Indignant Ruminations

Readers of the Blog,

It is both a privilege and a duty (the latter far less present to my mind than the former, of course) to take over this magnificent means of communication from my erstwhile, stalwart, and winsome co-worker, the one known to most simply as "Lydia", and to a few as "Lydia, supreme leader and benevolent bestower of order and organization."

I hope I don't screw it up.

See, while Lydia may appear to be kind, big-hearted, magnanimous, even-tempered and level-headed, it is a fact that she will not let mistakes go. Recently, she built an extremely minor error of mine into the very fabric of our store. My irresponsibility, immortalized. I quote from the updated edition of our employee manual (censored for security purposes): “The camera is kept in a ____ beside the ____ _____, along with its manual and installation CD (note – manual and installation CD were mislaid by Alan, possibly at home – keep reminding him to keep an eye out for them; but remember that you don’t actually need to have the camera program installed to retrieve the photos – the computer can take them off the camera automatically).”

Mislaid by Alan??!! What if they are found? Do I have permission to exonerate myself by altering the instructions? Should I still be stamped with the proverbial scarlet letter, for my malfeasance? What if they aren’t found? Am I doomed to receive phone calls from the mystified employees of O’Gara and Wilson fifty years hence, when CD’s don’t even exist, and the only discernable information in that sentence will relate to the fact that I committed an indiscretion? Why does it matter, since the manual and CD are, by the author’s very own admission, unnecessary?!!

Forgive me, I got carried away. It won’t happen again, I promise. As Lydia pointed out in her previous blog, the tone of my writing will be less Victorian, more thematic. Less chatty, more down to business. I shall have no truck with wordy digressions, lengthy meditations, and spurious fabrications. "Gentle readers?" she used to call you? Hah! You better toughen up, blog-reading softies, fed too long on the soft soup of Lydia's molly-coddling. More like "hardened readers," by the time I'm through with you. Nothing but straight-shooting information about the most ridiculous things that crop up in this store. No punches pulled, no absurdities omitted. Feverishly strange and morally objectionable objects will be our standard fare. Lydia will have no more mistakes to criticize, nothing to seize upon and commit to the computer’s ever-pulsing memory circuits.

Let's see what we've got this week. My lord! It's a story detailing what could happen to me or those miserable blog readers who can't hack it, here in the real world of ruff n' tuff blogging. Lemony Snicket cover your head in shame! Job, count your blessings. Ladies, gentleman, and all people stout of heart, this week's Collector's Item is: "The True and Affecting History of Henrietta Bellgrave, A Woman Born Only for Calamities, Being an Unhappy Daughter, Wrteched Wife, and Unfortunate Mother: Containing a Series of the Most Uncommon Adventures that ever Befel one Person by Sea and Land, Giving an Account of her Shipwreck; her falling into the Power of a Brutal Villian; and her Being Providentially Relieved by a Party of Indians; with her further Sufferings to the Time of her Death."

Indeed. For $600 you can own this unfortunate saga, bound in leather together with no less than 5 other similar chapbooks, each preceded by a hand-colored engraving. These are followed by a comedy in five acts, from the pen of Shakespearean opera-writer Frederick Reynolds, entitled "The Dramatist; or Stop Him Who Can." All date from the early 1800's and were published in London. There is nothing remotely like this volume available online. Don't pass it up, lest you feel like Henrietta some years down the line for having missed such a unique opportunity.

Ah yes... some of you may be calloused from watching television and playing violent video games. Perhaps poor Henrietta's travails do not curl your toes or stand your hair on end (while the price does more than its share of both). Well, I promised morally objectionable, and morally objectionable you’ll get. Maybe with the aid of this week's Affordable and Interesting item you'll be able to afford the chapbooks listed above. See, with only a little willingness to overlook ethical strictures, this book will pay for itself. Published in 1913, "How to Collect Money by Mail" is a mint condition copy of 327 Tested Plans, Petters and Schemes that Make the Mail Bring Money Due.

A mere $12.50 buys you the means to make millions upon millions. Well, not exactly. What this book will allow you to do, however, is act as an effective collection agent. If you have some vagabond friend who constantly fails to pay you back, or in the unlikely event you are actually an old-time collection agent who still operates by writing persuasive personal letters, chapters on "Rousing the Will to Pay" and "Handling Collections Through an Attorney" will certainly be useful, if not somewhat dated. We have all read it here at the store, so if anyone is tempted to pay with a bad check, think again. We'll get our money by hook or by crook (usually by crook, since our hook is rather large and unwieldy).

