The first time I went to the California Antiquarian Book Fair, it was in downtown Oakland, near where I was working at the time. That year's theme was the Wizard of Oz, always a lure. The themes are pretty loose, however, & many vendors have their specialties that are completely unrelated to the theme. The fair is in northern California every other year; on its last two visits up here it's been at Pier 27 on the Embarcadero in San Francisco.
That first time, while wandering down the overwhelming aisles, I saw a booth offering a signed first American edition of The Handmaid's Tale. That's what I have! thought I. I wonder what it's going for? The answer was $500, so if I want to re-read that book I need to find a cheap paperback, while my signed hardcover sits pristinely on its shelf.
That was the price as of however many years ago that was (the pandemic messed up the neat biannual schedule). Values, of course, go up & down, depending on desire & fashion & other whim-driven parts of a collector's nature.
(the approach to Pier 27)
Here's how I acquired my signed Handmaid's Tale: when the novel came out in 1985, I was working at a publishing house in Boston. A friend was working in a different publishing house, also in Boston. Atwood was going to appear at the Harvard Coop to sign copies of her new book. My friend couldn't get away from work but I could so I told her I would get her a copy as well. When I handed Atwood the second book to sign, I said, with sadly typical clumsiness when speaking to someone I admire but don't know, that the second copy was for a friend who was "chained to her typewriter" (typewriter rather than computer: that's how long ago this was). I just meant that she couldn't get away from work. But as my fancy phrasing came out, I noticed Atwood stiffen ever so slightly. I realized she was probably fearing that my friend was a writer & that I would press her latest manuscript on the famous published author. I figured the best thing to do was to smile & say thank you effusively & then leave, so that's what I did.
Ms Atwood, if I gave you a moment's discomfort on that day in 1985, though undoubtedly it's been long forgotten by you, who have better things to think about, then let me offer my apologies!
Signed books are odd things. If the book & author have achieved classic status, then the value skyrockets: meaning that your love for the book & the author has rendered your beloved signed copy essentially unreadable, therefore voiding the thing for which you love the item. It can then serve no practical purpose in a library, your own or a more official collection; it just connects you by principles of contagious magic, like the relics of the saints, with the beloved author, & with those words you now must read in a less costly form.
If only that were the only time in life when our love neuters into uselessness the thing that originally made us fall in love!
Despite all that, I have a deep & irrational love of signed books.
I am reminded of standing in line in a church in Padua, many years ago, to see the tongue of the famously eloquent preacher Saint Anthony of Padua. There I was, surrounded by stooped black-clad crones, waiting in line to see the shriveled, blackened relic. The crones, to my malicious mind, were also shriveled, blackened relics, though lacking in eloquence; Saint Anthony, though of Padua, was born outside of Lisbon, which made him a favorite with the Portuguese, & I have a beautiful old lithograph of him which once belonged to a great-aunt of mine, a singularly unpleasant woman whose conventional outward piety did not prevent her from wreaking damage on all around her, damage which went down through generations, as such damage does.
Book Fair drinking game: down a shot every time you see someone with a New Yorker tote bag.
Of course we're looking for "ephemera". We ourselves are ephemera, & like calls to like.
What we collect is a form of autobiography. I grew up reading the Oz books over & over, which is why I went to that first Fair, the one with Oz as the theme. Each time I've gone to the Fair most of the vendors have something that grabs me but as a sort of relief, there are some booths I can skip, such as those devoted to early medical publications: not my interest, but I could see they were magnets for others. I am happy to leave such things to those who want them. I have enough costly interests as it is.
I heard one young Indian man ask another if he had seen any books in Sanskrit. That made me realize that though you'd think a place like the Book Fair would be a goldmine for fascinating or hilarious overheard conversations, & maybe it is & I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, most of what I overheard was along the lines of "That looks like my copy of . . ." or "So I'll see you in Paris / Copenhagen / London. . . "
(Not a patch on the time I was at the Legion of Honor, looking at Ferlinghetti prints in a side room, when I heard an old lady out in the hall announce loudly, "Every night I wash & perfume my feet. I don't know why, I just do.")
These Fairs, with their double floors each holding dozens of vendors, can be overwhelming. Almost every booth has something of interest, from old prints (baroque European, Meiji Japanese, theatrical flyers of all times & places, all desirable) to rare books to interesting photographs. It's a lot to take in. Fortunately or not, arthritic joints make it difficult for me to crouch down & see what's on the lower shelves, so a sort of inadvertent selection goes on.
The joints restrict me in one way, & poor eyesight in another. Some print, depending on the size & distance, is difficult for me to read. This means that I'm deprived of the harmless but enjoyable voyeurism of looking at what other people are reading on the train.
I made what I thought was the witty & thematically appropriate sartorial choice of my First Folio t-shirt, but the only actual compliment I received was on my bracelets, which I had pulled on without much thought. This seems allegorical, but of what I will let the reader decide.
