Wedding Reception

Here's a Flickr slideshow from Alice and I's recent wedding reception:



And in case (like me) you were running around like chicken sans head and missed most of the music, here's the playlist.

Thanks to everyone who showed up, helped out, and provided advice, cash and/or cupcakes. Was a great time.

UPDATE: That's thistle btw. I swear.

Charging for Yearbook Inquiries

Like many bookdealers I always pick up vintage yearbooks when I find them. These are generally good (if slow-selling) stock since the books were done in small print runs and there's rarely more than one or two copies listed online for any given volume. Also they're frequently purchased as gifts and people need them in a hurry (and don't blink at gift-level price).

Lately though I've been getting queries where it's clear I'm just being used as a genealogical researcher and the questioner has no intention of purchasing the yearbook. Questions on most books--even if they don't lead to a sale--are generally helpful because they reveal selling points on a title that you didn't notice and give you information to add to the description. With yearbooks though the information is generally only useful to the one person asking it, and answering the question can actually decrease the saleability or allow them to purchase the book elsewhere (perhaps from a less helpful seller).

Anyway the fifth or sixth time I had to haul an eighty-pound bin out of storage to check if someone's great Auntie was in chess club only for a "Thanks for your help!" was a bridge too far. So after much deliberation I've decided to start charging for yearbook queries and scan requests.

The charge would be $10 for an inquiry $20 for a scan, and would count towards the purchase price of the book (or perhaps any book in stock).

I don't like doing this but it will hopefully cut out all but the serious/motivated inquiries and make my unsold yearbook stock into a small income generator.

What do other booksellers think? Love to hear your thoughts.

Surreal + Erotic Marionettes (NWS)

Like Hans Bellmer and George Grosz drawings come to life! Not sure if these are technically marionettes, automata, or both. Damn cool though

Los Grumildos are automated puppets, miniature beings that skulk about a world somewhere between Victorian dollhouse and red light district. The brainchildren of Peruvian artist Ety Fefer.... this voyeuristic experience was inspired by the characters that inhabit the shady areas of downtown Lima, Peru. Fefer creates a kind of magical world that serves as a home for these marginal creatures that tend to be rejected and despised by society. The hyperrealist details of each plasticine puppet bring out their most intimate feelings, but the narrative is left to the viewers.

This was in New York at the beginning of August. Can't believe I missed it. That's what I get for letting my RSS reader grow wild.

(link via Daily Burlesque)

Model/Actress in Afrikaans photo-novels

A reader recently left a link and comment--on one of most unexpectedly popular posts: Die Swart Luiperd--about her experience working as a model and actress in the Afrikaans photo-novels.

Dianne (above, right) was featured in the "Tessa" books (among others) about a bikini clad...spy? PI? enforcer? These bikini-babe titles (particularly the Tessa books) were derogatorily referred to as "Poes Boekies" (which translates exactly as you'd guess) by the readers.

She gives this account of a typical shoot:

Most of the filming was done at Republican Press in Mobeni, Durban. They had a separate section which was used for photo stories and they had various "sets" arranged. We had a jail, operating theatre, doctors office etc.

On the whole, it only took a morning to shoot the entire book. We used to get there by 08h30 and were finished between 12h00 and 14h00 depending on your part in the book. [We would] bring 3 day outfits, 1 evening outfit and a bikini [and] all of us were quite adept at changing in the back of the Combi!.... It was a good laugh to go through the books when they were published and see all the mistakes that were made!

Visit Dianne's page. She also mentions an intriguing sounding documentary entitled "The Glow of White Women":

which looks at white women in the Dark Continent and focuses on the forbidden sexual desires of blacks and whites under Apartheid.... The film is put together using images from vintage magazines, the covers of pulp novels, anatomical drawings and family photographs, as well as archive news footage, South African tourism promotional films and commercials for skin whitening creams.

I'd be curious to see this if anyone can point me at a torrent.

Thanks for the info and pics Dianne!

Eaton Awful Food Jigsaw Puzzles

I was going through my game closet the other day--trying to make some room--and I pulled out my collection of Eaton puzzles. I hadn't looked at these in a while so I thought I'd share.

I found my first Eaton at a yard sale ("Good Morning!"). This was a jigsaw puzzle featuring fantastically bad photography of dangerously unrefrigerated food so, of course, I bought it immediately.

Putting it together I asked myself questions like "Is this part of the gristle near to that gluey milk puddle?" or "Should I sort out all of the mushy cereal pieces and work on those first?". I have a fairly weak stomach so this was a race between my gag reflex and compulsion to finish.

After "Good Morning!" I was hooked and tracked down 9-10 more on eBay (6 of which were classics).

There's "ethnic" food via 1980s mall food court ("Oriental Chow", "Chili Today-Hot Tamale!"), quaintly obscene melted pastel confections ("Oh Fudge!"), venereal potatoes ("Stuffed Spuds"), and train wrecks of meat ("Deli Fare").


