Black Cat: That crime noir bookshop also for swinging 70s music lovers
by rick olivares
A bookstore, a quaint and real
one and not those faux ones that sell school supplies, is a product of love,
utter geekiness, and well, dreams fueled by prose, coffee, and music.
Among the hidden gems of Manila’s
answer to New York’s East Village, is an unobtrusive bookstore up in the second
floor where most people don’t even know there is a store.
“I ought to fix that one of these
days,” promises the shop’s owner, Bob Araneta.
The “Black Cat” is the name of
his bookstore right above the Grey Market and UVLA in Cubao X. The shop opened
in April of 2016 and is the product of 30 years of dreaming. “I’m an avid
reader,” Bob says belaboring the obvious. “After I retired from a long career
in advertising, I though the time is right to make that dream come true. On and
off for 30 years, I thought about putting up my own bookshop. And now, it’s
here.”
And “here” is the “Black Cat”, so
named for Cubao X’s collective pet black cat Lala that is actually owned by the
proprietors of Habanero Kitchen and Café that is a stone’ throw away from
Araneta’s shop.
“I was stumped what to name the
bookstore,” shares the bespectacled and pensive Araneta. “All the original
books I sold were from my personal and vast collection of crime books so I was
thinking of a name for the shop along that line. But I couldn’t come up with
anything. I noticed at the time we were putting up the shop that this black cat
hung out in the premises. So it hit me, ‘Black Cat!’ And that’s the story
behind it.”
“I intended Black Cat to
primarily be a bookstore that specialized in crime books. The simple reason
being that crime is my favorite genre. And there are a lot of quality books in
this genre that doesn’t get a lot of attention. I have many books that do not
appear in the mainstream book stores and if they do, it isn’t much. I had in
stock more than half the bibliography of Ruth Rendell and PD James among many
others. However, in the past few months, I’ve added books about medicine,
motoring, entertainment, and music not to mention selling vinyl records also
from my personal collection.”
He has on sale biographies about
Brazilian musician Cayetano Veloso, the Rolling stones’ ageless guitarist Keith
Richards, Fleetwood Mac, and film director Martin Scorsese among many others.
While most of the books are from
his collection that he started out as a teenager, some have been sourced from
collectors of the same tastes. “As much as possible, I do not carry the books
you will find in the regular bookstores but I guarantee you that you will not find
a bad book on my shelves. Besides, I cannot compete with them so I dabble in
the rare, hard-to-find, and personal.”
So personal that it has been a
little difficult for Bob to sell his books and records. Last Christmas, Bob
sold one of his favorite books, “Into the Red: 22 Classic Cars that Shaped a
Century of Motor Sport” that was written by Pink Floyd drummer, Nick Mason. The
book came with a bonus CD that recorded the sounds of these classic race cars.
Outside his career in music,
Mason regularly took part in motor races. He drove classic cars and parlayed
his love for them in that book that was published in 1998 to great acclaim.
“As a fan of motor sports, I loved
Nick’s book and it is a little difficult to come by nowadays. The fellow who
bought it was quite insistent. Selling it… was hard. At least, I can take
consolation that it is in the hands of someone who will love it just as much as
I did.”
So why sell a personal
collection?
“For so long, I was straddling
the line of collecting and hoarding. I have leaner collection now. But don’t think
selling them is easy. You can say that they are all a piece of me. I have this
mania for protecting my books so if you notice, they are covered in plastic.
The browning of the pages I cannot help because of the humidity in our country.”
“I still have some 80 boxes to
unbox. Hopefully, I’ll get to that soon.”
Here are five pieces on sale at
Black Cat that Bob Araneta says define not only him as a person but his shop.
Boom boxes.
Araneta has several on sale. “They
are emblematic of my love for music. Aside from vinyl, I still listen to
cassettes and make mixed tapes the old fashioned way -- from vinyl records to
cassettes! If the boom box breaks down, there are spare parts available. The
problem is finding people who know how to fix them.”
A mounted Austin Powers movie poster.
I bought that in Times Square New
York in 1997. I love pop art. And there are a few others in the shop that are
also for sale.
Bound books and magazines.
The bound volumes on top reflects
a period of my life when I would collect magazines and have them bound. I have
bound collections of Spy magazine, Stereophile magazine, and comic books like
the old Stan Lee Daredevil.
The Getz-Gilberto vinyl record.
Originally released in 1964, this
record by American saxophonist Stan Getz and Brazilian guitarist Joao Gilberto introduced
the latter’s music to America. It is the first non-American album to win a
Grammy Award. “This is a pretty special album. It stands the test of time. It
isn’t that rare as it is still available. I kept most of my good stuff. What is
for sale covers a pretty much wide genre from rock to pop to Brazilian music to
jazz and classical. They haven’t sold that well. The classical does well
though.
The “Oscar the Grouch” type trash can.
This actually isn’t for sale. It’s
a decorative trash can. It looks old but it’s new. I found them in this Japanese
surplus store in Cavite. It isn’t for sale unless someone makes me an offer.
The Black Cat is open on Mondays,
Wednesdays, Fridays, most Saturdays, and Sundays from time to time from 3pm
onwards.
