Usually, inserting a disc into iTunes/Apple Music causes the program to access a database to get the track info; from there, I might have to modify the info to be consistent with my library’s standards. This disc, I’ve been putting off ripping it to my iTunes/Apple Music because it wasn’t listed in the database. That meant that I had to type and copy/paste the entire album, and of course it wasn’t some simple symphony with four movements, no! It was a variations album. Great!

We only went to two ARCs, but at least the four discs I found were good:

Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings: Serenade for Strings by other composers are always good; I expect nothing less from Tchaikovksy as he’s such a great composer.

English Idyll: Jullian Lloyd Webber: I only have a few discs with this cellist, which is odd as he seems to be fairly prolific. This was the only disc I found at the Arvada ARC, from their big selection.

Soundtrack: Empire of the Sun: I finally found this movie on DVD (I’d rather have the Blu-ray, but I’ll take what I can get; this is the first time I’ve even seen that movie at a thrift) months back, but this soundtrack is even more rare. And I know it’s going to be great because it’s by John Williams!

A Heart in Winter: Ravel Trios & Sonatas: This looks kind of like a movie poster. A little confusing, but I like it, and I like Ravel, so I’ll be listening to this this week for sure!

Back to Corregidor: This is a big deal; and nobody these days has any idea about it.

Civil War Prisons & Escapes: A Day-by-Day Chronicle: These prisons were not fun to be in.

Combat: The Civil War: Try and put yourself in these guys’ place…

Forts and Artillery: I was reading this at the store, and it sucked me in; too bad. I already have this in a compilation. This is one of ten books, too. The one I have is compiled with two others, and I have three of the five big volumes. Just haven’t run across the others yet. So, I have an extra book. Dad stole it.

Grant’s Final Victory: I watched a mini-series documentary on Grant last year that enlightened me to what a great person Grant is in our history. Yet, even my Dad didn’t have a book on him; he had one on every other general, but not Grant! So, we’re fixing that!

Intimate Voice from the First World War: This is by far my favorite book from this week. First persons accounts, and the First World War.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off: I have this on DVD, but this was mixed with the DVDs at the Sheridan & 88th ARC, which is very unusual. They keep their Blu-rays locked up because, well, thrift store. People rob these places blind. Colfax ARC, in particular, if you see something good, it’s highly likely the disc is gone. But this disc was present, no scratches, and five bucks. This movie is worth far more, it’s one of those perfect movies that can be viewed over and over again.

One Million Steps: I acquired an interest in more modern accounts of war in Iraq and Afghanistan and have read a few books on the topic in the past few years; so this was an easy choice to make.

KL Auschwitz Seen by the SS: I only paged through this one a little bit, it appears to be first-hand accounts from the perspective of the SS, along with a few biographies and interesting documents. We’ll see. The German side is always interesting but one always has to consider where they are writing this from, post war.

It’s been a while since I’ve found this many discs at a thrift. While I’ve had bigger hauls, this one was decent and quite satisfying. Better be, since I’m not a fan of thrift stores. But I keep going to them.

Hilary Hahn: Paris: A rare time that I buy an album new; Hahn is maybe my favorite violinist (there are so many!) but definitely one of the very few I buy new, especially pre-ordered.

Bax: Tintagel: Very much something of a stab-in-the-dark in trying something new.

Shostakovich: I’m all about Shostakovich, and have been trying to collect all of the Emerson Quartet’s recordings, but there are so many! This is one of those albums where I had to triple-check to see if I had it as I’ve seen the cover on Amazon many times, which confuses my memory as to whether it is one of those albums I have but haven’t listened to yet. Often, they turn out to be already in my collection and boom! Another double!

Bruckner: Messe No. 3 Te Deum: Another cover that is so familiar, I had to spend a lot of time cross-checking… didn’t have it. I recently heard a mass, something I have a lot of but never listen to. One of those unexplored trails…

Boulez Conducts Shoenberg II: This was a really neat find, six discs of music for two bucks! And in perfect condition! However, I’m not sure if Shoenberg is my kind of composer. Ideally I’d listen to all of this quite a bit to thoroughly try and understand it better, but my plate is pretty full of things to listen to.

