Dear Folks,

      The wind has died down, the air is still a little chilly but we have a fire going full time and our BIG BOOK SALE is happening at full throttle. We have a wall of books right next to the station that have all been reduced to $2.

      In the gravel part of the driveway, we have thousands of science fiction, detective and fiction books that are all $.25 cents during the sale.

      Education by Inclusion has 10 -15 tables overflowing with books on Gowen and coming down the driveway.

      If folks get chilly while shopping outside, they come in for a free cup of coffee or tea and then they can shop in our toasty warm shop where we have a 25% off sale on all books.

      We have had  a good crowd of people all morning but there are still more books to put out so we've decided to expand the sale for one more day.  We'll be here till 9 p.m. tonight so come by later. On Friday we'll open at 7 a.m. and stay here till 6:30 p.m.

Come and join the fun.

Greg and Cynthia

 Dear Friends,

        We hope you'll do some of your last minute holiday shopping with us or other local merchants. To entice you, we have a full weekend of campfires, s'mores, popcorn and spiced wafers and music. Tonight, Sharon Abbott will be playing from about 7 till 9 around the campfire. She has worked up a great collection of reworked carols and a few Christmas tunes of her own and her playing on her hammer dulcimer is so lovely and enables the listener to take a deep breath, slow down, and relish the holidays rather than getting run over by them.  Sharon will also be here on Sunday afternoon when we're open from noon to 4 p.m.

       Saturday afternoon a young singer/songwriter, Joe Baglia will also be entertaining out by our fire. Joe has a huge repertoire of covers of contemporary singer/songwriters and is full of energy and enthusiasm for music. You'll enjoy him starting at 2 p.m. 

       Finally, we are proud to have the exclusive rights in Mt Airy to sell Tom Gala's new CD, appropriately entitled Story After Story for $10, with all proceeds going to Tom. There are 17 tunes on there including some of our favorites, like "Witch Hazel", "Shorty and Dave", and "One More Saturday Night." These would make great stocking stuffers.

Hope to see you.

Greg and Cynthia 

Dear Folks,

      We've already had several requests for our unique service, Bookstacks, and I thought I might remind the rest of you about it. We regularly root around in our 80,000 books as we price books, enter them on line, shelf them, reshelf them etc., so we know our stock very well. Thus we can put together a stack of books that match the interests of the person to whom you want to give a gift and come up with books or connections that you might not have thought of. Then we erase the prices, record the sale so we have records of the books and the prices, wrap them up in a ribbon, and you have a Bookstack. If we goofed and one of the booksdoesn't fit the bill or if we pick a book that your giftee already has, they can bring it into the shop and exchange it for a book of equal value, of their choosing. Another alternative is gift certificates - we can write them up for any amount, personalize them with your name and the name of the person receiving the gift, and even list some of the types of books in which they might be interested. Either way would be a great way to introduce your friends to our store !

      We also have come across a variety of blank journals for aspiring writers on your gift list. These start at $5 and may have wooden covers, covers with hand made paper with delicate leaves imprinted in the paper, or high tech journals from "Oracle" for the seers on your gift list.

     This fall, Cynthia and I had the good fortune to come across a marvelous collection of Pop-Ups and we have been like kids in a candy store ever since. The collection ranges from $5 copies of classics with hilarious gaping mouthed monsters by Jan Pienkowski to rare and collectible, unopened Pop-ups at $60, and though many of them are designed for kids (and the kids in us adults) there are also some for adults who can also delight in the wizardry of these magical creations that ascend from two to three dimensional with the turn of a page. I don't think that ebooks will be able to imitate that experience.

    I had fun thinking of Bookstacks that build on pop-ups and came up with a few for your perusal. We have a couple of shelves of Christmas books and one of my favorite pop-up artists, Robert Sabuda, did a prancing version of The Night Before Christmas where his designs not only pop but the reindeer jump out at you, the sash flies up, and Santa slides down and then climbs back up the chimney. We have one slightly used version at $13 and an unopened first edition at $25. In our Christmas Bookstack, we'd also suggest, A Topsy Turvy Christmas, A Cantata for Children, undated, $10, in which the children in the "musical" go looking for the presents their Grandma hid before Christmas and suffer the consequences. On the not so saccharine side, we have a paperback entitled, The Junky's Christmas and Other Stories, $6 which concludes with the title story, by William S. Burroughs.

     For the adults we have the POP-UP BOOK of NIGHTMARES, with one torn pop-up, thus $10,with truly scary pop-ups by Matthew Reinhart, like one where the clock flies through three hours as the page opens and the proctor takes your blue book away before you've been able to answer even the first question. Then there's the pop-up where, as you start to open it, you're skating atop the frozen pond, and by the time you've opened it all the way, you're looking up through murky water, surrounded by creatures of the deep, and you're sinking. We've add to it, The Mind at Night, by Andrea Rock, a hardback in dust jacket, $6, that explores the latest scientific evidence about why and how we dream, and Zolar's Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Dreams, a paperback best seller,$13, which presents the not-so-scientific aspect of dream interpretation "With Lucky Numbers for Fun and Prophet!" I thought I was the punster in this blog ?

       You'll have to come into the shop to see, The POP-UP Ancient Egypt Calendar 2006, and it's accompanying bookstack which includes a rare U.S. 1st edition of a great 19th century juvenille adventure story by the legendary English author, G. A. Henty, The Cat of Eubastes, a tale of Ancient Egypt. We have added extra hours, Friday until 9 p.m. and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m,  during the holidays just so you can come see these and other wonderful books in our shop.This weekend the weather looks clear with highs in the 40's - perfect for our plan to have a fire out in front of the shop where you can make s'mores and enjoy music by Sharon Abbott on Friday and by Phillip Bennett and Sharon on Sunday.

Hope to see you,

Greg and Cynthia

P.S. I can't resist naming a few other pop-ups that delight me: The Wizard of Oz, also by Sabuda where the tornado turns so fast it makes your head spin, and unopened copy of Edward Gorey's DRACULA, A TOY THEATRE, and L'Isola dei mostri, by Ron Van Der Meer, on of our growing selection of children's books in foreign languages.

         As a growing group of folks from Northwest Philadelphia meet to talk about the idea of creating a book coop, community owned and democratically controlled, I've been spouting off about what a cultural assest a used bookstore is and thus how important it is that we find a new model that supports used bookstores, like we support museums, or else we will lose chunks of our culture.  As I walked around the store the past few days, looking for books that I might write about that were somehow related to the theme of Greeks, Romans, and Trojans, BY JOVE !, I was struck by just how true that is. Let's begin with the lliad and Odyssey, almost 3,000 years old, and, along with the Pentateuch, the foundation of western culture. I didn't count but I'll guess we have as many as 10 different versions and translations in the shop, fitting for such an important part of our culture. We have a matching set of hardbacks, in dust jacket of the Richard Lattimore translations, in dactyllic hexameters, published by the University of Chicago Press, at $10 each. We have a lovely 1999, leather bound, gilt decorated edition of both volumes, translated in 1898 by Samuel Butler, in prose, for $10.  We also have an 1848, leather bound version of the Iliad, in Greek, published in Edinburgh, with subtitles, and spine label in Latin for $20 !  And, at the other end of the spectrum, we have a 1979 black and white comic book version of The Iliad, which reminds me of the Classics Illustrated Comics I loved to read in the 1950's, for $2. By the way, we also have about 10 other classic titles in this "Now Age Books" series in our mythology section.

     From this starting place, about 10 shelves of books, ranging from Latin textbooks to books such as Ancient Coins, Illustrating Lost Masterpieces of Greek Art, we could turn and enter any of  the 8 rooms of books in the shop and find influences of these classic cultures - political science and the beginnings of democracy, botanical names, psychology and the recognition of archetypes in classical drama that inform our understanding of human nature. Let's start in our literature room because I want to brag about our Modern Library section which is packed to overflowing with 8 shelves of hardback books, like Joyce's Ulysses or Marius the Epicurean by Walter Pater at $4 and $5 respectively. We also have a wonderful selection of illustrated classics such as these Heritage Press books, The Last Days of Pompeii by Lord Lytton, $6 and Oedipus the King by Sophocles, $10.

