mutterings and ravings no. 46
Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 20:47:40 EDT
Sender: Bibliofind News and Views <NEWS@BIBLIO.BIBLIOFIND.COM>
From: Harry Nudel <nudel-soho@MINDSPRING.COM>
Subject: m&r allbooked up
spring break...long nasty cold...word and world weary...rope-a-dope
job...will you still love me at 54???...my brother, my mother, & the whitney
museum call (book's been sold)....sell a book to NYU..3 blocks away...after a
quarter of a century of flogging my wares...the internet divides/unites us in
one breath...reach out...reach out...& touch a screen..the tone of the latest group of postings particularly virulent..book
people are loners by nature...attached to objects by habit...given to words but
not talk... driven by dreams ....the computer tightening the tight screw...some
oxymorons;community of loners....society of individuals....group thought...when I met E..more than 25 yrs ago...he bought very cheaply a whole
bunch of Tarzan books...and I think (tho i'll never be sure) the first
appearance in All Story Mag...no regrets it was an EDUCATION...Borroughs like
Wodehouse or The Hardy Boys..were beneath this PHD then..had more avant-garde
shrimp to fry...now the sweet, the sentimental, the tried, the true, the
ordinary, the small piece of the cultural puzzle appeal to me just like De
Sade, Rimbaud, the EVO,..all the past is one seamless, timeless web...ending
here and (buy this book) now...E..dealt in Fanatasy...he was an archivist of it..so much so that
the floors of the 2nd floor walk up loft where had livd for x years had
collapsed twice under the strain of the load of books...not a way to impress yr
landlord..E weighed 300 lbs..always wore the same Gryphon-Monster tee
shirt...(hopefully he had more than one) he lay on the couch some kind of
oriental pasha, answering the continually ringing phone, greeting and
schmoozing and selling, displaying an encyclopediac knowledge of???
phantasy??the future??the FANTASY life of his customers..He came from a Hassidic background...he had died and entered this
world..he ate nothing but take out food..mostly chinese...saw a sci-fi flic
maybe twice a year..had a sex life that could not be animated by computer
graphics...and live completely inside his WORLD..he slept ate dreamt talked
fucked pissed sh..t books...not a far drive from the talmudic rabbinic
community he was born into...E died..massive heart attack..Swann sold the secondary stuff..the few
hundred grand stuffed here and there went???..the real rarities...one of 5
known Lovecrafts...went??? don't know don't care...Once when I told hime I was
going out..taking my daughter??...etc etc..He sd...'YOU HAVE ANOTHER LIFE'...IT
SURPRISED HIM...oh well it's the kinder, gentler me...in old age we dream of
youth...and are glad to be old and glad still to be able to dream..all dreams
DRn..
previous
Please note: Popula Reference Library articles and links are updated on an ongoing basis. Please do us a huge favor and contact us at editor@popula.com with broken links, errata or other improvements or changes you would like made. Thank you for your help in building this free public resource.
(Why not visit Popula Auctions by clicking one of the links below?)
