3/26/08

3/25/2008 - MIFA, illness and despair

i managed to get myself some weird little allergy cold thing traipsing around in overton park on sunday night - i suppose it's my fault for ignoring the signs and going in after dark anyway. suffice to say i felt like crap all day monday and tuesday, which hampered my usually adventurous spirit, and limited me to one measly store this week, albeit a good one. i'll be shamelessly padding this entry with quick looks at two other local landmarks though. here's how it all went down.

monday - replaced the smashed out window on my car, one of the perils of working downtown, i know. i thought the fact that i drive a ten year old beat up station wagon might have tipped people to the fact that THERE'S NOTHING WORTH STEALING IN MY FUCKING CAR but that was admittedly a bit naive on my part. so, learning experience, anyway. spent the rest of the day doing laundry and sitting around being sick. fascinating, i know.

tuesday - saw the wife and lil' sis off to work, and immediately hit the couch for one of my favorite activities when i'm feeling under the weather...watching the big lebowski. i'm an inveterate achiever, as i'm sure some of you also are, and there's this website where you can watch it for free, along with some other stuff that's not too bad either. perfect, though...for those of us who are too lazy to sort through our box of dvds and actually get the disc out and put it in the player...now you don't have to!

anyway i was inspired. i decided to have a big lebowski day. so while i was out tooling around on summer ave, doing some errands i swung by a local landmark i'd been meaning to visit since the first time i came to town. it was around eleven am, and i remember wondering if they were going to be open or not. if only i'd known...

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imperial lanes, 4700 summer ave, 683-5224. when i walked up to the counter i saw a sign advertising their prices from 8am to 12am, and i mistakenly assumed those were their hours. it wasn't until i went to pay and leave that it was explained to me that there are no posted hours because THEY NEVER CLOSE. i'm going to be a little snide and presumptuous and say that many memphians (memphibians?) must not be aware of this fact, because from what i understand this place has been on the verge of being sold or closing down on and off over the past few years, so i'll just state it plainly here:

YOU HAVE A TWENTY FOUR HOUR BOWLING ALLEY IN YOUR TOWN PEOPLE

for those who haven't been, this is what you're missing

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total vintage decor, everything about this place is the genuine article, right down to

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the old school overhead projector scoring tables (mark it 8, dude)

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the SNACK BAR (mmmm) and of course

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the sweet ass vintage arcade. in case it's not coming through in this picture that's (from left to right) super pac man, galaga 3, donkey kong, an original popeye machine (kind of rare), and a playchoice-10. that's the one that lets you play like one of ten different NES games on a timer. also, cropped out for necessity's sake was an original teenage mutant ninja turtles console. not the fun co-op one where you could spout all sorts of cool catchphrases and kick those little rat catcher things through walls, but rather the unbelievably hard first game where you spent most of the time trying to avoid getting run over by foot soldiers driving giant steamrollers. awesome. but i digress.

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the only gaping hole in the whole operation was the lack of a bar, or one that i could see anyway, but if you can't figure out how to sneak alcohol into a bowling alley then maybe this relationship just isn't destined to work after all (white russians may be a little trickier though). they did however have this cool, mysterious little meeting room in the front of the place, suitable for renting out for your next corporate event/bar or bat mitzvah/freemason initiation/what have you. did i mention my birthday's in september?

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i need to move this little travelogue along, i know, but i can't bear to bring myself to leave. i really can't think of enough good things to say about this place. it was eleven in the morning when i rolled in and there had to be at least a dozen old timers hanging around and gabbing at each other in between frames on the other end of the place, and one guy doing that thing that i never really understand where you talk on the phone the whole time you're bowling and don't even watch the ball after you throw it to see what happens, like the bowling is something you HAVE to do while you'd rather be talking on the phone? i don't know, i don't get it.

the shoes were $2.25 to rent i think, and i believe i paid $2.75 for the one game i played. there were other specials too, paying by the hour and different things for different times of day, too many for me to write down or remember but if you call i'm sure they'll happily give you the rundown. i bowled a pretty shoddy 108 but it's been maybe three years since the last time i rolled at all, and anyway if i at least break 100 i'm not too terribly embarrassed. they give you a sheet at the front counter to keep score on, and another one (if you ask for it) that explains the basics of scoring your own game (which was useful, as i hadn't done that in a long time). the guy at the counter was super friendly, the vibe in the place was really great, i'm gonna go ahead and make a standing invitation for anyone to join me for a game, my treat (pay for your own shoes you cheap bastard) and you tell me if it doesn't make you feel good just being there.

