New Bookstore Opens in Downtown Los Angeles

Broadway Goes Beat and Pop Culture

by John Aes-Nihil

Broadway’s New Books Shop

Beatology Vintage/Aes-Nihil Productions Super Store 737 S. Broadway Los
Angles open daily from 10AM to 7PM.  Featuring huge collection of Books,
Records, Tapes, Videos, Hi Fashion, Low Fashion the Photography of
Aes-Nihil-Sun Ra, Stooges, VU, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg,
John Waters, NYC Punk Bands,  and the Aes-Nihil Collection of Sharon
Tate photos from original transparencies & slides.   The only truly
glamorous store left in Los Angeles, amidst the Ultimate Collection of
Remaining Movie Palaces.

Books, collectible and scarce. This Beat’s for you.

An Australian Bookman in Hollywood

Noel Hart Came All The Way From The Land Down Under to Spend Years Working for the Most Eccentric Bookseller Since the Founding of Ancient Rome:  Eli Goodman of Cosmopolitan Book Shop, a Rabbit Hole of Chaos that Even Alice Would Not Dare Go Down.

by Paul Hunt

Cosmopolitan Book Shop

I admit it, I was wrong.  When Arnold Herr wrote his epic book The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Bookseller, I said that it would be the last book ever written about Cosmopolitan Bookshop.  Arnold Herr’s book is now out of print, and copies are selling for around $100 if you can find one.  But just in time, Noel Hart, another poor soul who suffered for years as an employee and then manager at the book shop, has written a large tome chronicling his years of Melrose madness.  The only catch is that the book is not published in the U.S. and is only available through the author in Australia.

I thought that most of the old time employees were gone to the bookseller’s party in the land of fluffy clouds and ladies playing harps.  I had forgotten about Noel Hart, who had fled Los Angeles and returned to Australia to regain his sanity and sainthood.  Although I had known Eli Goodman for some 20 years, I only had the honor of working at the shop for the last couple years of it’s existence, along with a dear friend by the name of “Five”, and of course, an energetic Arnold Herr who stayed until the end as Store Manager.  Folks in Los Angeles will remember Five during the years that he worked at Bodhi Tree Books in West Hollywood.  He was a writer, a podcaster host of a fun show called Token and Talkin’, an actor, comedian, and great guy.  He has since sadly passed, but I’ll put in a few links to some of his work at the end of this screed.

So, was I surprised to hear that Noel had written a book of over 400 pages about Eli Goodman and Cosmopolitan?  Yeah, shocked that someone was even loonier than me or Arnold Herr, and not only had worked at the shop for 10 years but then spent another number of years mulling it over and actually daring to reveal his experiences to a lethargic public, most of whom have never set foot in a book shop in their entire miserable lives.

I remember once when Arnold Herr and I were having lunch at a landmark coffee shop in Burbank when the waitress asked us what we did for a living.  My first thought was that she was trying to assess just how much service she was going to waste her time on us, or whether her two diners, bearded and shabbily dressed, with books and papers piled on her table, were so suspicious looking that she might dial 9-11 before even giving us a menu.  I piped up that we were booksellers.

“What does that mean, “bookseller”? she said.

“We work in a book shop,” said Arnold.

She smiled and proudly announced that since graduating from high school, she had never read even one book, and I noticed that she was pushing late 50s.  I was trying to calculate roughly how many years that was, between the High School graduation and the current year, how many decades of not reading a book.  My mind locked up at that moment, the silence broken by Arnold.

“That’s OK honey, we won’t hold it against you.  You have that whole stack of menus to read every day.  That’s an ordeal enough for anyone.”

My thought is that all those think tanks pondering the great decline of American education, all the books published trying to determine why our country is behind Peru in reading and Samoa in mathematics.  All the chatter about the declining levels.  My message to all those eggheads is stop gnashing your teeth about it.  Just join Arnold and me for lunch once and you will understand the situation entirely.

And yeah, we still left the old gal a tip.  It wasn’t her fault.  It’s the system. And what difference does it make?  There’s hardly any used book stores left in any big city in America.  And there’s hardly anyone left alive who’s actually worked in one.  Which takes us back to the subject at hand, Noel Hart’s new book.  I’m waiting for my copy to arrive, at which time I’ll have a few more words to say.  A picture of the back cover and the lengthy blurb gives us a preview.  And Noel said he is working on volume 2, which will include a lot of photos.

The back cover.

