Bookstore Is a ‘Bridge’ for Cultures

Sitting on a dark green milk crate in front of his bookshop on a bright afternoon, C. Edward Moondance is doing what he loves best: talking about the beauty of the written word.

As Moondance and a customer discuss Toni Morrison’s recently published Nobel Prize lecture, he cradles the 20-page hardcover book as if it were a long-lost treasure. On his lap rests a light gray cellular phone, anchoring him to reality.

Later, he glides into a monologue on one of his heroes--mythology scholar Joseph Campbell--and points a visitor to the shelf in the Santa Monica bookstore where the Campbell selections are kept. “First editions,” Moondance announces.

Moondance, 43, has run Moondance Bookshop in a converted little house at 1512 16th St. since 1988. He is proud of the bookshop’s eclectic titles and his 9-year-old daughter, who “read 200 books last summer.” And he is thankful for his longevity in the book business.

Located next door to a health food store, the bookshop is a cramped repository for 10,000 books. Moondance says he knows where every title is. “You just name the book and I can find it,” he said, smiling.

New and used books are stacked in boxes here and there and on cluttered shelves. Out front, about 15 copies of Kazuo Ishiguro’s “The Remains of the Day” are stacked in his $5 sale bin. “I try to keep my thumb on the pulse,” he said.

Moondance has a frenetic, intense energy that is easily ignited. He laughs a lot, yet his tone turns serious when he talks about why he is here.

In 1984, he chose to live in Santa Monica--it reminds him of hometown of Memphis--with his wife, Sarabanda, and daughter, Hana, and run a bookstore.

Running a bookshop in Santa Monica, he says, has a twofold importance: He sees himself as an example of successful African Americans. At the same time, he promotes cultural exchange through his store’s diverse selection.

The bookshop, he said, is “an oasis for multiculturalism, a bridge for other cultures to use to gain access to each other’s literature.”

“A beachhead has been set for another generation,” he said. “A viable African American presence has been established.”

Autobiographies such as Dizzy Gillespie’s “To Be or Not to Bop” and David Hockney art books are shelved a few feet from editions of Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev’s biography.

As a child in Memphis, however, Moondance wasn’t fortunate enough to have such a vast selection at his fingertips.

“A bookmobile served African Americans once a week,” he said. Because of discrimination laws, African Americans were allowed to use Memphis’ public libraries only once a week. The bookmobile stayed for only four hours, Moondance said, but “I got to know where the good books were. You learn to get real quick, or else you lose.”

A descendant of Cherokees and West Africans, Moondance spent a few years in college, and then hit the road, holding a number of odd jobs, including wine steward and gas company inspector. “I’m a jack of all trades, a master of one,” he said with a laugh.

When he opened his store, Moondance encountered some skeptics--what he refers to as his “horror stories.”

“A European American woman came in and asked, ‘What are your credentials to own a bookstore?’ ” he recalled. “I told her to look around the store.”

The customer later complimented him on his “wonderful selection.”

“It’s not by accident. These books were all handpicked,” he replied.

Moondance doesn’t see the other 15 bookshops in Santa Monica as competition. Mega-chains like Bookstar and Crown, he said, are “supermarkets.”

“I’m a neighborhood bookstore,” he said. “I remember regular customers by their names, and the books they buy.”

It is more than a bookstore, said longtime customer Althea Miller. “Interesting people stop in and talk,” said Miller, a View Park resident. “You could make an afternoon out of it.”

Alyce McDonald has been shopping at Moondance since it opened. “I’ve kind of made it my home,” she said.

The home, these days, is a little cramped.

Moondance admits, somewhat embarrassedly, that he is still trying to straighten things up after January’s earthquake. But Moondance Bookshop is a one-man operation. And, he says, he has outgrown the small space.

Financial constraints, he says, have prevented him from moving to a bigger place. Business has been off because of the quake too.

So for now, Moondance says he will stay where he is, at his beachhead on 16th Street, next to the health food store.