Wednesday, October 25, 2006
HAMPDEN SHUFFLE
Wednesday is New Comic Day, which, as it says, is the day of the week new comic books are released to the stores. Being an avid collector, I have developed a ritual of sorts I follow each “hump day”. I usually go straight home from work, but if I go straight there it affords me the extra time to do some of the following out of order.
After dinner, I leave the house by 6:30. This allows me enough drive time through the remains of rush hour and gives me browse time in the store before they close at 7:30. Comics Kingdom is a great little store, and I carefully chose it using fairly stringent criteria I have for comic shops. It has a wide selection and variety of product (aside from the graphic novels, books, and toys, they also sell belly dancing supplies), a good stock of back issues, a pull service (regular customers get a discount), and they have to remember me (which they do to a fault; after setting up my account, they continued to call me by the name on my driver’s license until my wife came in one day and expressed confusion. Now, they call me Renfield like everyone else.)
After leaving the comic shop, I may or may not go into the Super Fresh or Rite Aid across the street, if I happen to need groceries or medicine. Super Fresh just had a major expansion and includes a lot more items and choices, particularly with organic and earth-friendly options. I guess they re-fitted it as a Super Super Fresh to compete with the Whole Foods right up Falls Road. The one near my house is still the dinky regular kind and it just seems so pathetic by comparison.
From there, I will go around the corner to the Wine Underground. It’s an amazing wine shop with a couple of wine experts on staff. I usually pick up a red and a white, and while I sometimes browse the extensive racks, I usually just give them a price range and go with whatever they recommend. Depending on the stops I’m making, I may pick up a six-pack from their extensive beer case as well. It’s always a nice place to go, classy without being snooty. I’ve seen people in line with a six-pack of Bud and a person right behind them who just selected a $200 Bordeaux from the cellar (Yes, “cellar”. That’s how the store gets its name and if you’ve never been you should request a tour even if you think the selection down there is out of your range.)
If I haven’t had dinner, I will probably drive from there over to the Avenue and pick a restaurant. Usually it’s Golden West Café, mainly because it is so offbeat with its Southwestern and Asian offerings on the menu, as well as its style of décor and management. A good standby is the venerable institution that is Café Hon, a good choice if you’re looking for meatloaf or other comfort foods. There are several other offerings, and I do like to try new places, but sometimes it backfires. There was some new restaurant we tried there a few months ago. I forget the name, but it emphasized nice art, and is a BYOB place. I’ve never liked bringing my own wine to a restaurant, it just makes me feel cheap. Kind of irrational, but that’s me. The only reason we went in there was because it was the start of crab season and my wife was craving a softshell crab sandwich. It was the first place we walked by that advertised it on the chalkboard out front so we went in. Turns out the thing was inedible; it was grilled over a fire and dried out completely. If I was able to hear what my wife was saying over the background music, I would have had her send it back. For the record, my mushroom ravioli was excellent.
Across the street from Golden West is Atomic Books, and I like to stop in there if I have the time. It’s an incredibly eclectic book shop, and it’s had many locations in the city before settling on this one. It carries a lot of titles you won’t find in a regular bookstore (one of their sections is labeled “Revenge”), as well as many you will (it’s where I got my wife Alton Brown’s latest cookbook.) It carries comic books and graphic novels as well, has a very interesting adult section, hosts a knitting circle downstairs, and I understand John Waters uses it for a mail drop.
From there I’ll head down 83 and cut over past Patterson Park to the clubhouse of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society (yes, we have one.) After hanging out amid the book stacks and movie posters with the BSFS crew for a while, I’ll take my leave and head home, to repeat the process again next week.
Actually, while this was my pattern for a long while, with the recent trend to make superheroes act like irrational politicians instead of respected icons, comic books haven’t been as fun to read so I’ve been having fewer titles pulled for me and haven’t been going through my Wednesday routine as often. Still, it’s not like comic book shopping is the only reason to leave the house.
After dinner, I leave the house by 6:30. This allows me enough drive time through the remains of rush hour and gives me browse time in the store before they close at 7:30. Comics Kingdom is a great little store, and I carefully chose it using fairly stringent criteria I have for comic shops. It has a wide selection and variety of product (aside from the graphic novels, books, and toys, they also sell belly dancing supplies), a good stock of back issues, a pull service (regular customers get a discount), and they have to remember me (which they do to a fault; after setting up my account, they continued to call me by the name on my driver’s license until my wife came in one day and expressed confusion. Now, they call me Renfield like everyone else.)
After leaving the comic shop, I may or may not go into the Super Fresh or Rite Aid across the street, if I happen to need groceries or medicine. Super Fresh just had a major expansion and includes a lot more items and choices, particularly with organic and earth-friendly options. I guess they re-fitted it as a Super Super Fresh to compete with the Whole Foods right up Falls Road. The one near my house is still the dinky regular kind and it just seems so pathetic by comparison.
From there, I will go around the corner to the Wine Underground. It’s an amazing wine shop with a couple of wine experts on staff. I usually pick up a red and a white, and while I sometimes browse the extensive racks, I usually just give them a price range and go with whatever they recommend. Depending on the stops I’m making, I may pick up a six-pack from their extensive beer case as well. It’s always a nice place to go, classy without being snooty. I’ve seen people in line with a six-pack of Bud and a person right behind them who just selected a $200 Bordeaux from the cellar (Yes, “cellar”. That’s how the store gets its name and if you’ve never been you should request a tour even if you think the selection down there is out of your range.)
If I haven’t had dinner, I will probably drive from there over to the Avenue and pick a restaurant. Usually it’s Golden West Café, mainly because it is so offbeat with its Southwestern and Asian offerings on the menu, as well as its style of décor and management. A good standby is the venerable institution that is Café Hon, a good choice if you’re looking for meatloaf or other comfort foods. There are several other offerings, and I do like to try new places, but sometimes it backfires. There was some new restaurant we tried there a few months ago. I forget the name, but it emphasized nice art, and is a BYOB place. I’ve never liked bringing my own wine to a restaurant, it just makes me feel cheap. Kind of irrational, but that’s me. The only reason we went in there was because it was the start of crab season and my wife was craving a softshell crab sandwich. It was the first place we walked by that advertised it on the chalkboard out front so we went in. Turns out the thing was inedible; it was grilled over a fire and dried out completely. If I was able to hear what my wife was saying over the background music, I would have had her send it back. For the record, my mushroom ravioli was excellent.
Across the street from Golden West is Atomic Books, and I like to stop in there if I have the time. It’s an incredibly eclectic book shop, and it’s had many locations in the city before settling on this one. It carries a lot of titles you won’t find in a regular bookstore (one of their sections is labeled “Revenge”), as well as many you will (it’s where I got my wife Alton Brown’s latest cookbook.) It carries comic books and graphic novels as well, has a very interesting adult section, hosts a knitting circle downstairs, and I understand John Waters uses it for a mail drop.
From there I’ll head down 83 and cut over past Patterson Park to the clubhouse of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society (yes, we have one.) After hanging out amid the book stacks and movie posters with the BSFS crew for a while, I’ll take my leave and head home, to repeat the process again next week.
Actually, while this was my pattern for a long while, with the recent trend to make superheroes act like irrational politicians instead of respected icons, comic books haven’t been as fun to read so I’ve been having fewer titles pulled for me and haven’t been going through my Wednesday routine as often. Still, it’s not like comic book shopping is the only reason to leave the house.
# posted by Renfield @ 12:20 PM 