Contains over 400 pages crammed with intensity from the trenches of the used book business in Los Angeles. SIGNEDLIMITED EDITION, which includes a piece of the bookshop tipped in! This is unique to each copy, a portion of a page printed in 1753, sourced from Cosmopolitan Bookshop in Hollywood (see photographs). SIGNED in full by Australian author Noel Hart in black ink on title page. Introductory note by Arnold M. Herr. Cover artwork by Rom Anthonis. This is a NON-FICTION book. Rear cover blurb: “Melrose Avenue, Hollywood. Around the turn of the millennium. A classic secondhand bookshop, dusty and dirty, shabby with age and happenstance, packed tight with decades of stagnant accumulation. So messy it resembles the aftermath of a major earthquake. Bring a shovel, dig for treasures! Crackly radio jazz can be heard emanating from somewhere. Michael Jackson browses porn in one aisle; a homeless man sleeps on the floor in another; a transvestite hooker works the trade in a secluded corner behind a stack of boxes; a serious collector collates rare seventeenth-century antiquarian volumes near the front counter; a frenetic movie set decorator rents books throughout. All the while at the center of the maelstrom sits 80-year-old owner Eli Goodman, a ruminative, philosophical, New York-born Jew, intelligent and funny, an obsessive hoarder to the extreme, a caricature character who distinctly resembles Woody Allen dropped into a Marx Brothers movie, and who happens to live in a decrepit hovel at the back of the bookshop. For fifty years Eli has presided over the famous and infamous, the bibliophiles, researchers, collectors, decorators, actors, models, musicians, hipsters, the scholarly, shady, and insane, all congealed into a conglomerate crush at Cosmopolitan Bookshop. Longtime store manager Noel Hart, an Australian, captures it all, stuff s it into a mind-blender, then spills it out onto the page. NOTE: What began as a talk given to the Australian Book Collectors’ Society in 2018, then subsequently published verbatim in their journal in 2019, has now been expanded into a book-length narrative by Noel Hart, who managed Cosmopolitan Bookshop in Los Angeles for ten years.” Printed in Australia. Published in 2023 by Bookwood Press, Melbourne. A Blurb Production. Bound in publisher’s original pictorial wraps. A LIKE NEW very nice clean tight solid softcover copy. Uncommon Signed Limited Edition.

Click here to see the actual website of Cosmopolitan Book Shop.

Click Here to see the video I shot during the final days of Cosmopolitan, featuring Captain Jack LeVan and Julie Webster.

Click Here to read RIP Eli Goodman by Paul Hunt and Arnold Herr.

Click Here to read Eli Goodman laid to rest, with photos of Eli, by Paul Hunt.

“Five” catching up on his reading at Book Soup.

Click Here to read “Swami Anaconda Bananarama Answers the Question Who Are We?” (Written by Five, in full costume). Thanks to CartoonBazooka.com.

Click Here to watch the video Swami Anaconda Bananarama Meditation in Griffith Park.

Click Here to read We The Sheeple by Five.  Thanks to CartoonBazooka.

Click Here to read Breakfast With Jesus Freaks.  Thanks CartoonBazooka.

AND FINALLY  Click Here to order the book And That Was Only The Front Counter on Abebooks.com

 

 

Whatever Happened to Frugalius Maximus?

Hollywood Boulevard Bookstore Follies Part 5

More Legends and Lore

by Paul Hunt

Jim Hubler is quite a character.  He owned Partridge Book Store in Hollywood for years. This was right next door east of the big Pickwick Book Shop, which was probably world famous at that time, 1970’s through the early 1980s.  Jim had a simple strategy for success: his shop was next door to Pickwick, and he existed by a parasitic relationship, he being the parasite.  As I remember, Jim worked in the store as a young man, and when the owner passed, his widow sold the store to Jim, who made payments on it until he owned it. Jim told me that Mr. Partridge, a graduate of UCLA, made a lot of money in the parking lot business in San Francisco, before he got into the book business.

The shop was unusual in many ways.  First were the hours of operation.  No 9 to 5 here, he adjusted his hours to take full advantage of his colossal neighbor, and would usually show up around 4pm, to the cheers of a waiting group of book scouts and customers.  The trick was that he stayed open really late, usually until past midnight, often until 1am.  When Pickwick closed at 10pm a big mob of customers flooded right into Jim’s place.  It was amazing to see this, but that makes perfect sense, since many book lovers are night owls, and where else, even in old Hollywood, could you go to a bookstore that was open that late.  Partridge became a meeting place for all kinds of characters and Jim raked in the cash, making most of his money from 10pm to 1am, when all the other book dealers were sleeping.

