ADDRESSING L' ENFANT IN THE ROOM

I've had pretty good luck lately, finding things of interest. 

Sometimes I'll see something I already have and wonder if the copy I own is as good as the copy in front of me. It's not easy finding older books and records in pristine condition, but it happens. With records, there's always the added attraction of liner notes or inserts. With books, you never what someone will stuff between the pages. Newspaper clippings and letters are fairly common, but I've also found photographs, check stubs, and plane tickets.

The other day, I found this Elektra folk sampler from 1958.

Folk Sampler 5 (Elektra SMP-5)

I'm a sucker for early Elektra vinyl and I already own several of their samplers.  What put this particular $3 record over the top wasn't the presence of Theodore Bikel or Josh White, or even the version of "Day-O" recorded by Lord Foodoos. 

It was the tiny printed songbook tucked in the sleeve.

I've never thrust my fist in the air and shouted "score" when I find something nice, but I've seen others do it and I'm almost always embarrassed by it. Instead, I quietly walked up to the counter and paid for the record. 

Hot on the heels of the Elektra sampler, I found a copy of Margaret Crosland's biography of Jean Cocteau. 

I previously purchased a copy of the book in Denver, but this one contained a copy of Cocteau's obituary from the San Francisco Examiner (October 12, 1963). 

If you've forgotten that Edith Piaf died the same day as Cocteau, and that the news of her death supposedly triggered Cocteau's fatal heart attack, now might be a good time to brush up.

Here's the quote, according to the newspaper article:

"I have an awful fever and the death of Edith Piaf chokes me up," he said. "Piaf had genius, she was inimitable, there will never be another Piaf."  He lay down on a couch and was dead when a doctor arrived.

The book was just one of several things I bought at Goodwill on Saturday morning. There was a signed copy of Robin Lampson's epic verse novel of the California Gold Rush:

A Modern Library version of Women in Love that I don't already own:

And a dirty novel by Gil Herbert, published by Midwood:

I paid for the books and peeled off all the Goodwill stickers while I sat in the parking lot. Then I whispered "score" and drove away.

MURRAY MOVES ON JAGGER

I didn't know what to expect when I moved, but I knew I would no longer have access to all the old bookstores and thrift stores in my neighborhood.  Places I'd spent a decade or more digging in crates, scanning book spines, flipping though vinyl.  

It seemed quite possible that the Museum of Stuff would go on indefinite hiatus.  

But if you enjoy digging, you're going to find something no matter where you are.  There's a fairly unremarkable thrift store near my home, but I recently found all four sequential issues of Astounding Science Fiction (September - December 1957), featuring Robert Heinlein's juvenile novel, Citizen of the Galaxy.  

All my old science fiction magazines are in storage, but I was pleased to find these in good condition.  I always thought the cover art by H. R. Van Dongen on the September 1957 issue looked  like an aging, one-eyed Bill Murray with his hand on a Mick Jagger puppet.

I realize I'm probably the only one.

Astounding Science Fiction (September 1957)

A few weeks later, in Grass Valley, I picked up two copies of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.  One issue (February 1957) features Walter M. Miller's "The Last Canticle," the third in a series of stories that would later be published as A Canticle For Leibowitz.  The issue also contains new stories by Fredric Brown ("Expedition"), August Derleth ("The Dark Boy"), and Poul Anderson ("Journeys End").

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (February 1957)

The other issue has new stories from Alfred Bester ("Will You Wait?"), Ray Bradbury ("The Shoreline at Sunset"), and the grandfather (pun intended) of all time-travel stories, Robert Heinlein's gender-hopping "All You Zombies--").

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (March 1959)

I guess things are going to be just fine.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE

I left town with two boxes of books I figured I could trade at any interesting used bookstore I encountered on the road. 

I found a suitable place in Albuquerque and hauled both boxes to the front counter. The woman who greeted me was very nice, and I started poking around the shelves while she computed my trade. I was looking for vintage paperbacks, but there wasn't much.  


A Touch of Death by Charles Williams (Gold Medal K1353, 1963)

Message From Marise by Paul Kruger (Gold Medal K1323, 1963)

I found these two Gold Medals right off, which is exactly what I'm looking for. Pretty much any reasonably priced mystery or science fiction novel from the '50s or '60s published by Gold Medal, Signet, or Ballantine is something I want to take home. I scoured the shelves but couldn't find much else.  No John D. MacDonald or Ross McDonald, no Chandler or Hammett, no Heinlein or Bradbury or anything else.  

I checked back in at the trade counter and the woman told me she could offer me $193 in credit. I asked her how much I owed her for the two books in my hand.  "With trade credit, those are fifty cents each," she said.

I explained I was just passing through and didn't know when I'd be back. Was there a cash offer?  "I don't pay cash for books," she said, which I respect. She asked me if I had any friends who could use my trade credit. I told her no, I didn't have any friends.

We got to talking and she told me she bought the bookstore from her father.  "I've been working here 43 years," she said. "I've been paying social security since I was five years old." She was a pretty woman, tiny but tough, with a good sense of humor and a small dusting of weariness that suggested she'd been through some shit, either hers or someone else's.  