one more weird little thing and then i'll move on, promise. in the interest of full disclosure, i should mention that for most of her pregnancy, my mother tended bar at black earth lanes in scenic black earth wisconsin (SO classy, i know), and as a result, walking into a bowling alley and hearing the sounds of the pins crashing and the fans blowing and the people chatting has always made me feel very safe and secure and happy. all of that by way of saying that i don't really expect anyone else to share my ridiculously over the top reaction to this place, i just have to give my perspective on the whole thing, and for me, it was like being in a church must be for some people. i honestly felt reluctant to even walk around and take pictures, like it would be disrespectful or something. it definitely takes something special to make me feel self-conscious about being a jerk wandering around with a camera.

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the next time you find yourself all wound up, just take a deep breath, channel walter sobchak and say, in a calm clear voice, "fuck it dude...let's go bowling" and head to the imperial. i might just meet you there.

ps lebowski fest memphis anyone?

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okay moving on, i actually made an honest effort to go to some thrift stores today, but with the wife and sis at work and my trusty traveling companion taylor (a.k.a. well never mind, i used up all the good nicknames last week) otherwise occupied, i was forced to go it alone, and in my weakened condition that proved to be a little too much to ask. i had intended to hit up the salvation army on danny thomas blvd, and the DAV and "Shadow of Treasuries" (what an awesome name) on elvis presley blvd but instead opted to settle for only my second store inside the highway loop so far, but one i was REALLY excited to find again, the Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association thrift store, which the wife to end all wives and i had kind of just stumbled across on our first tentative sojourn into the wilds of the greater memphis area, but hadn't been able to find again, for one simple reason:

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it's not listed anywhere as a thrift store! this is one of the ways in which i hope this silly little self-indulgent project can actually be kind of useful to people. i get the sense even if you've lived in memphis for a few years, even if you're marginally interested in thrift stores or secondhand culture or ANY of it, you still might not know about this place. it's not in the yellow pages or under a google search for anything to do with the word "thrift," and it's on the corner of Vance and East, in a neighborhood that's not HORRIBLE but definitely leans a little on the rough side, and is (more to the point) not really on a major thoroughfare, so doesn't really get a lot of traffic.

i posted their web site above because it explains what the MIFA actually is, along with the store, hours, sales, etc etc. "well doesn't that render you kind of redundant in this situation then, dave?" you might well be asking yourself, or rather i guess i'm asking myself that now but AHA, dear reader, where would this whole project be without my scintillatingly insightful photographs and commentary? eh? where would it be then?

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just kidding. the fact of the matter is i went all the way down there and took a bunch of pictures and notes so i'm going to put them up here so the day doesn't feel like a COMPLETE waste of time. this is one of the smallest thrift stores in town, but they make up for it with real eclecticism (that CANNOT be a word) and a variety of selection that really impressed me

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the books were good as well, $1.50 for hardback, less than a buck for paperback, but i won't lie, after spending most of the last two days hopped up on any combination of benadryl, ibuprofen, no-doz, zantac, red wine and B2E (budweiser's answer to sparks, which basically tastes like someone dropped a cough drop into a can of bud and just SHOOK THE SHIT out of it, but which the kroger in poplar plaza is selling for like $1.50 a 4 pack), i was really not feeling up to sorting through the whole thing

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two "jogging strollers," for like $30 a piece i think. kind of amusing to see two of them together like that. they look like they're getting ready for a race. have these things not been outlawed yet, though? just for good taste if not safety reasons? anyway "jogging stroller" is a contradiction in terms. think about it.

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i didn't say this place was perfect though. 40 BUCKS for this "antique telephone stand" that was covered in...well, i hesitate to speculate WHAT exactly it was covered in, horribly wobbly and was actually no shit growing mold on the inside. i understand you can do a lot with refinishing, and i recognize the importance of creative visualization when exploring the untamed secondhand frontier, but...come on. 40 bucks?

