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Best used-cd store

Twist & Shout

Sure, there's a great selection of used discs and vinyl at Twist & Shout, but what lifts it to the top of the heap is its music-loving atmosphere. The joint's support of the local music scene is well-known, and lately it's been staging loads of in-store appearances by touring acts such as Patti Smith. Just walking through the door will make you a little bit hipper.

Best used-vinyl store

Don's Discs

Although it's located in Thornton, a community not exactly renowned for its trendiness, this store has a national rep among vinyl aficionados, and for good reason: Platters that may cost big bucks in New York City can often be found at Don's Discs for a fraction of that price. Add to that a sprawling library of seven-inch singles, and you've got a mecca devoted to a format whose time has come and gone -- and come again.

Best anti-theft device at a record store

Jerry's Record Exchange

For nineteen years, Jerry's Record Exchange has stocked some of the most obscure folk, classical and jazz selections in town. But a few years ago, when acid jazz peaked its way into the club scene, the store became a target for DJs who were too cheap to buy. Instead of loading up on security bells, whistles and armed guards, though, store owner John Loquidis simply placed a handwritten note above the jazz records: "To the acid-jazz dweeb, I assume, who felt it necessary to steal Lester Young, Clifford Brown, Bird, Armstrong, et al. covers to decorate his equipment or club, you are a disgrace to your profession as you defame the American art form whilst denying others these great works. This stuff ain't mindless dance crap, Jim...If you are just another anal asshole bent on destroying my store, to Hades with you. Cut up old down beats, Jerk." Store general manager Steve Bruner says the sign appeals to the conscience of potential swindlers and has slowed their thieving ways. "A real jazz lover would never steal," he adds.

Best place to turn Jagged Little Pillinto a five-dollar bill

Cheapo Discs

Everyone has musical skeletons in their closet: an embarrassing Euro-trash obsession, a long-outgrown affinity for death metal, an Alanis Morissette disc purchased during a particularly weak moment. Don't fret. The curiously friendly counter crew at Cheapo Discs has seen it all, and they pass bills instead of judgment. Here, old, unwanted CDs turn into money -- which one can pocket or spend on the store's impressive and inexpensive inventory of used discs. It all works off the magical and dynamic wheel of musical tastes. After all, the Cheapo people know that we all make mistakes -- and that at any given moment, someone else is ready to make that same mistake again.

Best anti-ticket service

First Call Communications

In their quests to make the world a better place, Mahatma Gandhi promoted peace, Mother Teresa nurtured the impoverished, and Martin Luther King Jr. fought for equality. Following these precedents, one Denver man is making his contribution to humanity by committing to protect his neighbors from parking tickets. Last summer, Phil Gage noticed how often people were getting ticketed for not moving their cars on street-sweeping days, so he decided to take a stand. Gage founded First Call Communications, a service that uses a computer program to notify subscribers the day before a scheduled street sweeping so they can move their cars and avoid a $15 ticket. He began with twelve subscribers, but business has grown tremendously, and he now boasts 600 ticketless customers. People can opt for free service, which means their phone call comes with a sponsor's advertisement, or they can pay $5 a year to get a message without the ad. Gage's ultimate goals: to serve 10,000 residents and to make the world a better place, one street at a time.

Best used books

The Book Stack, Mary Reed Building on the DU campus

Bookworms are always looking for a new place to gnaw, and the Book Stack, run by DU's Women's Library Association for the benefit of that school's venerable Penrose Library, is a great place to dig in. It's a repository of cheap, cast-off books: hardbacks, paperbacks, children's books, collectibles and more, some of which have already been dog-eared, and others that are just waiting to have their pages ruffled. Open Wednesdays from 9 to noon and Saturdays from 10 to 2, the volunteer-managed store isn't the biggest or snootiest used bookstore around, but it's certainly one of the nicest.

Best kids' bookstore

The Bookies

Sue Lubeck's store's been around the block. But now, thankfully, it's actually beginning to wrap itself around the block. A recent expansion will allow Lubeck to better accommodate educators who meet at Bookies without compromising her already crowded retail space, which spills over with wonderful things for and about kids, providing hours of browsing of the most excellent kind. Whether you're looking for Harry Potter or something more obscure, you're more than likely to come across it. But if you don't, Lubeck's steadfast, customer-service-oriented staff will help you get it as quickly as possible. It's the little things that count.

Best eclectica

5 Green Boxes

This is a place you either love -- or you just don't get. But be forewarned: Don't come in here without a healthy imagination and a love for the beautiful and unusual. Five Green Boxes changes its whole look with every season, segueing as grandly and organically as nature herself, dressing in new hues and unfolding with unexpected whimsies. But some things remain the same: Central to the gift, gewgaw and home design emporium's raison d'être are such regular features as an in-store design team that whips together one-of-a-kind felt patchwork chairs and other household embellishments, what must be the town's most creative gift-wrapping service, and a fabulous mixture of contemporary craft, antique showpieces, kitsch and flea-market chic. And it all falls under the umbrella of a sky-wide price range that allows you to splurge on a singular, once-in-a-lifetime investment or just take home a little trinket for a pocketful of clinking change.

Best Judaica

Boulder Arts & Crafts Cooperative

There's more to Judaica than a nine-armed candelabra and a six-pointed star. With that in mind, the Boulder Arts & Crafts Cooperative has a sharp eye for artful things Jewish: seder plates, Shabbat candles, dreidels, tallitim, mezuzahs, menorahs and more, all sporting the human touch of an artisan. Hand-forged metals, stoneware and clay are only a few of the mediums represented year-round in the co-op's supply of Judaic wares, but holiday time is when the displays really shine, expanding to include such items as fine-art paintings by Deborah Kanegis. Try it -- you'll like it.

Best cultural collision

Ameri-Mart

The signs decorating the warehousey building on the corner of West 38th Avenue and Osage Street in northwest Denver bilingually advertise everything from 14k gold jewelry, pagers and stereos to ropa and the joyería inside. But more than anything, it's the business's name -- against a logo bearing the colors of the Mexican flag -- that says it all: This is Ameri-Mart, brother, and all you need to be happy in this country is lots of stuff. Muscle shirts, mustard-colored jeans, packages of socks for two bucks, christening and communion dresses and Fruit of the Loom briefs. An entire aisle of shoes, 50 percent off. Kenwood and Bose speakers and subwoofers. Video games and Pokémon cards. Cleaning supplies, paper towels and trash bags. Monster squirt guns and brown dolls. Chairs, sofas and a "surprise" back room full of antiquey furniture, "Tiffany" lamps, gilded mirrors, faux elephant-tusk carvings and bronze deer and dolphin statues. Small appliances and Jesus candles. Dried chiles, freeze-dried coffee, corn husks and 25-pound bags of pinto beans for $9.50. Co-owner Mark Reichert says he and his partners "wanted to open a store that combined all the things we found other businesses in the area doing," but he swears that unlike that notorious, wholly American creation known as Wal-Mart, he's not trying to put nearby small businesses out. "I thought about that, but I think people like to come where they have a lot of choices. We have clothing, but that doesn't hurt the other clothing stores around here. People like to shop," he says. And when they run out of money, there's a Western Union at the front counter.

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