Call Me Nuts, But…

Back in the day I could’ve bought a row house overlooking Domino Sugar and Baltimore’s Inner Harbor for sixty thousand.

But I didn’t have sixty thousand, and my wife didn’t like the heat. So what I did was, I built myself a fantasy life in one of those lovely old buildings, writing my detective novels by day, working at night as a watchman at the Chesapeake Box factory across the street.

Each year, when I come back to town to do the Baltimore show, I visit my fantasy self on Locust Point. He’s an old man now, mostly toothless, but doing fine. Hanging with Jimmy, Fats, Darlene, and Darlene’s pit bull, Monica.

Today’s Locust Point rowhouses cost way more than they used to. The neighborhood is getting yupped up, and the vacant lots fronting the water have sprouted huge luxury condo complexes, largely unoccupied by Residents Only.

And Sha Dor’s downhome Baltimore Antique Show has mushroomed into a white carpet, world class event produced by the very serious Palm Beach Show Group.

Over six hundred dealers and an international constituency replete with video presentations and other opportunities for antique Internet bliss,

trophy wives, lap dogs on silver leashes, people rushing up and down aisles speaking in eastern European and Asian accents, a strolling violinist (whose taste runs to gypsy airs and “Send in the Clowns”),

and - new this year – free pre-show massages. Selling jewelry must be really stressful. All those little shiny things to keep track of.

In days of olde, the aisles were full of furniture, rugs, and paintings. Now, as colleague Lin Respess observes, it’s paintings and “smalls” - jewelry, china, and the like.

Furniture, it seems, is dead. Time will tell if books are, too. Mine in particular...

So there I was last Wednesday afternoon, stuck in traffic on the west side of the Walt Whitman Bridge, on my way to lunch in Philly, when my cellphone went off. It was my boothmate, John Thomson of Bartleby’s Books, calling me with a question.

“Where are you?

“Stuck in traffic outside Philly. Where are you?”

“In the Baltimore Convention Center with the rest of the booksellers, setting up for the show.”

“Uh oh…”

Distracted by the opening of Flatrocks Gallery, I’d gotten my days wrong! But in the end it worked out OK. I arrived in Baltimore late that afternoon and, thanks to the efforts of the very helpful, very serious Palm Beach Show Group staff, I managed to set my booth up. Then I found out that the rest of the booksellers were ensconced in another part of the gigantic hall, about a quarter mile away.

Owing to an earlier miscalculation of mine, John and I were in a little island of paper, surrounded by said jewelry and smalls, and by the food court.


Indeed, the Brazilian Glazed Nut lady opened for business directly behind me,

and my books and I spent the weekend bathed in the odor of cinnamon roasted cashews, pecans and almonds. When I went back to my hotel at night all I could smell was roasted nuts. My books acquired a distinctive odor, not entirely disagreeable.

End result? A few interesting conversations, a couple of good lunches,



one nice acquisition, and four sales totaling $1025, against expenses somewhere north of $2500 (Ask me about my Business Model.) Many of my colleagues had better shows. Few, I suspect, had worse. One dealer told me he sold $70,000. He’s a known pathological liar, but just hearing the number gave me a momentary adrenaline boost.

Another fellow, who’s done his share of high end shows opined, “This crowd is not qualified to make substantial purchases.”

“Qualified?”

“You can tell by the shoes,” he said. “When you see sneakers, you know you’re in for a long weekend.”



And it was true. Despite top notch logistics and organization on the part of the very serious Palm Beach Show Group, accompanied by no shortage hype and self promotion, the bulk of the crowd (and it was a big crowd) were simply not qualified buyers.

Think I’m nuts? Kevin Ransom had the best show here he’s ever had. He sells colorful, clean, affordable books. Anybody want to do the math on how many $45 books you have to sell to get to $15,000?

These very same sneakers would step into my booth and look around. They’d glance at the first edition Moby Dick, or the China Trade journal, or the manuscript signal book from Nelson’s ship HMS Victory. I’d watch the question marks form in the comic book thought balloons over their heads, then dissolve in the nutty air and drift away.