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they did have four of my favorite NES games just sitting in a pile, which really made me laugh. yeah i was that weird kid that played all the games that no one else liked, like "Wrath of the Black Manta." excitebike still rules though

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i toss words like "eclectic" and phrases like "wide variety of stuff" around here a lot, and i think they probably lose some of their effect over time but that's actually okay, if anything it just reflects how jaded you can actually get after seeing the fiftieth busted old black and white tv sitting there, but then you come to a place like the MIFA store and see, no shit, 104 copies of this book, entitled "Stories to Tell a Cat," and you kind of rediscover your ability to be amused again. it's nice. they must get a fair amount of bulk donations here, because they had 40/50/60+ copies of several other kid's books, but i didn't have the energy to count them all. i wanted to, though

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speaking of bulk stuff, also, about 3 or 4 cases of this "gingerbread butter spread" (i LOVE the way that just bounces off the tongue)

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and roughly 100 or so boxes of "turkey brine." what is "turkey brine," you might ask?

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this is turkey brine. kind of cool, actually, i bet you could brine the hell out of a turkey with that shit. but hey, this isn't "bitter/cooks," let's try to stay on topic or at least pretend we have one, right?

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the other really cool thing they have here, and it's the last thing i wanted to mention before we take off, is their "back dock" specials. there's a little printout they hang up by the front door that tells you what they have on the back dock that's for sale that they can't for whatever reason bring into the actual store. bigger stuff like desks and in this case two sweet looking upright pianos for (wait for it...) $25 a piece! the one on the right wasn't really even playable but the one on the left, with a few months' work, would really be back in a more or less serviceable shape. the logistics of trying to deal with something like that were literally making my brain bulge, but after sitting down and playing it for a few minutes, i'd be lying if i said i wasn't tempted.

so, after that ORGY of secondhand insanity (okay, fine, just one store) i found myself drained, defeated, and dehydrated. i chose to finish my abbreviated adventure in the only appropriate way i could think of:

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the donut shop. donald's donuts on union, across from schnucks and the old trousseau shop. nothing to write home about but a cinnamon sugar donut and a small cup of coffee only sets you back like a buck fifty or so. nice place to sit and unwind after a tiring day, and they're open until the surprisingly late hour of seven pm most days. i didn't find occasion to bang on the counter and loudly complain about how i watched my buddies die face down in the muck so that i could sit here and enjoy my coffee, though. considering the place was empty i don't think it would have been appropriate, and probably would have frightened the nice asian lady who was working.

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to recap:

Imperial Lanes Bowling Center
4700 Summer Ave
Memphis, TN 38122
(901) 683-5224

open 24 F'ING HOURS A DAY

MIFA Store
910 Vance Ave
Memphis, TN 38126
(901) 271-6432‎
mifa.org

hours/prices/more relevant and on-topic information than i could possibly give you available at their web site

Donald's Donuts
1776 Union Ave
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 725-5595‎

nice place to sit and enjoy your coffee

i'll be back next week with a slightly more ambitious trek, god (and my immune system) willing.

until then, shut the fuck up, donny.

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3/20/08

3/18/2008 - post script

so there we were. my traveling companion, one k. taylor (sha-tay-tay if you're nasty) davis and i, at the end of my day's itinerary. my digital camera is bloated full of pictures. my notebook, literally covered in my illegible chicken scratch shorthand. i am, in a word, sated. we've been out on the dusty trail for roughly four solid hours (you didn't think this all happened in like 45 minutes, did you?) and i am considering calling it a day when it occurs to me that this friend of mine, this person who agreed to ride around in my smelly car all over hell's half acre all afternoon long, who actually kind of listened to me talk for longer than thirty seconds and didn't kill me or herself or both of us, still didn't have the one thing she wanted, the one thing she left the house today to acquire:

a kitchen table.

we went to four of the largest thrift stores in the greater memphis area, to no avail. there we were, in bartlett tennessee (i don't care what google maps says, it was bartlett god dammit), i had everything i needed (i was probably the only person in bartlett at that point who had everything they needed) but our mission was frustratingly incomplete. so what could i do?

we pressed on.

