Come hang out in our new store!

www.theamericanbystanderstore.com

We have a new store! Stores are such magical places; they’re almost as good as movie theaters. One of my few recurring dreams is of “the perfect store”—I stumble on a place, usually some dusty warren in the West Village, and inside are shelves and shelves of all the things I covet most. Unknown Beatles bootlegs, rare books, toys from my childhood…

Everybody likes to buy things, and everyone has something specific they love to buy. Share yours in the comments; for me, it used to be old books and magazines—god, that was a mania!—before volunteering in the Santa Monica History Museum gave me a honkin’ allergy to book dust. Now I’m down to neckties (naturally) and trinkets.

I am a sucker for anything small, as long as it’s rare, odd, or shiny—and preferably all three. “Mike’s little crap,” my mom calls it, and she is a kind woman, so imagine how fed up she must be. She’s not alone; in July I was browsing in an antiques store in Three Oaks, Michigan (danger!) and picked up a bottle opener in the shape of a woman’s leg. It was heavier than you’d expect, made of aluminum and as long as your forearm—I was immediately ensorceled. Seeing my dazed expression, my wife Kate rushed over and slapped the bottle opener out of my hand. Not because it was sexy, but because our small apartment already bristles with, well, “Mike’s little crap.”