mutterings and ravings no. 70
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 00:32:57 -0800
Sender: Bibliofind News and Views <NEWS@BIBLIO.BIBLIOFIND.COM>
From: Harry Nudel <nudel-soho@MINDSPRING.COM>
Subject: m&r....there's fire...
J...writes she'll exit this list if i stop m&r..ing...a nice change
of pace from the usual hate e-mail...boring, tedious, long-winded
undecipherable, unspellable able...ble..le...e....I spend a long while looking at the Brodovich PORTFOLIO...this is a
particularly rough one somewhat torn & musty, the seller is muttering
something about 10 dollars although it's marked 35...and as I keep looking
i see a long top stain running deep into the pages...I say I'll pass..and I
hear the guy cough...as i look over he's sitting down dragging on a
cig...sez half the people in the garage have some lung congestion...me who
can't smell the sex object below my nose..notices a pungent acrid smell of
exhaust gas in the 2nd Floor of the GARAGE-FLEA MARKET...I'd call OSHA on
the spot...but book sellers are beyond the law in more ways than one...There are circa 14 listing for Brodovich on ABE..including a
terrible Portfolio at 175...and a Ballet at 1,5000??....Brodo is a
particular cross-over figure sellable in N.Y..L.A...Paris...Tokyo..but
certainly not in Des Moines or Fargo....essentially a designer and photo
editor of Books & Mags (Vogue, Harper's)..designed OBERVATIONS....books are
made not born great.....influenced Avedon and a whole Generation of
photographers.....Heard about him from Larry Clark when he was doing a
book..talked about bleeding the image...a man who taught seeing...Have sold
two Portfolios this year..bought for a few bucks each..sold them for a few
hundred each...At Trinity I noticed again one of the Major Dealers...calm cool
spend'em dough..on the steps dragging a cig..at every fair there are a
bunch..Willie my Indian Friend sez he wants to do a photo essay on the SHOP
GIRLS smoking outside the Luxury Boutiques...The true image on the end of
the mill...Death & Consumption..The images in Vogue of those llllllong
leggggged models willing themselve thin dragging that thin cig. of Death...Booksellers- u & me- are under particular pressure..like all small
biz..we the PETIT BOURGEIOUS ..are the steamrolled under of
capitalism..caught between the rich collector and bare bones scout...the
land lord and the pavement...the high culture of our hopes and the real
dough of what can be sold....In the back flap picture of most post war
novels the author is staring at US with a cig in his mouth, cool as death
he be is,...all the live long day...DRn...
previous
|
       |