The Lennon Diary 1969

Hey.  Wait a minute.  What IS this?  It seems to be a reproduction of John Lennon's diary.  I hope so.

His life was out-sized yet this is bit-sized.  The diary booklet measures 2 x 3 inches and is oddly formatted.   Each double page accommodates 6 days, so there is an intriguing rhythm to the way the weeks break.  It reminds one of the way human calendars and celestial movements require that extra day in leap years.

John Lennon - a giant of our times!  I could hardly wait to see how he'd spent 1969.  I was especially interested to see what small event or observation he would choose for the tiny space allotted each day in the diary.

woke up. went to work. came home. watched telly. went to bed. 

Written over and over again.  Occasionally fucked wife or went out.  July 14: went to Majorca.  blank pages until July 26: came back. Sunday July 27:  woke up - late watched telly. went to bed. 

This can't be right.   Is someone pulling my leg?

I wanted it to be real.  That it is the only explanation I have for my continuing and unreasonable gullibility.

A bit of scientific skepticism finally kicked in.  I checked July 21, the day  Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon.  No diarist could fail to mention this.  According to The Lennon Diaries, John was in Majorca at the time.  Even so.

Further checks saw no mention of Colonel Mummer al-Qaddafi driving Libyan King Idris 1 into exile; no mention of the Woodstock Extravaganza in August of that year; no mention of George Harrison releasing his own album; no mention of Lennon, himself, refusing the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire award as protest for UK involvement in Vietnam.  Were these too inconsequential for limited diary space?

And what about his marriage to Yoko Ono on March 20, 1969:  got up. went to work. came home watched telly. went to bed.

Okay.  It's not real then.  It's a joke.  Good one.

As it turns out, it really is a good one.  The Lennon Diary 1969 was written by John Lennon in November 1968 as part of a future diaries project.  It was published in 1970 and included as one of 14 items in the box that was issue No. 7 - The British Issue - of Aspen.  Aspen is "The Multimedia Magazine in a Box".

1969 was quite a year.  John Lennon was quite a man.  This little book introduces me to Aspen Magazine and Dave Dyment.  I'm glad to know of them both.

                                                ******************

relevant links:
Aspen, the index page gives a good sense of this remarkably interesting project:
http://www.ubu.com/aspen/siteIndex.html

Aspen page of John Lennon's future diary - includes the entire book:
http://www.ubu.com/aspen/aspen7/diary.html

Artists' Books and Multiples -  Dave Dyment has a great blog showcasing artist books and other stuff he calls "editioned artworks".  He has reproduced the entire The Lennon Diary and given bibliographic information.  Apparently Dyment's leg was not pulled.
http://artistsbooksandmultiples.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-lennon-diary-1969.html

An audio diary - John Lennon talking about his life - on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko839Ppuq24

more plausibly real John Lennon's diaries
http://www.beatlesarchives.com/diaries.htm

A Couple of Book Dealers

Gene Hollingsworth & Mac McMann with Gene's wife, Kay

1960s - photo probably by Phyllis McMann

These guys were a couple of characters.

Gene ran a book service out of his house in Manhattan Beach, California. Inside it was cool and had that good book smell. Outside it was sunny-bright and had that good beach smell.

Gene also played the horses. In a way, he couldn't lose.

Sometimes Gene Won Big at the track. He often spent his winnings on more books, bolstering the value of his inventory. When Gene lost at the track, he erased the pencil-written prices inside his books. He raised prices to balance out his loss, spreading the increase judiciously over a wide swatch of inventory.

Mac owned and ran Old Oregon Bookstore in Portland, Oregon. He didn't play the horses but sometimes Mac did Win Big on his books. Once in the 1950s he bought a book at The Salvation Army for pennies that was worth thousands. A Portland newspaper, "The Oregonian" I think, ran a dramatic story on the episode. Found Treasure: Astute Bookman makes Killing on Shabby Book, or some such headline.

Mac and Gene had already been friends for a long time when this photograph was taken. They entertained one another, and all around, with great book stories.

First Day Cover - Horace Greeley

A first day of issue is the first day that a new stamp is released. Often a special stamp is released in a significant city before it is available in post offices around the country.

A first day cover is an envelope, like this one, celebrating the new stamp and postmarked on the first day of issue from the city where it is first released. Stamp collectors like first day covers. It's kind of like a first state first edition.

This first day cover with the new Horace Greeley stamp - released and postmarked on February 3, 1961 - was sent from Chappaqua because Greeley lived there with his wife and children in the mid 1800s.

