Lux Mentis, Lux Orbis...rare books, random musings
An evolving experiment in blogging about rare books, fine books and fun books, book collecting, book buying and bibliomania...and random musings on [mostly] related subjects...
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Day one is over...
Well, day one is in the past. It looks as if this is going to be a great show. Very nice traffic, some great interest in the Waters and Stackpole material and some nice sales. Best of all, several great first meetings...time will tell where these lead, but they are almost always the most important aspect of these events. There is the usual soft muttering from various dealers about this and than...and it is our first time here, so there is not comparative datapoints...but we are very pleased with the promoters an, overall, the "look and feel" of the event.
The prize remains available to the first visitor who mentions the blog *g*.
We are, after a long and relatively painful drive (much of it in steady to micro-burst rain), happily lodged in Baltimore. The hotel is wildly convenient to the Convention Center and is very full of dealers of both ilks (antiques and rare books). I have managed to pull some strange muscle in my neck/shoulder, guaranteeing a long and painful weekend. That aside, we are really excited about the show and hope one or two of you who mentioned attending stops by to say hi.
On that note, a carrot: the first person who stops by the booth and mentions the blog gets a very cool, slightly silly and *very* Baltimore prize. I expect dozens camped out at the gate, ready to race through the myriad of dealers to find us on Thursday...
I had a wonderful copy of Ulysses. It was a fourth printing of the first edition by Shakespeare and Co. with wonderful ephemera (including the orginal invoice, on S. Beach's letterhead and in her hand, to a NYer who traveled to Paris to get a banned book). It was one of my very favorite items (I have admitted before my weakness for Joyce). That it sold tonight was nice...it is always nice when a great book sells.
What made my night was how pleased the new owner appears to be with it already. They very clearly love it as I did...less for it being an early printing of a great work and much more so because of how the ephemera and inscriptions/marginalia so clearly put it in time and place. I am very pleased a great book sold. I am more pleased that the new owner is so excited to possess it. I am, tonight, a matchmaker.
I looked at a collection of material today that included a fair amount of pulp and its brethren. I love the jackets...I plan to give my librarian mother a copy of this gem for holidays.
This, however, made my day. Note in the yellow banner: "UNCENSORED ABRIDGEMENT..." Apparently, they cut out all that annoying plot and character development and left just the sex and violence...woohoo.
Salman Rushdie and Stephen King on Harry Potter...
I was poking about a new-to-me book(ish) blog, The Book Bitches (quite wonderful for those with whom it resonates) when I ran across a post on an early Aug. event with JKR in NY. JKR appeared with other lightweight literary figures like Stephen King, John Irving and Salman Rushdie, etc. Apparently, many of the questions were aimed, not surprisingly, at JKR on the past and future of young Master Potter and his brethren.
Ms. Trollop's pining over Sirius, notwithstanding, the part of the post that struck me was "...Salman Rushdie, who offered his theory that Snape and Dumbledore were in cahoots..." That SR *read* HP does not surprise me, that he read it *and* pondered it such as to develop a theory about any aspect of the story *does* surprise me and pleases me to no end. There is hope for the universe, I think.
Personally, I am with Rushdie on this point. They are in cahoots and I do not buy JKR's "Dumbledore is dead" claim...that is, I think he is dead. At the moment. I remain unconvinced that this is a state of being that needs to be static for one such as Dumbledore. We shall see.
Well, that remains to be seen...however Google's new offering, Writely, appears at first glance to be quite exceptional. All the bells and whistles one could reasonable want, what appears to be very strong collaborative features and the ability to effectively "print" to one's blog. The "save as pdf" should be nice for those not on macs (as we have had the feature since OSX rolled out).
It has actually been a pretty big week for Google, as they also announced a major upgrade of their blogging tool, Blogger [as seen here, as it were]. I have not begun to shift over to the new beta version, but will do so in the not too distant future...who knows, perhaps I'll redesign the entire site...we shall see.
Writely really does appear solid. It will be interesting to watch the ripples of this tool online and beyond.
I do try to keep politics out of my musing (as I do religion, FSM notwithstanding). There are plenty of sites/blogs where others ponder such issues ad nauseum. We have recently had, however, a wonderfully strange bibliophilic event the nuances of which I cannot keep myself from poking with a sharp stick: Does anyone really think that Bush actually *read* Camus’, The Stranger? Admittedly, I am generally cynical about such things, but I would be willing to wager a great deal that The Stranger’s inclusion was the “Vacation Reading List” equivalent of the vast majority of Joyce’s, Ulysses on countless shelves…it looks (intellectually) good, it *should* have been read and one is unlikely to be challenged on its nuances as few others have actually read it either (and/or remember it from high school).
