032027 • Thrift Store • CDs

Now, it’s really easy to get upset and frustrated with some people at thrifts. Well, everybody at a thrift, really. but this guy (in the chair) in particular. If you notice, the first four shelves of discs are nice and neat, he’s gone through those. Someone at a thrift, leaving it in better shape than he found it? Amazing. But, he’s stacking them to where you can’t just pull a disc out, you have to take a few off the top and set them somewhere else. But, usually, they are a mess, anyway. But being a respectful person, one doesn’t want to disrupt what he’s doing, yet at the same time, he’s taken over the entire area. His basket (viewable next to him) is full of his pickings. The sound of someone constantly opening, closing, moving discs is somehow horribly annoying. Don’t get too close to him! But to be objective, he’s doing nothing wrong. He’s buying a lot and supporting the place, leaving the area better than when he found it. the only problem is that he’s taken the area over and anybody coming in feels like an intruder. Anyway. My first instinct is to start something with the guy, but that’s very much the wrong thing to do. Luckily there wasn’t much I wanted to see (the cds are two-deep into the shelves, but I really didn’t feel like searching to much as I have been here every week for a month. Not likely to be much of anything worth fighting over.) Some people come with scanners and annoyingly go through every single book in the entire place like a vulture. They also, are not doing anything wrong. Just horribly annoying, and also buying books for sale somewhere else, for more money. One could say that people like this are the competition, whereas everybody else is just a fellow shopper. Anyway. I got out of there without having to beat this guy up (ha!) so that was a win! Another great reason to just stay at home and shop online.
Thanks to the Eleventh Symphony, I pick up every version of Shostakovichs’ symphonies when I see them!
Thanks to the Anne Gastinel album with pieces by one of the composers on this album, I had to get this. Besides, it’s a fairly recent cd which is not common to find at thrifts.
This was a double-cd that had never been listened to, still had the packing inside of the case. And it’s Chopin. For a dollar!
I like the sixth symphony, so a double-album with two others, for one dollar…
This was an unexpected find, I’d assumed I had if not most, all of the BBC Music Magazine discs. I especially like albums that feature the artist and aren’t some generic release.
Don’t know much about these symphonies, but it’s Haydn.
I have a lot of Alban Berg Quartetts, so why not. And, Brahms.
This was actually in the Chopin album above, but it looks to be a different release of the first album on that one. Why couldn’t it have been something different, if I’m accidentally getting an extra disc?

032027 • Thrift Store Finds

If it has anything about the A-10 Warthog in it, I’m going to pick it up!
Not only is this a first-hand account, but it’s from the perspective of a Soviet pilot. I have no figures to back this up, but I think there are fewer of these accounts, and I’ve read that due to how the common citizen/serf was educated back then, there wasn’t a lot of things written by the common solder. Which is something considering the percentage of the population that fought in this war.
The movie that was done on this, The Way Back, I watched a few years ago, and it was very good. Looking forward to reading the book here, that it was based on!
Like the above book on the Soviet pilot, is this book!
This is a 2018 book with nothing but big photos… of World War II locations. And a steal at three dollars!
Just another good-looking book for my library!
I like how they did the cover after a poster from the time period.
First-person accounts were most of what I found today, which is great!
More first-person accounts!
I watched this movie in the theatre, it was my first Rambo film. Not the best one to start with! It is brutal, and only near the end when John Rambo starts doing his thing does one really find anything to really like about this film. They make the bad guys, very bad, they show how and why they are bad… and then the good guy takes care of business. What is disturbing is how the brutality of this film is probably accurate to actual events in history we can’t comprehend simply by reading books. To an extent, a good thing to not know much about.

032021 • Thrift Store Finds

Liszt: Le Preludes: I bought two 50-CD collections brand-new of Deutsche Grammophon The Originals a few years ago, but this wasn’t in it. Re-mastered works, there’s something about a piece that is worth re-mastering that I find justifies checking it out. However, that doesn’t mean that something re-mastered is good, but still. Gives me a reason.

