COULDN'T GET ARRESTED (DEVELOPMENT)

I had lunch with Sammy yesterday and then we watched the first episode of Arrested Development on Netflix.

There were a few chuckles and one moment of outright hilarity but we didn't exactly dive right into the next one. I'm not saying we were disappointed, but after such a long hiatus I think we both expected non-stop comic gold. 

When I got home, I watched three more installments and began putting all the pieces together. 

That's when the real laughter started.

I couldn't be happier Arrested Development is back, but don't expect too much from the first thirty minutes. 

It's entertaining, of course, but you need to wade further into the material before you can fully appreciate the complex storyline.  The jokes are there and a lot of them are brilliant, but everything is so densely layered that the payoffs aren't always immediate. Stick with it.  

Creator Mitch Hurwitz advised viewers to take the new episodes slowly and not binge watch all 15 shows. On the other hand, binge watching is the only way to comprehend what's going on. 

I've finished seven episodes and once I'm done with the whole series I'll probably go back and start the process all over again, see things I missed the first time, laugh some more. 

Isn't that what we've all been doing since the show went off the air?

WHOOPS-A-DAISY

I don't ever remember wanting a gun. I'd much rather wound someone with sarcasm or a pillow case filled with oranges.

There was one summer, the summer before senior year in high school, where I read Helter Skelter and listened obsessively to The Beatles (you know, The White Album). 

I wanted to know if hearing those songs ("Blackbird," "Piggies," "Helter Skelter," "Revolution 1," etc.) could really turn someone into a crazy killer.  

By the middle of July, I was convinced the music was harmless enough.

Daisy B B Gun ad (Daisy Manufacturing Company, 1963)

Remember that episode of The Brady Bunch where we all learned "not to play ball in the house?" In this family, not only could you play ball, you could fire your Daisy Model 1894 (a steal at $12.98) at a canvas backdrop. 

I'm just a no-nothing city slicker, but is it a good idea to have your gun pointed at your chest like that, even when Dad's around?  

This Christmas. . . It's a Daisy (Daisy Manufacturing Company, 1964)

Holy shit!

Aren't these beauties? Picking the one you'd like most for Christmas will be hard, but after you've decided, check the box next to your favorite. Then, tear out the page, and prop it against Dad's coffee cup before he comes down for breakfast. He'll get the idea.

Almost every boy's Dad can remember the thrill of opening a long, slim box Christmas morning and finding a DAISY inside!

Whenever I opened a long, slim box at Hannukah, it was always a stupid necktie. It was never a Daisy rifle with side-loading port, slim-line barrel, 40-shot lever action repeater, Buckhorn rear, and ramp-type front sights.

And my grades were perfect.

Daisy B B Gun ad (Daisy Manufacturing Company, 1966)

Is the dad in this advertisement supposed to be Fred MacMurray?

Also: did the copywriter who wrote "cocks like the real gun with smooth slide action" have a sense of humor? Was it the same wiseguy who encouraged B B gun fun indoors? 

Kudos to the U.S. Jaycees for including boys and girls, age 7-14, in the International B B Gun Championship. 

If I was a girl and my stupid brother was allowed to fire his Model 99 Target Special in the house, I'd complain until I was allowed the same privilege.

TAKING MR. CULTURE BY THE HORNS

I always thought these guys were a lot of fun.

Songs For Children by The Coctails (Hi-Ball Records EPR-4184)

ON DRINKING WELL

Crosby Gaige's Cocktail Guide and Ladies' Companion (M. Barrows, 1944)

I love old cookbooks and cocktail guides and it has everything to do with my appreciation of popular culture and very little to do with following instructions. 

I like entertaining and cooking for my friends, but God forbid you should ever enjoy dinner at my house. I can't tell you how I did it and I'll never duplicate the results. 

We live in the moment in my kitchen and at my dinner table.  Always in the moment.

I recognized most of the cocktails in this guide, but Gaige includes lesser-known delights like The Furbelow (Dark Curacao, Orange Juice, Brandy, Gin), Mrs. Solomon Wears Slacks (Brandy, Curacao, and Angostura Bitters), and Up in Mabel's Room (Rye Whiskey, Grapefruit Juice, Honey).

Gaige also provides a few choice snack recipes.  Many of them rely heavily on anchovy paste, Worcestershire sauce, and cheese, but here are two that don't:

There is nothing more refreshing than thin slices of small tomatoes and cucumber on rounds of bread buttered with mayonnaise. Garnish with chopped parsley.