("Deli Fair" even features a handy diagram on the reverse so you can tell that the block of...what looks like the stuff they cleaned out of the wood-chipper at the end of Fargo, is actually head cheese.)

Last night Alice and I sat down with "Oh Fudge!". We choose to do it with dinner for some reason and as always it was Eatonic. I was reminded that these are actually really well-crafted puzzles, lots of texture and color variety, thick board stock, and bizarrely-shaped pieces that break up the standard grid layout.

Anyway they're great fall weather fun and (now that I have all I want) any jigsaw and/or kitsch fans out there should track them down.

Artists with Issues

Richard Blade: Undying World #8 (Pinnacle Heroic Fantasy Series) 1973 AUTHOR: Jeffrey Lord ARTIST: Tony Destefano, originally uploaded by Hang Fire Books.

Numerous new items in the Pulp Fiction Cover Gallery, including this gem in the "Ugly and Bizarre" category labeled with my newly minted "Artists With Issues" tag.

New Favorite Thing

Headed to the Upper East Side yesterday to pick up my Craigslist-find Paradigm surround speakers (which rock BTW), and stopped by a thrift store that I haven't visited in a while.

Last time there I saw a great vintage wooden toy but since it was pricey--and I wasn't sure I could eBay it for more than the sticker--I let it go. In the succeeding months though I couldn't forget the thing, so I took a long shot that it might still be there.

Went in. Looked around. Didn't see it. Deflated.

I noticed the same volunteer clerk from previous and asked her about the toy. She lit up, recognized me instantly and was overjoyed that I came back since the manager wanted her to throw it away. She knew how great it was though and just stashed it in the bottom of a stuffed animal bin.

Heart-warming, no? I even got a discount.

Here it is:



A child-size rotary-phone from the Brio Company in Sweden, founded in 1884 and still active today (in fact our friend's kid has a Brio toy crane that he has to fight me for whenever we visit). It's about 3 1/2" tall, 4" wide. I can't find date information but judging by the typography on the Brio label, I'd guess mid-60s. It has a nice weight, makes a satisfying light clunking sound when you replace the receiver, and the rotary dial is spring-loaded and returns to the start position when released.

Anyway I'm keeping it. I tried using a rotary phone a few years ago and it was exhausting. We were a hardier breed back then.

I love the idea of a toy representing something that has evolved into a new form. It's original purpose was to familiarize a child with adult tools, but now it would just be mystifying. Maybe when kids visit they can pretend they're in Madmen or something.

Newish Blogs

In my extended period of summer blogging interia I found some new resources that having been awaiting a plug.

Here's two newish projects from Jim Linderman, author of Take me to the Water: Immersion Baptism in Vintage Music and Photography 1890-1950 (blogging at Dull Tool, Dim Bulb):

1. A blog supporting his up-coming book on the lost art of hand-painted photographic backgrounds The Painted Backdrop--still under construction but already featuring some tantalizing imagery like this:


2. Camera Club Girls: The Work of Rudolph Rossi (tame but probably NWS). Jim's description:

"The extraordinary hand-painted photographs of Rudolph Rossi. Rossi was an informal member of the New York City Concorde Camera Club in the repressive 1950's. For a ten dollar fee, he photographed Bettie Page and a plethora of interracial models, then later meticulously hand-painted the photographs creating the illusion of color photography. An exceptional body of work by a previously unknown and unrecognized photographer and erotic artist from a time when such activity was taboo."

Both are worth a look and I'll add them to the side-bar in the appropriate categories.

Paper Sculpture Sex Education

Going through a recent large book acquisition I came upon How Babies Are Made by Andrew C. Andry published by Time Life Books, 1968; on the exterior a rather dated and pastel birds 'n bees primer. But opening it up, I found it was illustrated with quirky paper sculptures of chickens mounting each other, puppies coming down paper birth canals, and paper people sharing "personal and special" moments.

The sculptures--created by Blake Hampton for whom I can find only one other illustration credit (The Cookie Tree)--are well executed and charming and I love the idea of a professional illustrator spending days carefully cutting out delicate paper sperm and curling umbilical cords.

A Visit to old HP

Over the summer we paid a visit to the new brother-in-law in Providence, RI and I made him take us to se H. P. Lovecraft's grave.

As a pilgrimage, it didn't disappoint. The cemetery walls and entrance were made of huge, sharp roughly hewn stones (sorry, no picture) which would not have seemed out of place in the sunken city of the Old Ones. Lovecraft's grave (evidently purchased by fans and not precisely marking the place of his interment) was decorated with a mysterious key, notes and tokens like some Goth Jim Morrison.