So we are asked to believe that Bush, an avowed and proud anti-intellectual, took The Stranger on vacation with him…I’d almost accept it were it The Plague, but The Stranger?!? Then I got thinking about the plot a bit more, in summary:
1: The main character fights with Arabs 2: The main character engages in a pre-emptive/retaliatory strike with significantly excessive use of force [and goes to jail (N/A)] 3: A media circus trial with the world watching 4: The main character’s character is the focus of the trial and he is betrayed by an intimate friend 5: The main character is exposed during the trial as an Apathetic Monster 6: The main character is convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to death (N/A) 7: The main character is left in prison to ponder his life and actions (N/A) 8: Determines there is no god (N/A) 9: Comes to Consciousness (N/A) 10. Goes to his execution hoping his death is cheered (N/A) [N.B. this summary loosely based on an emailed post]
Suddenly it sort of makes sense…except, of course, for the reflection and exploration of self, actions and the world. Maureen Dowd wrote a wonderful op-ed bit about it and John Stewart did what he does better than any other (click the image above, as it were).
My firmly held belief that he did not read the book, notwithstanding, there is a legitimate question as to the value of feigning reading lists and/or hiding the books really read. Should the president pretend to read titles of significance to show a questing intellect and the like? I am the first to admit that when I am on vacation (or…well…anytime I like), I tend to read escapish pabulum. Certainly I read the occasional bit of non-fiction and/or classic lit…but mostly I read the likes of Christopher Moore, Jasper Fforde, Carl Hiaasen and even (with an embarrassed glance aside), Clive Cussler. When one has “the hardest job in the world”, the occasional intellectual respite is, I think, richly deserved. Then again, when one’s entire persona is built about anti-intellectualism, perhaps the occasional feigned intellectual delving is the proper course. All I know is that I’d have paid a great deal to have listened into the discussion between Bush and Snow on existentialism…there is no “whole”, there is but a “hole”. A new mantra for the administration.
The fine folks at LibraryThing have announced a major new feature: Talk. LibaryThing is, as I have mentioned before, a hybrid of social networking, shared booklists and such things (do not miss the Zeitgeist). It is really a great way for the bookishly inclined to loose tremendous amounts of time.
The new Talk feature appears to be a means through which they can embed/integrate a/sychronous communication with nearly all features of the site...an interesting concept...time will tell if it works. I respect a great deal that they state in the announcement that, "At LibraryThing we don't release finished features. We release interesting features, and see how things go and people react." It will be interesting to see how this works out...regardless, explore LibraryThing and have some fun (I need to add more books to my list...urgh).
late announcement....Collegiate Book Collecting Championship outcomes
Fine Books & Collections, on August 8th, announced the winners of the first Collegiate Book Collecting Championship. Congratulations to Daniel McKee (Cornell University). I think this competition is brilliant and am working to get at least one school (or a group of them, together) here in Maine involved in this next year. What a great way to both shine a bit of light on emerging collectors and build a bit of interest and buzz among an age range we desperately need to be cultivating for the future of the profession. I hope the fine folk at Fine Books keep up their great work.
So Sarah is leaving us for a wee vacation (richly diserved, I've no doubt) but before she logs off for a week or so, she posts a short list (merely 2152 words) of her favorite "books on books." It is a great list...sadly, I have read most, but did discover several I have not run across previously and have ordered already *pathetic smile*. She did, however, miss a couple I am fond of:
Just about anything by Jasper Fforde (Thursday Next books, Big Over Easy, etc.). He is, I think, this kinda fun blend of James Joyce, John Dunning and Christopher Moore. Great way to kill time.
Notably missing, given Sarah's previous several posts covering her personal obsessions, is Nancy Pearl's, Book Lust. Nancy is the basis, mind you, for my previous post (she is, literally (if you will), the Librarian Action Figure) and Book Lust is a fun collection books worth reading organized in great catagories...there is a recent sequal.
I will have to review my own collection of books and books and perhaps post some added suggestions. Then again, I might just spend the time reading the fresh fodder Sarah presents.
And now for something (not entirely) new and different...
James Quinn is quoted as stating: "Our whole American way of life is a great war of ideas, and librarians are the arms dealers selling weapons to both sides." In a country that seems to embrace all things warlike with such abandon, it should be no surprise that GI Joe and his brethren combat action figures have been joined by the most dangerous purveyor of revolutionary tools...ideas.