John Socia - Old York Book Store

unknown photographer

John Socia opened the Old York Book Store in New Brunswick New Jersey after he’d retired from Sears. It was 1968. John was 65. He loved that bookstore just as he’d loved books all his life. Old York meant infinitely more to him than Sears and Roebuck did but he’d grown up in the depression and was grateful for steady work.

“I could never have quit a paying job,” he said. He laughed ruefully about the mark the depression made on him. He was 16 in 1929 when the stock market crashed and the economy quaked. There were younger mouths to feed. He left home.

In later years John recognized an early photograph of himself in a book about the depression. He was in a field picking peas with others who also rode the rails around the country looking for work.

John Socia was the second of 12 children. His parents were Italian immigrants. John was born with clubfeet. In a way, this turned out to be a good thing. It meant that he and his father made many trips to doctors and hospitals in New York and in Philadelphia. The examinations and operations were grueling but there were always trips to the big-city bookstores afterwards. The club-footed kid and the immigrant father spent many happy hours together in bookstores.

Many years later when his feet were fixed and his father was long gone, John Socia finally opened his own bookstore. Old York was near Rutgers University. It drew readers and collectors and dealers from a much wider circle. All sorts of people liked coming into his shop to discuss James Joyce or political philosophy or anything. John Socia of Old York Bookstore certainly did know his books. And he certainly was a fine man.

One time Socia told me he’d worried about his younger brother, Frankie. “He’s so innocent,” John said. “Unworldly, like an angel. He’s so good that he can’t imagine anyone being bad. ” Actually that is how I think of John himself. He was so trustworthy himself that it didn’t occur to him to be wary of whom he trusted.

Old York was open for 15 years. During that time Socia bought and sold many books. During that time he made many friends and admirers.

*****

Socia is mentioned in two, of the many fascinating articles by Stuart Mitchner - first paragraph http://www.towntopics.com/apr0109/book.php

An article about used bookstores and book dealers. Socia is described in the 3rd paragraph labeled “Ideal Book Dealers”. http://www.towntopics.com/nov0106/book.html

Tom Disch - Poet & Writer

In the 1970s Tom Disch lived on Union Square in Manhattan with Charles Naylor. There were books in most of the rooms and long metal shelves filled with boxes of books all the way down the long hall.

Chris Stephens bought books from Tom. At first he bought review copies of books Disch had been sent to review. Later they became friends and Chris bought copies of books that Disch had authored. Tom would heave down a couple of boxes and he and Chris would go through them. Tom wanted to be sure he kept one copy of everything he'd written. Chris had to find another copy to reassure Tom that his last one wasn't walking out the door.

One time they were looking through books, Chris noticed a paperback by Victor Hastings packed in with copies of Disch's books. Chris picked it up. "Tom," he said. "Did you write this one?" Disch abashedly 'fessed up.

Another time Disch volunteered the history of how The House That Fear Built came to be.

Someone from Paperback Library, probably Hy Steirman, called Disch.

Quick, Tom, I need a Gothic mystery by Friday.

I don't know Gothic mysteries, Tom said, I've never written anything like that.

You're a writer aren't you. If you're a writer you can write and I need you to write me a Gothic mystery by Friday. I'm paying $300.

This exchange took place when $300 would cover a couple of rents and then some. Besides, Tom Disch relished a challenge. He accepted the commission. In the 1960s Disch was living with John Sladek. John watched Tom write through Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. On Wednesday Tom bogged down. He was totally blocked. He couldn't move the plot forward.

Give it to me, said John. Why don't I write on it for a little while? So they passed it back and forth and finished it by Friday. It was published under a Paperback Library house name, Cassandra Knye, but it was really a couple of guys taking turns at it writing through a week.

Hy Steirman was right though. Tom Disch was a writer. He could write. He settled into science fiction and later horror. He also wrote mainstream fiction, criticism, and of course he wrote poetry.

Above all, Tom Disch was a poet. He kept a 3x5 card with details of every poetry publication. There were thousands of them.

Once when I was teaching English to a bunch of hoodlums, I found a Tom Disch poem reprinted in their literature textbook. I told my students that the poet lived around the corner and that he was a big, strong fellow with tattoos, who would snarl most menacingly - and worse - if annoyed. The description was so much counter to their impression of poets that Disch got their attention. They listened to the poem with interest.