     Then let's go downstairs to our mythology and folk and fairy tales, where we not only have oodles of books about Greek and Roman mythology like Greek Gods and Heroes  byRobert Graves, $8 in dust jacket, but also myriad other mythologies like The Norse Myths, Kevin Crossley-Holland, $4, in paperback, and multiple back issues of Parabola, The Magazine of Myth and Tradition, $3 each. I especially want to call your attention to several books in the Judaic mythic tradition. This quote from the dust jacket of Night Tales of the Shammas, by Michael Jay Katz, $9 eloquently restates my thesis that used bookstores preserve important pieces of our humanity, "A people's fables are close to the human heart, and the older the tales, the more elementally human they are. Over the years, stories are told and retold, and only those remain that resonate snugly somewhere within the soul." I also love When the Beginning Began, Stories about God, The Creatures, and Us, by the African American convert to Judaism, Julius Lester, $15. And then we have a lovely, particularly clean dust jacketed copy of The Old Testament, with excerpts from the King James Version of stories that is illustrated by Philadelphian Marguerite De Angeli and warmly inscribed "To Johnny, with best wishes, Marguerite De Angeli." for $100. 

     I'll end with the mythology of my own Christian tradition, particularly in the matter of saints. As a young kid, I felt that I was the only Greg in the world  so I was particularly pleased to feel that I had a namesake of some renown. I haven't read Gregory the Great, by Gerhart Ellert, $10, in dust jacket, but I  love having it in my section of hagiography (Isn't that a great word. I learned it by reading novels by Robertson Davies who is fascinated by saints.) We also have A Galaxy of Saints, Lesser Known Bible Men and Women, in dust jacket, $5 by Herbert Stevenson, which lifts up the minor characters in both the Old and the New Testament and a review copy of Brother Jerome and the Lion, retold and illustrated by Terry Reid, $25.

      On December 11, at St. Martin in the Field,  I get to portray not Santa Claus, to whom I am often compared, but a more noble and legitimate saint who believed in justice and the use of the wealth of his office as the Greek Bishop of Myra in what is now Turkey, to care for the poor: Saint Nicholas. It's great fun to dress up but it's also great to be able to use the occassion to teach about giving rather than receiving as we use the occassion to ask for support for the work of promoting peace and caring for the poor, of all faiths, in Jerusalem by the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem. 

      This last weekend, my Devon Street neighbors, in a tradtion that is now three years old, helped decorate the train station with lights. Though these lights are a Christian tradition, I was reminded of the mythic nature of the fostering of the light in the face of darkness that is common to all of us. In these dark times, we wish light for all of us, of all traditions .

Greg and Cynthia

Dear Folks,

      Our friends at Grace Epiphany Episcopal Church, just up the road on Gowen at Ardleigh are doing a fund raiser for their outreach programs and have taken lovely pictures of their stained glass windows and put the four different pictures on the front of greeting cards that would make a very nice Christmas card. We are selling the packs of 20 cards and envelopes for $12 here at the shop with all proceeds going to the church.

      We also found that we had packs of 12 cards and envelopes showing a variety of  6 Mt. Airy scenes, including the Allen's Lane Train Station and Weavers Way by Bronwyn Bird in 1990 for WMAN Arts and Cultural Alliance. We also will have these available for sale in the shop for $12 for the pack of 12 and they could be used for any sort of note cards including any of the upcoming holidays.

      A friend of mine loves to scan the internet for interesting videos and then send them my way. I loved this video for it's expression of gratitude for all the wonders in our life. I hope you'll enjoy it as well and that it might lead all of us to contemplate how much we have for which we can be grateful. Happy Thanksgiving.

Greg and Cynthia

P.S. We will NOT open at midnight on Thanksgiving to give all of you extra time to shop in our store on Black Friday. In fact, because so few people are riding the trains to work that morning we will probably open a little late but will be open till 6:30 and hope that you will consider doing some of your holiday shopping here at Walk a Crooked Mile Books. Chances are you'll have more fun if you stop by the shop - lots of parking, free coffee or tea or cocoa for browsers, no one pushing or shoving to get a Nook at 50 % off. We will have extra hours during the holidays but won't begin them till December. Then we will stay open till 9 p.m. on Fridays and be open from 12-4 on Sundays. For our sanity, we will continue to take off Wednesdays. May your holiday gift buying be sane and fun!

Dear Folks,

      Last March, we started booking folks to play at our Mt. Airy Train Station Free Concert Series and here we are, at the end of October, with a good forecast, (thanks be to Elliot Abrams at Accuweather, who has helped us plan whether to cancel or go ahead with concerts all season) of a clear crisp (read chilly) day and evening for our season finale with a great a cappella group of women from Haverford, called the Outskirts. 7-9 p.m. dress warm and we'll have the hot coffee, tea, and cocoa on. I heard this group at Mt. Airy Village Festival in the early fall and they were terrific. I'm a little behind on modern culture and was watching my first full episode of Glee last night and now I fully expect that we will all break into song and dance as we get infected by the contagious sizzle of the music. Wouldn't the Outcasts be surprised !

      Anyway, thanks to all of those in the nearly 25 different groups who have played here this season, who have come and listened here and supported our musicians, and who helped finance this concert series by donating around $1,000 at Walk a Palooza II.  I do think that this little series is a part of what I call the warp and woof of community that makes Mt. Airy an exceptional community in which to live.  Speaking of which, our discussions continue about the possibility of creating a book co-op or something like that, somewhere in Northwest Philly,  which would give us more room for books, and more room for concerts and other public events that we love.  Perhaps the concert series could go year around if we find a spot that has enough room to create a "concert hall/movie theater/community meeting" site. 

         Our first meeting was covered in the Chestnut Hill Local and you can read it by clicking here. I also was interviewed Zach Subar of Mt. Airy Patch.com and that little article came out this week and can be read through this link.  Many of you who read this are on the mailing list and have volunteered to help explore this idea. If you aren't and want to be kept informed, drop me an email. This will be a long thoughtful process.

     By the way, I did just get an email from one of our committee members passing on the news article that the empty Border's site which first inspired this talk of a book co-op has been rented and appears to be destined to be a day care center but information is still a little sketchy at this link.

    A reminder about three other momentous events that are yet to occur in BOOKtober. The first is that there are, as of now, only 3 1/4 shopping days left in our big 30% off Sale.  Secondly, the book drive for kids in Camden without books has three overflowing boxes of books so far and the young girl who is running the drive has $80 more in cash which was donated to spend on books here. That drive goes through Saturday. And finally, HALLOWEEN !  We have a grand tradition here of welcoming trick and treaters and giving anyone who shows up in costume to choose between CANDY or a FREE BOOK. What would you choose?  If you have young'uns or you dress up yourself I hope you come by on Monday evening.   BOOOOOOKtober!

Greg and Cynthia

Dear Friends,

      It's rainy at the moment, but the weather forecast augurs very well for another BOOKtober weekend full of events here at Walk a Crooked Mile Books. Our 30% off sale on all books including this title by P.G. Wodehouse (by the way, we happen to have a slew of his books in stock right now) is proceeding briskly but, worry not, there are still piles and piles of books available to you. Only 12 more days !

     On Friday, we are pleased to have the rescheduled Philadelpia Area Songwriters Alliance concert - they got rained out by Irene and have a new cast of 8 singer songwriters, including Drew Calvin, pictured to the left and Naila pictured to the right. Last year's concert was really quite remarkable - everyone singing pieces that they have composed. Concert is from 7-9 and, as always, bring a chair or blanket and a picnic. Should the weather suddenly turn, the rain date is on Saturday.

     Speaking of Saturday, it's the day for our ultimate yard sale for this season and again the weather looks brisk and sunny - perfect for an October extravaganza. We've extended the times from 9 a.m.- 4 p.m. and Sharon Abbott will be performing once again. Two weeks ago, James Rosenblatt, one of our neighbors sat in with Sharon because her voice was failing and the two of them hit it off in a big way and plan to play together again this Saturday.

    Finally, I want to remind you of the Book Drive for Camden children without books. This was put together by a young high school girl who worked in a rec center with children this past summer and she was so moved by the hunger of kids to have new books to read that she took it upon herself to organize a book drive. We've filled up a box or two but she needs lots of books. If you don't have children's books, come and buy some of ours and then donate them to the cause.

Hope to see you several times this week.

Greg and Cynthia

Dear Folks,

      We can't take any credit, but we are delighted that the gloom and rain seem to be on their way out, at least for our first weekend of BOOKtober events. It looks clear and a little warmer, but we'll still have that delicious chill in the air, for the first of four free concert, this Friday, October 7 by The Lewis Brothers, from 7-9 p.m. These guys played here for the first time last year and we were all blown away by the high level of musicianship. There will be excellent banjo picking, high, lonely singing, guitar strumming, foot tapping, harmonizing, and mandolin playing going on 'round here. Listen to this short youtube video for a sample of their sound at the 2009 Philadelphia Folk Festival. As always, bring a chair or a blanket and a picnic and enjoy the evening.