A wonderful company called McPhee (whose products are made by "magic pixies") debuted the Nancy Pearl, Librarian, action figure in 2003. Ms. Pearl was the author of Book Lust (a fun, "so you need something to read???" book). Mind you, it was not met without opposition to its perceived revolutionary nature (ok, people were really just whining about the "Amazing Shushing Action"). The protesters have not succeeded in suppressing this fun (abet, dangerously radical) action figure...McPhee relatively recently released, "The Deluxe Librarian Action Figure" (with more books, a library cart and desktop computer for even more revolutionary idea spreading fun). BUT THAT'S NOT ALL. You can bolster your Librarian's strike force power by adding support from the likes of:
Jane Austen - "Nothing amuses me more than the easy manner with which everybody settles the abundance of those who have a great deal less than themselves." (Mansfield Park) Charles Dickens - "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery." (David Copperfield) Oscar Wilde - "Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and rebellion." (The Soul of Man under Socialism) Edgar Allen Poe - "It may well be doubted whether human ingenuity can construct an enigma...which human ingenuity may not, by proper application, resolve." (The Gold Bug) Sherlock Holmes - "...when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four) Albert Einstein - "Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly." (quoted in New York Times, March 13, 1940)
Mind you, McPhee also has a wonderful collection of other bits of this and that (including a personal favorite). It should also be no surprise that they have a wide selection of other, less threatening action figures. I know where all our holiday presents for everyone we know are coming from this year...
One last quotation for this morning, making clear why librarians (and, more broadly, the press) are far greater threats than we have been lead to believe:
Why should freedom of speech and freedom of the press be allowed? Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should a man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the government?
Vladimir Lenin may have been a bit off on the whole political thing, but he certainly knew where the threat to a government rests...
Labor Day Weekend with Rare Books....(and antiques)
We will be spending August 31 through Sept. 3rd at the Baltimore Convention Center at the Baltimore Summer Antique and Antiquarian Book Fair. There will be over 60 rare book dealers and over 500 antique dealers...the makings of a great weekend, one would think.
We will be bringing, in addition to our usual unusually nice stuff two wonderful collections of Baltimore-centric material: a great collection of unique and/or unusual John Waters material and a very broad collection of Tree Frog Productions material (Tree Frog was to Baltimore what Family Dog was to SF). We are really excited about the show and hope to see some of you there.
To that end, if anyone who reads this is going to be in the area, let me know and I will forward you a free pass to the event. More on the event to follow.
I love having new material. I love auctions. I love cataloguing. I am, however, too tired...urgh. The Baltimore show is coming up. I'm working hard to get an amazing amount of material catalogued (well) before the event. It is a happy tired...but a tired just the same. News pending...
One of the oft-repeated justifications for ABE's paternalistic usurpation of VISA/MC processing was that it would "improve the customer experience". My most recent experience of this improvement is indicative (and is the third such experience since the change. A client in the EU orders a book. The shipping is more than the matrix price (which it almost always is, as the cap for the matrix is lower than an insured air mail package costs in almost all cases). Under the new "we can process charges better than you" (unless, inexplicably, it is Discover or AmEx), I now have to submit a "change shipping price" request...this puts the order back on "hold" pending the client's approval. I sent the customer-to-be a quick note explaining this process (and apologizing) and started the change request process through ABE.
Here, my client was away from the computer for a couple of days, so the increase request was *automatically* rejected...giving me the ability to ship the book for the original, too low, price or rejecting the sale. I sent the customer a quick note asking if he wished the book to be shipped surface mail (which would fall within the matrix shipping, but is a brutally slow way to get things overseas). He responded promptly, apologizing for being delayed in response and stating that he very much wanted it shipped air mail and that the fee increase was no problem at all.
Except, of course, that asking for the increase again is not possible through ABE's "improved" system. My client has now had to cancel the original order...wait for the book to show up listed again, and order it again.....THEN go through the whole shipping fee increase process AGAIN. It would, of course, be easier to just have him cancel the order and process it directly...but I do not think that is fair or right (regardless of how ridiculous they are).
This would never have been an issue or problem where they not "helping" me by processing my VISA/MC charges (at over 3% more than my merchant account charges). I would have simply waited until I heard from the client and processed it...easy. Now there is gratuitous hoop-jumping and unnecessary annoyance (to both me and, more importantly, my client).
I absolutely support ABE's desire that all "booksellers" accept plastic. They are absolutely right to say that if you want to list books on their site, you must accept plastic and if you do not, they will accept it on your behalf and you will pay whatever usurious processing fee they deem appropriate. However, I am absolutely opposed to their forcing profession dealers/companies to abdicate control of their own back offices *and* pay a considerable premium for the privilege of this loss. Worse still, in my experience, it has done nothing to "improve" the customer experience and has, in several cases, made what should have been very simple transactions/changes unnecessarily complex and annoying.