Many people read Tom Disch with interest. His poetry, stories, novels and criticism have a forcefully provocative edge that keeps that interest keen.

Thomas Michel Disch 1940 - 2008

Tom Disch's live journal

Dana Gioia remembers Tom Disch

Frank Scioscia - Harper & Row

Frank Scioscia was a sales representative for Harper & Brothers from summer 1956 to spring 1966. His territory was Southern California and Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. He liked the travel. His accounts were stores that carried new books, but he always stopped in at the used bookstores wherever he went.

In 1966 Frank was promoted to the head office in New York. Frank Scioscia worked at Harpers until he retired. He worked through mergers that changed the name of the publishing house from Harper & Bros to Harper & Row to Harper Collins.

Frank Scioscia enjoyed the publishing world in NYC, but he always a little bit missed the life of a publishers sales rep.

Andreas Brown - Gotham Book Mart

photo from the NY Times

April 24, 1975

credited to Larry Morris

     Frances Steloff founded the wonderful Gotham Book Mart in 1920.  Gotham was her life, but when she was 80 years old maybe it seemed prudent to let go a little.  She sold the store to Andy Brown in 1967.

    Steloff was picky about the conditions of the sale.  She approved of Andy Brown.  He was a knowledgeable book lover himself. He'd been one of her many enthusiastic customers.

     And Steloff didn't let go completely.  She attached certain stipulations to the sale.  1.) She could continue to live in her apartment upstairs for the rest of her life.  2.)  She would continue to manage the occult section of the store herself.  3.)  She was to be free to poke around in the sales floor as she wished.

     Steloff's tastes had the store for almost 50 years.  There were books and broadsides and magazines stored in the basement that had been there almost that whole time.  In spite of her continued involvement, Gotham's character changed a bit.  Andy Brown brought his own enthusiasms and extensive book knowledge to add to hers.  It made the store even better.

     Brown grew up in Texas and went to school in California.  After college he came to New York.  He bought books.  As a young man, he had already assembled a remarkable D.H. Lawrence collection.

     Brown knew younger authors and poets to add to the to the store.  In the same way that Steloff had promoted favorite authors, Brown published and promoted Edward Gorey.

     In 1967, the same year that Andy Brown bought the Gotham Book Mart from Frances Steloff, Christopher Stephens graduated from college and moved to NYC.  He took a job on 54th Street just blocks from Gotham.  Chris spent much of the free time he awarded himself (for the speedy work he did on 54th Street) at Gotham.  He knew the store well.  He got to know Brown and Steloff.  I met them too that year.

     I remember the first time I went to the Gotham.  I was meeting Chris there.  Even though NYC is laid out in a grid and you can't really get lost, I got lost.  When I arrived at the place where wise men shop, Chris was deeply immersed in books and didn't notice how late I was.

     I liked the smell of Gotham.  I liked the shelves and tables cobbled together, obviously added gradually to accommodate more and more books.  And of course I liked the books.  I was intimidated, though, by the intellectual intensity of the place.  Maybe because I was just a kid back then.  

     Over the next few years I got more comfortable with the Gotham.  And then I came to appreciate the inventory.  And then I came to really appreciate it.

     Gotham had a small but notable staff.  Phil Lyman had been in the store for a long time.  He knew the stock. he knew the authors. 

     In the late 1960s and into the 1970s, when I knew it, Gotham was quite a store.   Frances Steloff flitted around like a magical fairy godmother.  Even when you didn't see her, you felt her in the books.  Andy Brown was also a strong presence in the books and in the store. He brought a breadth and vision of these times' writers.

     Gotham Book Mart was a treasure house.

blog about book collecting - post about Gotham

My Big Friendship with Larry McMurtry

     I've never actually met Larry McMurtry.  He doesn't know who I am, but one time I think he might have glanced over my way.  In spite of this rather slim claim to friendship, I've had a life-long relationship with the man.

     Chris read McMurtry first.  He was instantly sold.  More accurately, Chris was instantly ready to purchase.  The Last Picture Show had been remaindered.   Book Sales Inc, a remainder house with a pleasantly low key operation, had all the available copies of The Last Picture Show.  Chris bought every one.  They were priced at a buck each.  Chris got 40% off for buying almost 200.   This was the late 1960s.  Chris paid more than a month's rent for those books.  It was his first big quantity purchase of a single title.  It was his first really big bet.

     For a few weeks I couldn't breathe well.  I wasn't temperamentally wired for that kind of gamble.  It worked out fine though.