Whew. At this point you might be feeling tired, sapped, drained, winded, wearied, listless. So much reading, so much activity, it's all too much, just like it is at the end of your work-day. Most people nowadays can't handle high intensity exertion, physical or mental. No matter, that's nothing I wasn't able to solve for myself, with the aid of Bernarr MacFadden, author of this week's Favorite. In 1904 he did everyone the incredible favor of publishing his classic "Building of Vital Power." As he asks so eloquently in his Preface: "My friends, do you realize the meaning of VITAL POWER? Have you ever experienced that super-abundance of health which breeds an intense satisfaction with life and all living things? Have you ever felt the supreme joy of mere existence? The satisfaction of that makes you exclaim: 'There is indeed zest in life!' "

Chapters cover everything from "Vast Importance of Water" to "Erroneous Methods of Breathing," including a section on the "quiet breathing used by weaklings." Take note. Purity of essence and precious bodily fluids are all safe once you've internalized MacFadden's philosophy. All you need to do is externalize $15 in the presence of one our clerks, and the opportunity is yours.
Short and to the point, just like I said. It has been a pleasure, and I hope you will join us again here next week. Wonders and mysteries await. From O'Gara and Wilson, this is Alan, over and out. And everyone: three cheers for Lydia. She will be missed.

"Eggs must not quarrel with stones", dear readers.

Gentle readers, I have two meaty bits of news for you to set upon like terriers. The first bit is that the bookstore shall be closed from this coming Sunday, July 27, through Saturday August 9; we will reopen on the 10th, doubtless to cheers! During that time we will all be relaxing on the beach, and so should you be. (Obviously, there will be no blog entries written for the next two weeks.)

The second bit is that I will be scaling back my involvement in this wonderful bookshop, becoming something of a rarely visiting but tyrannical consultant-like figure as I get the rest of my life in order, and as a result I -- Lydia -- will no longer write most of our blog entries! I weep, dear readers, truly I weep. The hilarious Alan will replace me on a regular basis, so you can look forward to blog entries with less of a Victorian tone and more coherent themes.

No longer writing the blog! Dear readers, it is like an omen or a portent -- something like what's recorded in this Affordable and Interesting little tome:



In case you cannot read that Gothic lettering, the tagline of this book reads: "Strange and Terrible News of Ghosts, Apparitions, Monstrous Births, Showers of Wheat, Judgments of God, and other Prodigious and Fearful Happenings as told in Broadside Ballads of the Years 1624-1693". Now I knew that a "broadside" is a term referring to excitable poster-like sheets of paper, splashed about the town; what I did not know is that once upon a time, all broadsides recorded ballads, and were sold for a pittance by musicians. (You can see some images and such from old broadsides at the Bodleian Library's website: click here!) It would seem that this book chronicles a particular collection of broadside ballads (that of Anthony Wood, a medieval gentleman who essentially kept a scrapbook of the things), and that his collection particularly featured tales of strange and marvelous occurrences. For instance, one page has this woodcut:



... accompanied by a rather involved set of verses covering many lands, including:
In Anno sixteene hundred and eighteene,
A blazing Starre was o'er Bohemia seene,
Which for the space of seven and twenty dayes,
Within the sky most fearefully did blaze.
And in Hungaria (as 'tis understood,)
Water was Metamorphos'd into bloud.
In Brunswick-land (within an evening faire,)
Were seene two armies fighting in the aire.

Intrigued? Me too! $12.50, and who knows what you might discover of our supernatural past?!

Supernatural influences are pernicious and subtle. I think that some must have been at work in these Collector's Items:



You see, the Easton Press produces elegantly leather-bound books with gilt detailing and gilt edges; editions that will last a long time, and look nice to boot. In the past I have mostly seen books chronicling American presidents, or famous classic books, from the Easton Press. But it seems that some odd supernatural influence has caused them to branch out ... into things like "New Yorker" cartoons! (I see from their site that they are also selling the classy How to Be A Betty: Unleashing Your Inner Boop... what is the world coming to?) At any rate, here lie collections of "New Yorker" comics (as hilarious as ever) on the subjects of Doctors, Lawyers and Business -- $75.00 apiece. The gilt detailing on these particular Easton editions features the famous New Yorker monocle theme: gilted doctor with monocle, lawyer with monocle, and businessman with monocle. And if you get the Business one, you will gain one of the most legendary "New Yorker" cartoons ever:



I wish all my comic books were bound in elegant leather!