      On Saturday October 8, we have our penultimate Mt. Airy Train Station Yard Sale with a few extra twists - it will be LONGER and it will be serenaded by the ever popular troubadour, Sharon Abbott.   The hours will be 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. (though we all know that some people will set up even earlier) and Sharon will be playing throughout the day and showing off her new dulcimers and perhaps some new tunes. (Check out this great piece of songwriting.) If you have stuff to sell, give us a call and we'll put you on our seller's list. Buyers - no need to reserve a spot  - come early and often. Our final yard sale of the season will be Saturday October 22 - also with longer hours and live music.

      And our 30% off BOOKtober sale continues on. Sales have been brisk but there are still plenty of wonderful books available. Since we are accepting books as donations or for trade credit during the month of October, there is plenty more waiting to get on the shelves.

Hope to see you soon.

Greg and Cynthia

Dear Friends,

       There are some changes in the air here at Walk a Crooked Mile Books. The first and most immediate one is that we cancelled the concert by the Philly Saxophone Quartet scheduled for tonight. We are just so soggy here and a threat of more rain today and tomorrow was just too much. We still have more concerts in the series- see our calendar for details.

      The second change is that we are going to open later on Monday Tuesday Thursday and Friday - at 7.a.m. and that we will be CLOSED ON WEDNESDAYS. For some time now, I've felt like the faster I pedalled the further behind I became. Also, I am 62 now and my muscles, joints, bursa, etc. are all telling me that I am not a young buck and I can't be carrying books six days a week with only one day of rest. Cynthia, wiser than I, is totally on board and interested in a more sane life for us. So, in the interest of being able to work longer, I'm going to try and work smarter. So our new hours are:

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday 7 a.m- 6:30 p.m.

Saturday 9:00 a.m. - 6:30 p.m.

CLOSED SUNDAY & WEDNESDAY

     The third change is actually related to the first two. For some time, several people have urged me to explore the possibility of moving the shop from our beloved train station and this wonderful neighborhood to the location where Borders of Chestnut Hill closed two years ago. I thought they were crazy. But, I'm reconsidering. Here's what I'm thinking:

     The recent heavy rains that have put a foot or more of water in the basement twice in two weeks leads me to think that books will become more vulnerable in this little valley with a big drainage problem that I don't see SEPTA fixing. I think that Global Warming is indeed causing more radical weather and heavier rains. In the last two weeks, I estimate that we lost about 2500 books. Now they were mostly paperback overstock, but they still could have been resold and thus reused.

     I am full to the gill with very good books. There is a crying need for a place where people can find good homes for the books they so love. In essence, we have become a recycling center where we do just that - try to find good homes for as many books as we can. I try to treat all books as valuable. Some books are valuable and collectible, most aren't. Some books aren't worth a lot of money but deserve another life and this we bring in the shop.  Some books are unlikely to sell here so we put them out in the free pile. There most get reused rather than going into the recyling flow. This is a good thing and I'm committed to that and proud of how we care for books. I'm clearly committed to the world of reading and the mind and I think our culture needs used bookstores to protect this world. I'm aware that ebooks are changing the game and I'm not a luddite opposed to them. In fact, I lust for an Ibook. But I'm pretty sure that digital books won't eliminate paper books. I have had lots of conversations with lots of people who think books have so much going for them. Paradoxically, one of my best group of customers are the 20 and 30 somethings who were weaned on computers. Many of them still read books and love my shop.

     I also have always been committed to creating a place that fosters community. That is why we put so much energy into our concert series, our yard sales, and the bookstore. Now, the very number of books coming my way works against having the kind of room for community that a store like Border's provided. One of my customers turned me on to a column in the Inquirer this week by Karen Heller about the need, in our larger community, for a place where community can be nourished. You can read her article here. I love what she has to say.

    So, given that: the train statioin is not big enough and dry enough for books in the long run, there is an abundance of good books available to my store, and that there is a need for the kind of bookstore that is big enough to foster community and my proclivity for nurturing that kind of community, I've been talking to Glen Bergman, general manager of Weaver's Way Coop about the possibility of creating a coop that somehow transforms the Borders store into a community bookstore that is good for books, good for community, that nurtures the arts and music, and that works economically. I've got enough books to stock the store. We might want to also sell new books and somehow tap into ebooks. All these are huge questions and we don't know if it is feasbile but we're talking. If this idea interests you, let me know and we'll include you in the conversation.

    If this idea were to come to fruition, I envision that taking several years or more. In the meantime, we're staying open in a more sane way. Cynthia and I will also be exploring other options for our future - if you have any ideas, let us know.

Come visit - buy some of those great books that are crowding our store.

Greg and Cynthia

Dear Folks,

      This is a bit of a topsy turvy week, as I will be doing a book fair in Baltimore Wednesday through Sunday. Thus our schedule this week is:

Saturday       9:00am to 3:00pm

     We will still have our scheduled concert on Thursday night, a really big show but if we have to cancel for rain we don't have a rain date.  Here are the details on the concert.

The Philadelphia Area Songwriters Alliance (PASA) is an organization of songwriters in the Philadelphia, PA, area that provides an environment for the nurturing of songwriting craft and performance.  PASA's activities include songwriting workshops, house concerts, semi-annual songwriters' festivals, and other opportunities to sing one's own songs and hear original music by many local artists.  For more information, please visit www.PASAmusic.org

This concert will be quite the singer/songwriter event. Sharon Abbott will emcee. 

CARLA ULBRICH: A comical singer/songwriter/guitarist, Carla Ulbrich a.k.a. "The Professional Smart Aleck" has toured all over the US and England, and has appeared on USA TV, the BBC, Dr. Demento, folk festivals such as Falcon Ridge and Kerrville, Folk Alliance showcases and much more.  Carla has lupus and suffered two strokes and kidney failure in 2002; her experiences with the US health care system led her to write several funny songs and a book about it, and she now presents a lecture/music program at medical conventions as "The Singing Patient" to share her story of beating the odds through alternative therapies, hope and humor.  She is married to Joe Giacoio.  Website = www.carlau.com 
 

JOE GIACOIO:  Joe Giacoio has won several awards for his strange guitar playing and even stranger songwriting. Songs about post-apocalyptic nostalgia and the existential crisis of a superhero are accompanied by acoustic-guitar riffs and harmonics in inventive tunings. Joe has often been featured at the Falcon Ridge folk festival, and on the Dr. Demento radio show. Joe performs concerts at venues up and down the East Coast, and lectures on guitar technique and guitar history. He is the husband of Carla Ulbrich.  Website = www.joegmusic.com

 

THE BARN SWALLOWS:  The tuneful sounds of Sandy Pluta and Matthew Gordon are based squarely in country, folk, and bluegrass traditions, with a unique modern approach.  The soaring slide of Sandy's dobro, along with her haunting country voice, lend an authenticity to the duo's rootsy approach.  Matthew's guitar work and smooth vocal harmonies provide dynamics and strength. Together, their music is soothing and spacious, with lyrics that are deceptively simple, yet profoundly poetic.  Website = www.thebarnswallows.com

 

ANGELA SHEIK:  Angela Sheik is an electro-acoustic indie musician who combines the soulful, feminine vibe of Billie Holiday with the innovative spirit of Imogen Heap. Her music bridges the divide between a traditional singer/songwriter and an electronic innovator. Using her layered voice, an arsenal of unique instruments, and looper machines, she breaks all expectations of what a solo performer can accomplish on stage.  Website = www.angelasheik.com

 

DAVID KLEINER:  David Kleiner is one of the most precise and literate singer/songwriters on the Philly area music scene today. Inspired by classic folk artists like Phil Ochs, by current events and by the condition of the human heart and mind, he crafts incisive and achingly beautiful lyrics, melodies, and arrangements on guitar.  A freelance writer and a teacher of English and songwriting, he appears at local venues including the World Cafe.  Not to be confused with songwriter Dave Kleiner of New Jersey.  Website = www.davidkleiner.net

 

ROB BRUCKNER:  Rob Bruckner was going to be a rock star, but he fell in with a bad crowd and became a biochemist. During those lost years he developed his own style of blues-based lead guitar and a passion for songwriting. Using the "I just write what the voices in my head tell me" method, he has produced songs that cover a wide range of topics and styles. With Rob's music, you never know what will be coming next because he doesn’t either. 

