Swooning 4 Swoon
Gong is dead – a sentiment myself and a lot of my peers can be guilty of carrying. My friends in Sydney, mostly residing in the city’s inner-west, refuse to visit. In fact, they seem to forget it is the exact same distance from Wollongong to Sydney as it is from Sydney to Wollongong. My friends in Wollongong typically spend their weeks hopping the same cafes to read and talk shit at, and the weekends between each other’s houses or heading up to Sydney. Sure, maybe we need to have fewer safe spaces for Deleuzian-niche-internet-microcelebrities, culture junkies, and petit-bourgeois bibliophiles, however, the concern is more so that being in Wollongong imposes a kind of cultural hegemony. Leisure hinges on drinking, seeing gigs, and house parties which I have unfortunately become too uncool to find the location of. Experience seems increasingly monetise, events serve the interests of the assumed hip young, triple j adjacent, jorts-wearing local Wollongong 20-something. But maybe these 20-somethings, besides seeing gigs, always want to watch films somewhere other than their house and buy books? Wollongong CBD no longer has a cinema, our bookshop options were previously limited to Dymocks, QBD, or op shops. The good thing about this lack is that it leads to the possibility for cultural renewal. This year, I gave myself the challenge to find spaces where this is not the case. Besides, is it not classist to assume little old regional Wollongong, though it is rapidly developing — evident by the accruing of our very own Yo-Chi — is somehow culturally secondary to places like Melbourne and Sydney?
One day, while I was walking through Crown Street Mall, I came across a sign for a second-hand bookshop. Swoon. Jackpot. Following the swan, I loitered around the hallways of Central Chambers, a part of the CBD I have always enjoyed, a kind of Wollongong equivalent to Melbourne’s Nicholas building. As I entered, I was immediately shocked at the selection of books on the shelves. I saw a solid collection of Houellebecq, some Burroughs, some Pynchon. The theory section was full of Adorno, Foucault, and Deleuze & Guattari. I was in awe. You could say I swooned for Swoon. It has the selection of books I would usually travel to the city for, or at least take an inter-library loan out for at the UOW Library. I came back the next day with my friend and sent Swoon’s Instagram page to about 10 of my other friends, but I still needed to get to the bottom of the mystery: how does a place like Swoon end up in Wollongong?
I met with Pat Walker, the owner of Swoon, mainly just to have a chat because he’s a cool guy, but also to discuss the need for creative third spaces, the role of the bookshop in curating taste, and his vision for Swoon.
Jess (J): Why did you call this space Swoon and what is the significance of the swan?
Pat (P): It’s not that complicated I suppose. I was trying to think of a name and it was hard to do because I wanted to strike a balance; I did not want to be too edgy like ‘Radical Revolutionary Records’ or something like that. I like ones like ‘Repressed Records’. That’s a good name, but it does not suit what I’m going for. I guess it sounds lame, but I want something a bit more evocative, but not pretentious. To strike some note in the middle of a bunch of things. So my friend Ally suggested ‘Swoon’ which comes from the name of this great album by a band called Prefab Sprout – an 80s pop band with incredible songwriting. And then the swan came from the name. We had the idea of having a mascot for the logo, swan came out of swoon. My friend Phoebe designed the logo and nailed it first go. Yeah, I guess I didn’t want to pigeonhole it too much.
J: Because you wanted to swanhole it?
P: Yeah… because I want to keep pretty broad with the range of things we have here. Don’t want to be too narrow in the way I frame it. So Swoon was the one out of several ideas that stuck. And I think it’s good, like one syllable. I feel like with names, like band names, it can be pretty much anything and with enough repetition it becomes normal. I think The Beatles are a great example, it’s the lamest pun ever; The Beatles with beat. But no one really hears that name and thinks “oh, that’s so cringe”. It became the name of the band and after a while it became normalised. I figured that would happen with any name we have, with Swoon it just felt natural. You could imagine yourself saying “let’s go to Swoon”, “let’s Swoon tonight”.
J: Don’t worry, there will be plenty of puns about the word swoon in this article. But what you were saying brings me to my next question. Your discussion about names reminds me of this book I am reading at the moment by philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy called On the Commerce of Thinking: Books and Bookstores. He says that there is a scent or aroma of the bookstore, which is this way in which people can access a trace of the ideas of a book prior to the book being read. He says that a book’s title, appearance, sensorial aspects of the book, as well as the curation of the bookstore are all aspects that enable this scent or aroma. I think this holds really true for your space, so I am wondering what is your curatorial strategy for what you sell here and do you have a vision for the books and records you sell?