But my Favorite this week, and possibly for all time, is not comics or strange phenomena or leather; it's the entire incredible Asian Studies collection that we're getting in right now.



We've only just begun processing these books, and they are absolutely marvelous! We have had to dramatically expand our sections on Miscellaneous Asian Countries, China, Chinese Art, Japan, Japanese Art, India / Pakistan, Eastern Religion / Philosophy, and Middle East / Islam -- just to fit all the remarkable books that we're getting. And there's more to come! Our Asian Studies section will be completely incredible for some time, gentle readers, I assure you -- here you see a mere sampling of the material we worked with today. First we have some quite scholarly titles on subjects like Asian literature, psychological theories, education, and all manner of more specific subjects -- such as the above-pictured book on Japanese castles, which I might just kill for (or buy for $10.00). Then there's various kinds of art in translation; Three Tibetan Mystery Plays: As Performed in the Tibetan Monasteries is one of the most obscure and fascinating examples ($35.00):



And then there's some random items, such as this charming little collection of translated Chinese proverbs:



$12.50 gets you all of the following and more!:
* He who only comes from upstairs is a guest.
* Don't ask a guest if you may kill a fowl for him.
* He is truly a superior man who can watch a chess game in silence.
* Eggs must not quarrel with stones.
* A divided orange tastes just as good.

I am thinking that I may be unable to leave the store. I may simply sit in the Asian Studies area and read. For the rest of my life. You mark my words! My beard will grow long and my sight will dim before I can tear myself away from these books ... probably.

Thank you for being an appreciative audience, my dearest readers. I will return perhaps as a guest star, and see you all around!

My attempts at thematic titles are becoming ridiculous!

Living in Hyde Park, one hears a lot about the World's Columbian Exposition, which took place in 1893 right along Hyde Park's southern edge. I must confess that before I got here I knew practically nothing about it -- but being around this excellent bookstore has given me quite an education, in the form of all kinds of items from the Columbian Exposition! The event was a few months long and constituted a kind of enormous fair, which technically was intended to celebrate technology and progress, but occasionally ended up going off into strange little side-alleys ... for instance, there were exhibits of real science, and then there was an eleven-ton block of cheese. And carnival rides. It sounds like a spectacularly good time was had all round, and I'm sorry to have missed it!

I bring up the Columbian Exposition, gentle readers, because of this Affordable and Interesting item:



As near as we can figure, this is some kind of publicity material issued by a Wisconsin general store:



... but most of it isn't advertisement. It's mostly pictures of the buildings of the Columbian Exposition -- a little worn, but not at all astonished! * There was apparently a Machinery Hall, for instance, and a U.S. Government Building:



There was also apparently a casino -- goodness me! For $15.00 you get 17 pictures of the Exposition, and can sigh in nostalgia for what must have been the largest carnival man has ever known.

Perhaps you are more interested in antique viewpoints on Washington than Chicago. Now, I don't know why you would be -- gentle readers, I have adopted quantities of Chicago pride! -- but I suppose Washington has its charm. And if you're all about Washington, then this Collector's Item is for you:



This 1897 book is simply a series of "Views of the City of Washington" (apparently it is from a series known as Brentano's Views of American Cities). Each photograph is accompanied by explanatory text:



I suppose that many of the monuments I have spent time in while in Washington -- the JFK Memorial, for instance -- was after this book's time, and I had to remind myself what a very different city D.C. would have been so long ago. Another reminder of the time gap: the page for the Bureau of Printing and Engraving notes that newly-made banknotes are transported to the Treasury in "guarded wagons". Ah, how times change. I wonder if many of these buildings are no longer around? This $125.00 book is exceptionally rare; we haven't been able to locate any other copies for sale on the Internet. So I'm afraid that if you'd like to check on how many of these photos remain applicable, you'll have to come look at our copy -- and if you do, please educate me!

This blog entry seems to have a more antique theme than usual. This you can see in this week's Favorite items:



... which I selected from our section on India and Pakistan. We recently went through this smallish section, repricing all the older material. Here you see three of my favorite items from it. The first is a 1926 book on "Close-Up Views of India's Womanhood", by a Presbyterian missionary woman; it opens with a sweetly written portrait of a young Indian girl who wants nothing more than to learn to read (but cannot because of her repressive culture), and continues to discuss other Indian women's studies issues, like marriage. Considering that the dedication is to the missionary's husband, and says: "Having followed him half-way around the world to marry him, I have been following him in everything ever since; but he is worth the pursuing," I am unsure how well-qualified the author is to comment on female subjugation. For $20.00, you can form your own opinion! (Interestingly, this book is also inscribed by the author to Cyrus Hall McCormick and wife. Not that McCormick is very relevant to the matter at hand, but he did invent the mechanical reaper.)