I am confident that the float on the 2 week lag from charge to payout is pleasing the VC that have invested so heavily in ABE. I wish they cared as much about pleasing their dealers and customers.
Falling squarely into the "you don't believe it until you hold it in your hands" category, I offer the following gem: Ranger's Impartial List of the Ladies of Pleasure in Edinburgh, With a Preface by a Celebrated Wit (privately published, 1775). It was published anonymously, but is attributed to James Tytler (first person in Britain to go up in a hot air balloon and pharmacists/apothecary (he wrote a noted volume on Yellow Fever...oh, and was an editor for the second edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica). This work, however, was more of a labor of...er...love, to wit:
Miss Jenny Kilpatrick, at Miss Adams's This Lady is about 26 years of age, tall, black hair, aquiline nose, good teeth, and pretty good natured. She has great merit in her profession, and knows all the paces used in the race of Venus to a nicety. Cupid was early her instructor; and a very apt scholar she has turned out. She was at first frighted at the dart; but as she is now thoroughly acquainted with it, she will hug and kiss it, an put it nearest her heart, even in the very centre of nature.
Miss Shepherd, at Miss Adams's This Lady is about 20, middle sized, dark brown hair, pale complexion, and tolerable good-natured. Although she is but young, she is pretty much worn in the service, and is no novice at the game, as she generally gives large oblations at the Holy Shrine, and with the greatest devotion.
The volume includes a fold-out map of Edinburgh showing the locations of the 50ish Ladies included in the directory. The original is a very scarce wee tome, but a facsimile reproduction in 1978 and can be found here and there. The preface to the facsimile states, "It is widely believed that the author planned a follow-up publication dealing with the ladies of Glasgow but that he was so exhausted by the preparation of the book..."
The book itself ends with:
In a few Weeks will be published, An impartial list of all the private Ladies that pays sacrifices to Venus, such as th Milliners, Mantua-maker's, Servant Maids, and others who have not as yet graced this List; to which will be added, some very curious songs, and a few sentimental toasts. FINIS.
Sadly (perhaps), it appears this subsequent volume was not produced...or didn't survive.
A truly wonderfully horrid little tome. I think I am going to give them as gifts next holiday season.
My father is wonderful. He sends/gives me great things to read and, as he tends to read things in genres (i.e., medical history, etc.) that I do not generally dabble in, they are almost always "fresh" and...er...strange (the last being more about his humor and knowledge of my own leanings toward the dark). And so I find myself finishing: "Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle and the Case of Congenital Syphilis" (it can be found here or, if you lack access to MUSE, your local medical librarian). I do not recall *that* one in the Sherlockian cannon (N.B. the focus is on a non-holmesian story called, "The Third Generation).
I spent the Sunday after the Great Barrington show with a client in the area culling material from his archives. He is an artist and collector and the material is just an amazing cross section of '60s memorabilia. Original art from the golden age of National Lampoon (where he was one of the early artists), psychedelic music posters (many signed by Ashton Kelley and/or Stanley Mouse), an amazing collection of underground comics (first printings of Zap, Big Ass, Snatch...basically everything R. Crumb and company put to print).
None of this stuff would make me look twice, really, were I to see it in a shop...but to sit and handle it all...researching each piece and learning the background. The history and bits of backstory for various items is so rich and fun. It is sort of like taking a little brain candy vacation from the older, more "staid" material I tend to handle.
Best of all, several weeks before heading to what I hope will be a great four day show in Baltimore, MD, I left GB with a remarkable amount of exceptional Baltimore "stuff." My client lived there for several years, in and around the late 60's. He did many/most of the concert posters for Tree Frog Promotions (including their first, a Leon Russel, Elton John event). Art of Rock ignores the Baltimore music/art scene completely...to their loss. There is some great poster art. I look forward to bringing these items "back home."
He also did title work for Baltimore's favorite son, John Waters. The poster above is the World Premier poster for Pink Flamingos (black ink over pink cardstock)...several orders of magnitude more rare than the general release film posters. I have the "Sneak Preview" posters for Dangerous Living. There is original prop material from at least two of his films and a *stunning* set of photographs taken on the set of Flamingos (taken by unit photog, Lawrence Irvine).
As I have said before, I love cataloguing new material. I love doing the research. I love discovering the little bits of info one inevitably stumbles across. I love figuring out why and how something fits into the context of its time and place (did you know that Zap comics No. 0 was created before but printed *after* No. 1...because the contents were stolen from R. Crumb only to be returned later?). I know I'll be returning to the several boxes of fine press material I have to catalogue sometime next week...but I am having great fun with my wee cache of subversion.