A Strange Way to Organize a Bookshop

Another weird thing about Partridge was the way the books were organized, something that I have never seen anywhere else. Jim organized the books by Publisher!  Although he did have used books and a lot of remainders, most of his stock was new.  By organizing by Publisher it was really easy for Jim to check on stock for reorder.  This was long before computers, and Partridge was a one-man act, and he had quite an array of fascinating old shelves and racks.  I still remember the Modern Library rack, packed with all those wonderful little books that are now considered worthy of collecting.  Jim had a great knowledge base in his head and anyone asking for a book would be pointed to the correct publisher’s shelf.  I was reading a lot of science fiction back then, and the Ballentine paperback rack was one of my favorites.  Ballentine also published a great series on World War 2, with a lot of “original” first editions that are still collected today, some 50 years later. It was also the time that Ballentine was publishing the now legendary “Unicorn” fantasy series. The Publishers, by the  way, loved this system, it was an immense ego boost for them to have their own rack in the middle of Hollywood, sort of a showcase for them.

Jim stocked a lot of remainders in order to cater to the Pickwick crowd.  As anyone who ever went into that great store would remember that the ground floor was new books, the small mezzanine  had something or other that I can’t remember, but the top floor was packed with remainders, many from England.  It was overwhelming and so tempting to just spend  your entire paycheck on them.  Jim realized what a big draw Pickwick’s top floor was, so he created a mini-remainder area in his shop.

Another funny thing about Jim, but not so funny for the frustrated publishers, was how he turned book club editions into cash.  He would buy massive quantities of clean Book-of-the-month club editions from book scouts.  As long as they were clean, with nice dust jackets, Jim would pay 50 cents or $1.00 for them.  At first I was puzzled about this, but I was just starting out as a book scout, and I was trained not to pick up book club editions because collectors wanted the first editions.  Sometimes it was hard to tell, because used bookstore owners would “clip” the corner of the dust jacket so it looked like it once had a price on it, so you spent a lot of time flipping over the back of the dust jacket to look for the little dot on the back of the binding which would indicate a Book of the Month edition.

Introducing “R.E.Turner”

Jim’s nick-name was “R.E. Turner”.  He got this because when he sent back returns to the publishers he would include mounds of Book of the Month editions.  I was in the shop once when one of the angry publisher’s rep was trying to lecture Jim that this was not acceptable to the publisher, and they weren’t going to give him credit for the book clubs. Jim told him that they had better give him credit or else.  The rep didn’t want to lose this good account and was pleading with Jim that in some cases he was actually returning more copies than he originally ordered.  “Stop crying about it to me,” Jim said, “you guys make tons of money, just send them out as remainders to someone else.”  Mr. R.E. Turner had spoken.

The Saga of Louis Epstein

Jim had a long run at Partridge, until fate smiled at him, and boy, did he smile back.  Here’s what happened to the best of my recollection:  Old man Louis Epstein was the owner of the mighty Pickwick Book Shop, the central fixture in the galaxy of book stores that were in Hollywood at that time.  Epstein had started out in downtown Los Angeles in the really old days of the 1930’s, in a little shop near the original Dawson;s Book Shop, around Wilshire and Figuroa.  He bought the shop from another old bookseller, who gave him a piece of advice:  “Never pay more than 10 cents for any used book and you will make a profit.”  That wasn’t much money in the 1930s, but things have gotten worse now, with amazon.com selling books for a penny. Who would have known?  But the formula worked for years, both for Louie and his brother, who worked at another used book shop called Bennett and Marshall.  As a side note, when Louie’s brother was in his 80s, he was still scouting for rare books.  He was a tall, stately man, and I remember seeing him at estate sales in the 1980s.  He would charge into the sale waving his stout wooden cane around and bellowing at the top of his voice “Clear the way, Bennett and Marshall coming through for the books.”  Bennett and Marshall, once eminent rare book dealers, had pretty much faded by the 1980s, and were under new ownership for a while, and then disappeared entirely from their retail store in West Hollywood.  But hey, the bellowing and the wooden cane searing through the air were enough to clear the way for Louie’s brother and scare off the competition. By that time, nobody knew who the hell Bennett and Marshall were, but it was a good idea not to rile the tall old man, whoever he was.