after a quick stop at walgreens for some granola bars and water, we were off. it was a blur, a flurry, a plethora of thrift stores in such a condensed time frame that if i tried to describe it here, i think my head would literally explode, and then where would you be, dear audience?

here is what it added up to.

bibles for china, macon road. nothing.

four thrift stores, an outlet store, an antique store and a flea market, all in two blocks of summer ave. nothing.

finally, in desperation, salvation army on danny thomas blvd, downtown. nothing.

all of it, for nothing. no table was found. our stated objective was unmet.

but you know what we did find? we found that with a little good humor, some snobbishly indie music courtesy of my ipod, a few granola bars and some good company, you can go to TWELVE (12) thrift stores in five straight uninterrupted hours and come out on the other side, feeling at least vaguely human.

twelve in one day is a record for me, ladies and guys. i've hit double digits before in some particularly frantic rushes, but twelve (especially in only five hours) is just beyond the pale. i felt bad that taylor didn't go home with a table, but we talked about it, and all told had no regrets. nothing even close to what she was looking for popped up, there were no close calls or near misses (that one couch at the salvo notwithstanding), really nothing to beat yourself up over in the long run.

and if i can pull back a little here and do some armchair philosophizing, i'd say that those are all appropriate lessons to take from a day like tuesday, march eighteenth, two thousand and eight, and hopefully from most other days as well.

that's all for me for this week. next week i'm thinking elvis presley boulevard, but it's going to take some serious chops to hack through it alone. anyone else want to come along and ride the proverbial snake?

yeah, probably not huh

take care of yourselves kids

smooches

d

3/18/2008 - Goodwill Stage Rd

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it was with some mild relief that we reached the final store on my itinerary for the day. this goodwill (which i swear to god is in bartlett even though googmaps is telling me it's in memphis - is bartlett really just a glorified neighborhood? that would be funny) is HUGUNGOUS (aka ginormous) and i felt pretty confident taylor would leave with a table, i'd get some great pictures and we'd call it a day. have i mentioned our general level of wrongness about this stuff yet?

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this place is really funny and weird and worth a day's inspection on its own, being the only thrift store i've ever seen with an honest to goodness "Human Resources Department" (with its own little separate office and everything - so cute!) and a picture of Herman J. Goodwill or whatever the hell the guy's name is who started the whole thing. looks like a nice chappie.

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anyway for sheer square footage this has got to take the cake, biggest thrift store i've ever been in, ever, but whereas the salvo's from earlier on in this trip was all available to wander around in and get lost in thrifty goodness, this goodwill had roughly the area of a good-sized airplane hangar blocked off with the trademark particle board walls and swinging door, all devoted to processing their donations. they had a HUGE donation drop off center outside, so it's understandable, but still...mister goodwill, tear down this wall! reagan smash!

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that is what it looked like. it sounded like...well, if you can figure out how to stick your head inside a dishwasher while it's running, do that. then you will know what it sounded like.

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SO huge though, SO much cool sh*t just everywhere, like the half-trumpeting elephant bookend and of course the requisite wolf picture, AUGMENTED in coolness by its proximity to the framed, embroidered fish thing

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although i have to pause in my elation for just a second and air a pet peeve/private beef thing i've always had with this fucking thing. no one, that's i've ever known, has enjoyed receiving one of these things. in real life, zen gardens are a byproduct of a legitimate spiritual, psychological, philosophical endeavor by some of the most dedicated people on the planet earth to pierce the veil of illusion that causes most of us so much suffering and illuminate the world, so that we might all be free. but in stupid dollar store f*ck around la la land, it's a way for bored executives to waste a few minutes every day while they wait for an email back about their next golf vacation. forgive me if this seems like a little bit of a sudden detour into bitter town (i have a summer home there) but i imagine you christians, you muslims, you whatever you are, have had that moment where you see something you love and take seriously completely trivialized and made into another stupid useless commodity clogging up our collective consciousness, and maybe you feel the same way. maybe. otherwise i am just a complete lunatic. i'm not saying that ironic gifts don't have their place, and maybe this all seems kind of dour and humorless, but don't you have to draw a line somewhere, and isn't it just as arbitrary for everyone else who does it? i don't know.