 

JOE "ZOOKEY" PETRAITUS:  Joe "Zookey" Petraitus is a New Jersey folksinger/guitarist and a writer of soberly serious and playfully funny songs. He has been performing for the last few years regularly at open stages including the legendary Minstral Coffeehouse Open Stage. Joe's melodies are heavily influenced by a wide range of folk music, but also mix in Latin rhythms. 

 

NAILA:  Claudia "Naila" Schulte writes gentle, sensitive songs and performs in a style that is at once calming and riveting.  A Philadelphia native and longtime PASA member, she has graced local folk events for many years.

Dear Folks,

      A friend shared this great youtube video about a bookseller who's trying to change his country, one book at a time. I love it - reminds me that there is much that can be noble about this profession and that we may not know how good we have it. Hope you'll enjoy it and share it.

      This Thursday, Aug. 18, Kenny Sykes will bring us his superb alto and tenor sax playing, his mellifluous voice, and his love of entertaining in a free concert from 7 - 9 p.m. Who knows, perhaps it will be a concert on the lake ? As always, remember to bring a chair or blanket and a picnic. Rain date is Friday Aug. 19th, same time and place.

      Saturday our 5th yard sale of the season will have an extra perk - troubadour Sharon Abbott who just can't get enough of performing will be here playing whilst you shop and or sell. Speaking of selling, we have plenty of room for other booths so see if you can clean out one of those places where you keep your unused treasures and bring it on down here and "make your fortune." By the way, Sharon now has added the hammer dulcimer to her repertoire - another reason to come hear her.

See you soon,

Greg and Cynthia

Dear Folks,

     I't s Ocean City time for Cynthia and me. We leave Saturday after closing and will spend 3 days, down the shore, with family. As I wrote this, I realized I will never be a native Philadelphian, because, even after twenty years here, I can't say or write "down the shore" without correcting the grammar in my mind.  Born a midwesterner, I'll always be a midwesterner. Anyway, I'll still really enjoy myself - doughnuts on the boardwalk, beach walks, reading . C.C. the financier cat will be in charge but I don't think she'll open the shop for you. She'll still be in charge on Tuesday but our friend Alice will open the shop from 9 a.m.- 6. Wednesday, we're back to normal opening and closing, C.C. still in charge.

      Our next concert will be Thursday, August 11 with Wanamaker Lewis and the Cabin Jazz All Stars. This will be a wonderful night of fine instrumental playing on guitars of several ilks, including dobbro. Lush sounds by consumate musicians. To get a taste follow this youtube link. Makes me want to light up a cigar (even though I've sworn off all tobacco for some time and never really did like cigars)  and have a fine double malt scotch (even though I do have fond memories of that, it is a rarity any more.)

     Finally, a heads-up, as we approach the end of summer, that we have several yard sales still coming up. The next is a mere two weeks away, on Saturday, August 20th so there is still time to clean it out and bring it here, price it cheap and get rid of it. The other fall dates are:

Saturday, September 3, Saturday October, 8 and Saturday October 22.

Make your fortune.

Hope to see you soon.

Greg and Cynthia

Dear Folks,

     I was raised to be pretty independent and self-reliant and have found that I need to unlearn some of that and ask for help sometimes. Our big fundraiser, Walk-a-Palooza is essential to the continuation of our little concert series. My goal is that the series is yet another place where our wonderful Mt. Airy/Chestnut Hill/Germantown community gathers and gets to know each other and builds the bonds and bridges that make community. I think we've been pretty successful at that and I'd like to see the series continues.

     You could help in several ways. First, pass the word about the event, via email or word of mouth, and invite friends, neighbors, or relatives to come and enjoy the music and the fun. There is no admission cost. If they have a good time, they can contribute and maybe start coming to the series.

    Secondly, you could print out the attached flyer, or come by the shop and get larger, more readable versions and put them up in your church, your gym, your favorite restaurant, etc. and help get the word out.

     Thirdly, some of the musicians helped come up with a wonderfully neighborly way to feed ourselves during the concert. We'd like to have a Palooza pot-luck.  If you are so inclined, bring some food to share. It would be great if things were home-made and if you included a card describing the ingredients so our friends with allergies can eat safely. It would probably be best if there was a mixture of fruits and breads and proteins and desserts but I trust the god of the potluck to make that happen. I would love to get an email or call if you're bringing something so I have some idea as to whether or not I need to supplement. Maybe some folks could bring drinks (no alcohol) to share. We won't have facilities for heating food and we'd love to keep our waste to a minimum. We'll put a kitty out on the table with proceeds to go to the concert series.

      Fourth, if you can't come, please consider making a donation to the concert series. I'm not sure when C.C., our cat, learned to use the computer but when I found that she had added to our poster a picture of herself and marching orders, I left her "imprint". I'll leave you with her directions, which may be a little hard to read on the smaller posters.

"I've taken over the fundraising for this affair, so I'm doing the hard sell. At our concerts, performers get all the donations. Printing and labor cost Greg and Cynthia $1500 for the 23 concerts this year. How about if you help? You can contribute any amount and the concert or send a check payable to Walk a Crooked Mile Books Concert Series" to our address below. FEED THE KITTY!  I'll be watching! "  C.C.

       Finally, the "reward" for reading this to the end. The pictures from Cynthia's daughter Emily's wedding, on July 2, have mostly surfaced and, as promised, I'm releasing a few pictures at a time. This first one is of me gathering folks at the reception to give a group blessing to the couple. At least that's the official story. I must admit it looks more like I'm doing a stand up comedian act at a Borscht Belt club in the Catskills. The white shoes are the clincher. The second one is of me and Cynthia as we marched out of the church after the ceremony. Isn't she a lovely mother of the bride. 

More to follow later in the week.

Greg and Cynthia 

Dear Folks,

           The Jubilee School, a small, independent, elementary, progressive school in West Philadelphia, and the Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, in Chestnut Hill, have had a relationship since the mid 1990’s that included church members teaching at and serving on the Board of the Jubilee School and the church using Outreach money to help support this wonderful school. Recently, we are consciously shifting our relationship to be more of a partnership.

Now it is the turn of the kids to teach us a few things. Jubilee School has been extensively studying American History

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Dear Folks,

      The wedding was beautiful, weather was warm but bearable, the community that gathered to bless Emily and Chris were all well behaved and, in most cases, a lot of fun. We all got our picture taken on the sacred Nittany Lion and then we ate and drank and danced. The rest of the weekend was much of the same with the addition of lots of time hanging with Cynthia's grandchildren. For some reason, people at the wedding seemed to be taking most of the photos of people other than me. I vaguely remember one picture of Cynthia and I in full regalia and if it emerges from the thousands of other photos, I will post it so you can see me in my penguin mode.

      This week our concert series continues tomorrow, THURSDAY, July 7, (Thursday will be the night for all remaining concerts this summer save one- more about that later) with a performance by Sharon Abbott and bassist John Wight. Sharon has sung here umpteen times and we love her songwriting - very creative and often quite funny. Her voice is magnificent - wait till you hear her on Your Cheating Heart - to die for !  By the way, Weavers Way will no longer be bringing food to sell at our concerts - there just wasn't enough volume to make it worth their while. We appreciate their giving it a try.

     It's a busy week for us. On Saturday June 9 and Sunday June 10 we will be selling books at the Chestnut Hill Book Festival. More details later but keep your eyes on this week's Chestnut Hill Local for the schedule of events. I'll try to post the same Thursday or Friday.

     Togo the ball python is going back home. He enjoyed meeting the dozens of people who were up to meeting him up-close and personal but he does like the security of his "usual spot" and C.C. is not in the least sad to see him go so she can have her "usual spot" on the shelf just inside the door back. All the better to rule the universe. By the way, if you look carefully at her picture you'll also see who controls the purse strings around here.

     One last note, we got a really big collection of paperback nautical books that are really great. We've priced them all at $4 each and the authors include not only some Patrick O'Brian but also Alexander Kent, Jon Williams, Alexander Pope and C. Northcote Parkinson. Who knew that Parkinson wrote nautical adventure stories? Get them while they last.