Epstein dealt in literature and poetry, but was having a hard time of it, all the while seeing his neighbor Ernest Dawson doing a pretty good business with a lot of the L.A. trade passing through his doors.  Then fortune smiled on Louie.  A movie studio came in and wanted to rent 5,000 books.  When pressed for a rental amount, he blurted out 5 cents a day per book.  The studio folks were happy with that, and Epstein wrote up a rental document, which was to last for 30 days.  Time passed, and the books never returned. Epstein called a few times but was given the run-around.  About a year later a truck pulled up in front of his shop and dropped off the 5,000 books that had been used by the studio as set props. The studio sent him a check for the rental for 30 days.  After some phone calls, protesting that they owed him $250. per day for 365 days, the studios said “no way, we only needed them for 30 days.  Sorry that we forgot to send them back on time, go pound sand.”  Louie phoned his lawyer instead.  The attorney extracted the full amount from the Studio, a very substantial figure. Their lax business practice cost them nearly $100,000, big money in the 1940s.  When Louie called his attorney to collect the money, his lawyer refused to give it to him.  “If I give you this money, you’ll just spend it foolishly buying more books and having a good time.  So here’s the deal:  you go find a building to buy and I will release the money into escrow, that way at least you will have your own store.”  And that is how Louis Epstein ended up owning the building on Hollywood Blvd. that became the mighty Pickwick Bookshop.

Artisan’s Patio today

Epstein expanded Pickwick and in the 1970s opened shops in malls around Southern California.  He also bought the Artisan’s Patio for one of his sons to run.  This was a long, quaint alleyway to the east of Partridge, which is still in operation, filled with small business and craft shops. In the early 1970s it was the home to bookseller Fred Dorsett.  Pickwick’s expansion attracted the attention of B. Dalton, who was moving into the area, and wanted to add Pickwick to their chain.  Around the time B. Dalton took over Pickwick they decided to buy the property next door, which included the shop that Jim was operating out of.  When Jim got word that the building was for sale he went right to the landlord and bought it.  This was a master-stroke of business acumen, and in a short time, I believe it was only a couple years, he flipped it for a nice profit.  Jim closed his shop around 1976, actually selling the book shop to a guy who ran it into the ground in short order.  He then sold the building and retired. He was 42, and he began a new life of travel and uber frugality and “dumpster dipping” as he calls it.

B. Dalton’s Colossal Mistake

B.Dalton then made another colossal mistake.  They started changing Pickwick, in fact they ruined it, driving away most of the customers.  It was crazy, they took out the entire second floor of remainders and converted it to office space. In contrast, Epstein’s entire office was a desk in the middle of the first floor.  They also did not carry the eclectic mix that Epstein had so painstakingly built up over the years: books from small publishers, beautiful remainders from England, odd stuff that no one else had.  Epstein was a master bookseller.  He came up the hard way, and knew more in his little finger than B. Dalton’s entire army of executives.  They quickly ran his empire into the ground.  Old Epstein made a huge pile of money from the sale, enough to carry him and family for the rest of eternity if need be.

Frugalius Maximus Knew How To Cut Expenses

Jim was a clever investor, and made enough income to live, although he was frugal to the bone.  In all the years in his shop, he never had the usual “letterheads”, “invoices”, etc.  Business cards maybe, although I don’t have one in my possession. He would start screaming at the very idea of spending any money on such nonsense as office stationary.  A rubber stamp and some old envelopes, using the back side for notes and correspondence to the publishers.  “There’s plenty of paper around, just look through the dumpsters and you’ll find huge amounts you can use,” was his advice to aspiring book-sellers.

“Captain” Jack LeVan

It was “Captain” Jack LeVan who gave Jim the nick-name “Frugalius Maximus“.  Jack Levan (died Jan 1, 2020) owned a book shop in Inglewood, Vajra Bookshop, that he kept open for some unknown reason, certainly not for that of income accumulation, as book buyers are scarce in that corner of Los Angeles. Additionally, his partner was a Tibetan silversmith, another odd twist, as the Tibetan book pricing system was something that startled many residents of the Inglewood area.  Nonetheless, Jack was the man who knew some of the truly world-class Jim Hubler frugality stories, like the Big Potato Heist.

The Big Potato Heist

Jim, for years living in a little cottage-like apartment in Santa Monica, which is actually the remaining half of an old motel wedged in between the modern condo behemoths that line the street,  had a daily routine.  Every morning he went for a walk and used the exercise to root through the hundreds of bins lining the alleys. Once in a while, carefully sifting some ephemera, he would hit a little jackpot.  One day, he found a nice coupon in the dumpster.  It was for 10 pounds of potatoes for 99 cents.  A good start anyway.  The coupon was good at a local independent market not far from Jim’s cruising range, so he dropped in during the busiest time of day.  This particular store was trying to lure in new customers by claiming a short wait time in the checkout line.  A sign was posted that if you waited in line more than three minutes they would give you a dollar.  Jim smiled his wicked smile.  This was like taking candy from a baby.  He grabbed the bag of potatoes and got in line, and then kept slithering backwards to the end of the line, until around three minutes had passed, some amount of time, but who was really keeping track anyway?