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on a slightly less hysterical note, this really cracked me up. these pretty nice bamboo mats were around $5 a piece i think, which by itself is more or less unremarkable, but for the fact that they had OVER TWENTY price stickers on them - fourteen i think visible in this picture, and then like maybe ten more on the other side. i stared at this for a good five minutes trying to make sense of it...did some angry clerks just use the pricing gun to vent their frustration one day? just beating the shit out of these poor bamboo mats with the little sticker gun, hitting "$4.99" just over and over again until they were pulled off by concerned coworkers...i never really did get my head around it. three or four stickers, okay, that's kind of standard procedure to keep jackasses like me from pulling them off and substituting another, cheaper sticker (ANOTHER PRACTICE I DO NOT AND HAVE NEVER ADVOCATED PEOPLE), but twenty? especially on something that costs five dollars

okay wrapping it up you've got silly david lee roth record, check

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TONS of books although by this point i was kind of too wiped out to really look through them all, i did see this however

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three solid shelves of serialized romance novels, notable for their organization and the fact that they're so wonderfully undisturbed by anyone, you know, BUYING them. the next time someone asks me "why don't you want to sell romance novels in your book store?" (which actually happens a lot) i'm just going to show them this picture. and then silently, slowly shake my head. and then walk away into the sunset. with my dog. my dog will be named montavius.

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i DID snag these AMAZING pictures though, $6 a piece, really well framed and without any cosmetic damage at all, just a miracle find and a perfect example of how you can never stop looking around, even at (what you foolishly think is) the end of a long day's thrifting. i was actually giggling with delight as i carried these bad boys up to the front.

total spending:
two pictures , plus tax: $13.09

plus prior $28.54 equals

$41.63 all told. not a bad day, considering all the random stuff i brought home and the number of stores i visited.

Goodwill
6899 Stage Rd
Memphis, TN 38133
(901) 507-3284

hours:
m-sat 9-8
sun 12-6

music:
there might have been a little radio playing somewhere, but really the ambient volume of the room and all the forklifts (not an exaggeration, there were multiple forklifts) just drowned everything out. insane.

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before we leave this goodwill i just want to pause and point out a book that i see available everywhere, by an author i really like. i have a few copies of both of her books that i've seen, so i can't really justify buying any more for the store, but if you see this or her other book "the lovely bones" do yourself a favor and pick it up. tough subject matter, but really well written and rewarding, i thought anyway. just a recommendation.

so. there we were. my day's work was done but surprise surprise, the goodwill had let us down. no kitchen table. what now? we had some decisions to make. read on.

d

3/18/2008 - Goodwill Austin Peay

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just a little further up the austin peay (why does that name make my skin crawl a little every time i have to write it?) highway there's a pretty nice goodwill in a shopping plaza, that, like almost all of the goodwills i have ever been to, looks like it was originally something else that goodwill just moved into and occupied. as i mentioned in the last post, salvation army does this too, but whereas salvos usually leave the local flavor of the previous occupant more or less intact, goodwills have this weird way of making their stores oddly homogenous by blocking off most of the floor space into a sort of false warehouse in the back where they process most of their incoming donations - i have better pictures from the next one we visited so i'll touch on this again soon, i was just reminded of it again when we visited this one

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three steps in the door and it's already silly hat time for taylor. undeterred, i proceeded to the back of the store, where i found

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one of the things that i simultaneously love and hate about living in the south. there are god damned jimmy swaggart records EVERYWHERE. cracks me up to think that hypocritical asshole had such a prolific recording career, and the cover pictures are universally pimptacular and hilarious to look at, but eventually always saddens me to think about the fact that he sold that many damn records in the first place, and that the people who bought all the damn things and attended his churches and sermons and whatever are still out there walking around, or at least produced and raised kids who are like my age now, some of whom i'm sure haven't realized that their parents were borderline insane and you know what i'm going to stop talking about this now because i will probably offend someone and anyway what could i say about jimmy swaggart that hasn't already been said?

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also saw a decent sized collection of eight tracks, which you don't really see that much any more, partially because they never sold all THAT well in the first place, also because the tape material they used to record onto is like one molecule thick and breaks with almost no encouragement (as i found out when i went to raid my parents' old eight track collection in the early nineties) so they just don't hold up all that well. still tempting, especially when you think about getting bobby bland tapes, bb king, muddy waters, all of which they had here for like a buck a shot i think.

