That's MISTER Jibber Jabber to YOU!

A lot of great conversations happen here at Spine and Crown.

You may not have been a part of one, but that says more about you than us, because we're usually jabbering like the Chipmunks (all three) at 78 rpm. And it's grand. If it weren't for all the eccentric and fractured mother-lovers on Capitol Hill, this thing wouldn't be worth doing!

Something that distinguishes all the verbal lather around here from a lot of the communication available to the modern hairless ape is that it happens face to face. Certain Eastern traditions maintain a firm "back to back" theory of communication, and there is even the Kazakh custom known as the "buttock communion," but we don't subscribe to such notions. No, we like it up front and personal. We don't hold with this FriendFace or TwitterBook or whatever. We're not even sure why those things exist. Maybe we'd feel differently if we'd ever been "poked." Or, dare we dream, "super-poked!"

And there we've hit upon the crux of the problem. You can super-poke away, all ye so inclined, but the humanzee needs the presence of another humanzee to accomplish anything that's worth a hill of beans in this goddamn crazy world!

Solitude is great for fortresses, but for every Einstein you hand us, we'll hand you back a Rowan and Martin! No? A Horkheimer and Adorno? Never heard of them, eh? Hmmm. This is harder than we thought. A Lee and Kirby! A Gilbert and Sullivan! A Brecht and Weill! A Taylor and Millis!

Take that, isolates! Show us parts, and we'll show you a whole that is greater than their sum! The law of conservation of matter and energy means nothing to us!

But we've digressed.

Hang out in a public place, like say, a book shop, for instance. Listen to those people jibber jabber! They just can't get enough of it. They're making the magic glue that sticks civilization together!
















Sure, they can do the same thing into their wireless tricorders, but then it's only jibber, for the jabber is happening on the other end, far out of view. Unless you're near the person on the other end, in which case you have jabber with no jibber.

But those people in the book shop, those lucky ones who look into the face of another and see that their meaning is understood, (without emoticons!)... It is they who receive the invaluable treasure that is validation.






















Validation! The only meaningful gift one human can give another! You are valid! You're opinions don't induce immediate barking laughter! And they matter! YOU matter!

(All examples of validation presented above are understood to be purely hypothetical, and not actual reactions to your implausible, half-baked theories or 3/4 cracked personalities. Our lawyers made us say that!)

Blessed, blessed physical proximity! You can't beat it with a stick, and you can't beat anything with a stick without it! All that body language, all those micro-expressions! No validation through TweetFace! No validation via Nokia! Only tepid bath water!

Shit on the modern age! Don your home-tanned leather leggings and bang a drum! Ned Ludd, revive! Captain Swing, do your thing! Cell towers were made for toppling, and you! You were made for getting naked and hooting and hollering en masse in a lusty chorus, nude, out of doors, naked! Throw the bluetooth on the fire! Join the uni-mind of thrashing primate interaction! Let the ages roll!

Then buy a book from us (so we can stay in business), go home, lock the door so no one can bother you, and read it alone.

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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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Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus, Vol. 2, Jack "King" Kirby
(Hardcover)

Legend has it that Jack Kirby was so besieged by ideas, he resorted to scribbling them on little scraps that ended up covering his work space like snow. He once put his cigar down in the ashtray and lit a pile of ideas on fire. He was inconsolable. Explaining things to his wife Roz, he estimated that he might have reduced upwards of 50 new story concepts to ashes. Roz shrugged and put things in perspective. "So you've lost an afternoon's work. Get over it!" Nowhere is the comic world's most generative imagination harder at work than in these Fourth World volumes. Top notch!

($25) [Sold]

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Essays Ancient and Modern, T.S. Eliot
(Hardcover, first edition)

Such a high level of erudition, it ALMOST occludes our memory of Eliot's unsavory death; electrical cord wrapped around neck and genitals, left hanging in a Bangkok hotel wardrobe like a stained tuxedo jacket. Almost, Tom! Almost!

($70)

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Gnosticism: Beliefs and Practices, John Glyndwr Harris
(Paperback, out of print)

So the archons, see, are like angels. But nasty angels who hate us. Why? Because we were created in god's image, and they weren't. Meanwhile, god turned his back on creation. These days, the archons call the tune and make us dance the lambada of misery.

A world ruled by nasty angels who hate us. Why does Gnosticism seem like a religion for our times?

($22)

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Mysterium Coniunctionis, C.G. Jung
(Paperback)

In the caves under his vast estate at Bollingen, Carl Jung used his view-o-tron to spy on the past. He watched alchemists turn lead into, well, lead. But they had a rip-roaring time doing it! And Jung watched them encode their lore in dark tomes, which, when fed through his decoder ring, became veritable doorways into the unconscious mind! O mighty view-o-tron! Mighty, mighty view-o-tron!

And thank christ he finally took an interest in alchemy! It was a welcome change from his constant watching, rewinding, and masturbating to the moment of his own conception. Dirty old wig-picker!

($15) [Sold]

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Tertium Organum: A Key to the Enigmas of the World, P.D. Ouspensky
(Hardcover, third American edition, authorized and revised)

Poo-poo! Wee-wee! Brother-sister incest! Mouse-skin eyebrows! Yah!

Had to get all that out, because we've got to sneak in another serious review. We were prepared to go to town on this guy and his Gurdjieff/Blavatsky/Theosophy hoo-hah! But now, after looking into it a little, we're not sure if we want to sell this book at all. We're sick of being stuck in this three dimensional horse-shit! If we can just get these old brains up to the 4th dimension, maybe we can be disappointed by a whole new dimension's horse-shit. Bring it on, P.D. Ouspensky!

P.S. - We'll still sell it. We're hungry and our belly hurts.

($12) [Sold]

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!!!!!This week, we're giving all our love to Goldman Sachs!!!!!

!!!!!HANG IN THERE GUYS!!!!!

Matt Taibbi's controversial Goldman takedown!

What economy?







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Everything's turning into a pile of shit.


Except this.

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# of weeks since Spine and Crown inception: 193

# of weeks since inception that no mention of Spine and Crown has appeared in the print edition of The Stranger: 193