Greg and Cynthia

Dear Folks,

     I had a wonderful Father's Day with Cynthia and my daughter Jesse and her husband Dan. To adumbrate: we went to see Woody Allen's new movie, Midnight In Paris, a delightful film whose main character yearned for and found a quondam Paris. We then took our esurient appetites to Tiffin's for supper and started to confabulate. I told them how excited I was that Art Miron would be playing this Friday, June 24 and how much I enjoyed his mellifluous performances. I am really delighted that he will be joined by Richard Redding on electric guitar and Jen Schonwald on vocals. I hope my praise was not fulsome and that they (and you) will come and bring a voracious appetite since Weavers Way will be have goodies for sale.

     They talked of maybe finding a new place to live and I advised them to come shop for furniture at our Umpteenth Mt. Airy Train Station yard sale this Saturday, June 25 from 9 to 2 p.m. (note the slightly longer hours) where they not only could find the usual gallimaufry of goods for sale but also enjoy being serenaded, whilst shopping,  by a couple of our musicians eager to entertain - most notably: Sharon Abbott with bassist John Wight, and Terry Genji doing a solo set.

     There was such a plenitude of great Indian cuisine that we took away containers for future lunches. As we prepared to depart Jesse gave me a present of a little tin called THE REALLY REALLY BIG WORDS TRIVIA QUIZ. It was condign for me to open the tin and we engaged in the sesquipedalian game of trying to guess the correct definitions. Needless to say - Jesse and Dan left me with a challenge. How many of these words could I fit into my next blog without creating a hebetude in you, my readers, by my logorrhea.  If you hung in this long, you either have a very impressive vocabulary, have learned to skip over words that you don't know, or you are also prolix. Let me know which.

By the way, check out wordsmith.org to fine tune your understanding of the harder words and check to see if I used them correctly.

We hope you recover and come to our weekend events.

Greg and Cynthia (who is totally innocent of this rebarbative blog)

Dear Folks,

       Cynthia had great fun introducing her pet ball python snake, Togo, to hundreds of people on Saturday.  She first got Togo when she was teaching science for a year at Miquon and Togo thrives on being handled. So, we've decided to have a snake in residence for a month or so. For anyone who is afraid of snakes, Togo is in a glass aquarium from which he's never escaped and he'll stay there where visitors can look at him "behind glass" unless you want us to take him out. If so he's very slow moving and used to being handled and so you also could hold him, but only if you wish. Now as I write, C.C. our cat has jumped up on my desk and is pacing back and forth in front of the keyboard and the monitor so she may be less enthusiastic about sharing the limelight, so give her a nod and a wink as well.

     Wanted to remind you that this week's concert is on THURSDAY from 7-9 p.m. and features a crowd favorite, Drew Calvin. Drew has been playing for nearly 40 years and has honed a unique fingerpicking guitar style that is a great balance to his rich baritone voice. He's also a very talented singer/songwriter and we look forward to hearing our favorites again. Drew works in the tradition of country, folk, and Dylan/Guthrie and his performaces have been praised by Gene Shay, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Pete Seeger, and Robin and Linda Williams. A cold front may be coming in sometime between Thursday and Friday and may bring thunderstorms so check this website or call us if in doubt. Otherwise we hope to see you - remember that food from Weaver Way Co-op will be for sale so come hungry.

Sssssso long

Greg, Cynthia, Togo and C.C.

Dear Folks,

       Cynthia and I and her son's family, including a couple of very cute kids, are going to get away this weekend on a repeat of one of our favorite adventures. We're going down to the Delaware Bay to see the amazing coming ashore and spawning of horseshoe crabs in conjunction with the migration of Red Knots and other shorebirds from the bottom of South America to the Arctic for nesting. Both stories are astonishing. The horseshoe crabs, who look like Science Fiction beasts - come ashore in incredible numbers and blanket some of the beaches on the Delaware Bay and in what I can only call a scrum, females end up dragging a male behind them and laying thousands of eggs, deep in the sand, the male fertilizes them, and then the adults eventually go back to the ocean. Some of these millions of eggs end up on the surface of the beaches and at the next low tide, the blankets of migrating birds, who have flown non-stop from as far south as Argentina and lost a large percentage of their body weight, gorge on these eggs and get the strength to fly the last leg of their journey and lay their own eggs. Both species have been endangered by overfishing of the horseshoe crabs but the story isn't yet over. Those eggs that were buried deep enough hatch in another month and the cycle hopefully continues.

      But before we go, we invite you to a doubleheader here at the shop on Saturday. We have a particularly large sign up of yard salers this Saturday for our second Mount Airy Train Station Yard Sale from 9 a.m- 1 p.m.   We'll clean up after all of that and catch our breath and then from 7-9 p.m. host a free concert by our friends Dave and Barley, who call themselves Prose from Dover. They always put on a fun concert with music from all genres from kids to rock to pop to Broadway.

     Also, a reminder that there are only 2 1/4 days remaining in our 30% off sale on all books. Don't start the summer without a stack of good books !  Get them here and they're likely to be cheaper than what you can get for a kindle and they smell better.

Have a good break. We'll reopen on Tuesday of next week.

Greg and Cynthia

All May ALL Books in the shop 30% OFF.  We are swamped with great books. We are especially strong in cars, cinema, children’s books, African American, Philadelphia, foreign language material – come and find treasures at incredibly low prices.

Our free concert series has bands already lined up from now till mid-August and we plan to go through October. This is summer at it’s best – good music, good friends, and now we also will have, for sale, food from Weaver’s Way Co-op. As always call or check our web site calendar for updates:

Saturday, May 28, 7-9. huge repertoire, great arrangements, and fine voices of Prose from Dover

                                                       Greg and Cynthia

 Philadelphia Book Festival - next week

Dear Friends,

I wanted to give you a heads up about a wonderful Philadelphia tradition, now in it's third year - the Philadelphia Book Festival at the main branch of our wonderful Free Library of Philadelpia.  I've been involved from the first year and seen it grow in delightful ways. This year the event starts on Sunday with a Harry Potter Tea Party, there's an evening lecture on poetry on Monday with Garrison Keillor, Tina Fey will give a talk later in the week and Mt. Airy's own Amy Ignatow will do a workshop based on her best selling series, The Popularity Papers on Wednesday. The release of the late David Foster Wallace's last book, on the life of an IRS agent will be released on April 15 and there will be a talk on his work by Ken Kalfus that evening.

Saturday April 16 will be THE BIG DAY with children book illustrator Chris Van Allsburg, and kids author Walter Dean Myers doing workshops and signings. Yours truly will ave a BOOK BOOTH right on Vine Street in the front of the library and we'll be introducing the rest of the city to our bookstore, our concert season, our yard sale etc. There will be live music throughout the day, the Give and Take Jugglers from Mt. Airy will be entertaining throughout the Festival and a grand time will be had for all. I hope you'll come and support this event, stop and say hi to us, and have a great time.

See you there,

Greg

Snow disclaimer - it was Miss Piggy's fault

I can't believe that we had all that wonderful weather last week, I announced a 30% off Heatwave sale, and then three days later we get snow ! So. I did a little investigating and I think I've figured out what happened. It seems that our whimsical Miss Piggy, who did such a fine job of singing our theme song, "Heatwave", got into the spirit of the warming trend and went to the steam baths. And in walked Rudolf Nuryev. Needless to say, Miss Piggy's libido got the best of her and the rest is revealed in this video.

So, Miss Piggy, by singing, "Baby, It's Cold Outside" is responsible for the snow. Blame it on the pig.

Regardless of what happens with the weather, we only have three more shopping days left in our 30 % off sale. It ends on Monday, February 28. Come on in - we're full to the gills with books and we're lonely.

Greg and Cynthia

Dear Friends,

     It's so nice to look into the next week and see no new snow coming our way. We've been able to put some of our books outside for several days now and it looks like that will continue. It's a good thing too- because we received so many books in January and have priced so many of them that we're having trouble housing them all inside. They need to explode out the door and windows as in one of our favorite book store cartoons.

    So, with Valentine's Day coming and Spring seeming more possible, we wanted to share some books that may make good presents for your beloved or for yourself. Cynthia loves wildflowers, she's a pro at identifying them and we have a huge section on wildflowers. This title has lovely pencil drawings of some of these miracles already starting to work their way to the sun. $7

The 2006 edition of this guide for the oenophile, (I do love that word) $6 goes perfectly with what else, $5.

And sexuality, in the light of spirituality and meditation. $8

Keep in mind that we can do a gift certificate or Book Stack, either of which could make a lovely present.

May your holiday be full of love.