The second book, also published in 1926, is pro-Indian independence: "I propose to prove in the following pages that British rule in India is inefficient in the matters that concern the Nation's life; that India is slowly wasting away and will inevitably perish, unless she regains her right to rule herself." India only gained independence from Britain in 1947 (click here for an interesting assortment of historical documents on the subject, from the British Library), and this $15.00 book makes an interesting portrait of pre-independence agitation on the subject. The third book is in German, so I have no idea what the text says, but it has some beautiful reproductions of Indian miniatures:



If you know German you should come translate it for me! (Or buy it for $20.00.)

In India it is hot. In Chicago it is also hot. I wonder if they go swimming in India? Because I think we should all do it in Chicago ... starting as soon as I go home today. Maybe I'll see you at the Point, gentle readers!

* This is a pun on a line from Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories. I thought maybe I should explain that.

Superman sock puppets in the Victorian era!

There are tiny, mysterious sections about the shop that are very easy to miss. I didn't even realize, for example, that we have sections on Etiquette and Horsemanship until a good five or six months after I first started working here. Another example is the tiny little subsection of drama on Puppetry! In a recent attempt at tabulating all the sections in the store, I found that Puppetry is (perhaps it has become) small enough that the books ought simply to be distributed into the general Drama section. But before we do that, gentle readers, I thought I'd show them to you as this week's Favorite.



The first thing I found in Puppetry was a book on mimes, which isn't quite relevant, but is interesting anyway. Written by a famous early 1900s mime, it contains a log of her attempts to teach her art ($15.00). The next was a circa 1940 book on masks and puppets -- a beautiful how-to, containing instructions on construction using everything from paper to socks to plaster to sticks and strings. It puts me in mind of adorable pranks I could play on everyone in the store ("I bet you didn't think your socks could do this!"); you could save my coworkers by taking this book away ($20.00)! Next we have Remo Bufano's own book on puppetry: apparently an acknowledged master of the craft, he shares all his puppetty secrets. You could know them for $25.00! Last comes a $15.00 book on marionettes, which has endpapers patterned with Indonesian shadow-puppets and many internal illustrations. It details Medieval, Italian, Spanish, Old English, and all manner of Oriental marionettes (from Burma to India to Turkey and back again!), and then talks about modern marionette artists and describes marionette scripts! (Punch and Judy are mentioned, of course.) As the author says in her opening Note, "One cannot write of marionettes without saying more than one had intended and less than one desired: there is a piquant persistency to them."

(All this reminds me of a filmmaker I simply must tell you all about, gentle readers! Kihachiro Kawamoto (click here) is a brilliant Japanese artist who has made many short films and one or two longer ones -- featuring only puppets. His work, though it might sound ridiculous, is painfully touching and exquisite and perfect and remarkable. It's very difficult to see his films because they are so obscure, but sometimes they're showed in obscure movie-showing places like the Gene Siskel Film Center. Please, gentle readers, for your own sake, see if you can watch a Kawamoto film sometime.)

Now that we've hit our obscurity quotient for the day (there aren't many subjects more random and obscure than puppetry!), we can safely move on to something incredibly famous. Take this week's Affordable and Interesting item:



It's hard to find someone or something more famous than Superman, is it not, gentle readers? Comic aficionados can tell you that there have been zillions of takes and retakes on that particular legend (and this site -- click here -- can answer any possible question you might come up with). This large-format item is in an attractive watercolor-esque style, stereotypically "classier" than the usual comic style, and with an unusual story: Superman decides to use his powers to fight -- not bad guys -- but world hunger! It's a strange kind of story, with really beautiful panels:



... and perhaps more shades of grey than an old-style Superman comic might have had. A must, I think, for any true Superman fan, and only $10.00!