She told me her name (Elizabeth) and the amount of time it takes to get from Albuquerque to Fort Collins, CO by bus (13 hours). "I put my daughter on that bus yesterday," she said, which explained some of the fatigue I saw in her face.

Elizabth pulled a bartending guide from my stack of trade and asked me if I had any favorite recipes. She said the local tavern didn't open until 11 and I joked about picking up beer from a convenience store and getting started early.  

She asked what I wanted to do with my books and I asked her if she had any more vintage paperbacks. She told me I was welcome to look behind her counter and I quickly found a few more things.

Bad Day For a Black Brother by B. B. Johnson (Paperback Library 64-482, 1970)

Shaft Has a Ball by Ernest Tidyman (Bantam N7699, 1973)

Naked Lunch by William Burroughs (Grove BC-115, 1966)

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (Beagle Books 95123, 1971)

The Shuttered Room & Other Tales (Ballantine 23229, 1974)

The Lurking Fear & Other Stories (Ballantine 03230, 1974)

A couple of Lovecrafts, the Burroughs, Superspade #5, a Shaft novel. I asked Elizabeth to choose enough books to cover my purchase and gladly paid the extra fifty cents per book.

She reboxed my books and I grabbed one carton and she grabbed the other. I told her I didn't mind walking back to the car myself but she insisted on walking out with me. As I opened my car she pointed to a box. "Is that a comics box?" I told her it was, but that it contained compact discs. "Too bad," she said. I asked her if she had any comics and she told me to wait a moment. She went back inside the store while I packed the books into my car and she returned with a remote.

"Come with me," she said.  Behind the store was a gate, which swung open when Elizabeth pressed the remote.  "Is this where I end up chained to a radiator in the basement or you stab me or something?" She laughed. "Sure is," she said. 

Behind the gate was a small structure which Elizabeth unlocked. This is where she stored her comics, all neatly arranged by publisher. "There's nothing too valuable back here, but if you want to make an appointment I can show you some Silver Age stuff."

I looked around for a minute and thanked her for her time. She told me she was having a big sale that weekend and I told her I'd come back another time.  "Bring some more books," she said. I promised I would.

We walked back to my car. I asked her if there was a gas station nearby and she said there was, but that we weren't in a great part of town. Someone really had been stabbed a couple of weeks ago.  I asked her if she'd done it. "No," she said, laughing. "It wasn't me."

I got back in my car and followed my GPS to the freeway. I got gas three hours later in a quiet little town where nobody had been stabbed in over a year.
 

THE PIGS, THE FUZZ, THE COPS, THE HEAT

Dragnet Case No. 561 by David Knight (Pocket Books 1120, 1956)

You already know the facts.  

What you may not know is that this Dragnet-inspired novel comes with a handy glossary, so everyday people can follow the action just as well as law enforcement professionals.

When I look at the picture of Jack Webb on the cover, I can't help but wonder how many times he's paid a woman to open his trouser safe with explosives.

OZ NEVER DID GIVE NOTHING TO THE THIN MAN

I picked up this Dashiell Hammett the other day.

Like many people I know, I like to reacquaint myself with novels from the noir canon every few years. Hammett, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain. Lots of good reading there and plenty of quips to work into everyday conversation.

The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett (Permabook, 1961)

The Thin Man, published in 1934, was Hammett's last novel and the light tone and overall humor distinguish it from say, The Dain Curse or The Maltese Falcon.

Plus, it's a great premise. What's not to love about a private investigator who marries a wealthy socialite and promptly retires? Nick and Nora Charles love to drink, they love their little dog Asta, and when a mystery presents itself, guess which wisecracking couple want to solve it together? You know, between cocktails.

Just as Bogart is inextricably linked with the character of Sam Spade, it's impossible to read about Nick and Nora Charles without picturing William Powell and Myrna Loy. The success of the first adaptation (also 1934) inspired five sequels, with the final entry, Song of the Thin Man, appearing in 1947.

Hammett got a story credit for the first sequel, After the Thin Man (1936), but did not write the screenplay and was not involved with the other films. 

While the "thin man" in Hammett's novel is a murder suspect, movie producers identified the character of Nick Charles as the "thin man" in order to tie the series together.

You know, because people who go to movies are stupid.

COME BACK, SHAYNE

Most of my Dell mapbacks are in storage, but I picked up this little honey the other day.

Counterfeit Wife by Brett Halliday (Dell 280, 1947)

A customer asked me once why I kept referring to a particular book as a mapback.  "No reason," I said, "except for the fact there's a map on the back!"

True story.

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.

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.

All Over But the Scouting

So the big book sale was a mild disappointment, but what happens sometimes is this: just when I think I'm going to have to wait a whole year before a pile of good books comes my way, I get lucky.

I go scouting for books and records a couple of times a week, everybody knows this.  I always find one or two things of interest, but on occasion, I'll find a whole bunch of neat stuff.

Sometimes it takes a trip to Tucson.  