* * * * *

You can't beat hearts of celery stuffed with caviar and dusted with hard-boiled egg that has been put through a ricer.

Not to be missed.

BE SMART - LIKE SAFETY SAM!





Dopey Dan and Safety Sam (Wrigley's Juicy Fruit Gum ad, 1956)



JUST LIKE SISTER RAY SAID

The other day, while browsing through the dollar bins, I saw a kid hold up a Velvet Underground record to his friend, and the friend said, "I've always been a little skeptical of The Velvet Underground." 

The other kid nodded, and stuck the record back where he found it.

Look, I'm as brash and opinionated as any asshole flipping through the dollar bins, but is it my responsibility to stick my nose in somebody else's musical education?  

Nope. 

I myself have a long and shameful history of completely dismissing things out of hand. I don't like camping, I'm wary of vegans, and someday I will get around to watching every episode of Deadwood. 

The only responsibility I have in a record store is to volunteer correct information if, and only if, the customer stumps the employee with a question. The same is true in bookstores. 

On matters of taste, I'm as neutral as Switzerland. 

If Sara or Sam asked me about Lou Reed or The Velvet Underground, I'd make an effort. I'd pull out the vinyl, make some suggestions, burn a cd of essential tracks. I wouldn't start with a 40-minute version of "Sister Ray" either. I'd begin with my personal favorites, acknowledge the band's place in music history, and leave the rest to them.

Like it, don't like it, I don't care. Confirm or deny that electricity comes from other planets. But c'mon, it's the 21st century. Almost everything is readily available and begging to be assessed. Like this, follow that.

There's no reason to be skeptical or ignorant of anything.

The Velvet Underground (Macfadden Books, 1963) and The Velvet Underground Revisited (Macfadden, 1968)

GOREY GOREY HALLELUJAH

The American Transcendentalists (Anchor Books, 1957) and Hamlet and Oedipus (Anchor Books,  1954)

Gogol's Tales of Good and Evil (Doubleday Anchor, 1957) and Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata (Vintage Books, 1957)

WITH MALICK TOWARD NONE

I watched Badlands (Malick, 1973) again recently.

It's loosely based on the Charles Starkweather-Caril Ann Fugate crime spree from 1958 and like all Terrence Malick films, the natural landscape plays a significant supporting role.  

Holly (Sissy Spacek) is fifteen and lives alone with her father.  Her boyfriend Kit (Martin Sheen)is ten years older. He's from the wrong side of the tracks, but he's dreamy like James Dean.  He's also hot-tempered, impulsive, and carries a gun in his ass pocket.

When Holly's father finds out about the relationship, he kills Holly's dog. Kit shows up and shoots Holly's father, then burns their house down. The pair go on a multi-state murder spree before the authorities apprehend them.

Each time Martin Sheen's mug filled the screen, I thought he's just like a healthy version of Charlie Sheen. 

There's a point, very late in the movie, where Holly gives up.  A police helicopter is closing in and she can't go on running. 

Kit throws a tantrum. He stomps around, kicking up dirt.  "What is the matter with you, huh?" 

If I ever run into Nicolas Cage, I'm going to ask him about that moment. I feel like he might have based his whole career on it.

This is my favorite shot from the movie:

MIDDLE OF THE ROW

I can't remember the last movie I saw in the theater.  

I went to Capriotti's with Sammy on Sunday and we each had a Capistrami sandwich. Chips, drinks, the whole bit. Then we bought tickets for Star Trek Into Darkness. 

Sammy doesn't like 3D, so we didn't even attempt it. He bought me a large drink and some popcorn and we sat in the dark and talked. 

The movie is a bit of a Khan job, but we were both entertained. It's  J. J. Abrams, which means wall-to-wall action and non-stop lens flares. 

The best thing about the reboot is that it's basically Star Trek turned on its head.  The fans know everything that went before, so rather than deliver a slick, pumped up retread, Abrams and the writers have done something fun with their alternative timeline by reversing roles and rejiggering the basic plot. It's Star Trek gone all timey-wimey.  

Sammy hasn't seen any episodes from the original series, but he knows  William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy and he picked right up on Khan's blood and the tribble. 

When I got home, I flipped through the records and pulled out my copy of Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy.  It's comedy gold, from "Highly Illogical" on the Spock Side to "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" on the Nimoy side.

Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy by Leonard Nimoy (Dot DLP 25835)

FROM THE DOLLAR BIN

Somewhere by P. J. Proby (Liberty LST-7406)

Tab Hunter by Tab Hunter (Warner Bros. Records  1221)

James Mason Reads  The Imp of the Perverse Shadow & Lionizing by Edgar Allen (sic) Poe (LA 30006)

Kinda Kinks by The Kinks (Reprise 6173)

The Proby was a very pleasant surprise, particularly his take on "Que Sera Sera." 

I'm a sucker for celebrity albums, so the Tab Hunter was a no-brainer. It's certainly not great, but it's fairly inoffensive. Good browsing music, I suppose. It's the kind of thing you could throw on in a bookstore on a Sunday afternoon and someone will ask you who it is and then scratch their head the moment you tell them.   

I didn't have any spoken word albums from Lively Arts a couple of weeks ago and now I have three. I like the art direction on all three albums, so I'll forgive the mangling of Poe's middle name.

I really love "Nothin' In The World Can Stop Me Worryin' 'Bout That Girl" but I bought this copy of Kinda Kinks for the back cover, which I've never seen before. 

I guess I'm lucky Ray Davies doesn't like drawing straight lines. 

FRESH BRADBERRIES

The Golden Apples of the Sun (Bantam, 1961)

I grew up in a house with a library.

Big, built-in shelves, floor to ceiling, lined with books. There were cabinets, too.  One cabinet held my father's advertising magazines (Print, Graphis, etc.) and another cabinet held a bowling trophy and stacks of Playboy. 

It was the third cabinet, the one in the middle, that held the paperback books.  My father liked science fiction, so it was loaded with Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, and Heinlein. 

I wanted to be like my father but also not like my father.  I was never that into science fiction, but I loved The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits and I tried to find the writers who inspired those shows. 

My father didn't have any Charles Beaumont or Richard Matheson, but I found those books later, on my own. He had Fredric Brown, which was a big deal to me, and he had Ray Bradbury.  

Fahrenheit 451 (Ballantine, 1967)

This Bantam edition of The Golden Apples of the Sun promises "stories of weird, beautiful and wonderfully improbable people, places, and things" and it delivers the goods.

More than thirty years later, I still remember the off-his-rocker murderer from "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl," frantically trying to cover his tracks by polishing everything in his victim's house, mostly things he couldn't possibly have left fingerprints on. I remember the poor sap in "A Sound of Thunder" who pays big money to hunt dinosaurs with a time machine and the unforeseen results of stepping off the path and killing a butterfly.  Zoinks!  I remember the simple illustrations by Joe Mugnaini.  

Even as a kid, I knew that among the science fiction writers of that era, Bradbury was a kind of poet.

This movie tie-in edition of Fahrenheit 451 from Ballantine reminds me how disappointed I was when I first saw Truffaut's film adaptation (1966). How old was I when I watched it on television? Twelve? Thirteen?

I knew something about film history, but French cinema was still very much a mystery. I didn't know from Truffaut or Julie Christie or Oskar Werner, didn't know that I would come to appreciate all three of them over time.

Is the film flawed?  Of course it is. Still, I like Bernard Herrmann's score and Nicolas Roeg's camerawork, two aspects that were surely lost on me at the time.

THREE KINDS OF HUNGER

I had a bookstore job in college, and because I was shy and lived on campus it took a few months before the bookstore employees became my family. It was also well into the second semester before I learned you could eat all you wanted at the dorm cafeteria, so I lost a considerable amount of weight between August and December.

It was during one of those quiet weekends, just me and a box of Wheat Thins, that I first encountered Knut Hamsun's Hunger (1890).

Someone at work recommended the book, and I read it all in one dizzying weekend.  Was it the right translation?  No. I had the Robert Bly edition, with the forward by Isaac Bashevis Singer. I picked up the George Egerton copy years later, but I've never sat down and compared the texts. The Bly translation may not be faithful to the original Norwegian, but the story, about a starving writer, left a real and lasting impact.  

What I knew at the time was that Hamsun won the Nobel Prize in 1920 for Growth of the Soil. What I learned later was that he sided with Germany in both world wars, and sent Goebbels his Nobel medal in 1943. 

Awkward! 

Flash forward a few years.  I'm married, and my wife's younger brother is visiting.  He's about to spend most of the next two decades in the clink, but none of us know that yet.  He sees my copy of Hunger on the bookshelf and pulls it out to take a look.