     Chris listed the books at $7.50.  He offered them to Andy Brown of Gotham Book Mart at 40% off if he bought 5 copies outright.  "That's great," said Andy. "I'll take 10."  Chris sold 30 or 40 copies to Gotham that first year and many more copies through his Sixties catalogue.  The last copies sold at a premium several years later.

     I'd resumed normal breathing well before Chris' bet paid off.  I read The Last Picture Show myself.  I was instantly sold.  Or more accurately I was instantly ready to accept a high stakes purchase.

     I read McMurtry's earlier books, Horseman Pass By and Leaving Cheyenne.  McMurtry kept publishing and I kept reading him.  I loved his books.

     At this time, I was helping Chris in his book business, trying to master the mysterious vagaries of keeping house, getting a big kick out of our two young sons, and in slow-motion pursuit of an undergraduate degree at CCNY.  I took one art and one English course each semester.

     The time came for me to write a thesis paper for my advisor, Malcolm Bosse.  I followed my heart and chose Larry McMurtry.  I thought I had something to say.   This was sometime between publications of Moving On (1970) and All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers (1972).  I'd fancied I'd seen a pattern.  My thesis had one of those ridiculous titles that some 24 year olds think sound academically sophisticated.  Maybe it was: Tracing the Development of Larry McMurtry's  Increasing Understanding of the Complexity of the Female Make Up Through an Examination of Characters in His Books.

     Fortunately I never finished that paper.  I got derailed.  This is how.

     Peter Howard, proprietor of the renowned Serendipity Bookstore in Berkeley California, visited.  He'd come to NYC to  exhibit at a book fair.   There were other book dealers at our apartment that evening too.  Peter mentioned that he was going south to see Larry McMurtry after the show. 

     What?

     It turned out that besides being an author, Larry McMurtry was also a regular guy.  He was a book dealer with a store in Washington DC.

     I was overcome at the temerity of my thesis paper.  I changed topics to Dashiell Hammett.  At least he was dead.  Soon I stopped writing presumptuous papers.  I even stopped taking English courses.  I went a different direction.  My masters degree is in mathematics.

     I didn't stop reading though.  And McMurtry didn't stop writing.  I almost had a chance to meet him a couple of years later.

     Chris and I borrowed a car and drove with our sons to Washington DC.  McMurtry's bookstore, Booked Up, was one of our planned stops.  Chris called ahead.  I dropped him off and drove the boys to a park where they could romp and whoop.  After we'd picnicked, I drove back toward Georgetown to pick up Chris.

     I wasn't at my most beautiful to meet a literary hero.  I was travel worn.  My dress was stained with park bits, traces of children's games, and picnic lunch.

     I was almost to Booked Up and hadn't seen any good place to change clothes.    Maybe I should have pulled over to the side and changed in the car but that would have been virtually the same thing as changing clothes on the sidewalk.  Modesty forbade it.

     I was forced to follow the only course open to me under the circumstances.  I changed clothes in the moving car.  It wasn't easy.  Steer with one hand and unbutton with the other.  I was temporarily blind taking one dress off and putting another on.  I was driving crazily, the ordinary problems of driving while changing clothes was confounded by tricky roundabouts.  It was rush hour.  Inconsiderate drivers everywhere were honking at me.

     We reached Booked Up and got out of the car.  I made some minor outfit adjustments not possible from the driver's seat and we went into the bookstore.  Chris and Larry were in a side room, chatting comfortably.  I could see their legs through an open door but didn't go in.  The men came out talking.   I was flustered.  We left without my meeting McMurtry.

     Larry McMurtry continued to write good books.  He also continued to buy and sell books. He moved his book dealer operation back west and created a wonderful book town in Archer City, Texas.  He and Chris Stephens occasionally make book deals.

     His early books are still my favorites but I am an ardent fan of McMurtry's entire opus.

     I'm a much better driver now and a little more mature as well, but if I ever find myself with an opportunity to meet the author/regular guy, I'll still go to a great deal of trouble to be wearing a clean dress.

Booked Up in Archer City, TX

Sixties Catalogue

     In 1973 Christopher Stephens published a catalogue of books for sale that became a classic. Three things made this catalogue brilliant:
            1.) the timing
            2.) a strictly disciplined focus
            3.) knowledgeable endorsement of the authors
The precept was a collection of books published by promising American authors whose careers had begun in the 1960s.

