Save Pandemonium!
I'm way late on this, but I just heard that Pandemonium Books & Games, a science fiction/fantasy books-and-gaming store in Cambridge, MA, is having financial trouble. They moved recently--from their longtime but kind of cramped home upstairs in The Garage to a new spacious airy well-lit space in Central Square. I stopped by the new store last time I was in Boston; a nice place.
But it turns out that during the move, they had to close for three months, and although they're doing better now than they were for a while after they reopened, they owe substantial back taxes, which may drive them out of business.
So they're holding a T-shirt drive. The owner says that if 1000 people buy a T-shirt, the store can survive. It sounds like in addition to the financial boost, he wants to see tangible evidence that people really do care about the store.
I'm guessing that most people who care have heard about it by now--the original post about it was almost two weeks ago, and the news has spread all over the place--blogs, BoingBoing, traditional media, etc. I just haven't been paying attention. But I figured it was worth posting just in case anyone else hadn't heard. The last update I saw said that they had sold 542 T-shirts, but that was only 24 hours after the shirts went on sale; I'm guessing the count has gone up since then.
I like Pandemonium. They carry some small-press stuff--they're the only place I ever saw new genre being sold--and a fair number of science fiction and fantasy books, and a bunch of gaming materials--I've seen gaming books there that I've never seen anywhere else. I gather that some people feel their focus is too much on gaming for a bookstore, but I think of them as a books-and-gaming store, so that doesn't especially bother me. I always try to visit there when I'm in Boston, if I have time.
So if you're a fan of the store, or even if you just like to support independent specialty sf stores, go buy a shirt. Or if T-shirts aren't your thing, you can also donate via PayPal.