"This was a trippy movie," he said, nodding his head in appreciation. "Is the book any good?"  

The movie he was referring to, of course, was Tony Scott's The Hunger (1983). Miriam Blaylock (Catherine Deneuve) dabbles in Renaissance art, Egyptian pendants, priceless antiques, and various sex partners. 

Yeah, that's right. She's a vampire. Miriam can't figure out why her husband John (David Bowie) suddenly ages two hundred years overnight. What's Miriam supposed to do, other than hit on Sarah Roberts (Susan Sarandon), a sleep researcher who may hold the secret to immortality? Brace yourselves, prudes: there's a sex scene. I haven't watched the movie in years and years, but I have it in case the mood overtakes me.

Which brings me to The Hunger (1981) by Whitley Strieber. It was Strieber's second novel, the one he published after The Wolfen and before Communion (1987).

I was browsing the other day and happened to see three copies of The Hunger sitting on a bookstore shelf. Two were book club editions, but the third was a first printing.  

I paid for it with my credit, took it home, cleaned it up. It'll go in a box, I suppose. I should probably bundle it with the dvd and sell them as a set.  

Maybe I'll hold onto them. Who knows, maybe I'll run into my ex-wife's brother.

COMEDY IS HARD, WATCHING COMEDY IS HARDER

Amy Schumer is funny. I've seen her stand-up, I've seen her roast celebrities. She knows what she's doing, no problems there.

Marc Maron is a slightly different story, not because he doesn't know what he's doing (he does) but because my interest in him is less about the jokes and more about his self-loathing, his anger, his envy.  Like a lot of people, I got engrossed in his podcast.  He talks to comedians and musicians and always figures out a way to make it about himself. He doesn't shy away from honesty and real emotions, which is what makes the episodes so memorable. 

Sometimes it's a train wreck, but he knows when he's overreacting or screwing up and he apologizes for it, tries to make it right.

I've watched three episodes of their respective television shows (Inside Amy Schumer on Comedy Central and Maron on IFC) and while I want to like both of them equally, I really dig Maron and don't much care for Schumer's show.

Inside Amy Schumer is hit and miss, a hodgepodge of skits, stand-up, and Schumer interviewing random people on the street.  Watching her interact with people is endlessly entertaining, whereas the skits start well and tend to fizzle out. 

Portlandia is a skit show, and that works most of the time. So does Comedy Bang!Bang! I imagine Schumer was offered any show she wanted and she didn't want to get locked into playing herself.

Maron's show is much more conventional, a bit like Curb Your Enthusiasm with Maron playing a variation of his real self. It's not new, it's not groundbreaking, but it works for me. 

Fans of Maron's podcast know about his relationship with his father and casting Judd Hirsch as Maron's angry, feisty pop (introduced in the third episode), was a masterstroke. There's also a steady stream of celebrity cameos (Dave Foley, Denis Leary, Jeff Garlin, Illeana Douglas).  

I want the Schumer show to be successful, I want it to gel. Maron may be playing it safe, but at least it's fully formed.

THE GLAD YOU ATE

My son graduated from high school last night, so anybody who bet against him, his sister included, should pay up.

For the last few years they've held high school graduations at the local sports arena, the same stadium where the NFL teams play.  

What a cluster!  Parking is impossible, flowers are okay but balloons are forbidden, it takes almost an hour for families to reunite with students once the damn thing is over, and spectators (including my ex-mother-in-law, who sat next to me) are forced to squint at their programs while watching the ceremony unfold on the Jumbotron.  

We went through the whole thing with Sara four years ago, so we knew what to expect.  

Five or six kids made speeches, the kind of speeches you make when you're 17 or 18 and your whole life is ahead of you. 

There was a healthy mix of excitement, confidence, and fear but the speeches were just okay, not great. I expected a little more from the kid who got a free ride to Harvard, but who am I to judge? He's a good kid, he's done his time. Why make him jump through one last hoop?

When it came time to call names, the officials told students that if they wanted their middle names announced, they'd have to spell it out for them. I guess the paperwork only had room for middle initials.

Sam's middle name is Clayton, my ex-wife's maiden name, just like his sister, but when it came time to complete the paperwork, he changed the "Clayton" to "Capone" and that's what rang out over the loudspeaker.

Capone.

