It's Offical...we will be in SF in February.

Applications went out today for the 2009 ABAA San Fransisco Book Fair. I have already returned mine and am, officially, the third one to be received. WooHoo! We loved doing the SF fair last year and they share the same venue (though this one is, apparently, twice as big or so). I think my parents may head out with us, which will be very fun. Then again, being able to spend a week in SF in mid-February (not a great time in Maine) is quite a treat by itself.

On a related note, I have become convinced that having Acrobat Professional is entirely justified by its ability to take any .pdf document and automatically create an editable form from it...and then digitally sign it. The days of typewriters are pretty much gone (we do not have one in the house...so you really can only hand-write forms like this (a sad proposition when one's handwriting looks like mine does...). I just love being able to fill in these contracts, "sign" then and email them off. Slick. Slick. Slick.

Fall Show Schedule more or less set...

Below, please find where we will most likely be hiding out this Fall. Come visit. The usual offer re blueberry jam stands.

Baltimore Summer Antique and Antiquarian Book Show
Baltimore Conv. Center, Baltimore, MD - Aug. 28-31st

Maine Antiquarian Book and Paper Show
Wyndham Hotel, Portland, ME - Sept. 28th

Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair and Book Arts Show 2008
Seattle Center Exhibition Hall, Seattle, WA - Oct. 11-12th

West Side Antiquarian Book & Ephemera Fair
Altman Bldg., New York, NY - Oct. 17-18th

ABAA Boston Book Fair
Hynes Conv. Center, Boston, MA - Nov. 14-16st

The last will be our first ABAA fair. I've squirreled away some reasonably special things and I'm hoping for a special treat...more to follow if it comes to pass.

Hope to see you at one or more...

Sunday at the Armory and home....

We came back into the city on Sunday to spend the day at the Armory show and catch up with people (rather, some people...there really just isn't enough time in the day...). We managed to find a few other things for various clients and I managed to arrange for someone to pick up a Kelmscott on vellum from an auction house on Monday (as we would be back in Portland) and bring it to Boston for the show next weekend (thank you, Joe).

Bryan Bilby of Appledore Books and I had great fun (as always) talking about books and the business. I managed to buy a nice book from him and plan to pick up several more when I see him next (Boston?!?). Bryan is a great young dealer and has a gift for finding really wonderful books.

We stayed until the bitter end, took our new toys and began the journey home. We made our traditional stop at Rein's Deli for dinner...I had a very healthy First Cut Corned Beef Reuben Fresser...even with the lean, I could pretty much feel the artery in my chest harden as I ate it. Yum. Several cups of coffee later, we were back on the road. The drive was uneventful. We are listening to Heinlein's, Stranger in a Strange Land. It's the first time in years I've read (well, listened to) the book and it is Suzanne's first time...great fun.

Home by 11pm, unloaded the van. Twitched for a little bit. Crawled into bed and were lost to the world. It has been a very long week...exciting and great fun...but very, very long. Nice to be home...cataloging new finds and shipping things off.

Oh...yeah...and getting read to next weekend's MARIAB fair in Boston. I need to pack books. And prepare for the seminar I am supposed to give. I am going to bed. I may or may not get up in the morning.

First ABAA meeting and getting hit in a cab...

Saturday morning was the ABAA breakfast and annual meeting at The Morgan Library. I somehow managed to get my wires crossed as to the start time, as I thought the breakfast was at 8 and the meeting at 9...when it was 9 and 10. Luckily, I was not the only one to make this mistake...strangely comforting. They kindly let us in early and it was, in the end, just extra time to enjoy the Morgan and the exhibit in the hall we were eating in...not a bad thing.

Breakfast and the meeting were nice. I had a very nice chat with one of the curators there and was able to catch up with several people and meet several new (to me) dealers. There appears to be some consensus that the ABAA needs to focus on both young dealers and young collectors...two things I could not agree with more strongly. I look forward to see where this focus leads and hope I can be involved...we shall see.

Bob & Lynne Veatch kindly offered me a ride back to the Armory/Hunter College after the meeting. Little did I know it was to provide extra padding... We were having a nice, if stilted, chat...stilted as the cab ride was slightly more "exciting" than is typical. Every now and then you get a cabbie whose sense of place on the road (and that of other movable and immovable objects) seems slightly...er...off. We were chatting, but all the while trying to anticipate where the hit was going to come from so we could brace appropriate. As it turned out, it was from the right hand side as our cabbie chose to ignore the massive Muni bus that was clearly pulling out into the lane. He hit (ok, rubbed) us from about my door (passenger side) down the rear quarter panel. He waved out the window, I assume the bus driver waved back...and we all went on our merry way. Mind you, the three of us in the back were a bit taken aback. This is why Muni bus bumpers and cab panels are mostly made out of plastic...they rub, they slide, they don't actually crumple.

Apropos of nothing, it was a nice "full circle" event. When I did my very first "real" show, the Radison shadow show to the Boston ABAA event, Lynne Veatch came into my booth and spent a bit of time looking around and then gave me two very nice compliments. First, she told me that my booth and books were lovely and then she gave me a very serious look and said, "you will join the ABAA when you are eligible, won't you?" (or words to that effect). I told her that I was planning to do so as soon as I was able and she was pleased. Our wee run-in with the bus notwithstanding, it was very nice to ride back from my first ABAA meeting with the Veatchs,
four years later.

Set-up and ABAA Morgan Lib. Event

Well, one would think that setting up a single glass case would take almost no time at all. Then again, clearly "one" has never met me *sigh*. It did take a bit longer to get set up than we had hoped, though part of this was just the cleaning of the glass...by "cleaning", I am not only referring to a bit of glass cleaner to get the fingerprints off, but having to take a razor to the remains of duct tape on several of them...urgh.

We did add a small, 4 foot table...in part to hide my computer and printer, in part to give us a bit more space to display two very nice 1790 and 1792 French atlases. In the end, we were able to get everything looking as we wanted. The case is see-through, which is nice as I am able to display items in both directions...effectively doubling the usable space. We had a potential minor disaster when, during set up, one of the brackets holding a shelf failed (having been checked more than once by...well...me). Luckily, Natalie Bauman's quick reflexes saved the day and no harm was done to any of the handful of books on the shelf (or Natalie).

I have pictures to post, but the hotel apparently blocks FTP ports. Well thought out security structures are a good thing...the "let's block everything, that way we'll be safe" is really quite lame (and annoying). I'll update with images tomorrow, with luck.

I attended the ABAA Fair's preview evening benefiting the Morgan Library. The usual suspects were all out in force. There are some simply amazing items in NY this weekend. I picked up a nice Wyeth item from a Bryan Bibly of Appledore Books fame and have my eye on a few other things...we shall have to see how the weekend progresses.

Pretty big news for strange little me...

I just received official word that I was voted into the ABAA (and, thus, ILAB) at the meeting during the ABAA fair in LA. I am, needless to say, pretty excited and pleased by this.

I am in the midst of recovering from plague, and this news has made my day (admittedly, it also would have made my day were I well, but it is especially nice to get really good news when feeling punky). I think I am going to make a nice pot of tea and bask in (or wallow in, as the case may be) my warm, fuzzy feelings.

I would like to thank my sponsors: Priscilla Juvelis (primary), Dennis Melhouse and Jim Logan. I truly appreciate their support, encouragement and mentor-ship. It has meant (and will continue to mean) a great deal to me personally and professionally. I will do my best not to make them regret their support *laughing*.

Congradulations to the two other new members voted in at the LA meeting: John Kuenzig and Joseph Bray. Bully for us all!