He then stormed up to the manager and said he had waited in line over three minutes and demanded the dollar.  The manager gave him a chit for the buck, and when he got to the checkout, he handed the chit to the cashier, along with the coupon for the 10 pounds of potatoes for 99 cents, and waited patiently while the clerk figured it all out, and handed him back a penny change, which Jim gratefully accepted.  Hah!  There were enough potatoes in the bag to last almost a month, and he gleefully recounted that the store had paid him a penny to take away 10 pounds of the big bombers.  There were about 20 potatoes in the bag, which meant that each one that he baked and ate cost him .0005 of a cent.  Now that’s frugal!

The Ex-Lax Bonanza

On another alley cruising day, Jim hit an unusual bonanza.  A bin with several packages of Ex-Lax laxative.  One of the packages was opened, but the others were sealed.  In with the packages was the receipt.  Someone, nobody knows who, was so constipated that he or she had grabbed a half-year’s supply of those yummy little chocolates.  Jim quickly realized that this could be quite a business opportunity for him.  He had no personal need for the laxative, he is mainly a vegetarian, thin as a rail, the only thing protruding is a thick walrus mustache.  Jim did his due diligence and research before making his move. He noticed that the package had a “money back” guarantee printed on it, promising a full refund “if not satisfied”.  Something like “no go….no pay.”

Jim checked all the local drug stores, and came across a price disparity.  The price that was printed on the receipt was a lower price than what some of the other stores in the same chain had on the product.  Jim quickly realized the arbitrage potential.  He carefully took one packet at a time back to one of the high priced drug emporiums, and received a full refund.  This became a big bonanza for Jim, because not only did he sell back the packets of Ex-Lax that he had found in the dumpster, but he began buying more packets at the low-priced store and selling them for refunds at the higher priced stores, the arbitrage being over a dollar a packet.  This went on for weeks until  the drug chain stabilized the prices.  They were also getting suspicious of this lanky old guy who would come in once or twice a week to return an Ex-Lax packet. “Why does this stupid old man keep buying Ex-Lax if the stuff doesn’t work?” they thought. Never in a thousand years did they ever dream they were being sharked by a brilliant business entrepreneur, one with too much time on his hands, but eager for even a small victory over one of the world’s largest drug pushers.

Don’t Bother With The Door Bell

Captain Jack and I would stop over to see Jim once in a while. The front of his cottage is packed with hundreds of small pots of cactus he has accumulated.  Jim was living cheap, for years he didn’t even have a phone.  Or a working doorbell.  No problem.  Jack explained that if one went to the door and knocked, Jim would not answer, suspicious of anyone who would approach after dark.  Jack knew Jim better than anyone on earth.  He had a simple way of attracting Jim’s attention.  Jack went to the front porch, took a quarter out of his pocket, and dropped it on the porch.  The sound of the 25 cent piece hitting the cement brought an immediate response, and Jim peered through the curtains to see who was dropping coin on his porch.  Jack told me later that in past times he  used a dime, but Jim’s hearing was not as good as it used to be, so Jack had to upgrade to a quarter, which made a louder noise as it hit the pavement.

The Second Refrigerator

Our pleasant conversations with Jim, who is opinionated to the max about everything, are certainly entertaining.  Recently we stopped by to see how he was doing. He is hobbling around with a walker due to a hip operation.  The big change is in the living room, where Jim has wedged in a second refrigerator that he got from someone who was evicted from one of the nearby units. Who says refrigerators have to be in the kitchen?  They can be anywhere you need them.  Having a second refrigerator can be a big plus in a small apartment, somewhere to stash a lot of odds and ends that somehow pop out of nowhere. Things you don’t really need, but are worth saving in case you might need them someday, so it’s nice to have a catch-all to keep them in, plus the flat top is great for pilling boxes and old copies of the L.A. Times.  Looking inside revealed some interesting items.  It’s packed with stuff, so upon opening the door a couple things fell out, one being an old tin sign that was advertising a restaurant – gas station off the old Highway 99.  It said something like “Eat Here and Get Gas.”

Peering in, I was fascinated to see two interesting looking mousetraps, a bag of hot chocolate mix, another bag containing some vintage rice, various cans of cleaners like End Dust, and a big old jar of “Flower of Sulpher”.  “That came from a guy who was an old pharmacist”, Jim cheerfully explained.  Jim abruptly shut the refer door on me, “OK, show’s over, I’m going to sleep.”  It was after 2 a.m.  We had been talking for over 3 hours.