P: I guess as a curatorial vision, I am pretty guided by my own taste and vision. Like all the books we have here, the majority of them are ones from my own collection that I have picked up over the last ten years or so. And so, they are books that belong to me that are now for sale. The rest of them are just guided by my own interests really. Part of my agenda of running this store is to push forward my own interests rather than responding to whatever tastes already seem prevalent. Like I did not start the store thinking “let’s see what people already like and let’s try and meet that demand.” For instance, I think the best section in the record section is the classical section. I was really into classical music and I don’t expect many of those records are going to sell in the long run or even any of them necessarily. Maybe that one person will come in who is really enthusiastic about it who is like “I will buy ten of these”. That’s one example of it. This is just me being like, I think this is really good, this is what I am going to put into the store. You can’t know unless you try. Maybe there is demand for this, but there is no evidence for it because no stores are catering for it. You don’t have any empirical proof to point at regarding people’s taste until it is on offer and they either take the bait or they don’t. But yeah, I do realise I need to meet people where they are and try to serve their interests. I can try and run this store based on what I think is cool and what I like. But maybe I am just really weird and idiosyncratic. Maybe no one appreciates this stuff like me. I guess time will tell.
J: I don’t know. I think what you pick up on is that we become accustomed to certain markers of taste, so often people meet demand by not only selling what people want but certain categories or groupings of things people want. But what feels different about this space is this grouping of really disparate or unique things, like the classical music section. And I think that is something which draws people to this space even if they aren’t the ones browsing that section.
P: Yeah, I think a lot of people when it comes to consuming music are really identity driven. Maybe less so than in the past, the barriers between different scenes or genres have broken down quite a lot even within the last 10 years. But even still it does exist, people limit themselves, they become fans of a particular genre and that becomes part of their identity and then they become no longer adventurous. So part of the thing I want to push here is that you can just be interested in music, interested in what people can do with instruments and sound and that can be the thing that can guide you so you can listen to anything and find interest in it.
J: Hell yeah to that.
P: Maybe I am just pushing an agenda.
J: I mean I think you have a little bit of an agenda, but is this more of an agenda than someone only responding directly to demand. This goes into another big question I want to ask. I think what’s great about your space is that you don’t want it to be purely limited to commerce. You use this space in a creative way, hosting events, selling zines from local creators, which is so important for the Illawarra, because a lot of people, myself included, end up outsourcing to larger cities. Which sucks because it flattens regional cities where we become increasingly dependent on the Melbourne-Sydney dichotomy. Do you think Swoon fills that gap for local creatives?
P: I hope so. We seem to be getting a good response. There are a pretty good range of events in the works. Like someone wants to put on an ambient show, there is going to be a monthly reading group, and a few other things like an art show. I am keen to try out a bunch of new things and see what works, what sticks, and keep going with that. Even in a more casual sense, it would be nice for Swoon to be a place where someone feels comfortable to stop in, sit on the couch, come have a conversation with me or listen to music and drink a cup of coffee. Those sorts of places are lacking. Like if I am walking around Wollongong and just want to find somewhere and chill for a bit there doesn’t seem to be any options. You have to go to a cafe or go to the pub and drink. Right now I am trying to avoid going to the pub, I find it’s a trap, you get sucked in and you never leave. I do have to shout out the QuickMart on Crown St though. I go there and have a chat with those guys, pretty much the only place I have where I can stop in and just chat, there will be someone I know working there and just hang out for a bit. But yeah, I think it’s important to have those spaces and it’s always been a bit of a cliche among musicians in Sydney or Wollongong that to do what they want to do they have to move to Melbourne to do it, because that’s the only place where there is a big enough scene for them and the housing market is affordable enough. I think it’s good to resist that trend and try and make something happen in your own city. Someone like me is willing to take on the risk of crashing and burning. Especially at the moment with the energy supply crisis, fuel practically doubled in price. It’s going to have an impact on the discretionary spending we rely upon, I might have chosen to do this at the worst possible time. It relies on people willing to make that jump. There is a lot of uncertainty at the moment, so I get why people don’t do it, but you have to.
J: So you mentioned a few events that will be held in this space coming up, a reading group and an art exhibition, can you tell the readers of The Gala about any upcoming events or where to find info on events?
P: Right now we are waiting for confirmation, but check out the Instagram page for details on upcoming events.
Swoon is located in Central Chambers at 17/157 Crown St. Their instagram is: @swoon2500