Chopin: Piano Concerto 2: Can’t have enough of the Chopin Concertos. I have at least two other discs with this same cover art by the same artists, so I had to check this carefully.

Debussy: Fantaisie: The alto saxophone aspect of this is something I like, and don’t see a lot of.

King’s College Choir: O Come, All Ye Faithful: Over the years, especially the last few years, I’ve learned to separate the commercial side of Christmas from the Traditional side of Christmas. The commercial side, it’s music is silly and fun, but the traditional side is so much better. I’m not into Christmas music, but thanks to this new way of looking at the holiday I’m really liking the traditional music more and more, while the commercial Christmas music I never really need to hear ever again.

Eleventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competition: This one, I was very lucky to get; There was an older couple going through the discs at Colfax ARC, and there is only side-by-side room for three people at a time there in front of the shelves, and of course they have to inspect every disc there is, and there were a lot of them, and they had to make a lot of comments on many of them. When I heard the lady mention what this one was, I was a little upset. She didn’t seem too excited about it. But she had it in her hands. I have two of them, and other than those two, I haven’t seen any other Cliburn Competition discs at a thrift. So, I just waited, and waited… and finally she left, although her husband was still there. I scanned the piles of discs… it was there! Got it! It’s in great shape, too! What a shame though, they were talking about all of these common bands and popular artists when they had real music right there and put it back. Apparently, someone by the name of Kelly Clarkson, or something like that, has gained weight. The things you learn when there are slow, chatty people looking through the discs at the thrift store.

Prokofiev: Piano Concerto 3 – Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto 1: Mercury Living Presence: I decided not to buy these anymore quite a while back, as I was taking them out of their cases and storing the discs on spools to save space, along with Laserlight and other low-quality recordings; not that Mercury Living Presence were low-quality, but rather they were older recordings that had been touched up a bit and re-released. But the big reasons is that there are sets of them just as cheap, but new, on Amazon. But, Prokofiev-Rachmaninoff Piano Concertos? Never mind, take my money!

Classic Library: Schubert: Symphony 9: I first heard this symphony when at a Colorado Symphony concert, it was the second half of the concert, a piece that usually isn’t the feature. I really liked it. And I’ve recently picked up another Classic Library release, so that is two more in my set! This is my fourteenth out of who-knows how many!

Discs I actually passed up: I have three or four of these already, but I haven’t seen this many at one time before. I passed them up because a good friend tipped me off that the sound quality isn’t that great. Also, I saw that the complete set of these is brand-new on Amazon, remastered, go for $150 bucks, but they are 30+ discs, remastered with extras and brand-new. Per disc, that isn’t bad. Hurt to pass these up anyway.

World War II in Pictures, Vol. 1-2: Published in the last year of the war! Why someone would allow the dust jackets to acquire so much damage…

Meatballs and Dead Birds: What a unique book! Dad found this cast away by some customer on the other side of the store. That’s thrift-store shoppers for you!

Empire by Default: The Spanish-American War is rightly overshadowed by the Civil and Great wars, but is still very interesting and relevant. Glad to have picked this up.

Brave Men, Gentle Heroes: Great perspective on the wars.

Double Dexter: I keep passing on Dexter books because they are usually paperbacks when I see them; But I’m going to start collecting all of these if I see them in hardback. Not that I need fiction right now; I’m about to re-read my Brad Thor and Vince Flynn books, and then keep going with the five or six (or more?) that have come out since I last read each series. But I really liked the Dexter show and just finished re-watching it a few months back, the books should be really fun.

Shostakovich: Piano Quintet in G Minor • String Quartets Nos. 7 & 8: Thanks to his eleventh symphony, I automatically pick up anything by this Composer. Add to that I’m acquiring a greater appreciation for small ensembles.

Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3 • Piano Sonata No. 2: I had to cross-check several times this one, I have maybe twelve or fifteen in this series and finding one that I didn’t have… maybe the best music buy of the day!

