Bookapalooza! The Mirth of Thrift Stores...

I was doing some thrift store book shopping yesterday and sort of hit a small goldmine in the evening. Many of the books I found came from the collection of a Mr. Robert H. Weiss of New York City (I Googled him; possibly, he's a lawyer with the name still carried on by his son.) Okay, take the next sentence as a goofy joke, but Jews make the best readers and the best writers both. (Certainly my list of the greatest literary geniuses of all times is heavily stocked with Jewish men and women!) I've always felt Jewish myself and abandoned by "my" people. Well, I'm Greek, and as Amy Sedaris will always remind you, "Greeks are just Jews without money."

Mr. Weiss had (I fear that tense is the relevant one) a wonderful library, and I thank him or his descendants for the kindness of donating these lovely volumes. I found many books to pass on to Lee for his little concern and was pricing them for him just now. Lovely first editions of Look Homeward Angel, The Naked and the Dead (first edition, second state), For Whom the Bell Tolls (Scribner's with the "A" on the copyright page!), a bunch of lovely hardcover Upton Sinclair first editions, including some very sought-after titles, a Decameron from the forties with lovely art, two blazing Della Robia blue first editions from the forties by Sholom Aleichem (surprise, right?), another very early edition of late Thomas Wolfe (The Web and the Rock), a pretty Katherine Anne Porter and much more. Not everything came from his library though, and another great find was a first American edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe!! This is NOT the facsimile edition, but the first Harmony Press edition from 1979. VERY hard to find and should make for good nasty bidding war. Books were half price tonight (most...a few had white tags so were two bucks each) so I only paid 38 dollars for everything (I think the clerk gives me breaks sometimes!) and I haven't even told you everything I bought by a long shot. I also bought some collectible Mickey Mouses (stuffed) to sell as a lot. I usually eschew Disneyana, but these were quirky Mickeys (safari explorer, etc.) in mint condition, easy for Lee to move fast. Also, a cute stuffed Brian from Family Guy about a foot tall, mint, dressed as a cop. I'm trying to remember that episode but coming up with nothing. I'm sure I've seen it. Both those last two mentioned were actually in HUGE grab bags filled to bursting with other things (dozens) I haven't even examined yet. I really think this is all about reliving the experience of being a kid when I shop for this stuff. If it wasn't an aesthetic/literary rush, one simply wouldn't do these things. I did two stores and God was kind. I even found a beautiful IKEA OOP satin pillow in mint condition. I always coo if I find something IKEA I want. We're not that close to any store here in Harrisburg, but it will happen occasionally. Usually it's just the kitchenware and the less exciting kitchenware or very used kitchenware. I found a gorgeous water pitcher from the fifties with a great silhouette and appealing pattern on it. I have not ONCE found an Eva Zeisel in any thrift store. In my life. I keep praying it will be the black stoneware water pitcher from her one set she did for Sears in the fifties because it's a fetish but I'll settle for some real Schmoos or a gravy boat (the one everyone and her grandma ripped off for decades after she designed and patented it). There is a ton of Zeisel out there (she's working at what--105??) so I will eventually stumble across some of it. If I lived in Scottsdale or Boca, it would probably be like finding ants on a summer sidewalk. I picked up some splendid little Lenox plates because they were a perfect set and they were asking thirty cents apiece for gilded perfect porcelain. I love holding them up to the light and seeing that beautiful translucency. Also a lovely very old Noritake piece for 99 cents. Some very funny planters from the forties, and one from the sixties that was a dinosaur coming out of its egg, very cute! Planters have very little interest for EBAYers, unless they are outre or the rare collectible piece. Vintage and antique planters are great items for somebody wanting to grow a large collection of museum-worthy interesting Americana and spend very little money. There should be a Museum of American Planters. I find so many of them fabulous---often surreal, often rivaling some of the best sculpture of the period! Serious ikebana practitioners will pay handsomely for that truly eye-catching oddity. The books I found that I don't plan to part with? A boxed set of Edmund Wilson that came out in 1966 I believe. It includes gorgeous hardcovers w/ dust jackets of Classics and Commercials, The Bit Between My Teeth, and The Shores of Light. And I won't be separating from The Permanent Goethe; it's a really splendid edition from the late forties edited by Thomas Mann. I believe I've read everything included in there. The blindstamped bust of Goethe on the front cover of this black hardcover is gorge. And I'm keeping The Georgette Heyer Omnibus. That hardcover is comparatively recent (1973) but is rare on ABE and Regency romances can be delightful.

Okay, that was very gay.

But so was that period.

And Pennsylvania Beautiful by our own homegrown Herodotus of Pennsylvania, Wallace Nutting. The landscape photographs in here are eerily prescient of how landscape painting would be practiced in the 1990s. Some of the old postcards had photos like this. (I've collected a bunch over the years.) The sense of composition would best be descripted as sibylline...or Delphic. These are photographs that seem inspired by the strange forest paintings of Corot.

I found a wonderful hardcover of The Joys of Yiddish I'm also keeping. Expect to hear Yiddish expectoration and curses on this blog shortly. Okay, more Yiddish expectoration and curses...

I'm not telling you nearly all I bought. I'm just remembering that I also found a stuffed Fox in Socks with the original Dr. Seuss tag. He's tall. I'd never seen that one issued before. Mint condition and Seussophiles will get rabid in auctions.

