2012 Smith College Book Sale

The Booklover's First Rite of Spring


Literary looting at Smith College Book Sale

Smith College Book Sale
March 23-25, 2012 @ Maryland State Fairgrounds

"A room without books is like a body without a soul." - Cicero

Yesterday, Amy and I went to the opening day of the three-day Smith College Book Sale at the Timonium Fairgrounds, an annual rite of spring for movable typeface geeks like us who remember the pre-Kindle days when knowledge was passed from one person to another via the printed page (as well as videotape, audiotape, and vinyl grooves - as Analog Anarchronists, we collect these beloved information distribution formats as well!). We skipped the 10 a.m. opening, because the organizers charge $10 the first hour - a price diehard collectors, hoarders and book (re)sellers are only too willing to pay - but there was still plenty of good stuff on offer after that, especially at the Vintage table.

In the lobby, I made a quick stop at a very sexy, hourglass-shaped ATM machine that was slightly smaller than the petite Ms. Linthicum and withdrew $100 from my rapidly dwindling checking account (can't wait for payday next week!), but it wasn't really necessary as both Amy and I fought our natural tendencies to stockpile books (and assorted other media) - a habit we've been weaning ourselves from since the demise of our beloved Daedalus Books store at Belvedere Square store in Govans - and spent less than $55 dollars combined for the day.

Maybe it's because we kept running into people we knew there, a veritable Who's Who of local book (and music) collecting nerds that included Chris Siron and Lynne Parks (amazing local artists who rummage through old books looking for vintage cover art and line illustrations for their collages - an example of which is shown below)...


Chris Siron's "Transmutation of a Conniption" (2006 collage)

...Charles Brohawn of The Tinklers (who's always on the lookout for bird books and polka records), musician Bob Tiefenworth and his wife, photographer Denny Lynch, and even Dave Cawley (as shown below left).

Dave was actually on break from his 9-to-5 claims adjuster gig just down the road, where he was busy denying insurance claims with a gusto that has seen "Davey Denial" ("It's Not Just a River In Egypt!") rise rapidly to the upper echelon of insurance industry management; Davey D. had stopped by to check out the Modesty Blaise and other vintage comic books for sale in his beloved collector's corner, where last year he scored some early Flash Gordon comics.

Dave and I are admittedly (unabashedly!) on a Modesty Blaise kick (Joseph Losey's oft-maligned kitsch-cult film adaptation - starring a flying-over-the-gaydar Dirk Bogarde, Terence Stamp and Monica Vitti - of the book and comic serial series by Peter O'Donnell is one of Dave's faves and he will enthusiastically sing you the theme song at the drop of a hat!) and it's hard to resist the tales of a spy who's "courage and cleavage in equal parts" and whose hobbies (like ours) include "danger...intrigue...espionage...sex."


Modesty Blaise: "Courage and cleavage in equal parts. Adventure is her game and her equipment is fantastic."

On our way in, Amy noticed a poster announcing that a film crew would be videotaping throughout the day for a upcoming documentary. Wow, I thought, maybe it's MPT doing one of those Rick Sebak- or Antiques Roadshow-style profiles about flea markets and avid collectors, but it turned out it was just two Stevenson College students doing an asignment for film class about this one event. I guess I'll be in it, because they filmed me, Charles Brohawn, Denny Lynch and his historian friend talking about what attracts us to the book sale.

"I just came to be in the movies," I confessed. We all signed releases, just in case Frederick Wiseman or Erol Morris wants to sign on for a development deal, and when they asked us to state our names and occupations, I replied, "I'm a card-carrying Librarian and a hoarder" or something to that effect. Geeze, the last time I signed a release was for Andrew Kolker and Louis Alvarez's People Like Us: Social Class in America (2001); the filmmakers had filmed a segment on the 2001 Hampden Honfest I attended - one which also featured Hampden native Kelly Conway in character as "Stella Gambino" (ertswhile soap opera reviewer on WJZ-TV's Soap Dish) - and I recall missing the film's premiere in New York City the week of 9/11 (poor Kelly attended the screening and was stuck in lower Manhattan all week - timing is everything!).