Schubert – Schumann: Symphonies #3 – Günter Wand: Somewhat of a standard generic buy, however, at the same time, could serve as the introduction to new symphonies I might like. Can’t argue that Schubert and Schumann don’t have a lot of great work.

Michael Douglas: Double Feature: Black Rain / Fatal Attraction: Black Rain is very much the number one movie I look for at thrifts. Pretty much every movie I’ve ever liked, I have at the very least found on DVD, except Black Rain. Its taken more than a decade of looking to find it because I figured that, well, it’s a Ridley Scott movie, that did well at the box office, it stars Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia, etc. If there are endless copies of every other Hollywood movie, this has to be in there with them, right? Nope. Never, ever see it. Until today. I watched it right away, it’s been decades. I actually did try to watch this on On Demand, (or maybe it was Hulu) and halfway through, when I went back to finish it, it was gone. For whatever reason, it just isn’t a movie that is commonly available, regardless of box office numbers and the talent involved. Now the only DVDs I have to look for are odd things I don’t expect, such as the Debussy Preludes by Latsabidze DVD.

Fatal Attraction, I’ll give a shot because it’s Michael Douglas. My favorite movies with him are Black Rain, The Game, Falling Down, Disclosure, and Wall Street. I actually bought and watched him in The Sentinel with Keifer Sutherland a few weeks ago.

The Tudors: I pass on these as I see them often, but this week I finally gave in as I don’t know when I’m going to join up to a streaming service long enough to watch it again. The final season, which I never see, was available last week, before I decided this week to start putting the series together. I’ve seen this before, but it’s been a while. Johnathan Rhys Meyers is absolutely fantastic in his role, so that, along with a great supporting cast including Sam Neill and Henry Cavill, along with others familiar as their careers have progressed, that alone makes it a good watch. Rhys Meyers was just in a season or two of Vikings, which reminded me of how much I like this actor.

The second big reason I am going to watch this again is that this is one of those series or movies that has such a great take on the times, the sets, costumes, etc. Accurate or not, they give a decent idea of what it was like back then.

Latsabidze Plays Debussy Preludes, Book 2: This was still in the shrink-wrap! It’s quite rare to find a classical dvd like this at a thrift, so this was my second-best find of the day!

Jack Higgins: The Eagle Has Landed / The Eagle Has Flown / Night of the Fox: I have a three-books-in-one like this of Tom Clancy’s works. There’s something about a big compilation for two dollars, highly acclaimed on a topic I find so interesting. The first two pages that I read while deciding to buy it were pretty good, so hey. Two bucks.

Breaking Bad: Season Five: I have all of these on either Blu-ray or DVD, it’s one of those situations where if I can make the upgrade from Blu-ray to DVD, I have to do it as I don’t see a lot of Blu-ray at thrifts. That aren’t stolen from the case, that is. What a fantastic series, one of the, if not the best, ever.

The Borne Trilogy: Again, I have this on DVD, and watched it about three years ago, but a Blu-Ray upgrade was right there. The fourth one that didn’t have Matt Damon was good too, but I don’t have either that or the fifth one that came out a few years ago.

Winter Army: This survived the week at the Arvada ARC, it was there last week but at full-price, I couldn’t pull the trigger. Why did nobody buy this?

Typed it all in…

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!

031321 • Thrift Store Finds • CDs

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!

031321 • Thrift Store Finds

Dad found six of these books for me at the library, called me to check and see if I had them already; I didn’t. So that was neat, I didn’t have to go through the thrift store annoyances, I didn’t have to pay anything, and I didn’t have to go anywhere, yet I landed six new books! Nice.

Aleutian Headache: Not commonly known is that Japan actually conquered American soil during the war… in Alaska. I read a book about Alaska last year, so this is going to extend off of that for me.

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.

030621 • Thrift Store Finds • CDs

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.

030621 • Thrift Store Finds

The Jews In Russia: I passed up this book two weeks prior; it wasn’t there last week, but here it is this week! People understand that Nazi Germany was anti-Semitic, but generally don’t understand that the Soviets were as well.

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.