Superman can pick up trains. That's the only possible segue I can come up with to this Collector's Item:



Today, I think nothing of traveling unattended by rail. In the late 1800s, it was quite a different matter! The four young ladies of this book's account were being a little daring by going, all alone, by train across ten thousand miles. They took all kinds of photos:



... and seem rather scandalously proud that they were unaccompanied by men. Indeed, the title page boasts first of all that this was "An Unattended Journey"! I had hoped that there would be some kind of exciting romance in the pages, but it appears that there isn't. (Perhaps that makes it better. After all, who needs a man to have a fun journey by rail? In fact, I guess it's rather refreshing that such a narrative would exhibit itself without too much evidence of the patriarchy.) At any rate, the whole makes an extraordinarily charming travel narrative, piquant with Victorian turns of phrase and bedecked with detailed description of each locale. Anyone who loves trains, Victoriana, and young ladies would surely be excited about the $150.00 book!

Perhaps I will make a sock puppet play about the four Victorian young ladies, and have them saved by Superman during a railway accident. Stay tuned, gentle readers -- I probably won't do it, but you wouldn't want to miss it if I do!

I must go back to the Madison again, to the lonely Madison and sky ....

I have had a busy week, gentle readers! Firstly, I ought to tell you all that we will be closed this Friday, July 4, for Independence Day. Secondly, I have heard of a most remarkable contrivance: the Book Bike (click here)! The website is scanty as of yet, but apparently the plan -- starting July 5 -- is for the Book Bike to travel the wilds of Chicago, passing out books willy-nilly. Charming! -- though I can but hope it doesn't put me out of a job.

What has kept me busiest, though, was a weekend trip to Madison, Wisconsin. During this trip I visited many lovely bookstores! Some, such as Browzer's Books, appear to have no Internet presence at all. Others, such as Paul's Books, can only be linked to by means of colorless Internet listings -- they don't have their own Web sites. But these were fine stores nonetheless. Browzer's, I recall, had a whole section on Circus; Paul's, like us, sells random prints and even its own postcards! There was also A Room of One's Own, a feminist bookstore. Alas, it stocks new material rather than used, but it featured many fascinating books plus hilarious pins and bumper stickers! (I purchased one that says, "Tact is for people who aren't witty enough to be sarcastic.") In the end, I think my favorite (a hard choice) was Avol's Books. It's not just enormous -- it even contains a whole nother bookstore within itself, BookWorks (specializing in rarer books and hardbacks)! Avol's itself has a great deal of various material, including enough science fiction and fantasy to keep me happily immersed for a while, and it also boasts some fine murals on several walls in back. I look forward to returning to Madison and looking through the rest of the city's bookstores, and I recommend a road trip for all of you, gentle readers! (Madison has stuff besides bookstores too, like lakes and gardens and beautiful architecture and cafes and ... stuff.)

One might think that what with all of the above, this week's entry would be nationalist -- or Madison-related -- or bike-related. It is wholly irrelevant to all three. But this week's Favorite may shed some light on American economic history:



This slender volume appears to be advertising material for the Research Institute of America, published in 1941. Said Research Institute seems to have been "a mere handful of business leaders in 1935, but a straight-thinking group of more than 20,000 today -- bankers, wholesalers, manufacturers, attorneys, accountants, retailers." Having "hired or developed a group of specialists who don't have a thing in the world to do except study the problems that you haven't either the time or facilities to study," the Institute is advertised as telling "its 20,000 members where to go, what to do, when to duck, when to fight and when to pull in their horns". Complete with fabulous 40s graphics ....

.

... the book goes on about the various terrible new laws and regulations that are hurting American businessmen, then assures the reader that these don't need to be problems: indeed, they can be advantages! It uses a lot of rhetoric like, "Many executives, when they face a labor problem, shut both eyes, see red, turn off whatever reasoning power God gave them, and come in swinging!" -- moving from there to descriptions of how confusing contemporary economics were, and how the Institute's exhaustive research had helped its members navigate tricky business waters. I confess that I know little of economics at all, let alone 1940s American economics, but this book's tone and graphics alone say something about American culture. It seems to me that this $25.00 item could be a real prize for just the right historical economist!

This Collector's Item is at least relevant to American history because it's by a landmark American author:



Mark Twain's "1601" (click here for history and e-text) was apparently written as a satire. It tells the story of a supposed fireside chat among Queen Elizabeth, Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the Duchess of Bilgewater; it's famously obscene, filled with naughty words and references to bodily functions. Mark Twain himself was well-known to be a foul-mouthed and bawdy fellow, rather amused when others claimed that history (or historical personages) from ages past might have been lily-white clean-minded folk. He had read a great deal of history and had some idea of how coarse discourse had been in ages past. So, in "1601", he was not only amusing himself by writing something naughty -- he fully intended to eloquently reproduce "a past time as he saw it in Shakespeare, Dekker, Jonson, and other writers of the Elizabethan era".

