66 September 18 - 24, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Contents | ReadeRs’ PiCks | shoPPing & seRviCes | aRts & enteRtainment | Food & dRink | sPoRts & ReCReation › BEST MONTHLY PARTY Second Saturday With DJ Sober The name is self-explanatory. Every second Saturday of each month, a local celebrity in the Dallas DJ scene, DJ Sober, plays whatever he feels like at LadyLove. Known for his keen perception of vibes and general good times, DJ Sober has been spinning tracks for the better part of 20 years in Dallas. His residency at LadyLove usually draws a crowd, so it’s a good idea to arrive before the line wraps around the block. Though the DJ is notoriously sober, his parties are not. 310 W Seventh St. 972-733-9032 ladylovesound.com › BEST SKATE PARK 4DWN This skate park is part half-pipe, part community action group. Built by professional skaters, the organization creates a safe space for beginner and experienced skaters to practice their skills. But it’s also a food rescue hub. Fresh, healthy food is diverted from landfills and handed out for free each week. 4DWN does not distribute processed foods, maintaining its mission statement of providing healthy food to underserved communities. If you’re not ready to cruise down the ramps with the pros, maybe stay off wheels and volunteer. Either way, 4DWN is the best skate park in town. 2633 Ferris St. 214-377-8002 › BEST FASHION DESIGNER Crestpatrick De Los Reyes Crestpatrick De Los Reyes, the designer behind Crescente Patricio, fuses traditional Filipino tailoring with the utilitarian cuts typical of modern American fashions. The designer, creating the highest of enduring quality products, repurposes and revitalizes denim scraps from old textile factories, giving them new life and keeping a couple of hundred yards of material from the landfill. His perfectly prim pleats make the Canadian tuxedo almost wedding- appropriate, at least in Dallas. cpatricio.com Kathy Tran 4DWN// BEST SKATE PARK AS A GRADUATE STUDENT STUDYING RUSSIAN literature, Will Evans asked himself what he calls a “very simple question.” “If I know about great Russian books that are never translated to English, then what about Ukraine?” he says. What about the rest of the world? “It led me to start researching into publishing, and I realized that translation is a world that we know very little about,” he says. “So much of the world’s great books in all genres are not available in English.” That question 15 years ago brought him to a table in Deep Vellum, his nonprofit publishing house and bookstore on Commerce Street, where he spoke recently with the Observer. Sitting at a table in the room where the store hosts author Q&As and other events, speaking in a rapid, machine-gun-fire clip, he recounts Deep Vellum’s history, his view on Dallas’ literary scene and his high hopes for its future. “Everything is going according to plan,” he says in a wry reference to a Soviet era meme about state planning, or perhaps Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comment about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In Evans’ case, things actually are going to plan. His goal when he started the publishing arm of Deep Vellum in 2013 — the bookstore opened in 2015 — was to start bringing world literature to America and then, five years in, to begin publishing Dallas authors. “The hypothesis was it was just as hard to get published if you’re in Dallas as it is if you’re from, you know Kiev, which is crazy,” he says. “And it was true, and it’s still true today.” Deep Vellum today has more books in translation from more languages and more countries than any other publisher, Evans says. There may be higher-volume publishers of translated books, but Deep Vellum ranks highly for its range and depth in translating books from nearly every continent. Evans is equally proud that Deep Vellum is the leading publisher local authors. Deep Vellum’s publishing lists includes authors from Pleasant Grove to Highland Park, Bishop Arts to West Dallas and points in between. Operating as a donation-supported nonprofit, Deep Vellum isn’t placing bets on a mass-market blockbuster to keep the presses running. Publishing books in smaller volumes means each book may cost more, but every author it has published remains on the store’s shelves, waiting for the curious reader to wander in or show up at one of the store’s many free events and stumble across their next great read. His grand plan extends beyond a mere five years. He wants Deep Vellum book to be read 500 years from now. That might seem a strange goal in an era of audio and ebooks, but Evans’ isn’t a luddite. He enjoys audiobooks, and the store offers free electronic versions for the paper books he sells. Likewise, Evans had nothing negative to say about gigantic Amazon (we asked). It rules the bookselling world and offers many of the books he publishes, and wherever readers get books and engage with new ideas and new dialogues or just find entertainment is fine with him. What Deep Vellum and the growing number of small, independent bookstores offer is curation, a sense of community and a chance to find something valuable without relying on the giant’s algorithms. Other independent bookstores aren’t his competition, but his colleagues in developing the city’s literary culture. “That’s the take we’re trying to have at Deep Vellum. It’s to look around and say, ‘You’re doing something awesome. … Let’s do something awesome together.'” The area now boasts dozens of independent bookstores. Evans says there were three when he started Deep Vellum, and he wants to see more … more publishers and stores until every community has its neighborhood bookstore. “We’re not going to sleep until you, all 8 million people here and 35 million people in Texas, can look around and see themselves reflected and what they aspire to be in the literature they have access to, right?” he says. “Whether that’s world literature, whether that’s genre literature, whether it’s political, social, poetry, fiction, nonfiction. Whatever it may be, that you can just have access to it and know that it’s there for you, and that you’re a character in that story.” 3000 Commerce St., 469-781-4881, deepvellum.com Best Window to the World (and Dallas) Will Evans, Deep Vellum Bookstore & Publishing Co. Jessica Patrice Turner
