Elmira, NY — Upstate Capital of Physical Media

The Squatch Den Records has the honor of being the second nicest record store I've been to in Upstate New York, rivalled only by Poughkeepsie's incredible Darkside Records. It is oddly situated right across from the Elmira Corning Regional Airport, which I didn't know existed, and is inside of the Arnot Mall, a sad looking husk, beside a pickelball court. Their selection of indie rock/pop was extensive and they had a half-decent metal collection as well. Wall to wall cassettes, most of which were predictively overpriced, and a huge CD library. I remember the music being played wasn't particularly good, but it also wasn't particularly loud, so hard to knock points off for that.

I picked up two vinyls: a bootleg collection of John Peel Sessions with My Bloody Valentine, and a compilation of Aphex Twin's early acid house work Classics. Now that I have a car without working bluetooth connectivity or an audio jack, I'm always on the lookout for decent "driving" CDs and bought a few that I think fit the bill. Two from Orbital: a compilation album (which includes the incredible Halcyon, albeit a shorter, singles version) and the Blue album (not known for being their best, but I never see Orbital anywhere besides the British guy who shows up to all of the upstate record fairs). Finally, I bought a "Best of" collection from Roxy Music. Not a bad haul all things considered.

Heroes Your Mom Threw out is easily the best comic book store I've been to in Upstate New York (I think it would be true without the qualifier as well). This place is packed with high quality, interesting stuff from the two big guys and indie publishers. The owner, Jared, is incredibly friendly and was more than happy to chat with me about his business and how he operates the store. He runs a year-round Buy-2-Get-1-Free deal for graphic novels which is unheard of in comic shops—he takes a loss on the graphic novels in order to draw people in to buy single issues and other "higher margin" fare. I respect his decision to never sell collectables. He's determined to make sure that Heroes is only ever a bookshop—I think that's awesome.

Like I said, the selection was immense, so much so that I had to stop myself from picking up too much crap. I ended up buying six books: Headlopper Vol. 1, East of West, Tales from the Crypt Vol. 1, Batman & Robin: Year One, The Mighty Thor (Penguin Edition), and The Book of Mr. Natural. I couldn't believe Heroes carried an R. Crumb book! Never seen one out in the wild before so I had to snatch it up. I also picked up two single issues: a reprint of Swamp Thing #1 and Batman & Robin: Dynamic Duos #3, the latter of which I've been keeping up with monthly and enjoying.

I'll definitely be coming back sometime in the nearish future.

Not as exciting or impressive as the other two stores, but certainly not the worst used bookstore I've been to in my life. Everything is reasonably priced as paperbacks are set to $4 and hardcovers are set to $5. Occasionally, some items are tagged with bespoke prices, but I never saw anything higher than $8. The selection is considerably weaker than Autumn Leaves in Ithaca, but it's hard to beat the incredibly reasonable prices—a standard, used penguin paperback should never be priced higher than a couple bucks, but that's never stopped Autumn Leaves from charging near-retail!

The philosophy section did have some surprise items, which I assume has to do with the fact that the store is about a three minute drive from Elmira College. I ended up purchasing four books: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, Godel's Proof by Ernest Nagel and James R. Newman, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke, and The Function of Criticism by Terry Eagleton. Overall, Second Editions is modest, but worth going to if you're in the area.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that Elmira is actually a pretty solid town for buying physical media.