August 21, 2008
The first day concludes. As other, more responsible figures mind the store, we embark on a journey across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. It began with an Iselin, NJ, rental agency, Allentown bbq, Lincoln highways, Gettysburg sunsets, and Chambersburg indigestion (though we were shut out at Hoss's Restaurant with "an in-house butcher"--which by the look of the well fed gent departing at closing hour has quite a satisfied clientele). But the highlight was the York Emporium, a giant used bookstore owned and operated by Jim Lewin. Jim was a longtime customer (a dozen plus years) who stumbled on the store during his career as a Kodak account manager. Three years ago he convinced the proprietor to let him take over. And by the looks of it, it's in terrific hands.

From Grumpy to Thackerey--a stroll down a York Emporium aisle

The video above gives a very small sense of its eclectic qualities. While a chess club quietly arranged their boards, we wandered aisles upon aisles of books, music, and miscellany (from Civil War regalia to arcane technology like old tools, typewriters, eight tracks, stereo equipment) arranged in such a way that you will keep digging and digging. We found more than our share of treasures. A WPA guide to natural history called Who's Who in the Zoo (we can only guess that Clifton Fadiman was behind the wart hog entry, or Malcolm Cowley chose to discourse on boobies), a 1955 collection of profiles of retail giants called The Great Merchants ("Four Doberman pinschers (Mom, Red Star, Cash and Suzy) help watchmen guard the Macy treasure house at night"), a Scholastic anthology of essays on the counter culture entitled The New Sound and introduced by Murray the K ("Like something out of Malice in Wonderland, the hordes of shaggy rock-n-roll singers thump across the land, whanging their electric guitars"), and Patriotic Poems of New Jersey (with the stirring and eye tearing "Ode to the Raritan River").

--Michael Dashkin and Peter Miller