As I drove Captain Jack back to his place in Inglewood, we reviewed the night’s conversation.  It was a challenge to follow Jim sometimes, because he goes off on so many tangents.  He might be talking about old Hollywood booksellers one minute, then all of a sudden he’s telling you about his trip to Africa, sleeping in his car off-road to save money, instead of staying in ritzy hotels.  It’s cool to be frugal.  But after having lived in a van for several years, a high-priced luxury hotel with a big screen TV and a hot shower sounds pretty good to me.

Paul Hunt & Captain Jack Levan (2016)

Photo by Julie Webster

 

Hollywood Bookstore History

 Article on Stanley Rose Sheds Light on Early Hollywood Literary Scene

by Paul Hunt

The website LAist, run by Southern California Public Radio (KPPC) published an interesting article on the history of  Stanley Rose and his influence on the Los Angeles literary scene in the 1930s.   Click Here to read the article by Hadley Meares and view some rare photos that picture Rose and some of his literary friends.

To fill in a few tidbits not in the article, some old memories and stories about the era will add to the flavor of the times.  Rose opened a bookstore on Vine Street called Satyr Books, next to the famous Brown Derby. He was partners with a man named N.M. “Mac” Gordon, who was evidently manager of a downtown Los Angeles Bookstore.  He later moved to Hollywood Blvd. and located next door to Musso and Franks, the famous restaurant which is still there today. There was an old timer who worked for me at my book shop in Burbank, Atlantis Books, named Bill Chase.  He was in his late 60s when I hired him, he had retired but didn’t want to hang around the house and get in his wife’s hair, and needed a part time job.  He was one of the most knowledgeable booksellers I have ever met.  He was a treasure to have him at the shop, and his memory was sharp, with excellent recall of book titles and authors. Within a couple of weeks at my shop he know the entire stock better than all the rest of us combined.

Bill Chase, Manager of Gilbert’s Book Shop.

William Grover Chase, born in New Jersey on November 13, in 1918 who died in Burbank, CA on June 11, 1992. He is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills) and the marker says:
“Beloved Husband and Father. Your humor will be missed”.  Thanks to Valerie Burroughs for the above information.  PH

 

Bill had been the manager of Gilbert’s Bookshop on Hollywood Blvd just east of Vine.  The store was owned by Ed Gilbert, who was married to one of the daughters of Edgar Rice Burroughs.  According to Bill Chase, Ed started in the book business by taking over the Satyr Bookshop on Vine.  I am assuming that it occured when Stanley Rose moved to Hollywood Blvd.  Possibly Rose split with his partner Gordon,  I don’t know this for sure.  The details of the transaction are unknown, but later Gilbert moved around the corner on to Hollywood Blvd., where he stayed for over 40 years.  Bill Chase was manager for most of that time.

Photo by Wayne Braby

A really colorful character, not mentioned in the LAist piece, was a guy named Larry Edmunds..  He was evidently a partner of Stanley Rose.  In the 1930s he developed a talent,  possibly learned from Rose, to peddle books to the movie studio executives.  The rumor that I picked up over the  years was that the books that Edmunds flogged to the studios were, let’s say, of the more prurient type, not available in any bookstore.  Edmunds was known eventually as “The  Lothario of Hollywood Blvd.”, and a detailed piece about him was once published in an old issue of Los Angeles Magazine.

The LAist article mentions the heavy drinking that went on around Rose’s Hollywood Blvd. store.  Larry Edmunds, a young man at the time, was also a big boozer, which led to his horrible demise.  He was also described as a good looking young man who was really popular with the many movie studio secretaries who he met while visiting the studios.  The rumors were that he also had flings with some of the wives of  the studio executives.   At some point Edmunds had a falling out with Rose,  or was cast loose when Rose  closed his store.   Edmunds was on his own, and opened his own shop on Cahuenga Blvd., just south of Hollywood Blvd.  I think the whole building he  was in was torn down or remodled and like many of the landmarks of old Hollywood, is now gone forever.

Someday, if  there is any interest, I’ll write down what I know about that colorful guy Larry Edmunds, and trace the history of his shop  which is still operating today on Hollywood Blvd.,  although it has gone through other owners and is now the only surviving book store left on Hollywood Blvd., specializing in the memorabilia of  Hollywood..