"(Mad) Man About (Gentrified) Town" Tom Warner adds a "yeah" and a "right" to the intense sociological debate about class in America in "People Like Us."

My ADD runs rampant at events like these, where I am easily distracted and unfocused like an "Ooh, lookit that...Ooh now lookit that!" kid in a candy store. Amy, on the other hand, is always very focused during booksale shopping sprees, limiting her hunting to Japanese language books (for her mother) and anything/everything to do with mythology-anthropology-spirituality (especially of the anti-Christian, pro-Pagan/Wiccan variety); on this day she scored at least a half dozen Joseph Campbell books (though she missed Bob Tiefenworth's score-of-the-day, the 2-disc Mythos II DVD for $4!) and Spencer Wells's The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey (we had enjoyed the 2003 PBS documentary based on his book - which attempts to trace and explain the geographical dispersal of early human migrations out of Africa to the rest of the world - so this was a great find).

Following are my disjointed, all-over-the-place (and decidely non-intellectual, compared to Ms. Linthicum's titles) scores for the day.

***

The Firesign Theatre - Lawyer's Hospital LP (1982)
Price: $2
"You mean, to Bambi?" "I not mean to Bambi - she likes it that way."


"Lawyer's Hospital" w/William Stout cover (Rhino, 1982)

Amy found this one for me (God bless her!) right off the bat. Ah, the Firesign Theatre - the Fab Four of '70s FM Radio Comedy Troupes (a true anachronism to today's iPod Generation) - how I love(d) them! This is one of their 1980s "leftover" albums for the Rhino label (the follow-up to Nick Danger, Third Eye In the Case Of the Missing Shoe), which compiles pre-existing bits into two loosely thematic LP sides. The Firesign Theatre were in essence a '60s-inspired, '70s-defined FM Radio anomaly that got kinda lost in the '80s as the comedy album concept gradually died away and this new thing called "video" and then cable television and compact discs came along. I've only ever heard a snippet of this record, one that was translated to live action as part of Firesign Theatre's 1986 video release Eat Or Be Eaten (see a clip below).

Watch "Lawyer's Hospital, Part 1" (YouTube)


As if the comedy weren't enough, this record was worth picking up just for the cover by the great "paleo-artist" William Stout, who had a comic career that any artist would envy. He started out working on Tarzan comic strips, then worked with a Hall of Fame roll call of fellow cartoonists like Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder (Little Annie Fanny), Jack Kirby, Archie Goodwin, the folks at Heavy Metal magazine, and later still did some of the surreal set designs for films like Pan's Labyrinth. He did a number of Firesign Theater covers, including the amazing In the Next World You're On Your Own (1975), as shown below:


Stout couldn't resist putting a dino on the cover!

I particularly liked the back cover of this LP for its depiction of an inter-species baseball game:


Cicada at the Bat: Pop-up Fly?

Stout also did one of my all-time favorite Bomp! magazine covers - the one for the Power Pop issue:


Who Put the Bomp?: Power Pop!

***

Frank Sinatra - This is Sinatra! LP (1956)
Price: $2


"This is Sinatra!" LP (Capitol, 1956): Love "Rain" Over Me!

Unbelievably, I didn't own this classic Sinatra LP from his 1950s "hat years" period at Capitol Records. Though released in 1956, this collection represents Sinatra singles and B-sides recorded with Nelson Riddle in 1953 and is worth it just for the rare recording of "Rain (Falling from the Sky)" - one of the least-known Sinatra songs, despite being among his greatest "emo" intrepretions (and I love how it opens with the sound of rainfall). Before I toughened up into a Macho Man, this song by George Finlay and Robert Mellin used to make me cry (I'm sensitive like that). The other essential inclement weather Sinatra tune is, of course, "Here's That Rainy Day" (but that's a song for another day, I 'spose).