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they also seemed to have a ton of hats, but maybe it was just the way they were displayed, i don't know. i don't even bother trying on hats at thrift stores (not only because these were predominantly women's hats, mind you) because i have, hands down, the biggest god damned head of anyone you will ever meet, ever. it's like some kind of optical illusion because it doesn't look all that big, but i promise you, no hats fit my head, ever. i have to buy them online, it's horribly embarrassing and if i wasn't on my fourth sparks i probably wouldn't even mention it but hey, this is what happens when you stop being polite...and start getting real.

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they also also seemed to have a billion dishes but again that may have just been the way they were arranged. also i don't know if this shows in the picture but this blueberry pie dish has a recipe for blueberry pie on the top of it, and my question is this: wouldn't the recipe be obscured once you began to actually place the ingredients for the pie into the dish? i'm just picturing a suburban housewife with no real gift for forethought, halfway though the preparatory process for a sweet delicious blueberry pie, happily dumping the ingredients into her happy little dish, realizing only too late that she's just covered the only road map she had to completing the pie in question, just balling up her little fists in rage and vowing right then and there to dump the damn thing off at the goodwill next chance she gets. maybe that's a little too involved of a fantasy for one god damn dish, but what can i say, that's how i roll.

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there were some great finds here though, tangents notwithstanding, this is a really great store and definitely worth the drive. glancing around i noticed mens tshirts were $1.59, and generally everything i saw was just a cut below the usual goodwill pricing scheme, clothes and books and housewares and all of it, so this place definitely comes highly recommended. i also found an opportunity to expand my modest but growing vintage luggage collection - i've taken to storing my books in them, as the cheaply made cardboard boxes (does anyone know when they started making beer cases out of like card stock? i used to be able to stand on an empty case of beer when i was a kid without it even budging, now i could rip one in half without even trying. what happened?) that i'm currently using die off one by one. this set was great. four bucks a piece i think, and taylor was totally jealous, until i handed her this:

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the picture totally does not do it justice. this flask is a thing of beauty. amply proportioned, unlike some flasks where you take two sips (two more sips!) and the damn thing is empty, curved to fit snugly in a coat or jean pocket, manufactured in england, covered in SEAL SKIN (i shit you not), obviously if not an antique then at least a quality piece of equipment, priced at i think three dollars. three bucks. three. i already have three or four flasks at home that i almost never use (straight out of the bottle for yours truly, thanks) so i passed this off, and much to my satisfaction one k. taylor davis was proud to take it home with her.

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my big find was this GORGEOUS children's book that contains no words, just a hauntingly beautiful series of drawings that i'm not so far removed from my own childhood to be unable to appreciate. if i were ever to have kids (nope) this would be a book i would raise them with. totally invites you to create your own story, and as an added cuteness bonus was written, or rather composed i should say, by the author for his own daughter. awwwwwwww i know

i kind of glossed over the rest of the books, they were just sort of okay and between the flask and the suitcases and the little garlic press i got and yada yada i just wasn't feeling it. this place's big gap though (like a lot of other goodwills for some reason) is the furniture...they had like three couches and one kind of nice but overpriced desk and one cute little rocking chair that taylor was looking at until we saw it was like $40 and had been assembled in malaysia, presumably by nine year olds working for negative forty seven dollars a second or whatever it is they do over there. all in all a good stop though...but still no kitchen table? hmmm...the tension was beginning to build.

total spending:
garlic press, suitcases, one book. i lost my itemized receipt so i don't know for sure if that was all but i think so: $13.06
plus $15.48 previous equals

$28.54 so far.

