Final day of my two week(ish) journey...and more books

We started the day at the MARIAB Northampton Book. I arrived at just about 10 am and the place was pleasingly busy. There were a good number of dealers present...pretty much the same as past years...with some fresh blood stepping into a handful of empty slots.

I saw a handful of things I'd have liked to secure, but few things that really jumped out at me. this was, most likely, the result of too much buying in the days previous and possibly my lack of sleep. I did manage to see a number of the dealers I really look forward to seeing at this fair.

Lisa found a few interesting things. I caught up with Forest Proper and others and everyone seemed to be having a good time. I had a number of people ask why I was not doing this fair...I told them the truth: that I just can't bring myself to do fairs where I spend more time setting up my booth than the fair is open (my issue, not the fair's). On the other hand, I had a nice compliment in that one dealer told me that someone had asked if I was at the showl. As an added bonus, I had a quick nice chat with Thurston Moore (founder of Sonic Youth and, pleasingly, a collector).

We left the fair in mid-afternoon and ran a few errands and picked up a very quick bite to eat. The errands gave me a chance ot stop in at Raven Used books. Interesting shop...a lot of new material, very aggressively price.

We then headed over to Art Larson's wonderful Horton Tank Graphics. Three of the images are from Art's. The first

is an amazing type case...both for its overall size and condition, but also as it came with complete sets of early woodblock type.

Art showed us his various presses (one included tot he side). It is pretty wonderful to think that some of Leonard Baskin's greatest books came off these press.

We spent a bit of time talking about printing and coloring techniques and Art showed us some raw pigment used to create some of the wonderful colors that come off his presses. Show here are Azure and Malachite in raw form. Very cool. Art also gave us a tour of Wild Carrot Press (downstairs).

After that Lucretia and I went back to the house and regrouped for a few minutes (might have looked at a few

books. We joined Lisa for dinner at the Great

Wall (remember, White Menu for the Good Stuff).

We headed back to the house and settled in for the night. More books. This time, Lisa took me (us) on a whirlwind tour that touched bindings (publishers and fine), girl books, early books and just wonderful things in interesting stories. Lisa is everything I love in a passionate book lover--she can pull any book of the shelf (and there are 10s of thousands) and tell you what the book is, where she bought it and why it is special. It would be impossible to avoid becoming excited looking at books with her...even were they were not exceptional examples (or associations, etc). It is a simply remarkable collection in many different ways.

It is late and we have to be on the road reasonably early to get back to Portland. More to follow as I begin to be able to process this adventure...