Jackson Street Books

To me what makes a town a town is its bookstores. You can’t just have a Barnes n Nobles or Borders and still be a good town. You have to have a store with local charm, namely a used bookstore. In Athens, Jackson Street Books is that store. So many others have come and gone but Jackson Street is here to stay. Jackson Street Books is the only used bookstore in Athens since the closing of Blue Moon. There is another out in Winder, but I don’t recommend it. The reason it has been around so long is because its such a good store. Its not a large book store, but it’s not small one either. They have decent prices and just about anything you would want, unless you're into very rare and hard to find books. That doesn’t mean they won’t have it, if its rare or hard to find, they’re just not as likely to have it.

The titles are organized pretty logically into categories, -Scifi, mystery, gardening, literary, biography, war books, etc. Basically they have whatever people in Athens buy and sell, and a few rare oddities or books that people ask them for. They get a lot of their books from people who trade books for credit. There are plenty of university students trying to pass off a good book they didn’t like for beer money, so there’s usually a good selection. They also trade and sell CD’s and DVD’s but they don’t have many of those.

One of the other nice things about this bookstore is that they trade books. If they don’t have anything you want right away you can get a coupon good for future purchases. Their system is a little skewed though... Sci Fi and gardening are listed as academic, while mystery and history are listed as popular. This is important because you can only trade like for like. They also buy books (but you don’t get as much for them) so if you need the cash or whatever you can do that as well.

Wuxtry

This is a nice local CD store . They have a good selection of local and used records and cd's. They have the biggest selection of records in town, some of which have never been opened. They have everything from Janis Joplin to Bob Dylan to Count Base to Johnny Cash to the Rolling Stones to motorcyle sound effects to some more recent local bands. Basically they have anything you can think of on record. They certainly don't have every record ever recorded, but they do have a good number. Some of the prices are a little non-sensical, but still pretty decent.

They also have new and used CD's, but they have more used than new. They've been around for a good number of years now. It's a cool little place but sometimes its hard to find what your looking for because it can be organized in an unusual way.

Resevoir Dogs

This movie by Quentin Tarentino is excellent, but it hits you like a train wreck. It's violent, bloody and somewhat senseless. But you have to remember that its about the mob. The set up is that 5 or 6 guys go to rob a diamond wholesaler and somehow botch the job. Horribly botch the job.

Steve Buschemi is Mr. Pink, the only guy who really has his head on his shoulders. The movie is set up so that you grow to like all the characters, except Vince Vega aka Mr. Blonde. Yet, they're all scumbags, including the cop (Mr. Orange). In one scene the cop is talking to his buddy and the buddy says "He's not a good guy, he's selling out all his friends", which ultimately is what Mr. Orange is doing. He's also the only person seen killing a civilian.

The scene in the diner shows humanity of the characters. It's a great scene. There are a number of scenes like this- Mr. Pink wanting to be a different alias, Vince Vega and Nice Guy Eddie wrestling in Eddie's dad's office, etc.

The style is very interesting. It goes back and forth between current events and the past, basically what brought the characters to that point. Their movie does not flow linearly and this makes it hard to tell what happened when. Even so,the robbery is never actually shown.

The movie is well worth watching, because of the acting, the directing, and the writing but it is very violent (one character slowly bleeds to death and another has his ear cut off), so if you are at all squeamish do not watch it. The violence is senseless, but that is the point. The movie does have a point, but I still cannot say whether or not I enjoyed watching it.