I sent this photo to a friend who responded by asking if I were cosplaying as the First Folio.
The Antiquarian Book Fair seems like an obvious place for cosplay, but I've never seen an instance of it: no bonnet-clad Austenites, no exotically appareled Byrons, not even an all-purpose dramatic black cape.. Does the cosplay crowd skew too young for something with "Antiquarian" in its name? Is cosplay more of a "fringes of pop culture" thing? But if so, what could be more fringe in our overly digital age than an interest in paper ephemera?
Maybe next time the Fair is here I should dress up as Aldus Manutius.
Some of the beauties at these fairs are clearly out of my financial reach, & so become akin to museum exhibitions. Then there is the dangerous amount: one large enough to give me pause, but still manageable, "manageable" in the sense that an anaconda finds devouring a warthog manageable: it can absorb it, but it takes a while & there's a distorting effect on the desired slender lines.
Since childhood I have had a low-level but constant fascination with the celebrated Ghent Altarpiece of the Van Eyck Brothers. I tried once, when a child, to duplicate it, using my deluxe 64-pack of Crayola crayons. I would not regard the results as a great success. Two years ago at the Book Fair, I was struggling to take it all in (having just discovered that there was an entire second floor of vendors) when I saw IT: a large & glorious 19th-century reproduction of the Altarpiece, issued by the Arundel Society. I was in one of my ill-advised fits of trying to be fiscally responsible, so I held off, feeling I should consider it at least over night, as it was definitely going for a warthog-in-the-anaconda amount. By the next dawn I had realized that yes, it was imperative that I own that piece. I headed back to San Francisco, but BART was full-on BARTing & between stalled trains & redirected destinations & unexpected transfers, I ended up getting to the Fair over an hour later than I had planned. I immediately headed to that vendor & made a beeline right to the Altarpiece at the back of his booth. My first inkling, as I stood there staring, practically drooling, that something was wrong was that the proprietor didn't come over to talk about the piece or anything, although I must have been glowing with the desire of ownership. After a few minutes I told him I wanted to buy it. He was sorry to say he had sold it five minutes earlier! (So, yes, if BART had been behaving, it would have been mine!) I practically collapsed at his feet. He did take my information down in case he should come across another example, but I think we both knew how unlikely that was. He headed back to England & I to the East Bay. I wonder if he ever thinks about that incident; I do almost every day. I had never known that such a thing as this Arundel Society reproduction existed, & now its absence is a gaping emotional hole in my life.
So often it's the extravagance we decline, the temptation we don't give in to, that we truly regret.
That was the same year an artist at the de Young Open ghosted me when I tried to buy her work. It was also the year I had to replace my roof, my furnace, & my hot water heater, all after losing my job. I wondered what cruel joke the Universe or Fate or whoever (some antic saint?) was playing on me: I had to spend so much on the literal roof over my head, when Art, that might have reconciled me to reality, kept eluding me.
Yes, I know, I know. Why does the Universe keep teaching me lessons I've already learned?
The absurdist emotional economy of those bad with money: "I had to spend [horrific amount X] on [necessary maintenance-type thing that absolutely had to be done] so I am justified in spending [slightly less horrific amount] on [thing I actually want]."
Just as there are people who consider themselves "culturally Jewish", I think (or at least I'm working on this theory) that there are people who are "aesthetically Catholic". One manifestation: veneration for the relics of the saints (see above re: signed books). But we also have The Typewriter of Djuna Barnes.
Towards the end of the Fair, I circled back to one vendor & there was a young man asking the proprietor in excited tones how he had managed to get the typewriter of Djuna Barnes?!? The proprietor told him it came from a man in New York City, a long-time friend of the author. When the excited young man left, I asked where the typewriter was: right at my feet! (The arthritic joints had prevented me from seeing it, of course.) I asked permission to take a photo, because I try to be well-behaved.
Yes, I am slightly amused that all those venerating this relic of the celebrated Lesbian are men.
The reason I circled back to that vendor was I had noticed on his upper shelf a stunning framed broadside (I love poetry broadsides, & feel not enough publishers take advantage of this undoubtedly lucrative market). The poem was North Haven, Elizabeth Bishop's elegy for Robert Lowell – signed by Bishop! I told the vendor I would need to think about it. And I did: for about five minutes. I reminded myself, with the shadow of the Ghent Altarpiece hanging over me, that I knew I would end up wanting, craving, needing the piece, & if I didn't buy it now & carry it off with me, I would have to pay for shipping, & then worry about its safe arrival, & doesn't Socrates assert that the main guiding light of a wise life is to know thyself?
Like a wise man, I knew myself, & what I would & would not regret. Reader, I purchased it.
No comments:
Post a Comment