Greg and Cynthia

Sci Fi and Thriller Bonanza

January 16,2011

Dear Folks,

      We're accepting books for trade and donation during the month of January and yesterday we got 20 boxes of books. You can see why we sometimes get buried in books ! Anyway, this collection was unique in that it contained many good, older science fiction and thrillers - from the last three of four decades. Some of these are paperbacks which we price at $2 and some hardbacks which we price at $4 and up. This includes names like Gordon Dickson, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Arthur. C. Clarke, Ian Fleming, Robert Ludlum, John Le Carre, Allistair MacLean, etc. We just don't have room for all these great books so we're having a

25 % Off sale January 17- February 21

on all science fiction and thrillers

both the new and old stock 

By the way, we will be open on Martin Luther King, January 17 and President's Day, February 21, as usual. And, in another addenda, we will be accepting books for trade and credit till the end of January. We WILL NOT ACCEPT during February and then, hopefully, resume accepting in March. We hope to get a routine of taking books on odd months and NOT on even months.

Enjoy the winter and come see us to get a good read for a cold night.

Greg and Cynthia

We're Open for Holiday Shopping, Sunday, noon-4 and Friday till 9 p.m.

      Like every other merchant in the world, we hope for a bump in our sales during the holidays. So to attract y'all, we've got several enticements between now and Christmas:

We are, as usual offering gift certificates, customized and flashy, in our own funky kind of style, for any amount.

We are also offering to use our booksmarts and knowledge of our stock to put together a Bookstack that is individualized for your recipient. Tell us how much you want to spend and what kinds of books would be of interest and we'll do the shopping for you. We'll stack the books up and put a nice ribbon and card on them. If any of the books don't hit the mark or are duplicates, your recipient can bring them back and exchange them for a like valued book. We erase our prices but keep track on a slip which we file away.

We will be open tomorrow Sunday December 12, as well as Sunday the 19th from noon-4. We'll also stay open late on Friday, December the 17th till 9. We'll have a fire going outside, have the makings for S'mores, great hot cocoa and lots of other goodies. Come on down.

Finally, we'll continue to feature some of our more unusual or interesting books. Some new ones are below, but also check out the Featured Books where we wrote a blog about the pleasures of browsing for surprises. We hope to pretty regularly add new titles.

 This charming little piece of local Chestnut Hill History, The Quarries and Stone Masons of Chestnut Hill by Michael Yanni, a quarryman himself, who worked the Wissahickon Schist quarries that were prevalent in this area. You can still see the remains of the quarries in several places and the great work of these stone masons is evident everywhere in houses, public buildings etc. A great piece of local history. $25

Wodehouse was a master of comedy. We struggle to keep his books in stock but at the moment we have this title, The Coming of Bill, and another hardback collection and a few paperbacks. This is a 1976 reprint, in dust jacket, of the original 1920's book which is quite pricey. This copy, $30

Speaking of expensive we have, KING ARTHUR,  a poem by Lord Edward Bulwer Lytton, published  by Henry Colburn, London, 1848. Leather/Marbled Paper Boards. Book Condition: Very Good 5x7.75. Very scarce first edition. This is a sturdy handsome volume which has aged well. It is one quarter leather, spine has 6 nicley tooled and gilded panels, gilt on leather title label is still bright, spine with mild wear. Marbled paper on the rear board with some wear. Slight loosening to front gutter. Marbled foredges soiled a bit. Marbled endpapers. First few pages and last few with some foxing. Interior pages mostly clean although a bit yellowed. Green ribbon marker still attached, has lightly stained pages 294 and 295. Name of previous owner on second free endpaper. 303+ pp. At $600, one of those scarce, collectible pieces treasured by collectors of King Arthur material or Lytton fans, or fans of 19th century leather books.

On the other end of the scale, a book just came in that I'd personally love to read just because I love the author and the subject of the book. I've added it as a reminder that we have an extensive biography section, both in paperback and hardback and we feature not only famous but also interesting subjects. Also a reminder that most of our books are under $10. Married to Laughter, a Love Story featuring Anne Meara by her husband, Jerry Stiller. $3

We're Lit !

In the mode of Toys 'r Us, wouldn't "We're Lit" be a great name for a bookstore. Fortunately,  I already like our name so we're sticking with Walk a Crooked Mile Books. Instead, the title is an indication that we are fantastically decorated and lit as protection against the dark days of December and in celebration of all the ways we humans celebrate LIGHT and the Divine. So Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Delightful Saturnalia, etc. Again this year, our Devon St. neighbors turned out and whimsically decorated our windows, lit our gutters, greened our poles. and bowed our trees and it looks FANTASTIC. Drive by and see.

     Better yet, come this Friday evening, starting at dark, to the first of our Late Friday nights between now and December 17. We will have libations and goodies, hopefully a bonfire to keep those who want to hang out in the fresh air warm, and we may even be showing movies on the side of my white van, as we did last year. One of my coffee hour regulars asked me yesterday if the party was themed. I considered and said "yes, buy lots of books." We both chuckled but then I thought about it and decided that the acronym BLOB, would be pretty good. Today, we decided that a great movie to show would be . . . The Blob. Maybe we can get that together. But do stop by any of the next three Fridays after work. We'll be here till at least 9 and longer if the party is cooking.

    On this Sunday, Dec. 5 we will be co-hosting, with Antje Mattheus and David Kairys, a book signing, at their house at 425 Roumfort Road, from 3-4:30. by their friend, George Lakey, a well known international activist and trainer of pro-democratic groups. He's pictured here - he's the one with the recorder - at a "Jungle University" in Burma (now Myanmar) in 1990, where he taught sociology of social movements to pro-democracy students/soldiers. He will be talking of his adventures and his new book, Facilitating Group Learning: Strategies for Success with Diverse Adult Learners. The public is welcome and I'll have a table with some of my books, particularly leftist and educational material.

   Final note on this lengthy missive. The Book Drive for teenagers in court ordered placements is going swimmingly. We already have almost two boxes and will continue to accept books for teens till Saturday December 11. As promised in my last blog, I'd like to promote another group that I do some work for, as a place where you could make holiday contributions in honor of some of the people you'd normally give gifts to. They are the American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem. They provide schools, hospitals, etc. and strive to be a ray of hope for Muslims, Jews and Christians who yearn for peace in the Middle East. Two Sundays ago, I had the treat of dressing up as Saint Nicholas, their patron, who was born wealthy in Myra, Turkey some 17 centuries ago and spent his life giving away his wealth to those in need. In spite of his protestations, he was made bishop but continued his simple ways, living in a cave. Such a nice model, vis a vis Santa Claus who seems more connected to over consumption. To find out more, please visit their website, www.americanfriends-jerusalem.org/

Some temporary schedule changes and an Invitation

Dear Folks,

     Cynthia and I are going to a Book Fair on Long Island this weekend and Alice will run the shop on Saturday but she'll only be open from 9-5 so shop early (and abundantly.) We made some great holes in the shelves as a result of our October sale but I've already brought new books in from the wings (and from the thousands we had stored at Glen Fern) so there is plenty to look at.

      Earlier this week I got a wonderful surprise when I got a last minute invitation to re-une (if that's what you do at a reunion) from my four housemates at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. We haven't seen each other for decades. They mainly still live in the midwest and we'd lost touch. When they planned the reunion they went to my high school's alumni office to get my address and were shocked to find that I was "deceased." But as luck had it, they just learned otherwise and I'm making a fresh from the dead trip to the midwest to see them and lots of other friends. I am really excited and grateful that Cynthia blesses this indulgence on my part and will keep the shop open but is sane enough not to work 12 1/2 hours a day. So we will be open Friday the 11th, Saturday the 12th, and Monday the 14th from 10 to 5 only.

      Looking further into the future, we will once again be open late on Friday nights between Thanksgiving and December 17. Last year, my neighborhood generously decorated the Station and it looked marvelous. They also had our block party on one of the Friday nights and Boyer Street had their party on a Saturday afternoon. I hope they will be back but want to invite any other groups to sign-up for a Bookstore Holiday party. We sure had fun last year and the community support and buying that happened really made a difference in our ability to stay open and continue to be your bookstore. So talk to your block, your office, your bowling team - whatever and plan a party here.

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YASGUR'S FARM ?

Move over, Max, Mt. Airy will have it's own happening this Saturday, October 23 as we celebrate the third weekend of BOOktober with the ultimate Yard Sale of the season and a FULL DAY of music with performers playing from 9-4 a.m. The weather looks splendid, we've still got plenty of great books available at 30% OFF till the end of October. I doubt if there will be any nudity, but you never know - this is Mt. Airy.