Sometimes it's just a trip to Glendale and a thirty minute look-see before meeting my son for lunch.

Last week, at one of the used bookstores I frequent, I started scanning the fiction section and found a nice copy of John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor with a gorgeous cover by Edward Gorey.

I continued scanning.  A few shelves over, I found this copy of James M. Cain's Mignon.  It should have been in the mystery section, but who am I to quibble?  

It's just a reading copy, nothing particularly valuable, but I could tell almost immediately that it belonged to the same person who owned the Barth.  Whenever this happens, I get excited.  Anytime someone dumps their whole collection, it's cause for celebration.  

Especially when it's a good reader.

The next thing I found was this copy of The Motorcycle by Andre Pieyre de Mandiargues which is interesting for a couple of reasons.  

One, I collect Grove Press hardcovers.  Check. Also, this novel was the inspiration for Jack Cardiff's Girl on a Motorcycle (1968) starring Marianne Faithfull.  Check, check, and meow.


I continued scanning shelves, determined to find more books from the same collection.  I picked up an early printing of The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass but passed on Allen Drury's Advise and Consent, Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls, and Irving Wallace's The Prize before finding this perfectly nice copy of Evelyn Waugh's The Loved One.  I also threw a first edition of Mark Twain's Letters from Hawaii into my basket, in case I ever visit my cousin in Hawaii. 


Then I stopped by the vintage paperback shelves.  


Almost immediately, my eyes zoomed in on this copy of Peggy Swenson's Lesbian Gym.  This is one of those famously camp covers, the kind they reprint on postcards and refrigerator magnets.  

The story of a virgin who was seduced into the wrong kind of loving!

I continued scanning, hoping to find more vintage sleaze.  Nope, nope, nope.  

And then I found Suzy and Vera.  Same author, Peggy Swenson, which is actually a pseudonym for Richard E. Geis.

How can you turn down a book with a tagline like this: 

"The love story of a college girl and a confirmed lesbian."

The paperbacks were only a couple of bucks each.

I couldn't have been happier.  

Scouting

I've been reading Sweet Tooth, the new Ian McEwan novel, on my laptop for the last couple of days.  

I understand why publishers don't want to print advance copies, but curling up with my laptop just isn't the same as curling up with a good book.  Basically, I have another 48 hours to finish reading before this file vanishes from my computer.  I started taking notes as I go because there's no going back to check the facts, which I find annoying.

Stupid digital download. 

I'm on Chapter 15, better than halfway through, so I took a break this afternoon and went scouting.  Half Price Books mailed me a 50% off coupon, so I drove over there.

There was nothing very interesting in their collectibles case, but I did find this Thurber first edition in the fiction section:


The Beast In Me And Other Animals (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1948)

I'm a sucker for Thurber, everybody knows this.

 

I have lots of Benchley and Perelman and Runyon and Thurber on my shelves, but I see them so rarely that whenever I do find one, I usually buy it.  It was only $5 with my coupon.

 

My poet nephew has been listening to Graham Parker lately, and as I was flipping through the record bins, I found Purity of Essence, the third long-player from Parker's frequent backup band, The Rumour.

 

This same nephew is also an enormous Squeeze fan, and Purity of Essence contains the song "Depression" by Glen Tillbrook. 

 

There are also songs by Nick Lowe and Randy Newman and a bunch of originals by the band (Brinsley Schwarz, Martin Belmont, Andrew Bodnar, and Steve Goulding).

 

I've never herad the album, so I'll probably listen to it tonight while I make dinner.

 

I scoured the rest of the store, and ended up in the vintage paperback aisle.  There was some fun stuff, but a lot of it I either had or felt was overpriced. 

 

Except for this:

 

The cover art made me wonder if James Avati had painted it, but it doesn't matter.  I'd buy this book for the scent alone.

 

Both the Bellow book and the Rumour lp had several price stickers.  If I'm reading the tag correctly, the album was originally marked $7.50 (in January 2010), then steadily reduced until June of this year. 

 

I think I paid $2.50 for it. 

 

The Adventures of Augie March was originally marked $4.  I found it sitting in the clearance box, priced at $2.

 

Did I mention how good it smells?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 















Pulp

Vegas Wenches by James L. Rubel
(Merit Books, 1961)

"She looked as if she were preparing to put a bundle on a horse at Hollywood.  The gun was no longer in her hand.  She glanced once at Sam, then with an enigmatical smile she moved in the direction of the dresser. 

From the way she was working at the zipper of her dress, it looked as if she intended to do another strip act. 

In a moment he found out she was.  The dress slid off first, she stepped out of it, hung it over the back of the nearest chair.  She removed all the pins from her hair, permitting it to fall loosely down over her shoulders and her bare back. 

She wore neither panties or brassiere under the dress.  She was back where she had been when he'd first found her in his room." (p.58)

 

 

 

 

"She used her nymphomania to get  him to join her ravishing rogues. . .

 

You'll never in your wildest dreams imagine how this group of voluptuous hussies used him to satisfy their larcenous lusts and their uncontrollable hungers."