Goodwill
3830 Austin Peay Hwy
Memphis, TN 38128
(901) 380-3235

hours:
m-sat 9-6
sun 12-6

no real specials or sales that i saw, although it's worth pointing out (DISCLAIMER: AT NO POINT IN TIME HAVE I EVER ADVOCATED THEFT OF ANY VARIETY, ESPECIALLY FROM CHARITABLE ORGANIZATIONS) that the checkout people could not have cared less about me or anything that i was buying, up to and including the point of (REREAD PRIOR DISCLAIMER PLEASE) not even looking inside the suitcases that i purchased. my conscience won't let me do anything with that information but your decisions are up to you.

music: lite rock, soft hits, whatever the hell you call it
madonna "crazy for you"
that "waiting on the world to change" song that completely rips off "sexual healing" - sounds like john mayer, i wouldn't put it past him, at least he ripped off something good
and of course, "we are family." right up there with the wolf picture in terms of necessity for your thrift store to be valid

i will say this about lite rock, A.M. Gold, all that seventies nonsense that they constantly seem to play at thrift stores...not that i like any of it all that much, but you really can kind of tune it all out and relegate it to the back burner of your mind and sort of coast along on the wave of oddly familiar but still kind of distasteful diatonic harmony radio music that you immediately forget afterwards (i take notes on all this stuff in case that wasn't clear, is the only reason i remember ninety percent of it), which i think is maybe the point of it all.

okay on to the final goodwill (kind of like the final countdown, but a little less rockin') on stage road, finally in bartlett proper i think. then the real excitement begins. take off your socks now so they won't be blown off later

d

3/18/2008 - Salvation Army Austin Peay

sorry, btw, if the pictures are too small and relevant details are lost, or if too much squinting is involved on you, the dear reader's, end. gave up with my struggles with blogger and photobucket re: clipping my pictures almost in half and decided to start preshrinking them until i come up with a better solution. anyway squinting a lot makes you look pensive and deep - just ask james dean.

anyway on to the salvation army on austin peay highway, northeast of the interstate loop but technically still in memphis i guess? that's what trusty old google maps is saying anyway.

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i love this store. love love love it. been in once before in the middle of a long exploratory trek and didn't have time to just wander around and appreciate the vastness of it, its hustle and bustle (really busy for being in such a relatively out of the way location), the loud shouty gospel music on the radio, and of course the finest feature

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wave after wave of cascading blue neon lights, running literally around the entire store. salvation army has a habit of moving into old unoccupied storefronts and buildings and really disturbing them only as little as they possibly have to to set up their own operation...it's a beautiful thing, especially when they move into what i have to assume was like a custom car audio electronics store showroom thing or something (does anyone know? i bet someone knows. i also bet that that someone will never ever read this blog either.) and leave the wonderful wonderful neon lighting up. i just wanted to hang out here all day.

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i don't really know if the pictures do justice to the enormity of this place either. it's gotta be the biggest thrift store i've been to in memphis, i think, although maybe the neon and the fact that it's almost all just one big open spacious room kind of make it seem bigger than it is, i don't know, but it just FEELS big. i know i say "you could get lost" about a lot of the stores i visit but i actually found myself wandering around halfway lost once or twice while i was here. on one of those meanderings i happened to stumble across a quintessential thrift store requirement though

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the wolf picture. i'm going to come right out and say it explicitly, for the record:

IT IS NOT A THRIFT STORE UNLESS THERE IS SOMETHING WITH A PICTURE OF A WOLF ON IT.

t shirt, poster, assembled jigsaw puzzle that someone just could not resist framing, commemorative beer stein...whatever, what have you, i don't care. unless there's a wolf of some variety (preferably airbrushed or otherwise encased in a mystical fog of some kind) engaged in some wolflike activity (standing on a rock, staring at the moon, gazing downwards at its own reflection in a pool of crystalline spring water), YOU DO NOT HAVE A THRIFT STORE. you might have an amazing collection of secondhand shit, you might have antiques, you might have a f*cking flea market that would make the pope weep, but you. do. not. have. a. thrift. store.

we clear? cool.

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i mentioned this last time, but seeing these made me think it was worth bringing up again...does anyone reading this (yes, all three of you) know anything about slide carousels? it's frustratingly just at the fringes of my knowledge (as someone who majored in photography for two solid years, that's a little embarassing to say) and i'm really starting to fall in love with the idea of getting a slide projector and going around and buying all the slides i see and just throwing parties where people sit around and take turns narrating other people's vacations or something. i don't know, i just know i don't want to bother buying a slide projector and getting all liquored up and whatnot just to find out the damn thing doesn't fit the slide carousels i bought. i guess i should just shut up and do some research on my own, figure this f-ing thing out.

