A couple days ago I was hauling home my most recent bagful of Amazing Stuff found at SoHo’s Housing Works Bookstore and it occurred to me that my used bookstore finds might make for some interesting posts. Here, therefore, is the first installment of Bookish Treasures, featuring the incomparable Sprocket, who likes to curl up [...]

Velocipedes, patent medicines, phrenology, Winton motorcars, blues, psychotic harlequins, snake oil salesmen, electroshock, automata, an Edgar Allan Poe-quoting fortune-teller, and a contest of skill played at the crossroads against the Devil. You’re wondering now, what is this list of weird, cool stuff? It’s a list–a very partial list, mind you; it isn’t even a complete [...]