Chris had begun compiling names even before the decade was out. In 1969 he showed an early draft of the collection to the Accessions Librarian at the University of South Florida. The university bought the whole collection, getting a jump on young writers for their library.
Chris reassembled the books. He fine-tuned the collection. By the time the published catalogue came out, he had already sold the entire collection to a number of university libraries around the country.
Stephens was very picky about which authors to include. Most did not have the recognition they have today. Back in the early 1970s, other writers seemed like the new, most recent voices – authors like Saul Bellow (Dangling Man 1944), Norman Mailer (The Naked and the Dead 1948), J. D. Salinger (Catcher in the Rye 1955), even Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises 1926).
The source of this catalogue’s big impact was the informed bet Stephens was making on these new authors. He stuck his neck out. These were substantial writers, had something to say, knew how to say it, and would continue to develop with time. Stephens predicted that these were the authors whose voices would speak in the future.
Some didn’t fulfill his promise, but remarkably, most did.
Later other book dealers put together similar collections. Some dealers weren’t as careful about the time parameters, putting in authors who’d published late in the 1950s or early in the 1970s. Most didn’t read all the books they listed. They did not insist on excellence in the authors and included some that Stephens had already dismissed as marginal.
Perhaps the difference between excellent and marginal is subjective. Chris Stephens didn’t think so.
That catalogue was active for almost all of the 1970s. Scouts carried back-order lists and Chris kept replenishing his supply of his Sixties Authors. They dominated our book shelves. Those were exciting times in the apartment. Always a good read only an arm’s length away. Those books were good company, even - when time was short and responsibilities long - just the spines.

Chris Stephens put a great deal of thoughtful time into his selection and assembled 154 dynamic writers who began their published career in the 1960s.

Authors in the Sixties Catalogue

This is the list of authors presented in the catalogue called "The Sixties" put out by Christopher P. Stephens, Bookseller, Inc

Aaron, Chester
Asher, Don
Baird, Thomas
Barthelme, Donald
Baumbach, Jonathan
Beagle, Peter S.
Bell, Charles
Berricault, Gina
Berry, Wendell
Blechman, Burt
Bradford, Richard
Brammer, William
Brautigan, Richard
Brodeur, Paul
Brower, Brock
Butler, William
Carpenter, Don
Chappell, Fred
Charyn, Jerome
Cohen, Marvin
Cole, Tom
Connell, Evan S. Jr.
Conroy, Frank
Coover, Robert
Corrington, John William
Crawford, Stanley
Crews, Harry
Cuomo, George
Curley, Thomas
Davis, L. J.
Dawkins, Cecil
Deaux, George
Delbanco, Nicholas
Dickey, James
Didion, Joan
Doctorow, E. L.
Douglas, Ellen
Elkin, Stanley
Ely, David
Epstein, Seymour
Exley, Frederick
Fair, Ronald
Faust, Irvin
Fine, Warren
Fox, William Price
Friedman, Bruce Jay
Friedman, Sanford
Fruchter, Norman
Gaines, Ernest
Gardner, John
Gass, William
Gerald, John Bart
Gloag, Julian
Gold, Ivan
Goldberg, Gerald Jay
Greenberg, Joanne
Grossman, Alfred
Haldeman, Charles
Harrington, William
Harris, Bertha
Harris, Marilyn (Mrs. Edgar V. Springer, Jr,)
Harrison, Jim
Hazzard, Shirley
Heller, Joseph
Herlihy, James Leo
Herrick, William
Hjortsberg, William
Hopkins, John
Jones, LeRoi
Kelley, William Melvin
Kesey, Ken
Kirkwood, James
Knowles, John
Kosinski, Jerzy
Lafore, Laurence
Lambert, Gavin
Langguth, A. J.
Larner, Jeremy
Leigh, James
Leonard, John
Linney, Romulus
Litwak, Leo
Lurie, Alison
McCarthy, Cormac
McConkey, James
McElroy, Joseph
McGuane, Thomas
McMurtry, Larry
Madden, David
Mano, D. Keith
Manville, W. H.
Manville, Bill
Marius, Richard
Markfield, Wallace
Markson, David
Marshall, Paule
Matthews, Harry
Matthews, Jack
Mayhall, Jane
Midwood, Barton
Mirsky, Mark
Momaday, Scott
Montgomery, Marion
Moynahan, Julian
Neugeboren, Jay
Newman, Charles
Nissenson, Hugh
Oates, Joyce Carol
Olsen, Paul
Olsen, Tillie
Ozick, Cynthia
Paley, Grace
Percy, Walker
Perutz, Kathertin
Piercy, Marge
Plath, Sylivia
Pollini, Francis
Portis, Charles
Price, Reynolds
Pynchon, Thomas
Rechy, John
Reed, Ishmael
Renek, Morris
Rogers, Thomas
Rogin, Gilbert
Rosen, Norma Stahl
Roth, Philip
Rovit, Earl
Rubin, Michael
Selby, Hubert, Jr.
Sheed, Wilfred
Shetzline, David
Simmons, Charles
Sontag, Susan
Speicher, John
Stegner, Wallace
Stern, Richard
Stewart, Edward
Stone, Robert
Suzenick, Ronald
Theroux, Paul
Updike, John
Wallant, Edgar Lewis
Weesner, Theodore
West, Paul
Williams, John A.
Wilson, Carter
Wilson, S. J.
Woiwode, Larry
Wright, Charles
Wurlitzer, Rudolph
Yates, Richard
Yount, John
Yurick, Sol