Watch/listen to "Rain."


Ethel Merman - The Ethel Merman Disco Album (1978)
Price: $2
Special Features: Back cover is signed "To Ann and Milton, all my love - Ethel Merman" !


Aesthetically-speaking, Ethel almost slipped her disco on the dancefloor

I really enjoyed listening to this! It made me think back fondly to Love Boat; it's like something cokehead cruise entertainment director "Julie McCoy" (Lauren Tewes) would have played to amuse all the middle-aged swingers on board. As Amazon reviewer Elisabeth Vincentelli describes it:

The title says it all. This is the disco album "the Merm" recorded in 1979, a few years before her death. Rumor has it that Merman couldn't stand the disco craze that was sweeping the nation in the late '70s, recording her vocals before the instrumental tracks were laid down. Masterminded by Peter Matz, who produced, arranged, and conducted the whole thing, Merman's disco album is one of those jaw-dropping, "what were they thinking?" UFOs that periodically land on the pop landscape. Merman (at her most bombastic, vibrato-laden) barrels through eight of her signature tunes. All are taken at breakneck speed, and even dramatic show-stoppers, such as "Everything's Coming Up Roses" (from Gypsy), become dance-floor burners. Whether you find the album simply horrifying or an entrancing testimony to the power of people to lose their heads as they fall prey to a dance fad, this collision between two completely different American musical traditions is nothing short of, ahem, breathtaking.

Watch Ethel promoting her disco album on the "Tonight Show" w/Johnny Carson.


***

The Doors - Other Voices LP (1971)
Price: $2


The Lizard King has left the building!

Other Voices was the seventh studio album by The Doors and the first album released by the band following the death of lead singer Jim Morrison (a period referred to by closed-Door purists as "Morrison, A.D.") - and trust me, that's a gaping hole in the end-product as big as the Grand Canyon (or adult film starlet Liza "Black Hole" Harper's (w)rectum, to put it in layman's terms); the band had started recording tracks for this LP while Morrison was on holiday in France and it was released without much fanfare when that holiday turned into a permanent vacation with Jimbo's untimely death in a Paris bathtub. It's not very good, but I picked it up for nostalgia's sake, specifically for the Robby Krieger-penned "I'm Horny, I'm Stoned" which practically defines the dated '70s stoner-hippie vibe (and highlights Krieger's slide guitar abilities, as well). Back in the early '70s, I recall one of the cool FM DJs (Joe Buchari?) on my beloved [okay that's the third time I've used this expression, but what can I say? - I'm a luver, not a hater!) WKTK used to play this as his theme song. (WKTK was great. Another DJ opened his show with National Lampoon's "Deteriorata" (a parody of Les Cranes's 1971 spoken word recording of "The Desiderata") as his theme song, and the station would also play Firesign Theater albums in their entirety!).

Watch a BBC outtake of sans-Lizard King Doors playing "I'm Horny, I'm Stoned."


***

My Husband Keeps Telling Me To Go To Hell (Hardback, 1955)
by Ella Bentley Arthur and Hannett T. Kane; illustrations by R. Taylor
Price: $3



Picked this up for the illustrations by legendary New Yorker gag cartoonist R. Taylor, best known for his saucer-eyed characters and elegant line drawing style, as shown below:



***

Dick Tracy Meets the Punks (1980)
Price: $3



Worth it for the cover alone! Writer Max Allan Collins and artist Rick Fletcher breathed new life into Chester Gould's Dick Tracy franchise in the '80s with new storylines and characters, including "Dick Tracy Meets the Punks." Though Tracy had dealt with lots of criminal punks like Flyface, Bolo and Puckerpuss before, the androgynous "Bony" and butch "Claudine" were actual punk rockers who, along with Quiver Trembly and her brother (who bear a vague resemblance to Debbie Harry and Elvis Costello) reflect Collins' interest in New Wave rock 'n' roll (the author was a former rock musician himself). Okay, it may be corny and gimmicky, but it works for me!


