Jonny Numb

I’m debating creating two separate columns here, but justifying both may be more trouble than they’re worth.

One would be what you’re currently reading: “Scavenging” would pertain to things found “in the wild” – the unexpected surprises acquired from places not known for having consistent or predictable inventory.

The other would be “Booty Call,” referring to things very deliberately chosen from specific online haunts and – probably in rarer cases – brick-and-mortar stores.

That said, the notion of scavenging is a bit more exciting, and there are a handful of places in Central Pennsylvania that appeal to my otherwise worthless hunter-gatherer instincts. I couldn’t find water or food if my post-apocalyptic existence depended on it, but I could probably sniff out a place chock full of irradiated CDs or DVDs.

Take, for instance…

One of the pluses of being in the (physical) office once a week is the chance to walk around downtown. I like alternating lunchtime coffees from Elementary or Little Amps, and just generally getting out and taking in the area.

I’ve also, in recent years, become an adherent of the True Value hardware store along 2nd Street in Harrisburg. In addition to having friendly and knowledgeable staff, they also offer hauling/cleanout services. While the circumstances relating to said services are probably mired in sad stories, some items appear for sale on the sidewalk outside the store (weather permitting, of course).

My hunter-gatherer nose is always sniffing out physical media, the odd electronic item, or even furniture (granting it’s easily conveyed to and from my car). Over the past couple weeks, the True Value has had two large tubs piled high with DVDs – some, like Higher Learning, in their original shrink-wrap.

Other disparate finds included the game Cranium, an Exploding Kittens jigsaw puzzle, and a Rhett Butler button (for my girlfriend’s father), all in their original packaging.

One of my favorite haunts for physical media is Extremities Entertainment in Lebanon. About an hour drive from my current residence, each visit never ceases to justify the trip. I discovered the shop via a sponsored ad on Facebook several years back, so I’ll never say the algorithm is completely useless.

In addition to their obvious love and belief in the enduring power of physical media, a huge attraction with the store – which has been around for 30+ years, and occupies a space that used to be a church – is their extremely fair trade and cash offers on used media. I typically base my trips on whether I have a full plastic tub of DVDs, Blu-rays, or CDs for their perusal. Since I started going there, I’ve only paid for my purchases with store credit – and I usually leave with a generous stack of stuff.

Even better, it’s a tightly-run ship where the staff keep a close eye on inventory and can quickly tell you if they have something in stock or not. Their current endcap contains a couple recent Mondo Macabro titles (and, as you can see, I walked out with a copy of the intriguing-sounding A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse), but they get in movies of all genres – from comedy to drama to family fare. It’s a robust selection that never ceases to yield exciting finds.

Yesterday, I visited the New Cumberland Public Library‘s bi-weekly media sale. For the decade I’ve been living in the area, this is the first opportunity I’ve had to peruse their shelves.

Overall, the selection wasn’t especially impressive for my tastes, but perhaps that’s a good thing: I enjoy reading, but it’s something I do rather slowly, so accumulating even more tomes for my “to-be-read” pile is a daunting – even stressful – prospect.

That said, the Movie Review Guide was a blast from the past (quite literally – the copyright is 1982). This is one of the first movie-review books I ever owned, albeit in a later edition with a blue cover. I distinctly remember having my parents purchase it for me at the old K-Mart in Haines Acres.

As for All the President’s Men and Pi, I haven’t seen either in a long time. I fell in love with Alan J. Pakula’s The Parallax View a few years back, and recently took in a matinee of Darren Aronofsky’s latest, The Whale.

(Featured image: Stacey Travis in Richard Stanley’s Hardware (1990)