Book Scouts and Search Services

     In the olden days, before the prevalence of internet, it was not an easy business to match a book buyer, wanting a specific book, with a bookseller who had that book.  An entire world of intermediaries developed.

     Search services tracked down a book.  Often a bookstore operated its own search service.  It might be focused, but more often store search services were haphazard – run as an incidental operation to the main business of buying books and selling them out of the store.   Some very fine services were unaffiliated with any retail store.

     Dick Mohr ran one of the very best search services:  International Bookfinders.  He operated out of Southern California, but his physical location mattered little.  He used the mail.

     Mohr had been successful in advertising.  He brought a brisk can-do attitude to his search service.  In a business where searches usually dragged on for a long time, Mohr was famous for his quick turnaround.   He brought his briefcase to the post office each day, picked up his mail, responded, and mailed his response before he left the post office.

     How does a search service locate a book?

     Someone like Dick Mohr knew many book dealers and books scouts.  Dick and his wife, Martha, generated a weekly list of books they needed.  International Bookfinders sent the lists out to stores and scouts.

      Before the internet there was a broad network of book scouts.  They followed their hearts into used and antiquarian bookstores all over the country – all over the world.  Scouts also carried lists of  “wants”.  Various search services printed out lists of books they wanted and sent those lists to their favorite book scouts.  Lists of wants were also published in trade magazines like AB, The Antiquarian Bookman.

     Sometimes book scouts bought books on speculation.  They’d seen a title as a “want” frequently and figured it would come up again.  In this case, the book scout edged over into the realm of the book dealer.  He built a stock of books that he thought he could sell.

    When a scout found a book that a search service wanted for a customer, the scout would quote it to the search service.  The quote included 1.) title, publisher, and print date of the book, 2.)  condition of this copy,  3.)  price to the searcher.  Of course the quote also had to include the name and address of the scout.  Without that critical piece of information the search service wouldn’t know where to say “yes, please,” or where to send the check.

    Through wine-drenched evenings, many funny but rueful stories circulated on this theme.  They were stories of very scarce books, in superb condition, quoted at shockingly modest prices, by scouts who failed to include return address information.  Storytellers would pantomime the effort at deciphering postmarks and the always-unsuccessful nightmare of trying to trace the quote back to the quoter.

    On one such wine-drenched evening, Dick Mohr and a bunch of dealers and scouts were assembled around our table in the NYC apartment where Chris and I lived.  Another one of our friends was there.  This other fellow wasn’t in the book trade.  He was fascinated. He tried to make sense of it all.

     “So you’re saying,” he said to Mohr, “that someone comes to you wanting a book.  You advertise for it or tell your friends.  Someone finds it for you.  You buy it from them.  Then you add some little amount to the price you paid and pass it on it to your customer?”

     “Well, no,” said Mohr.  “It's more like I add some exorbitant amount to the price I paid and pass it on to my customer.” 

     It was a costly and time-consuming project to acquire a specific book back then.  Now the internet has created a miraculously fluid market with easy connections between the wanting and the finding of books.

     Dick Mohr operated International Bookfinders in the 1960s and 1970s.  He might have started a decade earlier.  He might have continued a decade or two beyond.

     I remember him clearly.  Close cropped hair, big glasses, strong wiry build, ready wit, limitless personal stores of harnessed energy.  I wish I had a photo of him to post.  The word picture will have to suffice. 

