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How I feel about The Strand Bookstore

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You know how in commercials the Keebler Elves always seem like they’re having a great time because their job rocks and they’re making people happy by baking delicious cookies? Next time one of those commercials comes on, look into the Elves’ eyes and you will catch fleeting glimpses of pure terror. It’s like they know that if they don’t convince you of how great their jobs are, there’s gonna be hell to pay when the cameras turn off. Those Elves are shuckin’ and jivin’ for their lives. Whoever employs those little guys must be kicking the shit out of them on a nightly basis, and I’m pretty sure that the same person runs The Strand.

The only difference is that the people who work at The Strand are in open rebellion, they want you to know how much they hate their jobs. It’s the only plausible conclusion that I could come up with considering how amazing The Strand is. How could you hate working at one of the best used bookstores in the world, a place famous for having 18 miles of books, unless they were chaining you to the wall and attaching a car battery to your genitals every night? The only other explanation is that The Strand exclusively hires total fucking assholes. I wonder which of these explanations is true.

PS I heard the Elves tried to go on a hunger strike, but that they just couldn’t resist eating those delectable baked goods.

The Strand
828 Broadway @ 12th St.
[Union Square]

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Broke-Ass Stuart - Editor In Cheap

Broke-Ass Stuart - Editor In Cheap

Stuart Schuffman, aka Broke-Ass Stuart, is a travel writer, poet, TV host, activist, and general shit-stirrer. His website BrokeAssStuart.com is one of the most influential arts & culture sites in the San Francisco Bay Area and his freelance writing has been featured in Lonely Planet, Conde Nast Traveler, The Bold Italic, Geek.com and too many other outlets to remember. His weekly column, Broke-Ass City, appears every other Thursday in the San Francisco Examiner. Stuart’s writing has been translated into four languages. In 2011 Stuart created and hosted the travel show Young, Broke, and Beautiful on IFC and in 2015 he ran for Mayor of San Francisco and got nearly 20k votes.

He's been called "an Underground legend": SF Chronicle, "an SF cult hero":SF Bay Guardian, and "the chief of cheap": Time Out New York.