So here's the schedule: 9-10:30 SHARON ABBOTT We are delighted to welcome singer/songwriter Sharon Abbot back. From poignant ballads to topical commentary to punny verbal slapstick, Sharon Abbott writes songs with tightly woven lyrics that reflect her keen observations of human nature and her broad sense of humor. She has a lovely resonant voice and plays guitar and mandolin with fingerpicking and strumming flair.

Special guest appearance TERRY LIST 10:30-11 Terry is new to our stage and we don't have a photo but he's a very nice guy and very good looking too.

11-12:3- ART MIRON Art is not new to our stage but his jpeg photo just won't take it's place in  here. He's also very good looking. More importantly Art is one of our original performers and he just loves to play music. He does a wonderful set of country and western, folk, and contemporary rock music - all finely crafted and constantly evolving.

12:30-2:00 PHILLIP BENNETT & friends Jim McKay on lead guitar and John Tuton on bass. They perform wonderful original songs written by Phillip as well as covers of other song-writers. Any contributions during their set will go to the Philadelphia Interfaith Hospitality Network.

2:15-4 SAINT MAD BAND What can we say about this wonderful group of musicians other than that they are probably the only euphonium, trumpet, electric piano, guitar cello band you'll ever hear singing imaginative arrangements of the Beatles etc. in a wig and false beard combo.

and did I mention a full day of multiple yard seller vendors hawking astonishing treasures at unbelievably cheap prices

and, the icing on the cake, all of our books are 30% OFF. Wowser. 

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Greetings from Walk a Crooked Mile Books

October, 2010

Dear Friends,

     As always, there is much to report about what has been going on here in our little corner of the world and I'm delighted that it's all good news. We have had a marvelous concert season with 20+ mostly rain-free concerts, each with a different group or performer - the most we've ever had and perhaps one fourth of them are new to our series. And the money raised at last winter's Walk a Palooza concert funded the concerts, and thus gave us more breathing room to meet the shop's expenses and we've had a much more comfortable year. Thanks again for your support and stay tuned- we hope to announce a date for "Son of Walk a Palooza" this winter.

     Some of the federal government's stimulus money came our way in the form of funding for repainting our lovely 1882, Frank Furness designed building. The contractors were wonderful and really did a great job. It shamed us into retiring our furnishings, which really were well loved but shabby as the local squirrels pulled all the stuffing out of our chairs for use in their nest, and we were given and trash-picked a couple of great entrance chairs and a lovely bookshelf on which to display our books so we're looking pretty spiffy. Finally, we got some new sidewalks that allow visitors to avoid walking across the rough stone driveway and the sidewalks passed the flood control test in last week's storms with floating colors.

     We've also received some wonderful recognition in a variety of venues. I was touched to be given the Edgar A. Baker Community Service Award from the East Mt. Airy Neighbors. My goal has always been to enhance community and provide a place where recycled books and people can meet and I'm feeling pretty good that we may have found a way to do both. We also received national recognition as one of the six hidden treasures of Philadelphia on the CNN webiste. We were in pretty lofty company including the Morris Arboretum and the Rodin Museum. Wow!  We asked for your support in the My PHL Hot List Best of Philly and were in first place in the category of bookstores for a while but ended up in second -  guess we have to try harder.

     The biggest news of the summer is that my daughter Jesse returned home from Taiwan and in a lovely August wedding married Dan James, a Londoner, a huge Chelsea Football (that's what we call soccer) Fan, and a great guy. Jesse has found work at Welcoming Center of Pennsylvania teaching ESL and job skills to adult immigrants and Dan has been helping us move while scouting out the job scene in his social work field. If you know of any jobs, please let us know. He's a great worker. They've just rented an apartment nearby and we're delighted to have them close by.

    Cynthia and I did get a little vacation on a trip to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick with my sisters, and partners, who had come to the wedding. We had a great 5 day visit and trip and got rested and renewed before returning to face the task of moving out of our lovely home for the last four years, Glen Fern in the Wissahickon, where we've had the pleasure of being caretakers. The Park has found a lessee and we have been moving like crazy people. Needless to say we had filled the house with lots of books and we've now rented a 10X20 storage place which I think will fill with books. Thus, we haven't been accepting donations or trade credit books and won't until November. We were invited by Cynthia's 88 year old mom , Dorothy, to move in to her third floor and have, in fact, moved enough furniture that we're now living in the wonderful "Mt. Airy Village" community, by Weaver's Way Coop, in Dorothy's house on Carpenter Lane.

     Which brings us to now: BOOktober, (which our staff etymologist came across in one of our dustier tomes, -it's the Olde English name for this month which marked the thinning of the book crop.)

We're celebrating with our traditional 30% OFF, ALL BOOKS, ALL OCTOBER,

TWO HUMONGOUS YARD SALES,                     

SAT.  OCT. 9          &    SAT. OCT 23,        

with a couple of new twists,

LONGER HOURS 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.   &     

FREE MUSIC with a reprise of some of our summer acts,

& a BOOK TALK ON SAT. OCT. 16 at 1 p.m. Details on all these events can be found in our October Calendar. Check them out.

Finally we'll end with a variant on the Olde English: BooooOctober, with our traditional Trick or Treating at which we'll ask all of our costumed guests, "Would you like candy or a free book?" Bring out your costumes, and your kids!

Hope all is well with you. We hope to see you at one of our events or during the day filling your arms with our wonderful, and for this month, 30% cheaper books. 

Fondly, Greg and Cynthia                  and C.C. who is  tired of being asked if she's pregnant. She's curvaceous. And that box was already broken when she lay down on it !

No concert this week - we need backpacks for kids in need !

Dear Folks,

    The Free Concert Series is taking the week off as the scheduled act had to postpone. We have one more Friday night concert-next Friday with the Chestnut Hill Improv Group and Old Time Music-more about that next week. Then we're planning two days of music, Saturday October 9 and Saturday October 23 in conjunction with the last two yard sales of the year. More news will be forthcoming.

    I'm delighted to say that my daughter Jesse has found a job working with the Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians working with immigrants and their families, particularly teaching English as a Second Language in the context of job skills. She has also launched a project to collect school supplies for the children in these immigrant families. We're collecting the materials here at the shop. Please read her plea below and consider helping out.

Thanks and enjoy this Fall, even if it feels like Summer today.

Greg and Cynthia

Please help us by donating a back-pack filled with school materials such as pencils, crayons, pencil cases, books, and arts and crafts supplies.

CONCERTS MOVE TO FRIDAY NIGHT - SWING TIME

For the remainder of our concert season, we will have performances on FRIDAY NIGHTS - starting this Friday, September 10, from 7-9 p.m. with the mellow sounds of the Philly Saxophone Quartet. These four gentleman will take us back in time to the first half of the 20 th century and features songs from the Great American Songbook like "Blue Skies", "Ain't Misbehavin'" etc. Dancing shoes are recommended but not required. As always, the concert is outdoors, bring a lawn chair/blanket and a picnic. Rain date, if necessary, is Saturday, September 11.

On another front, Cynthia and I are fully into moving gear, and it's a good thing because we sure have a lot to move. Our beloved Glen Fern, where we've been caretakers for the last four years, will be leased to someone who can put more resources into preserving this 18th century treasure on the banks of the Wissahickon. We will sorely miss the sounds of the creek, the kingfishers teaching their young to hunt, the fox and her kits, etc. But we are excited about moving in with Dorothy, Cynthia's 87 year old mother, to help her stay in her home as long as possible. But we're moving from 12 rooms into 3 and our biggest challenge is moving the mountains of unpriced, but good, books out of Livezey into a storage facility. Thus, we aren't accepting books for trade or donation until November 1 when we will have completed the move. We are also open to help and will have organized moving parties, on  this and most Sundays in September and October, so give us a call or an email if you want to help.

Hope to see you in the shop. Lots of good books finding their ways on to our shelves during all of this moving around. Check it out.

Greg and Cynthia

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Wanamaker Lewis and the Cabin Jazz All Stars-Thursday

My daughter's wedding this Saturday was absolutely lovely. The weather was perfect, Jesse looked lovely, and everyone had a great time celebrating. I'm exhausted but have climbed back in the saddle and getting ready for a full week at the shop. We're delighted to welcome Wanamaker Lewis and the Cabin Jazz All Stars for a free concert on Thursday August 19 from 7-9 p.m. Wanamaker, a legendary Philadelphia performer, may play several different stringed instruments will be joined by Glenn Pezzillo on guitar and pedal steel and Dan Kelly on bass. This will be a textured, sophisticated and highly enjoyable evening of Jazz, Latin, and Folk standards all done with a Country slant. This is an outdoor concert, bring lawn chair/blanket and picnic. Raindate Friday August 20. Questions, call Walk a Crooked Mile Books, 215-242-0854.
 