 

Dick's son, Mark, wrote a much more complete article on Mohr.  It includes plenty of pictures.   Mark Mohr's article is posted on Seven Roads.  

this article (Bibliofind and AB) details an example how the old way is merging with the new way

December 1963 - Scioscia's living room in Manhattan Beach, California

left to right:

Theron Palmer - sales rep Dial Delacorte

Mary Scioscia

Violet Palmer

Ted Maass - sales rep Macmillan

The Publishers' Representatives

publishers' reps left to right:  Zeb Burgess - ?, unknown, Ted Maass - Macmillan, Frank Scioscia - Harper & Row

     Don't trade book salesmen have great jobs?  The responsibilities are hardly onerous.  Each salesman has a territory filled with book stores.  The salesman visits each one regularly and chats with the book buyer who is often the owner.  The book buyer orders inventory from the publisher's new season list while they discuss readers and book buyers and authors.

     The salesman checks stock and culls returns for the bookstore.  Then he drives off to another bookstore for more fun.

     

Theron Palmer - publisher's rep

photo July 1976 - Frank Scioscia & Theron Palmer - in Stephens' backyard

In the 1970s Theron Palmer was a sales representative for Dial/Delacorte and also represented Harper & Row and Atheneum. It’s not supposed to be that way. Usually one person represents one publisher. Theron’s territory – Texas and Oklahoma - had a lot of open space between bookstores. Theron was able to work out a joint arrangement.

In 1975, when he drove those long open stretches, oil prices and import problems led congress to pass a national speed limit of 55 mph. Many people complained. Theron didn’t. He cut his speed 20% - down to 55. Theron was patriotic and law-abiding. He said if he could do it on his long drives, then anyone should be able to keep to 55.
Theron grew up in Oklahoma. He talked about the difficulty of farming poor soil during the depression. He remembered that he only had onions to eat as a child. Those onions sustained him well though. He became a tall, broad man with a wonderful singing voice. I met Theron Palmer in the early 1960s, not long after my father met him. This was before he returned to OK/TX. In the early 1960s he just represented Dial and his territory, like my father’s, included southern California. Many evenings Theron brought his guitar to our house. His strong voice sang out in our book-lined living room. My father could never get enough of Theron’s songs. Theron had a wide repertoire of country songs but most memorably he sang a powerful version of “The Tennessee Stud”.

The Tennessee stud was long and lean,

the color of sun and his eyes were green.

     Theron twanged it out loud and hearty. The song is basically about a cowboy hero who loves a beautiful girl with golden hair.

I had some trouble with my sweetheart's pa,

And one of her brothers was a bad outlaw.

    The cowboy had to ride away on his very fine horse, the Tennessee stud. He rides into all sorts of dire situations, but he always gets out safely because of this exceptional horse. Time passes and he misses the girl. As it turns out, the stud’s in love too. He misses the Tennessee mare. They return. The cowboy whips the girl’s brother and pa and rides away with the girl who – coincidentally I guess - owns the Tennessee mare. Not all of Theron’s songs had happy endings, but this one did.

Pretty little baby on the cabin floor

Little colt playing around the door

I love the girl with golden hair

And the Tennessee stud loves the Tennessee mare

Sometimes Theron brought his wife, Violet, to our house too. My parents, Frank and Mary Scioscia, became friends with Violet and Theron Palmer. Both men travelled, selling books to stores far and wide. It's a special kind of life.  They both loved books. All four of them did. Whenever Theron wasn't strumming his guitar and singing, the adults were talking about books.

A Brief History of Chris Stephens' Bookselling Establishments

Christopher Stephens bought, sold, collected, organized, and catalogued all manner of marvelous treasure as a youngster.

He opened his first actual store in 1965 in Mt. Carroll Illinois. It was part of a bigger venture. We were students at Shimer College. With 4 other students, Rick and Pat Pottinger and Barry and Gail Karp, we opened a coffee house. The Golden Shovel. The coffee house had a store. I made jewelry for the store. We organized art exhibitions. The others arranged the coffee house business. Chris ran the bookstore.

The second store was in our house, still in Mt. Carroll. Chris sold books to students.

When Chris graduated from college he sold his bookstore to the student government and brought his family to New York City. He got a job at Equitable Life Assurance but he was still really a book dealer. It only took a few years for him to drop the Life Assurance game and become a full time book dealer.

Golden Shovel - Mt. Carroll, Illinois 1965/1966

used texts and other books out of house

Benton Street, Mt. Carroll, NYC 1966/1967

Christopher P. Stephens, Bookseller Inc. (out of apt.)