Stanley Rose was actually a great promoter of authors, and as told by the good LAist article, helped some of our home-grown authors get published.  He was one  of a  kind, and despite the heavy  boozing, ran a very unique book store which was a watering hole for many of our best authors. It was a good place to hang out.  We have nothing like this today.  Even in the heyday of Hollywood bookstores, 1970s-1980s, I can’t recall any place like it.  In fact, many of the book stores discouraged people to just hang around..  Even Barnes and Noble removed most of  their chairs and couches after experimenting with the idea of creating a welcome  space.  Too many homeless folks would  just park themselves in the store all day.

Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Show Returns to Glendale

Sunday March 19, 2023 at Glendale Civic Auditorium

Tom Lesser’s Show –
43rd Year!

Known across the country as the best show for collectors of paperback books, it is the only show that has a raft of great authors signing books for free!  Thousands of rare and collectible paperbacks are on sale by vendors and collectors.  Admission is only $10, show starts at 9am until 4pm. 

Location: Glendale Civic Auditorium, 1401 Verdugo Rd., Glendale, CA.

Guests and Scheduled Times – List – Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Collectors Show

J. J. Lally Reference Library Up For Grabs at Christie’s

Lally Dealt in Oriental Art Objects

J.J. Lally

For nearly forty years, J. J. Lally & Co. presented exceptional Chinese works of art to collectors, connoisseurs and museums worldwide. Established in 1986, the gallery was at the forefront of a pivotal moment in time, when New York City emerged as an important center of Chinese art. Situated in the jewel-box gallery in the Fuller Building on 57th Street, J. J. Lally & Co. became known as the intimate space where Chinese masterworks could be admired, contemplated and studied in the tradition of China’s ancient literati. Carefully planned exhibitions accompanied by catalogues with in-depth scholarly research defined the impeccable reputation of the gallery and the esteemed dealer who created it. In the following years, this dedication to quality and scholarship led to the placement of important objects in top museums and collections across the globe.

Visitors to J. J. Lally & Co. will remember the iconic reference library, which also served as a quiet, private space for first-hand viewing, study and discussion. The sale of the library will comprise 116 lots of essential volumes for the new and experienced collector, including reference books, scholarly journals, museum exhibitions, auction catalogues from the 1970s-2021, as well as a complete set of J. J. Lally & Co. exhibition catalogues.

The sale will be open for bidding from 15 March, 8:30 AM to 30 March, 8:30 AM (EDT).
Contact
Margaret Gristina

asianartny@christies.com

+1 212 636 2180

Thomas Pynchon Archive

Huntington Library Gets Pynchon Archive

SAN MARINO, Calif.—The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens announced today that it has acquired the archive of American author Thomas Pynchon, considered by many to be among the greatest novelists of our time. Comprising 70 linear feet of materials created between the late 1950s and the 2020s—including typescripts and drafts of each of his novels, handwritten notes, correspondence, and research—Pynchon’s literary archive offers an unprecedented look into the working methods of one of America’s most important writers.

The author of eight novels thus far and one short story collection, Pynchon, whose work has been translated into more than 30 languages, has influenced generations of diverse and important writers. “Bringing a writer of Pynchon’s caliber to The Huntington is an expression of our long-standing investment in American
history and culture, while underscoring our commitment to 20th-century and contemporary literature,” said Karen R. Lawrence, president of The Huntington. Lawrence, a literary scholar whose research focuses on James Joyce, noted that The Huntington’s support of advanced research in the humanities, as well as the depth and breadth of the library’s historical collections, will enable contextual and sustained inquiry into Pynchon’s work. The author’s son, Jackson Pynchon, compiled and represented the archive. “When The Huntington approached us, we were excited by their aerospace and mathematics archives, and particularly attracted to their extraordinary map collection,” he said. “When we learned of the scale and rigor of their independent scholarly programs, which provide exceptional resources for academic research in the humanities, we were confident that the Pynchon archive had found its home.”

