![\"Open01\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Open01.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
All photos of the interior of Open as it was last seen on Retro Row before closing in 2012.<\/em><\/p>\n November 15 has many bittersweet memories for S\u00e9 Reed: it marks the anniversary of when her famed bookstore Open<\/a>, voted Best Bookstore <\/a>by our readers, opened in 2003 (where District Wine currently is) and closed in 2012 (now Immoni on Retro Row), leaving Long Beach deprived of one of its gems. That last note, with its obvious tinge of sadness, might have been more disheartening were it not for Reed\u2019s own words<\/a> during the time she closed up shop:<\/p>\n \u201cI’m closing this location, but I’m doing it to find a space that will enable me to bring the bookstore into the 21st century.”<\/p>\n For those who don\u2019t know Reed\u2014and her audacious personality that gleams with sweaty determination\u2014we suggest you don\u2019t take her words lightly. Her nod toward eventually re-opening Open provided a bit of hope for the patrons who yearned to score old copies of Adbusters<\/em> or find independently printed books filled with the words of Long Beach poets or meander past a window display beautifully decked out<\/a>.<\/p>\n Eleven years after opening Open to the day, she announced on her Facebook that Open is re-opening in what will soon be Long Beach\u2019s first book bar, The Brass Lamp<\/a>.<\/p>\n Samantha Argosino and Reed share a lot: both are entrepreneurs with hearts that cling to classics more than trends and a love of the written word that supersedes the vast majority of people. When the pair met last year during a social media seminar that Reed taught, Argosino was eager to tell Reed of her ambitious book bar plan\u2014a plan that Reed had precisely dreamed of doing with Open.<\/p>\n \u201cOpen always had a \u2018book bar\u2019 vibe, but without the bar,\u201d Reed said. \u201cAt Open’s first location, we had gone pretty far toward converting Open into a bar\/bookstore hybrid but we couldn’t come to a final lease agreement with the landlord. Open’s second home on 4th Street was across the street from an elementary school, so a bar was never an option. Also, a bar and a bookstore are very different in terms of operations, staffing and regulations, and despite having gotten certified as a bartender when I was in college, I knew I didn’t want to own and operate a bar\/restaurant.\u201d<\/p>\n Hence the idealism in pairing up with Argosino: each can maintain their own brand while also using each other for their own set of resources. Argosino, on one hand, gets the almost-20 years of bookstore experience that comes with Reed along with the brand quality of Open while Reed gets have an environment that fits her aesthetic and hopes for Open\u2019s place in the coming years while not having the stress of managing a space (alone) day-to-day.<\/p>\n Reed insists that one thing needs to remain clear and that is the fact that is a new Open, not a rehashed version of its former incarnation.<\/p>\n Above photo courtesy of Lacey Lampe.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe most important thing to know about the new Open is that it is just that: a new Open,\u201d Reed said. \u201cThe culture of Long Beach itself has changed a lot in the past 11 years, and Open has changed along with it.\u201d<\/p>\n The changes over the past decade are many, including those within Reed\u2019s life: now in a band, she tours endlessly in addition to tackling speaking and teaching gigs (re: aforementioned social media forum). Perhaps more pointedly is that the other half of the former open, her business partner Shea M. Gauer, is no longer a part of the page-turner business.<\/p>\n \u201cShea left to pursue a professional career a few months before I closed the 4th Street space in 2012,\u201d Reed said. \u201cAs a musician and artist, he brought a lot of experience to our live events, and I’m not going to try to recreate or replace that\u2026 Samantha and her team have a plan for events, art, and music at The Brass Lamp, and Open will be a part of that, but they will not be Open events.\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps the best piece of literary art is the welcoming back of the literary mistress herself, Ms. Reed. Like an English student forced into the humdrum of daily living, there is a blue sensation that comes with becoming detached from books as one realizes they read less and less.<\/p>\n \u201cI have been rather obsessed with books since before my first bookstore job at 16 and I have missed them considerably,\u201d Reed said. \u201cI am excited to be a part of the literary culture of Long Beach again and to feed my fellow bibliophiles need for awesome books. I’m also excited about The Brass Lamp simply because I want to hang out there. I think it’s going to be a cultural cornerstone for Long Beach, and I’m thrilled that Open is going to be a part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n We\u2019ll definitely put a bookmark on that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" S\u00e9 Reed’s hint that she would eventually re-open her famed bookstore, Open<\/a>, provided a bit of hope for the patrons who yearned to find independently printed books filled with the words of Long Beach poets or meander past a window display beautifully decked out<\/a>. Eleven years after opening Open to the day, she announced on her Facebook that Open is indeed re-opening in what will soon be Long Beach\u2019s first book bar, The Brass Lamp<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":68273,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1063,1006,1261],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","tag-books","tag-promenade","tag-the-brass-lamp","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2988"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=2988"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Open03\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Open03.jpg\")
\u201cI have always hoped to re-open Open,\u201d Reed said. \u201cI wasn’t sure how where that would be or how that would look, but for the past two years I have been casually looking at spaces and considering various options, including other cities. Nothing was viable, or even tempting, until I met Samantha.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Open04\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Open04.jpg\")
<\/p>\nFear not, Open lovers, for this doesn\u2019t mean that the foundation has given way and you\u2019re going to find yourself in an unknown world of new-ness. Open\u2019s singular focus in The Brass Lamp will be the books, \u201cpresented as objects of literary art,\u201d in the eloquent words of Reed. \u201cThe in-store selection will be heavily curated to fit the space, and there will be an online component for the books I can’t fit on the shelves.\u201d<\/p>\n