End of Summer Yard Sales, Aug. 21 and Sept. 4

If you spent part of your summer cleaning out your attic, garage or whatever and have things that you would like to sell but don't want to go to the trouble of doing the advertising etc. for a yard sale at your place, let me do the advertising etc. Our next Yard Sale is this Saturday, August 21 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and, as always, we'll have a variety of dealers selling all sorts of goodies. Spaces are just $10. Just give us a call at 215-242-0854 to let us know you're coming. If that's not a good date or you still have to do that cleaning out you promised, then come two weeks later for the September 4 sale. Always a good time.

We're lobbying for your VOTE !

M'Balia Concert Thur. Aug. 5

On another tack, our next concert is this Thursday, August 5 from 7-9 p.m. We're excited about welcoming M'Balia for her first appearance here. Some of you may already know of her but if you don't, here's some information to entice you to come hear her.

The Lewis Brothers on Thursday, Yard Sale on Saturday

     Those of you who have been in the music scene in Philadelphia for a while will recognize the name of the Lewis Brothers, the premier Philadelphia bluegrass band of past decades. We are delighted that this great band has reconstituted itself and that they want to play in our series. The concert will be this Thursday, July 15 from 7-9 pm with Friday July 16 as a rain date. The line-up of the band may also be recognizable to you. Wanamaker Lewis on banjo (I heard him on guitar during Mt. Airy Day, was blown away, and this led to the booking of the whole band), Peter Lorch on guitar and vocals, Jim Hoffman on dobro, Larry Hunsberger on mandolin and vocals, and Ron Greenstein on bass. With tight three part harmonies and excellent musician ship, a night of great music is guaranteed. Come early to get a good seat.

On Saturday, the joint will be jumping with the Umpteenth Mount Airy Train Station Yard Sale. This will have a new cast of sellers with treasures yet to be seen. The date is July 17 (with another one of July 31 if you need more time to prepare) and we still have room for more sellers and you know we need bargain hunters to come shop as well.

     Finally, even though things are a little hectic looking at the station with all of the scraping and painting going on, we are open our usual hours. The painters are doing a great job and should be done in another couple of weeks. It's looking great and we're delighted to be getting spiffed up.

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• The Station is Getting a Makeover

• You may have noticed that we have new "seating" and pretty spiffy "shelving" at the station. Well it seems that Septa took the hint, and with TARP money, we are getting repainted. The buidling has been wrapped in plastic so it looks like we're getting decontaminated but that, supposedly, is to protect us from lead in the paint that is being sanded and chipped away. C.C. is dubious but we're optimistic. We'll send you photos of before, during and after the process.

     In the meantime, we're open for business (unless the temperature gets as hot as it did on Tuesday when we gave up the ghost and closed early.) Come and visit and do some sidewalk supervising. The workmen only have about 5 supervisors as it is. Or come on Thursday night for our concert with Prose from Dover, one of our favorite groups, Dave McCann on 6 and 12 string guitar will sing and his wife Barley Van Clief on bass guitar, piano and vocals will accompany. They describe their music as "acoustic eclectic" with influences from the 60's to contemporary music. They are great entertainers. Thur. July 8 from 7-9 with rain date of Friday July 9, same time. Questions, give us a call, 215-242-0854.

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Concert with the Fretnoughts on THURSDAY, Yard Sale on Saturday !

The heat of the last couple days and the passing of the Solstice tell us summer is definitely here so we are officially changing our concert night to THURSDAY,and this June 24 from 7-9 p.m. we'll be featuring the Fretnoughts.  THE FRETNOUGHTS derive their name from the fretted dreadnought guitar and from the carefree “fret-not” spirit of their sound.  Sharon Abbott and Joel Hanna are singer-songwriters who enjoy creating arrangements for each other’s original works, and putting their own spin on popular swing, country and blues songs.  They perform on guitar, mandolin, dobro and acoustic bass, while Janice Woodcock accompanies on keyboard. The Fretnoughts blend it all into a fusion of fun for you.  Come listen, enjoy and fret not!

On Saturday, with the weather looking cooler, we'll have our Mt. Airy Train Station Yard Sale with bargains galore, opportunities to meet and chat with our neighbors, and an opportunity to shop and see what's new in the store.

Hope to see you.

Wednesday Concert RAINED OUT!

Well the weather finally caught up with us and we've cancelled the concert by Jake Michaels and Richard Redding scheduled for Wednesday June 9. But we've rescheduled it for FRIDAY June 11 from 7-9 p.m. when the weather looks fabulous, darling. Come join us and hear a melange of Latin music from New Orleans to the Caribbean to Hawaii (not so Latin but still exotic) to Central American. Jake's music is always a delight.

In case I still have your attention, may I suggest that a Bookstack, as seen in the box to the left, would make a great Father's Day present. You tell us how much you want to spend and what kind of books your dad might like and we'll put together a stack, tie it up with a nice ribbon and you have a ready made, interesting, unique present. Any book can be exchanged.

SOMEWHAT AUTOMATIC

The Mount Airy Train Station Concert is back "on track" this weekend with a free concert by a local (Springfield Township) alternative rock/ pop band named Somewhat Automatic. Their concert is Friday May 28 from 7-9 p.m. Though the forecast is good, call when it gets closer to concert time to see if we're going for it (which we usually do) or postpone till the next day, Saturday May 29. Come enjoy some younger sounds than our normal fare.

Oh, the weather outside is . . .

Who knows what tomorrow night's weather will bring, but we're guessing that the storm will have moved through so we're proceeding with plans for Phillip Bennett and Friends to perform a benefit concert for the Northwest Philadelphia Interfaith Hospitality Network from 7-9 p.m. If in doubt, call us at 215-242-0854 to see if we've chickened out and will hold the concert on Saturday night.

On Saturday morning, we'll have part two of our weathered weekend as we do a reprise of last week's Mount Airy Train Station Yard Sale. Last weekend's weather forecast of thunder and lightning and rain, oh, no, scared sellers and buyers away. We had a lovely yard sale again but we're repeating for those who missed out. 9a.m. - 1 p.m. Spots still available for $10. Come make a fortune or find the treasure you didn't know you needed. Best of all meet and greet your neighbors.

5 Things You Can Do To Help Save Your Community Bookstore  

1. Do your Gift and Holiday Shopping with Us. It's easy, it's local and it's green

You can shop with us in person, or shop On- line

2. Give Gift Certificates.
Come buy one at the store, or check back here soon for an on-line version.

3. Spread the word.

 ►Become a friend on Facebook (link here),  and encourage your friends to do the same

 ►Send our website (link here) to your friends, ask them to join our mailing list

 ►Don't keep us a secret. Bring to friends to come and visit.

 ►Have a web site? We can link to each other.

4. Become A Sponsor  (Call or email us for information)

►Benefactor $500 and up (Free Concerts and Coffee for life?)
►Friend of Book Recycling $150
►Concert Sponsor $75
►Keeper of the lights and the heat in a warm well lit place for books $50
►Underwriter of affordable kids books and a play space for kids $25
►Friends of C.C. (Crooked Cat) $10

5. Donate

 

Dear Friends,
Walk-a-Palooza was an enormous success with over 4 hours of great music, good friends, and generous donations which totaled nearly $1500! We've since placed that in a special account to fund our Summer Free Concert Series. Wowser! There must have been more than 200 people  who generously donated to the ongoing support of this wonderful concert series and so we are glad to announce that the concert series and the shop are both alive and well and, in fact, we have already started to sign-up bands for this summer and set up yard sale dates ( visit our website, walkacrookedmilebooks.com to see who's already on the schedule.)  Our special thanks to Dr. Philip Krey, President of The Lutheran Theological Seminary of Philadelphia, ltsp.edu, for generously allowing us the use of Bowman Hall for free so that all of those donations go to the series. Not only that, but they've invited us back for next year and we hope to make Walk-a-Palooza an annual event. Also a big thank you to the 10 bands that played till the rafters shook, and toasted Walk a Crooked Mile Books with parodies and tributes that moved us deeply. Special thanks to David Heitler-Klevans of Two of a Kind and Jim Harris of Saint Mad who made this extravaganza happen and to Art Miron who masterfully served as emcee.