75 Ft. Washington Ave 1968-1975

325 38th Street, NYC 1973 -

Madison Ave. between 33rd & 34th 1977 - 1978

Canfield Stephens 67th Street 1978

52nd Street NYC 1979 - 1981

7 Terrrace Dr, Hastings on Hudson 1981 - 1993 (out of house)

riverrun 1994 - present

Today is Chris' birthday. I first celebrated his birthday with him 44 years ago. He turned 22. I was almost 18. We were already married. So many book adventures, so many life adventures were still ahead of us. So many still are.

C., H.B. Love, L.

Ed Young reading to children

      Ed Young - autumn 2008 - showing a class of students at Hillside School two versions of a single page of Wabi Sabi.  The illustrations are collages.  The first complete manuscript was lost.  Ed started over.  He assembled new collage materials and reworked each illustration.  When the second complete manuscript was in production at Little Brown, the first manuscript was returned to Ed.

     Wabi Sabi was selected as one of the 10 best illustrated books of 2008 by The New York Times.  It is a joy to look at.   The students always enjoy having Ed Young come to school to read his books to them.  This time they looked closely.  Each wanted to be the first to name the differences and the similarities in the page by page comparisons.

     Ed Young has a long association with riverrun.  Ed became friends with Frank and Mary Scioscia in 1966 when they moved to Hastings on Hudson right next to the Burke Estate where Ed Young taught tai chi beneath a palatial copper beech tree.  Ed and his girls have been friends with the Scioscia Family and friends with the bookstore ever since.   The family and the bookstore have been fans of Ed's ever since.

a truly marvelous interview & art show of Ed Young in a quite remarkable readers' blog

Mancini wedding

Frank and Mary Scioscia at Pat McNiece and Tony Mancini's wedding. 1967

Pat was in publishing. Tony was a journalist. They were bright and confident and young. The reception was filled with literary enthusiasts.

Something Else Press

Something Else Press (1963 - 1974) was a strong publishing voice of experimental writing. The list includes major concrete poets and fluxus artists. Dick Higgins ran the press. His wife, Alison Knowles, indirectly helped him name it. When he offered her suggestions for the name of the press, she said, "No. No. Not that either. Name it something else." So he did.
All of the people involved with the press were creative artists. None was a business major. Higgins kept the press afloat with his own personal money but eventually the Something Else Press had to close down operations.
The press left an indelible mark on the experimental literay scene.

a wikipedia entry lists publications

Old Oregon Bookstore - Preston McMann

Mac McMann opened the Old Oregon Bookstore in 1959 in Portland, Oregon.  The store had the good look of those great old stores.  There was a big section of square paned windows in front.  You could see through to the dark shelves inside.

     Mac's wife, Phyllis, often joined him in the store.

     Mac got into houses and bought fine book collections.  He browsed other shops and Salvation Army book tables.  Soon after Old Oregon opened, Mac found something incredible at a table.  It looked like nothing and it was priced to match.  Mac knew its real worth.  He bought it for pennies and sold it for thousands.  The Oregonian newspaper carried a story. It was big news.

     In those days, book dealing was a knowledge-intensive profession.  A book dealer survived and prospered on what he knew.  McMann survived and prospered for decades.

     Preston "Mac" McMann and Frank Scioscia were part of the lively book community in Portland after WWII, but the two of them were special friends.  The men continued their book friendship after Frank moved to California.  Their families intermingled for life.

     The photos show a post card from Mac to Frank.

Frank and Chris 1965

riverrun bookstore is the product two great bookmen.
Frank Scioscia opened the store on Washington Avenue in 1978. He ran it until he died in 1993. After a transition period, Frank's son-in-law, Christopher Stephens took over early in 1994.

Today their stints are even. Each man has steered riverrun for 15 years. The store is remarkable because of these men.

The men are very different and very much the same. Their styles and personalities differ. They are the same in their love of books. They read, but it's more than constant reading. Frank was an extremely knowledgeable bookman. Chris too.

The men were friends for 28 years. During that time they argued politics and applauded books. Their enterprises were separate.  They shared the joys of discussing incredible finds and showing one another treasures. Each was undaunted sifting through book rubbish for gems. Each was wildly optimistic about prospects of the next book call.

The picture was taken in January 1965, just after they met. Discussing points, book scouting, co-creating interesting collections, opening a series of bookstores culminating with riverrun - doing all this together was still in the future. That future was great.