Of course, there are always lovely figurines to find. Cats or dogs or exotic birds who have remained pristine for half a century or more will always find their devotees, their share of oohers and aahers who will soon die (in a flash, a mere quarter or half century) and then these animals will sift into yet another temporary menagerie...this is the tiny porcelain caravan that will outlast almost every vital idea now governing the planet and its machinations! "But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make..." Nah William, that dog with the big eyes will serve just fine.

No need for an ancient Greek twittering machine. That plastic Garfield has the smile of the Buddha.

Oh, that kimono in the museum I am laying on the bed of my mind just now...where was that? In Providence, I believe...somewhere in R.I.S.D.'s corridors?

W.C.W. (post-stroke) to the (already dying?) Blackburn: "You have made a record in my heart..."

Record.

The sleeve is beautiful with information...

I also found a piece of Orrefors crystal. It's a votive candle holder (tealight fits) in a thyrsus shape. Though it fits in your palm like an apple, if you'd drop it, it would probably break several bones in your feet. It's not very pretty to my mind and looks like so much other junk crystal but it's Orrefors, so it's worth a hell of a lot more than the seventy cents they asked for it. Thank You, Sweden. I'll sing that next time I hear that Alanis song instead of "India." It doesn't scan but I'll work with it.

I had a longish conversation with the strangest looking woman while I was buying these books. She was reading cases from an old International Law volume (I bet this clinches the Weiss theory) and ended up explaining some of the cases to me. Turns out her son is a lawyer practicing international law (currently in Vietnam) and that his heritage is half Vietnamese, half African American. He specializes in international patent law so of course he's filthy rich, but here's his mom in a thrift store. She's a teacher and loves books so I guess it's alright...lol....I think she grew up poor. She's very intelligent and I had fun listening to her. She told me they are running a great program on the history of our United States on the History Channel right now, and how depressing it is. She said she had to take it in installments. I told her about all the horrible things I had read about Harry Truman's forbears earlier today and some anecdotes about his Confederate grandmother, and we both commiserated at how shady our country has always been. It's important, I suppose, to note the degree to which Truman--to his great credit--outgrew these irrational inculcations and became a serious player in the desegregation/civil rights movement. Even Lincoln had racist ideas he had to overcome. The mature Lincoln who called Frederick Douglas his "great friend" and who sought his counsel was not the young Lincoln who could not have envisioned such a possibility. I see this as a source of justifiable pride in America--the ability of America to right injustice (with the admittedly sloooow passage of time!) We must value this ability of the "American process" to self-correct over time and stay true to its egalitarian principles. That is where America's greatness lies. The only thing is, once that was rare in the world. But now other countries are surpassing us with these ideals, and don't seem to be bogged down by some of our petty prejudices and hatreds, and certainly are not hampered by the expansionist or imperialist tendencies of our last few administrations. I also threw in some horror stories about Jack London I had just read earlier today. But that was the drift of "progress" in the twentieth century. You'd find intellectuals who were progressive reformers who were racists. Listen to the dead, but remonstrate with the living. You'll get further. No point in digging up impenitent Confederate soldiers or racists or homophobes. I gave her a beautiful hardcover Bartlett's Quotation I had in my cart that would sell for 35 or 50 bucks in the bookstore because I saw she had a ratty paperback condensed one in her cart. I told her I was only buying it for someone else to resell. I own several versions of that book already anyway. Later, I felt she was following me around the store and started to get nervous. I don't think she was lusting after me lol, but was scared she was going to either follow me home or else turn scary. Probably just a lonely person. Her historical narrative was undershot with dark glimmers of an anger she wanted to share, I think. Become a poet like everybody else! I wondered if the whole son story was made up, was some sort of attempt to model power and prestige. I estimated the probability at about fifty percent. I don't care if people do such things. I had two different people tell me outlandish lies just yesterday, great strings of them like orchids on a string they were pulling out of their assholes, and I just smiled and indulged these guys. Sometimes I politely asked easy questions tailor-made to advance the spurious narratives. I sometimes hear that song by The The in my head playing when somebody is doing that for my benefit...the one where he intones "If it's working, keep talking" over and over the manic keyboards. She had these scary eyes. She would have been perfect to play the creepy old lady who is outwardly respectable but has demonic visions or visions of infernal retribution for the world's wickedness. Maybe Mme. Rimbaud. She also sort of reminded me of Arthur's one sister grown old!

Ah, the thrift shop! Poor old men looking for shoes they can afford next to glamorously undead teenage Goth couples looking for cool decor or clothes. The immigrants of all countries looking for the necessities of existence alongside the snickering resellers of dead folks' prized posessions turning items over, seeking date and maker, signature of artist or artisan, any mark-up potential. The kitsch-hound and the frugal housewife cooing over Pyrex and porcelain. The little dustbin of history, lost fashions and isms in books where dust mites quietly, modestly chew on passe empires and messiahs...and every other type of detritus that washes up from the human shipwrecks we all ultimately become. How I adore it!

Poeiana! Cornellana! Corneilleana!

Balzac's what? eighty something novels?

Anatole France takes the hand of Henri Regnier or Alexander Blok and begins walking towards oblivion.

Great burning spirits of past eras dwindling to a tea light: Robert Service turning away and walking backwards into time alongside a hundred verse dramatists who bet on the wrong literary form entirely. The horse went off the fucking track!

Joseph Cornell and I would have gotten along famously. He should have been born my brother, or vice versa in a courtesy of reflexiveness.

We would have autistically communed in thrift stores like those linked twins in the Vonnegut novel.