I know. It’s my fault for bringing such esoteric material. No one was stopping me from filling my booth with reasonably priced estate jewelry.

I just can’t shake the feeling that the crowd this year was, well,

lame.

Now, without further ado, the one nice acquisition.


DIED, AT WESTPORT ON THE 7th INST. PAUL CUFFE a very respectable man of color in the 59th year of his age… Printed broad sheet 2¾ x 8 inches. No date or publisher, but probably 1817. Fifty-six lines of text, with ruled borders top and bottom. This broadsheet summarizes Cuffe’s life and career in very complimentary terms, particularly regarding his contributions to “the welfare of his brethren of the African race.” Paul Cuffe was a Quaker sea captain and businessman of mixed Wampanoag and Ashanti descent. He built a successful shipping business, helped colonize Sierra Leone, and founded the first integrated school in Massachusetts. In 1779, at the age of 21, he started a small cargo business to and from Nantucket. By 1800 he had accumulated sufficient capital to purchase shares in larger vessels, and soon was running a very profitable firm. After the War of 1812 he led, and partially financed, an expedition of thirty-eight black colonists to Sierra Leone. At the time of his death, two years later, he was the wealthiest African American in the country, with an international reputation as a businessman and philanthropist. This broadsheet is rare. No other copies known. Worldcat shows no libraries holding digital or hard copies. One old horizontal fold, the word “City” written in ink at the top of the sheet, else fine condition. $3000

The Seventh Try

Well, we’re done with the hard part. Or, at least, this part of the hard part.

The building got built, the gardens planted,

the walls hung with paintings,

and my book corner filled chockablock with books, maps, prints and manuscripts about Cape Ann and its history, along with a sprinkling of general maritime and art books.

The girls sent out hundreds of email and printed invitations, and the gallery got a nice writeup on the front page of the local paper. There was nothing left to do but sit back and wait for the people to come.

And come they did.

More than three hundred art lovers, bibliophiles, and mainly just curious and thirsty neighbors who stopped by to see what all the fuss was about, have a glass of wine and chow on our neighbor Sasquatch’s exquisite locally smoked salmon. Cars parked on both sides for a quarter mile up and down the street. It was a wild scene. I wish I could have taken pictures of it all, but I was straight out tending bar.

Mostly, our visitors seemed blown away by the building, especially once they got inside and saw how the space opened up. A few even opened up their wallets.

Anne Marie and Cynthia sold about $3500 worth of art and jewelry, daughter Celia, from her adjoining flower shop,

had sales of $600 and my local history total approached $1500. Son Brooks worked the crowd and took some wonderful photos of our featured artists, “The Modern Masters of Cape Ann.”

The funny thing is that, for the past year, I’ve been so consumed with building the damned thing that I completely overlooked what was happening to me.

So, I’m bemused this morning, realizing that I’ve backed into my seventh attempt at a retail used book shop – “bricks and mortar” as my IOBA colleagues refer to it - each attempt slightly different than the ones preceding, each freighted with its own hopes and aspirations, honed from lessons learned before.

The formula this time goes

Build an upscale building in a desirable, picturesque neighborhood, and stock it with art that’s a cut above the usual tourist variety – paintings and sculpture that “take some risks” as Cynthia likes to say. Make sure you price this stuff beyond the reach of the time-wasting tourist, so that the casual visitor can only gawk. Then, surround this fine material with things the visitor CAN afford – things they’ll be happy to take home with them as a souvenir of their visit. Flowers and books, for example. Finally, rent the rest of the gorgeous space to artists who can afford such studios, and cross your fingers.

Maybe the seventh try will be the charm.

Now, it’s back to my life as an itinerant antiquarian, trying to round up some stock

for next weekend’s Baltimore Summer Antiques Show (talk about herding cats), about which a full report will be issued in this space next week. The antique show, not the cats.

