To Have and to Hold: My Vinyl Year

I saw Michael Ian Black do stand-up in Arlington, Virginia about six months ago. He talked about moving from Connecticut to Savanna, Georgia. In this bit, he said something along the lines of: “Connecticut has so many great cities, such as…” …and then could not name any. Someone in the audience shouted, “Hartford!” He quipped back: “Hartford is a city in Connecticut, I’ll grant you that. Is it a great city? Who’s to say?” A reductive look at the east coast would chalk up the major cities as: DC, Baltimore, Philly, New York, maybe Providence, and then Boston. What’s to know of Connecticut? They invented Lyme disease and sometimes they put clams on pizza. Oh, and some old money, country club buttholes were won over by Trump. As far as stereotypes, I’ve seen worse. But I am here today to tell you that Niantic, Connecticut is a straight-up cultural mecca. I am speaking of the very specific culture of books and records. If you’re a book person, you probably know of Powell’s in P...