Dick attempts to deconstruct post-modern rock

***

Sexsations (Hardback, 1954)
Price: $3


Gag me with a 'Toon!

This retro-risque (but not dirty!) gag book lists neither authors nor cartoonists, but is a lot of fun. It's filled with stupid jokes, poems, limericks and traveling salesmen jokes, but I got it for the great gag drawings that adorn almost every page. Lots of nudity and semi-nudity, but the language is strictly PG-13, as this was from the 1950s - when people sold the sizzle and not the steak!


Typical "Sexsations" 'toon


A Sure bet: Win, Place (and especially!) Show!


"The Highballs are on me!": Teabaggin' toon teaser?

Pet Shop Boys, Literally (Paperback, 1992)
by Chris Heath
Price: $4



Amy found this for me. I like the Pet Shop Boys, but I almost wish I hadn't been carrying it around all day because it only added fuel to the fire as far as another aquaintance I saw at the book sale - the gay guy who always flirts with me at the library. He's harmless and means well, but tends to follow me around like a puppy, despite my protestations of "Excuse me, that's fascinating, but I have to go find my girlfriend - ta!" The presence of that book in my hand may have led him to think I'm teetering on the fence.

Also, I'm convinced that the blue-haired septagenarian lady who rang me up (to the tally of $26.50 for the day) now thinks I'm gay (and her opinion really matters to me!).

***

Once in Love With Amy - sheet music
Price: $1 or $2 (can't remember!)

I bought this for sentimental reasons, for to know my Amy once is to love her forever! (Awl!)





***

Attention booklovers! The next rite of spring is the (18th annual) Friends of the Towson Library Book Sale, which will be held April 12-15 at the Towson Branch of the Baltimore County Public Library. Like the Smith College Book Sale, I think they charge $10 for the "preview" sale held on opening night, Thursday, April 12.

The Final Cycle of the Mayan Calender - Its the end of the world as we know it(and I feel fine)

On March 9th, 2011 the ninth and highest wave of the Mayan calendar system was activated. This was the beginning the final countdown to the date of completion of the Mayan calendar: October 28, 2011.

The Synthetic History of Mankind

"This new wave, made up of thirteen uaxaclahunkin periods of 18 days, meant a twenty times increase in frequency compared to the 8th wave of the Galactic Underworld that had been activated in January of 1999. This frequency increase has become evident to everyone as an extraordinary amount of significant and dramatic events compressed into a very short period of time. The Ninth wave immediately manifested in the earthquake in Japan and its first day included not only the aftershocks of this quake and the ensuing nuclear crisis, but a new war in Libya against the background of revolutionary processes going on in twelve different Arabic nations."



Carl Johan Calleman


"Economists have commented that never before has the world’s economy been characterized by so many cross currents as now and the future seems utterly unpredictable according to any model for linear change. The events both in the Middle East and Japan undermine the monetary system of the world based on the US dollar as a reserve currency. The Arabic revolutions undermine it because the point has come closer when dollars will not be accepted as payment for oil. The quake and nuclear crisis in Japan does the same because this nation has been lending large sums of money to the US that now instead will be needed for its own reconstruction. To this should be added that in the first day of the Ninth wave a quarter of a million people demonstrated in London against austerity measures by its government and the US government is now grappling with the problem of how to pay its employees."

Ian Lungold explains the Mayan Calendar

That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes,
an aeroplane - Lenny Bruce is not afraid.
Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn,
world serves its own needs, dummy serve your own needs.
Feed it off an aux speak,, grunt, no, strength,
The ladder starts to clatter with fear fight down height.
Wire in a fire, representing seven games, a government for hire and a combat site.
Left of west and coming in a hurry with the furies breathing down your neck.
Team by team reporters baffled, trumped, tethered cropped.
Look at that low playing!
Fine, then.
Uh oh, overflow, population, common food, but it'll do.
Save yourself, serve yourself. World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed dummy with the rapture and the revered and the right - right.
You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched.

