the role models of Mother Wit. All the otherworldly mic drops are here, the ones with picture books destined for bio pics: Barbie, Princess Diana, Barack Obama, Wonder Woman, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Barbara Streisand, Kamala Harris, Taylor Swift, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Dolly Parton, Beyonce, Questlove, Frida Kahlo, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Super Mario, and Brittney Griner. Long before the red pill, blue pill and black pill, there was the pharmacy of the printing press. After that, bookworms burrowing into aspirin cotton. Somewhere the fat condo known as the contemporary bestseller is serenading a lonely shoreline, Indie now and next. In the horn section of a band with chakras like chapters, Tombolo, is the big horn, the trombone. In Sanskrit, Bolo, to sing out!
Home of the pointed pencil lens, populated by perspective, trade paperback or cloth, the imagination can become anything at Tombolo: podcast troubadour, over-the-counter influencer, voice. We are what we eat but reading feeds what we think. If a non-reader wanders in, quick glance through the window, something stirs the sensibility, some whirl of worlds, patiently percussive, the incantation of Tombolo’s magnetic inventory, another book recommendation, adhesive as hearsay, the soft chant that bends a customer’s ear. Depth of feeling. For those who love bookstores of any kind, and those beginning to dive into the complex wholeness of our changing humanity (as well as the simple joys of just reading for pleasure), Tombolo is a Wonderland Oz, a Fahrenheit antidote, a ban lift of reading rainbows and fierce umbrella chandeliers. Thought note to ode, ode to praise song, praise song to coda, every prideful purchase a paper blank tree planted in paradise. Books, Books, Books. Like Moby Dick in the Metaverse, call me Lot Bot M the Messenger. Tombolo deserves a word tantrum, a gigantic anthem. And they. And them. Stop by, stay a while, anagram the Sci-Fi fabulous grammar. Tool bomb the mob loot, surrender!