Wandering down some stone steps on the eastern side of the cemetery you come to the shore of of the Seekonk River which is close enough to the ocean that salt water backs up into the bay and leaves behind ancient and unspeakable things like this:


As a capper--on leaving the cemetery--a ground's keeper pulled up next to us and asked us if a backpack and sneakers she found on the trail belonged to us. We said no and that we'd seen no sign of other visitors. She solemnly rolled up the window and drove away, undoubtedly to leave these sad relics as an offering to Nyarlathotep for the appeasement of the blind idiot god Azathoth.

Photos link to a Flickr gallery with a few more images.

Summer Book Report

Back from my holiday and slowly dipping my toe in the internet. I made a great vacation discovery this year that if I swam for 30-minutes (which is a hell of a lot longer that I imagined), I could eat what I wanted, stick to my diet, and remain completely immobile otherwise.

I had Alice time me and found that the lake's island was about 15-minutes away, so every day I would swim out, gasp for breath while watching moose and loons, then swim back, flop in the hammock and knock out a book.

Very efficient.

Here are my 2-minute book reports:

Hoodtown by Christa Faust. I was instantly hooked by the concept of "Lucha Libre Noir" (masked Mexican wrestlers) but expected a gimmicky read. I was delighted to find the book solid and well-thought out, presenting a surreal but believable ethnic community descended from the first generation of luchadores (of which "El Santo" is a literal Saint). The masks are treated like burkas with the wearers faces never fully exposed. A series of dressing, sleeping, and washing hoods are described as well as civil institutions (hospitals, police stations, barber shops, etc.) that either cater to the masks or discriminate against them. We follow "X"--a 40ish female wrestler whose career was ended early by a traumatic event--through this world as she investigates the grisly murders of masked working girls. Highly recommended.

The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley. Another title that every bookdealer must read per the Bibliophile Compact. I found it twee and painfully dated. Especially annoying was that while the book is set in Park Slope, Brooklyn (my old neighborhood) there's almost no actual Brooklyn detail and all the streets are named after British authors. Well at least I'm one book closer to compliance.

The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke. A beautifully bound hardcover for which I came up with the contrivance of storing it in a ziplock bag with a silica packet (to stop it getting all wobbly in the humidity). Three of the stories ("Mr. Simonelli..."; "Tom Brightwind..."; "Antickes and Frets") were strong and memorable, the rest were Faery overload.

Born to Explore by Richard Wiese. Great survival and camping ideas. I'm dying to cook "bacon and eggs in a paper bag" and I think I might make people Altoid tin survival kits for Christmas.

Cry of the Owl by Patricia Highsmith. Novel of loneliness and voyeurism in which a peeping tom ends up being the most well-adjusted character. Like all Highsmith, this is not a comfortable read but she turns the screws perfectly and I would place it just behind Found in the Street of her non-Ripley novels (that I've read anyway).

Adventures in Unhistory by Avram Davidson. "Conjectures on the Factual Foundations of Several Ancient Legends". Erudite, convincing and hilarious essays on the evolution and truthful core of mythological (and semi-mythological) figures like the Phoenix, Prester John, Mermaids and Aleister Crowley. Davidson is one of my favorite short fiction writers so I savored this one over the whole vacation. You'll probably find yourself reading huge passages of this to anyone near you. I would have, but people were avoiding the hammock by this point and I wasn't getting up.

The Lizard in the Cup by Peter Dickinson. Another Pibble mystery with a beautifully imagined, eccentric setting and (mostly) well-painted characters. This one takes place on a Greek Isle which is home to an order of monks founded around a man-bird saint. The other characters are equally peculiar. Pibble (as usual) feels like a blank slate, the mystery plot is unsatisfying and Dickinson recycles a character type (the drop dead sexy, multi-racial, political revolutionary) that I've seen in at least one other of his books (not sure if it was earlier or later). A decent read but not a great intro to the author.

Confessions of a Yakuza by Junichi Saga. The oral memoir of one of the last traditional Japanese gangsters and the book from which Bob Dylan lifted several lines for "Love and Theft". A huge swath of Japanese history told in a fascinating underworld voice. The gangster sees his profession as rather noble (or at least ruled by an honorable code) but you can tell this is an old man's softened/selective memories because (among other things likely) he never mentions the tattoos that cover his body and would have taken weeks to apply.

The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh. A mystery novel that you'd think was written for me. An auctioneer is given the chance of a lifetime to sell a stunning estate and discovers a secret room filled with rare erotic books and evidence that the deceased owner may have violated one too many taboos. Great detail of the Edinburgh porn and drug underworld and worth a read if you're in the trade (ummm...the book and antique trade). One thing that annoyed the crap out of me though is that when the main character discovers an ominous photo after an hour of looking through the deceased's papers, he runs all over Scotland trying to verify it rather than just looking through the rest of the papers, which certainly would have been the character's (and my) first instinct.

Alright those took much longer than 2-minutes. I'm off.

I feel like I should be swimming now but I'm once again surrounded by asphalt. Sigh.