Ramblin'

It’s a lush, drizzly August morning. I’m listening to Ornette Coleman’s wonderful “Ramblin’” and doing a little rambling of my own, brain unhitched, looking out my window at exploding green. Next thing I know, I’m thinking about the life cycle of books and manuscripts. Then I’m thinking of GWC colleague Ammiel Alcalay and his innovative “Lost and Found” publishing program at CUNY.

Though nominally a scholar of Classical and Middle Eastern languages, Ammiel, who is also a published poet and translator, has wangled himself a position in CUNY’s Ph.D. program in English. He says he takes issue with the highly monitored and structured nature of most graduate programs. Lately, he’s been turning his students loose in the archives of 20th century poets, to see what they might find there on their own. Under the imprint of “Lost and Found,” he publishes the results. The example cited here, a book of poems by Lorine Niedeker,

existed originally in an edition of three hand made books. It was found in the archives of poet and editor Cid Corman. Similar expeditions of discovery are underway – sponsored and encouraged by Alcalay – in the archives of poets like Frank O’Hara


and John Wieners.

Which is where the “life cycle” concept comes in. A book like Niedeker's Homemade Poems might have been enjoyed by its intended recipient then, after the recipient’s demise, passed into the hands of a collector. Later, perhaps, to a book dealer or auction gallery, and back again to a collector. Ultimately, however, there are only two destinations for such an item, whether in its original manuscript form or as a book.

It winds up in the dump or in an "institution of higher learning."

For centuries people in our trade have made careers ranging the world in search of such material, assessing the place in history of each newly discovered item, evaluating it, and marketing it - thereby (with luck) saving it from the dump long enough for it to reach its better and higher destination, the relatively safe halls of a museum or a library.

But, as is obvious to everyone, profound changes are taking place.

We treasure hunters are running out of attics, sheds, and storage units – at least as far as antiquarian material is concerned. And even with newer forms of printed material coming into being – zines and the like – the dominance of digitization threatens the supply stream of hard copy objects of desire. It’s even worse with manuscripts, at least on the literary side of things. How many authors write letters anymore? Use typewriters?

In our trade, the search for intellectual riches has traditionally been directed outward – to increasingly isolated and obscure locations where the things we seek might still survive. Now, it seems to me, after dump and digitization have done their work, the direction of discovery is turning inward.

Into the depths of those museums and libraries where, for centuries, collections have been gobbled and stashed. Today more rare and historically significant material gathers dust in institutions than awaits us in the attics of the world. Furthermore, the economics of gathering and storage dictate that only the most cursory attention can be given to cataloging incoming material. Nobody really knows what’s hiding in there.

So, people like my pal Deborah Baker make their livings mining the tombs of the New York Public Library, Ammiel Alcalay sits like a latter day Ferdinand/Isabella, sending would be Columbuses in search of new riches, and bibliographers forge careers pouring over copies of books held in the great collections of the western world.

Inward, not outward.

Inevitably, the book scout will follow the dodo, or morph into an artisinal parody of himself, like the blacksmith. Our cars will go up on blocks and our rambling road trips will cease. Our 21st century avatars will be prospecting seemingly endless institutional holdings accumulated during the prosperous 19th and 20th centuries.

Cut to the closing scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The Last Book Sale

How to design a clipper ship (see below)

In the 19th century people writing one another about commercial matters sometimes used the word “dull” to describe business conditions. Judging from the contexts in which it appeared, the word seems to have two major definitions – “a little slow” and “lousy.”

So, when I say that business this month has been “dull,” please understand that I mean it in the first sense. Not much is going on.

True, someone in Michigan sent me that lovely book on 19th century marine architecture, and I did manage to purchase a whaling log at a recent auction, but for the most part people have been busy vacationing, watching the Olympics, mowing their lawns, and engaging in similar non-revenue generating pastimes. Business has been dull.

A good thing, too, because my time has been completely eaten up by the new building across the street.

