Sale!!!!!!!!!!!

Beginning June 28th and lasting through July 4th, everything in the shop is 30% off! We're not going out of business (yet!), but we'd like to take a big bite out of all the books people are trying to sell us. At the moment, we're turning away far too many people, so it's time to raise some capital! Come take away our best stock at prices so low, it'll make us weep!

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Sweet land of liberty, wherefore art thou?






















Wouldn't it be great to be from a country that was so ridiculously awesome and full of win that you woke with fire in your belly every morning, knowing that you were in the best place on Earth, perhaps the most just, honorable, and beautifully varied spot in the entire universe? Not a country in the middle of an epic fail. Not a country that's a thinly veiled oligarchy calling itself a democracy. Not a country that coins 'net slang like, "full of win," and "epic fail."

What would such a country look like? Well, for our part, we'd ask for a big bump in the functional literacy rate. According to an NEA report, nearly 60% of Americans don't read a single book in a year's time. And most of the people who do? They ain't readin' Heidegger.

While we're at it, we might rewrite some laws so corporations have FEWER rights than actual living people instead of more. Just sayin'. Surely, we all have our wish list...

People used to feel good about our country, back in dinosaur times. Well, they felt better about it, anyway. But that was probably mostly thanks to ignorance. Thanks, ignorance! You make us feel better!

Maybe WE'RE the evil ones, trying to promote culture and knowledge and all that pansy-fied nonsense! Ignorance is like a great big sumo-suit keeping reality at a constant safe distance from your tender flesh! It's kevlar for reality-bullets! Persistent, durable, ubiquitous - If we could figure out how to fry it up and eat it, we'd be in business!

Looks like it's hard to know who's evil, or what to do in a situation like this. Are greedy CEOs evil? Or are the share-holders who demand constantly expanding profits from the CEOs the evil ones? Because those share-holders are mostly regular people. Ugh. Complexity make Bizarro's head hurt!





















There IS another way to feel better about things, no ignorance required. Be a psychopath. Those are people who exhibit chronic immoral and antisocial behavior. We're used to thinking of psychopathic people as killers or rapists, but as the late, lamented Kurt Vonnegut pointed out, it's a pretty good description of the people running the show these days. There's more than one way to kill or rape, after all.

It also makes sense that such people would end up in positions of power. When facing a choice with heavy moral or ethical implications, their options are limited only by imagination and inclination, whereas a sane person's conscience will narrow his/her choices sharply. You won't pull the trigger, but they will! These crazy fuckers will DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!

There's a perfect July 4th poem by Vonnegut, from a super-rare chapbook of his, The Twelfth of Never. If you had a copy of that, you wouldn't need to be a psychopath to get rich!

Happily, crappily
we roll along.
Happily, crappily
we sing our song.
U-S-A! U-S-A!
Germans to the left of us!
Commies to the right!
Blast 'em all! Blast 'em all!
Blast them!
Good night!
Napalm in the morning
Napalm at night
Napalm from Harvard
Good night!
Good night!
Good night!

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This week:

All items mentioned below are first come, first serve. If you want something, let us know post-haste (because they're also for sale on the interweb)! All new items sell for cover price, used items as marked. Sadly, trade credit cannot be used for new items.

Our books are always searchable via ABEbooks.

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The Great Red Dragon, or The Master Key to Popery, Anthony Gavin
(Paperback; facsimile of 1854 edition)

This book is anti-Catholic. Our shop and its ownership are not nor should ever be construed to be anti-Catholic or against popish idolatry in any way. In fact, we here all wish we could place our noses inside the pope's own nose and thus breathe the holiest of holy airs on their way to respirate the holiest lungs chosen by god hisself (and several dudes in crazy purple robes with golden croziers chanting in a dead language.) Amen!

($20)

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Mr. Arashi's Amazing Freak Show, Suehiro Maruo
(Paperback, out of print)

This is a book for perverts. And by perverts, we mean anyone interested in the dark heart of the human race. And that's all of us, right? So get ready for your dose of puppy-squashing! We'll throw in a little cunnilingus and eyeball-lingus for spice and call it a deal! Finally, we get what all those kiddies dig about them Japanese comix!

($60) [Sold]

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Blast 2: War Number, Wyndham Lewis, ed.
(Paperback)

This book is printed by Black Sparrow Press. It's cover is made of very nice paper. Ezra Pound is inside, as is T.S. Eliot, and Ford Maddox Ford. Modernism had to be born someplace. This is its steaming placenta.

($10) [Sold]

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Martell's Simplified Ju Jutsu Offence and Defense, Jules Martell
(Stapled pamphlet, 1942)

This book will teach you to kick ass. It has lethal moves and is very violent. It also contains disparaging remarks directed toward Nazis and Japanese people. But it has another side, too. A side not so scarred by early childhood abuse and neglect. This other side of Simplified Ju Jutsu just needs love... and you will give it, or get your ass whupped good!

($50)

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Yeti Researcher, Vol. 24, No. 8, Joshuah Bearman, ed.
(Paperback)

This book was part of McSweeney's no. 17, and is a clever-clogs send-up of academic journals. Not that academic journals don't merit parody, but we wish this was real.

($5)

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Flesh-eating robots!

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Everything's turning into a pile of shit.


Except this.




















It's available at Wall of Sound!

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Downhill Sumo!



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# of weeks since Spine and Crown inception: 190

# of weeks since inception that no mention of Spine and Crown has appeared in the print edition of The Stranger: 190