WEIRD STUFF ABOUT US YOU DIDN'T KNOW

We sponsor an annual arm wrestling tournament: The Santiago Armsport Tourney is inspired by Santiago, the arm-wrestling fisherman in Hemingway’s The Old Man in the Sea. As the sun sets, Santiago, who’s spent the day fighting a mammoth marlin, tries to give himself confidence by remembering a 24 hour arm wrestling tournament in Casablanca with “the great Negro from Cienfuegos, who was the strongest man on the docks.” The victor gets his/her name engraved onto a trophy (which stays in the store) and splits the pot with the shop.

We hold an annual George Bernard Shaw beard growing contest called The Unshavian (get it?)

We organize a literary pub crawl: The Raconteur Get Lit Tour meets at the shop and proceeds en-masse to Manhattan (via NJ transit). Stops on tour usually include The Algonquin Hotel (home of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of NYC writers/wits that included Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley & Harpo Marx), McSorley's Old Ale House (the oldest Irish tavern in Manhattan and the focus of several now classic articles by New Yorker author Joseph Mitchell; Brendan Behan and E.E. Cummings were known regulars), The KGB bar (named "best literary venue" in NYC by New York Magazine and The Village Voice), and The Whitehorse Tavern (where Dylan Thomas famously drank himself to death one night in November 1953). Previous tours included the now defunct Chumley's (a celebrated former speakeasy; notable scribes who imbibed there include Anais Nin, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Norman Mailer, Eugene O'Neill, and J.D. Salinger). The Raconteur Get Lit Tour will be featured in a travel book called Novel Destinations: Jane Austen’s Bath to Ernest Hemingway’s Key West, published by Random House and due out May 2008.

We have a piano: a scarred, but in-tune, mahogany upright, complete with drink rings and cigarette burns, salvaged from a shuttered saloon.

We have a motorcycle club: The Raconteur Motorcycle Club, which now allows "cagers" (people in cars) to tag along with supplies, meets at the shop and caravans to a destination of literary or cinematic significance. The Club was profiled in The New York Times and will be featured in a travel book called Novel Destinations, published by Random House and due out May 2008.

We have a Sherlock Holmes Society: The Andaman Aborigines convenes quarterly in the rear of our shop. "The aborigines of the Andaman Islands may perhaps claim the distinction of being the smallest race upon this earth…they are naturally hideous, having large, misshapen heads, small fierce eyes, and distorted features…they have always been a terror to shipwrecked crews, braining the survivors with their stone-headed clubs or shooting them with their poisoned arrows. These massacres are invariably concluded by a cannibal feast." The Sign of the Four, Arthur Conan Doyle.

We have weekday Happy Hour: Happy Hour is two for one book purchase, 4 – 6 PM, Mon – Friday. To receive the Happy Hour discount, you must say: “I need to Get Lit!” at the cashier counter before your purchase is rung up.

We produce a bi-annual hootenanny: The Raconteur Festival, held at a local 200 seat theatre three blocks from the shop, features a mix of live music, circus performers, and acclaimed writers.

We have a house band: The Roadside Graves: “Their sweet-tempered country-rock is far more slippery than it might first appear, buffered as it is by rich Jayhawks vocal harmonies, Benson's quicksilver guitar leads, and frequent detours that can occasionally conjure images of a roadhouse Bad Seeds. I've drank enough to know that I've drank enough," announces front man Gleason on the world-weary “Live Slow,” the one song that comes closest to encapsulating the enduring spirit of The Graves. Performed with an uncommonly deft touch and subtle grace, their songs concern themselves primarily with the pause for breath that comes after reaching original destinations, and the long, careful glance at the atlas that should come before determining what exactly is supposed to happen next.” (excerpt from Matt Murphy’s recent review on Pitchfork).