"1601" is not widely known, but the great Twain always has something to offer, and this Limited Edition was privately printed in handsome linen and sturdy paper for the Mark Twain Society of Chicago in 1939. (It's an out-of-series copy; 550 were officially printed.) This particular copy is of especial interest because it's inscribed by the editor, Franklin J. Meine, to fellow editor William A. Kittredge. It also still has Kittredge's bookplate in it, which was designed by the legendary Rockwell Kent:



Kent, Kittredge and Meine are of peripheral interest to the study of Twain himself. But this is the only available signed copy of this Limited Edition, and everyone loves Rockwell Kent! $250.00 seems a steal for such an obscure and wonderful item.

There's no way I can relate this Affordable and Interesting book to American history ... well, I guess I could try, but it just seems such a stretch.



Winner of the Caldecott Medal for children's illustration, this book has very little text. In fact, the only words are at the beginning: "Tuesday evening, around eight." Thence it tells an entire astonishing story solely by means of illustration!



The flying frogs are leavened only by occasional insertions of times, amusing incidents, and bystanders' expressions. For instance, at 11.21PM:



Not your usual children's book, this little piece struck me as unusual and made me laugh. Come look at it (or buy it for $8.50!) to see what happens to the flying frogs! I do hope this starts a trend in all-graphic children's books.

I must go back to the Madison again, to the lonely Madison and sky ... but though I had a great time there, gentle readers, I'm glad to be back. This is my favorite bookstore of all -- there's no bookstore like home!

Learn to fold cranes, magic items, maybe Václav Havel!

Sometimes our past blog entries return to haunt us! Long ago, I wrote about the Czech writer Ludvík Vaculík, briefly discussing his political writings and censorship. Because of this, the lady who sold us this week's Favorite thought me a Czech expert:



She said it was a campaign poster for the first Democratic president of the Czech Republic, then turned to me and said, "I've forgotten his name, but you'd know it, wouldn't you?" I must confess, gentle readers, that I was a bit floored! I did not get the chance to explain that I tend to simply research specific books that I find around the store and that seem intriguing, and only rarely have comprehensive or prior knowledge of the subjects I tell you all about here. So, hereby, I tell you this: I am, sadly, no real mine of information -- or at least, only a shallow one.

Still, in the end it did turn out that I'd heard of the fellow -- because the first Democratic president of the Czech Republic was a famous writer, Václav Havel! He was elected president of Czechoslovakia in 1989, resigned when the country broke up in 1992, and was then elected first president of the Czech Republic in 1993. For many years, he had been a political agitator, arrested many times for his subversive activities. In his essays, he excoriated both Western culture for being horrid and egotistical, and communism for being horrid and inhumane; in his earlier life, he wrote (mostly politically-themed) plays. (As a writer, this all makes me wonder if I could claw my way into the Presidency by means of science fiction. But that seems unlikely.) The item you see us offering here is one of Havel's campaign posters, for $25.00! I wish I could tell you what its slogan means, but I fear that I not only don't speak Czech, but can't seem to find an Internet translator than can figure out any of those words but "volit" ("vote"). Havel left office in 2003 and has spent all his time since then doing boring things like hosting symposia and winning peace prizes, so his campaign posters are a vanishing breed!

Another thing I know very little about is magic. But not to worry, gentle readers -- this week's Affordable and Interesting items will educate me!



For $2.00 apiece, we are distributing adorable 1960s-70s "magic" and prank items. With these, you could do all kinds of things ... like charmingly trick your friends with a false hot dog (how very Chicago)! Or confuse them with a tiny false-bottomed canister of "disappearing" beans! Or amuse your staid old aunt by spraying her with disappearing ink! (She'll love you for it, I promise.) This last says on the package that it's the "greatest laugh producer of this generation", and who am I to imply that packaging ever lies?



I will do my best to have a sense of humor if some wit squirts me with disappearing ink. Indeed, I will emulate the author of this week's Collector's Item, who clearly has humor to spare:



This 1928 book is awesome for all kinds of reasons. Firstly, it's about paper folding, for heaven's sake! Everyone loves paper folding! Learn such icons as the Frog, the Sunfish, or the Shirt-Waist, and then read the last chapter for an entire story that can be learned and recited with real-time paper-folding "illustrations"! I would be jumping up and down in excitement if I didn't have to sit at this keyboard.