Grieg: Symphonic Dances: Anything by Grieg, I’ll get. I have so may Deutsche Grammophon releases of Grieg, I had to check carefully to make sure I didn’t have this one. I have too many doubles!

There were, what I call, ‘Thrift-Store Cockroaches’ at the Arvada ARC. The online-sellers who go through every single book, with a scanner, and when it is something they can use, they toss it in a nearby shopping cart that is usually full, and blocking the view of shelves to everyone else. ARC book sections aren’t big on space, especially the one in Arvada. Plus, there were two of them working. I had to stop looking at CDs so I could get to the history sections before they did, and I’m glad because I found some really good books they would have taken.

These Cockroaches aren’t doing anything wrong, and they aren’t really being rude; but they are going after what us normal shoppers are, and they are taking far more than even a big-spending shopper would. They aren’t just one person going for the same kind of thing; they are taking it all.

That’s just how it works. Goodwills are horrible in their media sections, because either they are picked through by these Cockroaches, or Goodwill is doing the same thing to whatever comes in because if you look at sellers on Facebook or Amazon, a lot of them are ‘Goodwill-TownName’.

Which brings me to the often-visited topic of whether it’s best to just stay home, cherry-pick from the endless selection online, and safe the time, gas, wear-and-tear on the vehicle, the annoyance of everything that makes a big thrift store unpleasant (rude people, crowded, smelly, nothing there, tags that are difficult if not impossible to get off of a book or cd, a tag covering exactly what one needs to see on a book or cd, not the right tag for half-price… etc)

I’d vote it’s best to stay home. But the flip side is that Dad and I go out to lunch, and enjoy the thrill-of-the-hunt. In any case, I was thrilled by this week’s hunt:

Mathews Men: Currently, I’m reading a lot about the Atlantic War, so this was more than the average find.

Eyewitness to World War II: I have a number of eyewitness books, and also one similar to this by National Geographic on the Civil War. I couldn’t remember if I had this one, my spreadsheet said ‘no’ but I just couldn’t trust it. Yet, I kind of remember this being one of those books I passed on because of price, thinking I’d remember it for later. Turns out my spreadsheet wasn’t lying, I didn’t have this book. I paid full-price because it was worth it and I don’t see it much. That means, though, that I’ll see it a lot more now, for a lot less!

Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar: In my collection there is another book by this author similar to this, so that threw me off initially. This was in great shape. It’s bargain-priced, which I find surprising.

Charlie Company: What Vietnam Did To Us: This was there last week and survived that time with a low price… why doesn’t anybody buy these? I passed on it out of showing restraint, but…

The Day the American Revoution Began: The Civil War and Revolutionary War are topics I avoid buying for because I can’t store my other topics (World War I & II) as it is. But what I’ve been reading about this makes it something I couldn’t walk away from today. And it was two bucks.
Thomas Jefferson: A Life: Same thing as above. And I think we all need to be learning about the Founding Fathers.

Europe’s Last Summer: Who Started The Great War In 1914?: Just like that book on the Marne last week, this was a terrific find, as newer books on the Great War aren’t the most common at thrifts, and especially on this topic. I read about the war all the time and still can’t pin down exactly who is responsible, it was such a mess. I would have paid far above full price for this, but it was two bucks!

The Rise and Fall of the British Empire: I don’t know enough about this topic, such as what exactly were the benefits of their empire on subject peoples, as well as exactly what were the negatives? There’s a lot of detail here, and the British Empire is a deep subject. I think there is a lot here that shines a light on what we assume about colonialism, and I’m not justifying it, I’m just saying that we should be as accurate as possible about all aspects of it, especially from the point-of-view at the time. Interesting thing: Haiti provided around half of France’s economy at one point. I could be wrong on that, but I heard this on a YouTube video. Point being, there was some extreme profit (If I remembered that correctly) for the home country, which funded a lot of things good and bad. This should be a great read.

Chained Eagle: Not my first former-prisoner-of-war book by any means, but seriously. Not many real accounts of anything are more fascinating (and sad) than this kind of first-hand-account.