Ah, but this is not just any bookstore, my friend. I'm talking about El Ateneo Grand Splendid in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Some guys named it "second most beautiful bookshop in the world." Who named it so? Who cares! What is the number one most beautiful bookshop? I don't know! You don't seem to get my point -- this one is in Buenos Aires! Have I ever been in Buenos Aires? Well, to be completely honest -- no! But I was in Bonn once, and a girl I was seeing and I went all dressed up a movie theatre because we mistakenly thought they were going to show Stop Making Sense and clear out some of the seats to make a dance floor, and we thought that, all dressed up, we might look quite nifty among all the punks. (Who knows, maybe the Bonn scene would've been way ahead ahead of us, and we would've been just one among many quite unsurprising couples playing dress-up.) But we were there on the wrong night, and Apartment Zero was playing, set in Buenos Aires, starring Hart Bochner and Colin Firth, dubbed into German.
I loved the movie. She didn't. We didn't have much in common except physical attraction. That was almost 30 years ago, and physical attraction is still extremely important to me, but that might've been the relationship which finally convinced me that physical attraction, all by itself, is not enough to make a relationship rewarding. I'm heterosexual, and God knows she was gorgeous, but I found myself glancing around the theatre as the heavily homoerotic Apartment Zero played, wondering whether I might spot some guy who was bored with his guy with whom I could escape.
As it turned out, I didn't escape from her until a couple of months later.
So no, I've never ever been to Buenos Aires. And no, I don't know if El Ateneo Grand Splendid is really even all that splendid. The potential splendour of bookstores is not even the point. Well then, you demand, what on Earth IS my point? And I stare at you in horror as you ask me that, because I have never stopped trying to make my point. If you were playing footsie with me under the table right now instead of interrogating me about bookstores then we wouldn't even be having this unpleasant little tiff! Go ahead! Run away! You're so gorgeous and so unhappy and it's not my fault at all!
I don't know what she wanted from me. If she had just come right and told me, as specifically as she possibly could, what she really wanted, maybe I could've given it to her just like that, and maybe then she would've stopped being unhappy, just like that, and maybe even today, almost thirty years later, we'd still be married, and we'd have three stunningly gorgeous kids, maybe even an unbelievably beautiful grandchild or two. If she'd just told me what she wanted. Yes, if she'd been completely honest, maybe I would've turned and run in horror and never looked back. Or maybe I would have had exactly no problem giving it to her. And then suddenly she would've been happy. And that would've been so great. I never saw her happy, but I can easily picture it. I hope, somehow, that she's happy now. I can see her face lighting up with a smile as beautiful as Rachel McAdams'.
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