Secondly, it has an amazing title page:



Thirdly, it is dedicated to "Lessner" (or maybe "Lerner"?) with an illustrated note by author William Murray. But the personalized touch to this book gets far better than that! Laid in are some miscellaneous antique news clippings, several 1929 letters and cards from Murray to a couple people ("Hewson" as well as "Lessner"). These letters have some of the most adorable hand-drawn illustrations I have ever seen:



They also feature incredibly cute stories, penned in Murray's rounded scrawl. Murray tells the tale, for instance, of some of the compliments he's received on his book -- excerpt: "A boy in Princeton wrote, 'I think your book is perfect' and sent me a paper glider. From California came a letter from a girl enclosing a number of things and saying, 'Thank you for the pleasant hours you have given us.' I liked that." He recalls a comment made by Frank Rigney, his illustrator -- "As each day folds up for you may it have proved to be the end of a day that unfolded for you greater opportunities for making yourself and others happier." The best part, however, is arguably the goat anecdote:

"One time when I was a little boy we lived in 123rd Street in New York. One night my father came home and told me and my brother that he had brought us a team of goats! So next day my grandfather took us to Riverdale, where the goats were, and we drove them from there to 123rd Street, while my poor old grandfather walked. And you can hardly imagine what happy boys we were! The only trouble was all the boys in our [illegible] wanted to borrow our goats. Once I came home from school and found that a boy had borrowed them. Then I was angrier than a boy ought to have been and came very near having a fight. It would look queer now, wouldn't it, to see boys riding around New York driving a couple of goats!"

There's nothing quite like good letters from authors, is there? I wish I could have known Mr. Murray! I've rarely been so tempted by one of our items as I am by this $80.00 book. It has it all -- awesome content, awesome format, and an awesome unique twist! This is what used and antiquarian bookstores are all about!

Well, I'd better stop before I shriek with enthusiasm and scare off the customers. Someday, if I make it as an author, I too will be able to tell goatlike anecdotes to my admiring fans! In the meantime, gentle readers, I will simply perhaps do some paper-folding. I've had the crane down pat for years -- if you'd like to learn it sometime, do stop by the shop!

P.S. Jill sends along this story:
Here's a little Czech humor for you. When president, Jimmy Carter decided to boycott the Olympics because they were being held in Moscow and he wanted to protest the Soviets' invasion of Afghanistan. So of course the following Olympics, held in the U.S., were boycotted by all the Soviet bloc countries in retaliation. One day while listening to the news, my dad heard that the Czechs had just announced that they would not be attending the Games. "Oh," he said, "canceled Czechs."

Astonishing news!

Gentle readers, I have news of a kind that has never before been announced on this store blog: we are hiring! The amount we can pay is shockingly low, and we are seeking only a part-time employee -- but if you are interested, then I encourage you to send us a resume. I can personally attest that this is one of the most wonderful jobs ever, and I'm not just saying that because Doug lets me ramble absurdly on this store blog every week. Apply swiftly if you wish to apply at all, for we are reviewing applications even as I write this.

Working here, I have learned rather a lot about collecting, for instance. Take this Collector's Item:



Previous to encountering it I had, of course, heard the phrase: "All quiet on the Western front." I had also heard many puns derived therefrom. But I didn't know much about the book itself -- for instance, that it was originally written in German! In 1929, this chronicle of World War 1 soldiers was a smash hit in Germany; it was swiftly translated into two dozen languages, and an Oscar-winning movie was out by 1930. The book describes the horrors of war and the deep alienation of soldiers returning home, and has apparently been held up as an incredibly moving anti-war classic ever since. Of course, anti-war sentiments are not appreciated by everyone, and the author's next book (The Road Back, which described German soldiers trying to cope with their postwar lives) was not only banned in Nazi Germany -- the author himself was stripped of German citizenship in 1938. All this makes this 1929 First American Edition a particularly strong antiwar (and antifascist) symbol, worth every penny of its $125.00.

Also in German: several of the books included in this week's Favorite.



Doug, who is ever on the lookout for strange and interesting sets (he likes to tell the story of the time he paired a antique red typewriter with a book about a magical antique red typewriter), has decided to present all these books together because they all came from the same place: an antique Pennsylvania Dutch trunk. The Pennsylvania Dutch, you see, are an American subculture composed of the descendants of pre-1800 German immigrants. Wikipedia claims that Pennsylvania Dutch ethnic consciousness is currently quite low, but that has not been my experience with the Pennsylvania Dutch I have met!