We’ve finally got all the construction work done. I’m just about finished cleaning up the mess, and the tenants are moving in. Daughter Celia’s working on getting her flower shop open,

son Brooks and his wife are setting up their photography studio,

and soon Anne Marie and her co-curator (they hate that word) Cynthia will be hanging their first show in the new building.






Now all I’ve got to do is figure out how to pay for the building. My first scheme, despite its originality, is generating revenue more slowly than anticipated. We made $1.05 over the weekend, but someone stole the dollar bill.

A lot of people have been stopping to photograph my sign, so I’m thinking of putting up another sign, charging $3.00 to photograph the first sign. I dunno, it’s a work in progress.

One thing I won’t be doing this week – if only for want of money and time - is flying down to Archer City, Texas for Larry McMurtry’s auction of the hundreds of thousands of used books he’s gathered in his home town.

He’s calling the auction “The Last Book Sale” – a takeoff on his famous “Last Picture Show”

and, indeed, the whole affair has a sort of elegiac tone to it. The end of an era. It seems to me that Larry who, last I heard, was still using a typewriter to write his books, represents the last of the pre-internet book dealers.

When I met him, he was in his prime.

By the 1980s I had expanded my book hunting territory as far south as Washington, DC. It was a productive route – western Connecticut, Westchester Country, over the Tappan Zee to Nyack, northern Jersey, Westchester-Lancaster, Wilmington, then down to DC, where I’d stay with my friends John Thomson and Karen Griffin of Bartleby’s Books. Back then, brick and mortar businesses abounded. We’d scout DC, northern Virginia, and Maryland, but the high point of the trip, always, was going into Larry McMurtry’s shop, Booked Up, in Georgetown.

As Larry recounts in his charming memoir, Books,

he moved to DC in the early 1970s and started a book shop with Marcia Carter. What he does not say in his memoir is that both he and the attractive Ms. Carter were smart and smart with people, able to leverage the fame of his movies into social access. He got into some of the best libraries in town, and his stock always reflected this. Booked Up was the best book store on the east coast.

Larry was generous with discounts and information and, despite his high-toned stock, he was never anything but friendly and encouraging. When I started writing, he had kind words for Gone Boy, and he even wrote a complimentary blurb for the jacket of Hubert’s Freaks.

Later in life, he moved back to Archer City, his Texas home town, and began filling it with books. By his own account he managed to accumulate 400,000 volumes for sale in four buildings, and 28,000 more in his personal library up the street. He says, "I have culled my book stock from at least a thousand bookshops - most of them now closed, in maybe a dozen countries."

Now, apparently, it’s time to start thinning out. According to the catalog, the auctioneers will offer 1400 shelf lots of about 150 books. I have no idea what or where the market is for 200,000 used books. I guess we’ll find out soon.

High on the wall at his Georgetown shop, Larry had a large 19th century chart – I think it was by Maury – showing whaling grounds and migration routes of whales through all the world’s oceans. It was a beautiful thing, not to be confused with the smaller charts in his several editions of Sailing Directions. I asked Larry about it a couple of times, but it was never for sale. Then he was gone, and Marcia was running a smaller Booked Up in a nearby location, and the whale chart wasn’t there.

Maybe it’s in one of those 1400 lots.

Pook, Samuel. A METHOD OF COMPARING THE LINES AND DRAUGHTING VESSELS, PROPELLED BY SAIL OR STEAM, INCLUDING A CHAPTER ON LAYING OFF ON THE MOULD LOFT FLOOR. NY. 1866. 14 b/w folding plans. 70 pp. with tables in text. This is a rare and important book on American Marine architecture, written by the father of the great clipper ship and ironclad designer (also named Samuel) and containing some of the son’s clipper ship plans, as well as the method father and son developed for generating perfect hull forms. Brewington p. 95. (Even 75 years ago he noted that this work was “scarce.”) McDonald 335. Spine ends chipped. Clean and fresh inside. $750