My ex-mother-in-law leaned over to me and said, "I can't believe you gave him that horrible middle name" and I just shook my head and assured her it was a joke. 

To be honest, I was a little impressed that Sammy knew who Al Capone was.  Then I remembered he'd been watching Boardwalk Empire.

He's a good kid, my boy.  I'm proud of him.

THEY SHOULD HAVE A MOTHER'S DAY FOR FATHERS

Last Sunday was Mother's Day and my son Sam spent the day with me. I didn't tell him to, it was his idea. I made sure he cleared it with his mom and she said it was okay.

I asked him if he wanted me to cook or if we should go out to eat and he asked if I would make Chicken with Peanut Sauce, a thing I've been making since he was little and couldn't tell the difference between chicken or pork or beef. It's an easy recipe, just chicken and green pepper and onion over rice.  

I'll tell you a secret. I throw a little Chinese Five Spice and some ground ginger and a little sesame oil in the rice water and you can really taste the difference.

We watched In Bruges (McDonagh, 2008) while we ate.  I've seen it five or six times but Sammy has never seen it.  What a great, brilliant movie. Hilariously funny, terribly sad. 

Brendan Gleeson is always terrific, as is Ralph Fiennes, but I feel like the real discovery is Colin Ferrell.  I had no idea of the kind of range he's capable of until I saw this movie. He just does everything right from the light comic touches to the heavy emotional scenes. It's a smart, funny script with all kinds of payoffs. 

I particularly love the way McDonagh and cinematographer Eigil Bryld introduce the dazzling Clémence Poésy as Chloe, on the set of the movie within the movie.  Her first date with Colin Farrell's Ray is nothing you've ever seen before. 

I liked McDonagh's Seven Psychopaths (2012) and I'll never forget seeing Christopher Walken onstage in McDonagh's A Behanding in Spokane (thanks to David and Ben), but everything comes together in this movie. It's a perfect little fairy tale of a film.

  

MY TWELVE LABORS

I read a lot when I was a kid.  A lot of the people I like now, the people I'm closest to, read a lot when they were kids.

I've been going through boxes lately and I found this old copy of Hercules and Other Tales from Greek Myths by Olivia E. Coolidge, published by Scholastic Book Services.

Oh, Scholastic!  Like Christmas, or the Wells Fargo wagon.  I remember when my teachers would pass out the Scholastic buying guides and I would carefully read the description of each book and circle the ones I wanted.  Once or twice a year, there was a book fair at school and you could buy the books right there on the spot.

This is the same book I had as a kid, but it's not the same copy. I know this because I personally colored all the illustrations in mine.  Green were the snakes Hercules strangled in his cradle, gold were the apples Aphrodite gave to Hippomenes in his race against Atalanta.  

If you put a gun to my head I would've sworn there was a picture of Poseidon coming out of the ocean, but it was Nereus. I might have forgotten the name of the player, but I remember using a combination of midnight blue and cornflower for the water.  I'm sure about that.

I know a guy, Doug Thomas. If you knew Doug, you might look at the picture of Hercules on the cover of this book and say, "that looks like Doug Thomas, except for the purple hair and the skirt and the boots" and you'd be right.

This book also contains the story of Daedalus and Icarus, the boy who flew too high, too close to the sun.  

That story always made a lot of sense to me.  I don't always listen to instructions and I certainly don't always follow the rules, but I understand caution.  

If you fly too near the sea, your feathers might get wet and heavy and you'll drown.  If you fly too high, the sun will melt the wax, your feathers will fall off, and you'll die.  

Point taken.  

WE'VE BEEN TO THE BINS

On Friday, we took a trip out to the avenues because that's where the bins are.  I've been thrifting all over, from Apache Junction to Sun City, but I've never been to the bins and it sounded like a goldmine. 

Turns out "the bins" is just a Goodwill distribution center where they sell clothing and books and other items by the pound.  

I had a good time, but the stuff wasn't that great. It was a lot of poking around and pulling out and throwing back, like a singles bar on Friday night. 

Gloves were mentioned, but I didn't bring any because I don't own gloves. 

We waded through, dismissing and discarding, and then we waited for them to wheel out new merch which turned out to be more disappointing than the last batch.  

I only bought two books. There was an ancient copy of Jack the Giant Killer and Other Stories that I bought for the illustrations. The book itself is in disrepair, like most of the books I found in the bins. Ripped covers, torn pages, broken spines.  