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anyway on to the books, which were in their own little room, and were very reasonably priced (mostly around a dollar or less i think) if a little strangely organized and themed. before i get to that though i just want to mention that the gentleman in this picture has never heard of a "choose your own adventure" book. i know this because immediately after i took this picture i walked into the tiny little book room and overheard his friend that he was with explaining the concept to him, to his mostly complete and utter bafflement. this perturbed me, more than a little. they were both around my age (mid to late twenties, early to mid thirties or something) and i just automatically assume that anyone who grew up in this country in or around the nineteen eighties is just inherently familiar with the idea behind choosing your own adventure, in book form anyway. wow what a silly, faux-profound insight into the shortcomings of my generation - maybe if we'd all taken the lessons of those books a little more to heart and chosen our own adventures in real life we'd be out there conquering the world like the god damned greatest generation instead of sitting around writing about thrift stores at 1 AM - but i digress.

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wonderful kaleidoscope of silly pseudo new age self help books, christian life advice masquerading as hippie nonsense, and pop psychology for stoners...i'll leave it up to you to determine which is which. i can't remember.

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i did not buy this. i wanted to. SO badly. but i also kind of felt cheated somehow that mimes would talk that much (it was a pretty long book) about anything, even miming.

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this is what i ended up getting. some pretty good stuff actually.

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before we move on, and while i'm speaking of "pretty good stuff actually," i need to mention this couch. this couch is $89.99. this couch is in great shape. this couch is over six feet long, which means i can nap on it without my head or feet touching the arm rests, which almost never happens. this couch is in great shape for being as old as it is. taylor and i both laid on this couch (SEPARATELY COME ON PEOPLE GIVE US SOME CREDIT) and nearly drifted off into a peaceful slumber. this couch almost came away with us, well with taylor specifically. i cannot afford this couch, nor do i have room for it. this couch will not be there the next time i come back to this store. maybe you will go there and buy it? i hope you will.

anyway there were TONS of other great furniture finds, book cases, chairs, i mean i could have done a whole day on this store alone, there was just so much great stuff. oddly enough though, no kitchen table for shatooteroonie (taylor). i began to get a little curious about that at this point. i had mentioned in the car on the way over to this store that often, when i need one specific thing, it's like the ambient thrift store energy in the universe just conspires to make sure that it's not there. i only find cool stuff when i'm going with no specific objectives in mind. taylor responded with good-natured disbelief when i said that, and i conceded that she was probably right. how hard would it be to find a table? if only we had known. if only.

total spending:
7 books of varying price w/tax: $6.81

plus $8.67 in prior totals equals

$15.48 so far

Salvation Army
3329 Austin Peay Hwy
Memphis, TN 38128
(901) 373-3245

hours:
m-sat 10-7
sun closed i think

usual color coded discounts that almost all salvos have, and which i cannot make heads or tails of, despite all my years of thrifting...do you think they have like a secret chart or something that tells when the colors are? who would i have to mug/blow/bribe/all of the above to get a copy?

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also as you can see the coats were half off, but i'd take the flimsy piece of paper to mean that it's not really a long-term sale thing...then again it's salvo, who the hell knows

music: loud shouty gospel, like i said. i think there was some t.d. jakes? is he a gospel musician or just a religious person whose name i heard once? i can honestly profess almost complete ignorance of modern popular gospel music. my gospel knowledge begins with preservation hall jazz band's "precious lord" and ends with aretha franklin's gospel album from back in the day that i have on vinyl where she's wearing a headdress that makes erykah badu look like a f*cking drag queen (sorry i love "worldwide underground" as much as anyone but it's true), but anyway

next up: the goodwill (the second of three i would visit this day) a little further up austin peay. i was about to say "see you there" but i was already there and i didn't see you anywhere! dude where the hell where you?

d

ps in addition to the coats thing my receipt also says "WED 50 OFF CLOTHING" at the bottom which i would assume means either 50 cents off or 50 percent off clothes on wednesdays, although i question the validity of such an ambiguous register receipt postscript. it also says "!! DONATE YOUR CAR !!"