It has always seemed to me that there is a somewhat romanticized Pennsylvania Dutch image -- similar to the romanticized image of many American colonists -- and I just love picturing bonnetted women in homespun dresses sitting around, their bespectacled husbands smoking home-carved pipes, reading from some of these books. Again, we did find some German books in the 1800s collection from that trunk -- demonstrating that these American colonists took a while to abandon their mother tongue. We also found some antique English spelling and grammar guides, though, so clearly much effort was made to adapt. This is also demonstrated by some of the American citizenship primers, such as this 1851 book ("arranged for the use of schools") on American history:



Other books in the trunk included 1800s books on being a lawyer, plus lawyer form letters: perhaps the patriarch of the clan kept a law office? There are some books of music, bringing to mind the unbelievably charming picture of a sweet Pennsylvania Dutch family sitting around a fire and singing together, and then one or two books on random subjects (such as a little 1885 treatise on the usage and measures of logs and lumber). Although we are presenting these books together, they are individually priced starting at $20.00 (most are in the $30.00-$60.00 range, though some are more expensive). It is perhaps a mere fantasy that a Pennsylvania Dutch family might buy the whole collection and keep them together as a historical trove, but I like to think it could happen.

On a completely different note, have you ever wondered what the Arabs thought of Lawrence of Arabia? I hadn't either, until I saw this amazingly Affordable and Interesting tome!



I've never seen the 1962 film myself, but it's supposed to be very good. T. E. Lawrence himself (1888-1935) was famous, of course, for being a British-Arabian liaison. His life was overall incredibly romantic and adventurous -- beginning as an archaeologist of sorts and working around the River Euphrates, he was snapped up by his government during the First World War due to his local knowledge of Arabs. * From there he became an Arabian fact-finder, then the aforementioned liaison -- fighting with and for the Arabs to whom he represented England. After the end of the war, he tried desperately to represent the cause of independence for the region to the West, but to no avail; it was divided up among the Great War's winners. Later, he wrote some successful books, served in the English army, and died in a motorcycle accident.

So, what might the Arabs themselves (as hopefully well-represented by the author of this 1966 book) have thought of Lawrence? In the introduction, the author notes:

Examples of western exaggeration are to be found in General Allenby's claim that Lawrence was "the mainspring of the Arab movement", in Sir Basil Liddell Hart's statement that but for Lawrence "the Arab movement would have remained a collection of slight and passing incidents", and in Sir Ronald Storrs' description of Lawrence as "kingmaker". There were, of course, some Western writers ... who attempted to belittle Lawrence and reveal the rather unsavoury aspects of the Lawrence legend. But in the works of Lawrence's admirers and detractors alike one seeks in vain for a semblance of justice to the Arabs ....

Lawrence's resounding fame was viewed by the Arabs with a mixture of amazement and disbelief. This was because they understood the Revolt to be a purely Arab endeavour, carried out by Arabs to achieve Arab objectives [rather than something that was done to help British aims during the Great War]. ... Many Arabs ... view the Lawrence legend as a western fabrication. Some of them even consider that Lawrence was a spy or intelligence officer.

... [None of Lawrence's biographers] took the trouble to come to this part of the world and investigate the Arab viewpoint. On the other hand the Arabs themselves have not attempted to put forward their side of the argument. This in itself is further evidence that there is a gap that must be bridged.

Whew, now that was a long quotation!

One might fear that this $20.00 book would be nothing but excoriation of Lawrence, but it does not seem to be. Still, it's certainly not complimentary, and ends with an assessment of Lawrence as a "guilty" man who "knew that the greater part of his fame was based on fraud". Interestingly, there are comments by Lawrence's brother published at the end, which uphold T. E. Lawrence's good character and deny some of the author's claims of falsehood. I don't feel qualified to judge one side or the other of the matter -- but it seems to me a good thing that this book was published, and even better that Lawrence's brother was invited to comment on it.

I think I shall add "Lawrence of Arabia" to my movie-watching list, gentle readers! Of course, by the time I see it this book will no doubt be long gone to a happy customer (perhaps Jill, who says that in her youth she would indulge her own romantic fancies by dressing up and pretending to be T. E. Lawrence!). Them's the breaks of working in a used bookstore!

* By this, as near as I can tell, is meant the natives of the Turkish-ruled regions that are now Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, and the Hedjaz region of Saudi Arabia.