Vita Brevis

All you Latins know what we mean! And that vita just keeps getting more brevis, the longer you go on! In ancient times, a long-lived man was just assumed to be a coward, for surely he had been in the rear with the gear when the battle came. Or maybe back home, diddling the wives of the suckers out fighting some king's war. Either way, that old mo-fo just wasn't someone you wanted hanging around.

That's why the Japanese used to drag their geriatrics up the side of a mountain and abandon them! Well, there might have been other reasons, but if we were in charge of Japan back then, that would have been our reasoning!

Much better to die on the point of a spear, spitting in the eye of your enemy, who you are killing also, but with a mace-like device which delivers such an explosive blow, his face literally explodes like a ball of raw bacon that's exploding, and really, his eye is the only thing left for you to aim spit at. Then you finish dying, your side wins the battle, and your king gets rich.

But now, we're all so CYNICAL, we think we can only find meaning in personal goals. Dying in battle is, like, for people who DON'T have an associates degree!

YOU don't want to submerge your unique personality! Let's face it: Your ring tone is da bizness! YOU want to go to beauty school to learn how to do nails like THAT! YOU want your own garden with healthy organic vegetables to nourish YOUR body! YOU want to ride in that BMW, even if you have to kiss the driver "down there"!

Well, mission ACCOMPLISHED, señor selfish! But what of your impoverished king? You're all going to live to be old, but with no GLORY! Whose head will be your exploding bacon ball?





















Think of it like this: One god = one king = one channel on tv.

That's the old days. That's the glory, the ecstasy of St. Teresa, Kilimanjaro rising like a lepress above the Serengeti!

Today we've got a landfill of -isms, 2500 gods (and that's only counting versions of the christian one), and sebenty zentrillion live television streams. And where are we? Living in reality so poorly executed, it might have been designed by an ant colony dosed with devil weed!

Here at Spine and Crown Industries, however, a solution has been devised. Take back your purity of heart! Find your unity of vision! Make us rich!

That's right! Drink OUR kool-aid! We will lead; you will fight! As our army masses, we will search wikipedia, combing through to find weak nations to topple! The South Pacific is looking likely! You know you want it!

One spine to find them!

One crown to bring them and in the darkness bind them!

ONE SHOP TO RULE THEM ALL!













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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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Tao Te Ching, Aleister Crowley, trans.
(Paperback, out of print)

Let the Great Beast ride you up one side and tao the other!

Sorry! Couldn't help it!

This is the Aleister "devil-sex-man" Crowley version of the Tao! He didn't know any Chinese, so he just winged it! But he did walk across China in his youth and the lessons he absorbed from the asian soil were transmitted directly into his pen, later to blast through your actual mental cortexes! But only if you buy this book! Beasts gotta eat!

($15) [Sold]

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The Incal: The Epic Conspiracy, Alexandro Jodorowsky and Moebius
(Paperback, out of print)

Ooooh! Is that old "Holy Mountain" Jodorowsky? Writing a comic book? With art by Moebius? Why, it's chocolate and peanut butter all over again!

Jodorowsky became one of our favorite people when we read this interview:

"This is why I like so much the plastic man of the "Fantastic Four" in Marvel Comics. What's his name? He is married to the Invisible Girl. Plastic man and Invisible Woman can be great pornography. Plastic man fucking the girl and then he make his penis very, very, very thin and put inside her vein, and the penis can go, and go, and go from her vein to her heart. He can ejaculate in the center of his woman's heart. Fantastic! Fantastic!"

($45)

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Loser: The Real Seattle Music Story (2nd edition, updated), Clark Humphrey
(Paperback, out of print)

True story of "The Grunge," a near-mythical dance hall sensation which began right here in Seattle's own saloons and brothels! All those Skid Road types would pour out at closing time, half-poisoned by cheap wood alcohol and Jamaican Ginger Extract, and roll around in the muddy streets, panting and crazed. In 1901, their tortured groans and howls were captured on wax cylinder, which - mistakenly played back at the wrong speed - became the first bona fide hit for Edison "Gold Moulded" Records! Ah! The good old days!

($30)

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Songs They Never Play on the Radio: Nico: The Last Bohemian, James Young
(Paperback, out of print)

The lemon that Lou Reed made into lemonade - but, oh, she was so much more than that. There was a darkness in her soul, a tragedy writ willowy and blonde. Now that you're gone, we'll never make love, Nico, but I'll always wish that you wished that we had.

($40)

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The Key and Silence in Court, Patricia Wentworth
(Paperback, out of print)

Known for popularizing the plight of Women in Terror, Wentworth stipulated in her contract that the covers of her books should pull no punches. Some of the women lean left, some lean right. But they are all in terror. Through her efforts, many women were calmed, but the painters of paperback covers were afterward left with fewer and fewer models who could portray the correct emotion. The art has never recovered.

($12, $40 [Sold])

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What is the 4th Dimension?



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Everything's turning into a pile of shit.

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Dog Helps Woman Lick Brain Injury

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# of weeks since Spine and Crown inception: 195

# of weeks since inception that no mention of Spine and Crown has appeared in the print edition of The Stranger: 195