I don't usually buy books that are in bad shape, but this was my first trip to the bins and I wanted to buy something.

The other thing I found was Mexican Cookery for American Homes, produced by the folks at Gebhardt Chili.  

To call it a cookbook is kind of a stretch.  The recipe for Arroz y Frijoles (rice and beans) instructs home chefs to heat a can of Gebhardt Mexican Style beans, add a half teaspoon of Gebhardt Chili Powder, some garlic salt, and two cups of cooked rice.  

It's all in the details, huh?

My favorite recipe in the book is for something called Bologna Cushions. Bologna Cushions? Is that like Beef Curtains?  

Take a slice of bologna.  Add some Gebhardt's Chili con Carne.  Top with another slice of bologna.  Pin the corners together and top with butter or margarine.  Bake for 30 minutes.  

Gotta hurry home after work today. We're having Bologna Cushions!

Serve. Eat. Vomit. Repeat.

After the bins, we drank some beer and watched a VHS copy of The Wolf Man.

It felt like a very productive afternoon.

DIANE ARBUS, REAL ESTATE PHOTOGRAPHER

We used to play a game where we matched notable figures with wildly inappropriate occupations. Comedian Gilbert Gottfried seems like he'd make a loud and terribly indiscreet gynecologist, but the best example we came up with, the one that always made us laugh, was "Diane Arbus, real estate photographer."

Can you picture it? Identical twins, drag queens, circus performers, and a tense kid with a toy grenade, all posing in front of various properties.

Sheesh.

Larry Storch Reads Philip Roth's Epstein (Lively Arts, LA 30005)

I bring it up because the other day I found this recording of comedian Larry Storch reading Philip Roth's "Epstein."  

At first glance, it seems like an odd match.  Roth, who won the National Book Award in 1960 for Goodbye, Columbus was just launching a serious literary career. His first novel, Letting Go, was still forthcoming when Lively Arts issued this record in 1962, according to the liner notes written by noted jazz critic Nat Hentoff.  

At the time, Storch was primarily known as a comedian and night club performer.  His film and television career was just taking off, though his stint as Corporal Agarn in the television series F-Troop was still several years away.

As I continued browsing, I found another Lively Arts recording that did make sense: Burgess Meredith reading two short stories by Ray Bradbury.  

Burgess Meredith Reads Ray Bradbury (Lively Arts, LA 30004)

Burgess Meredith was already a distinguished film, stage, and television actor and his portrayal of the book-loving Henry Bemis in the "Time Enough At Last" episode of The Twilight Zone (1959)surely scored points with science-fiction fans.  

In fact, Meredith was Bradbury's personal choice to read his stories ("There Will Come Soft Rains" & "Marionettes, Inc.") according to Joe Glodberg's album notes.

 

I paid for the records and researched Lively Arts when I got home.  The label, an imprint of Prestige Records, was only active from 1961-64.  Other spoken word entries include Roddy McDowell reading H.P. Lovecraft, James Mason reading Edgar Allan Poe and Herman Melville, and Norman Mailer reading his own work.

Groovy.

MAG(NIFICENT)

Okay, a couple more. 

Inside Detective Vol. 8, No. 48 (Dell Publishing Co., 1955)

Daring Detective  Vol. 16, No. 93 (Country Press, Inc.,1942)

Young Marrieds  Vol. 1, No. 1 (Ideal Publishing Corp., 1956)

Are these magazines worth money?  Of course they are.  I can sell them, make a few bucks. But who takes care of things better than I do?  

Do you think you'll look this good when you're pushing 60?  There's no water damage, no coffee rings, no torn pages, no missing covers.

Archival quality.  Say it with me. 

Some things are worth more than money.

INSERTING A FRESH MAG

I have a fondness for old magazines.  Always have.

Satan's Scrapbook Vol. 2, No. 2 (Parliament, 1965)

At my bookstore, this copy of Satan's Scrapbook hung on the wall behind the register. 

It wasn't for sale, but people asked about it all the time. Gilstrap tried to buy it several times. His wife's name was Betty.  Are they still married?  I have no idea.  

Detective World Vol. 5, No. 2 (Detective World Incorporated, February 1947)

Sensational Exposes Vol. 1, No. 3 (Skye Publishing Co., 1957)

I have a lot of beautiful old magazines. I'm thinking about selling some of them and I just don't know if I can do it.

Some things are easy to replace.  These won't be.