It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

Six o'clock - TV hour. Don't get caught in foreign towers.
Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn.
Locking in, uniforming, book burning, blood letting.
Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate.
Light a candle, light a votive. Step down, step down.
Watch your heel crush, crushed. Uh-oh, this means no fear cavalier.
Renegade steer clear! A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies.
Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline.

It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it. (It's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it (It's time I had some time alone) and I feel fine.
(I feel fine)

It's the end of the world as we know it. (It's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it. (It's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it (It's time I had some time alone) and I feel fine.

The other night I dreamt of knives, continental drift divide. Mountains sit in a line
Leonard Bernstein. Leonid Brezhnev. Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs.
Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom!
You symbiotic, patriotic, slam book neck, right? Right.

It's the end of the world as we know it. (It's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it. (It's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it (It's time I had some time alone) and I feel fine.

It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it (It's time I had some time alone) and I feel fine.

It's the end of the world as we know it. (It's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it. (It's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it (It's time I had some time alone) and I feel fine.

It's the end of the world as we know it. (It's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it. (It's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it (It's time I had some time alone) and I feel fine...



- All Rights Reserved 2010 - The Niles Lesh Project Follow NILES LESH / MIENFOKS on TWITTER !

2012 & The END TIMES Prophecies - WTF ???

This is kind of freaky as FOX & Friends host explains a Dutch catastrophy preperation announcement, the local cable station interrupts with a Emergency Broadcast Sysytem alert !- ooohhh Shit




THE NILES LESH PROJECT - All Rights Reserved 2009
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NEW SPACE HOTEL OPENING 2012 ???

BARCELONA (Reuters) - "Galactic Suite," the first hotel planned in space, expects to open for business in 2012 and would allow guests to travel around the world in 80 minutes.

Its Barcelona-based architects say the space hotel will be the most expensive in the galaxy, costing $4 million for a three-day stay.

During that time guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and use Velcro suits to crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls like Spiderman.

Company director Xavier Claramunt says the three-bedroom boutique hotel's joined up pod structure, which makes it look like a model of molecules, was dictated by the fact that each pod room had to fit inside a rocket to be taken into space.

"It's the bathrooms in zero gravity that are the biggest challenge," says Claramunt. "How to accommodate the more intimate activities of the guests is not easy."

But they may have solved the issue of how to take a shower in weightlessness -- the guests will enter a spa room in which bubbles of water will float around.

When guests are not admiring the view from their portholes they will take part in scientific experiments on space travel.

Galactic Suite began as a hobby for former aerospace engineer Claramunt, until a space enthusiast decided to make the science fiction fantasy a reality by fronting most of the $3 billion needed to build the hotel.

An American company intent on colonizing Mars, which sees Galaxy Suite as a first step, has since come on board, and private investors from Japan, the United States and the United Arab Emirates are in talks.

PLENTY RICH ENOUGH

If Claramunt is secretive about the identity of his generous backer, he is more forthcoming about the custom he can expect.

"We have calculated that there are 40,000 people in the world who could afford to stay at the hotel. Whether they will want to spend money on going into space, we just don't know."

Four million dollars might be a lot to spend on a holiday, but those in the nascent space tourism industry say hoteliers have been slow on the uptake because no one thought the cost of space travel would come down as quickly as it has.

Galactic Suite said the price included not only three nights in space. Guests also get eight weeks of intensive training at a James Bond-style space camp on a tropical island.

"There is fear associated with going into space," said Claramunt. "That's why the shuttle rocket will remain fixed to the space hotel for the duration of the guests' stay, so they know they can get home again."

In an era of concern over climate change, Galaxy Suite have no plans so far to offset the pollution implications of sending a rocket to carry just six guests at a time into space.

"But," says Claramunt, "I'm hopeful that the impact of seeing the earth from a distance will stimulate the guests' urge to value and protect our planet."