Born on Long Island in 1937, Thomas Pynchon attended Cornell University and served two years in the Navy. While working as a technical writer for Boeing, he wrote his first novel, V., which was published to immediate critical acclaim in 1963 and won the William Faulkner Foundation Award for best debut novel. Pynchon’s follow-up novel, The Crying of Lot 49, became an instant cult classic. Published in 1966, it has since become one of the most frequently adopted American novels in university courses worldwide. In 1974,
Pynchon received the National Book Award for Gravity’s Rainbow, a touchstone of American postwar literature that Tony Tanner deemed “one of the great historical novels of our time and arguably the most important literary text since Ulysses.” The author received a MacArthur “genius grant” in 1988, and his most recent novel,
Bleeding Edge, was short-listed for the National Book Award in 2013. When critic Harold Bloom was asked in 2009 which single work of American fiction he would choose from the last century for his “canon of the American sublime,” he said, “It would probably be Mason & Dixon, if it were a full-scale book, or if it were a short novel it would probably be The Crying of Lot 49. Pynchon has the
same relation to fiction, I think, that my friend John Ashbery has to poetry: He is beyond compare.” An author who defies easy classification, Pynchon wrestles with the transcendence and the tragedy of American history, his voice marked by a yearning for the beauty of America’s ideals, a frustration with the depth
of the nation’s contradictions, and a cautious optimism in the promise it offers the world. As Anthony Lane wrote in his review of Mason & Dixon, “The novel is as tolerant and capacious as its creator would like an ideal America to be.”
Unlike many American novelists who are associated with only one region, Pynchon has set his novels from coast to coast and beyond. However, “Pynchon’s interest in American history has also been one that returns repeatedly to California—from The Crying of Lot 49 to Vineland to Inherent Vice,” said Karla Nielsen, The Huntington’s curator of literary collections. Inherent Vice, his 2009 private-eye novel set in 1970s Los Angeles, was adapted into a film by Paul Thomas Anderson in 2014.

“We expect Pynchon’s archive to attract profound attention from those wishing to better understand his work,” noted Sandra Ludig Brooke, Avery Director of the Library at The Huntington. “We are honored that Pynchon has entrusted his papers to The Huntington and look forward to stewarding them into a long future
for American cultural history.” The Huntington is home to more than 11 million library items and annually provides access to some
2,000 scholars, who use the collections in their research projects and many of whom are funded through a robust fellowship program. The Library holds significant manuscripts by the most important writers of the 15th through the early 20th centuries, ranging from Chaucer to Shakespeare, Mary Shelley to Charles Dickens, and
Edgar Allan Poe to Jack London. Later 20th-century literary archives include the papers of Kingsley Amis, Christopher Isherwood, Charles Bukowski, and Octavia E. Butler.

The Pynchon archive is currently being processed and is slated to be opened to qualified researchers within the next year.

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What’s That Book Worth?

A Book Collector’s Guide to Determining the Value of the Books in your Collection.

by

Mark Sailor

What makes a book collectable? Is your copy of “Gone with the Wind” worth $5?  Or is it worth $1,000?  Why are some books more valuable than others?  A book is collectable for three reasons: desirability, thriving on the popularity of a given series [Harry Potter], or a first rate writer [Sue Grafton, Clive Cussler]. Books of popular authors and topics are readily available, making your local bookstore a valuable asset for reading and information. Books available from the publisher are ‘In-Print’. Popular demand for a title or author keeps books in print. Out of Print books are books no longer
published. It might be a tattered copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin on the attic shelf, or dusty copies of a Nancy Drew series book.  Pamphlets and
stacks of printed advertisements (ephemera) from a bygone area rest in a forgotten corner, hiding their tremendous value as keys to the immediate past or a fortune at the auction house. Can you find a copy of Edgar
Allen Poe’s Tamerlane?  It could fetch some half a million dollars if you did – a bookseller, as an apprentice some years ago, found a copy in a stack of magazines!?!

The desirability for used and rare books exists in the continuing demand for an author or a title. The scarcity of used and rare books vary. You might have a copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in a variety of different forms – it was published many times over. When it first appeared in 1852, it galvanized
a large portion of the American Public against slavery and motivated a movement of emigrants toward Kansas and Nebraska. The effect of the books’ popularity was tremendous in showcasing the need to resolve the issue of slavery, and paved the way for the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The dull grey boards of this 2-volume set and the solemn ‘stereotyped by Hobard and Robbins 1852’ provide “points” – the ‘e-ticket’ to a set of books which can fetch as little as $250.00, or as much as $10,000, depending on condition. A fine copy of these books, and others, in good condition, coupled with demand (desirability) drives the market in used/rare books. In the case of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, it became part of American History, and its
desirability was established for collectors as millions of copies were published.

Often titles are published and become immediately collectible: Gone With The WindEast of Eden, Wizard of Oz, just to name a few. Because of their popularity, early or first editions become highly collectible when the original copies are no longer available or in print. Try to find a Sue Grafton “A” or “B murder book in first edition- I bet you’ll pay a little bit for a nice copy! More often than not, titles and authors grow from small beginnings. It’s just this fact that makes early titles and editions of authors collectible.
Most importantly then, the condition of any collectible item comes into focus in making a price. Just like a metal Coca Cola sign from 1920 or an Essex 8 automobile from the 30’s, condition is everything.

It’s really pretty easy – you just have to look at your shelves to find a collectible book; get lucky at the local library sale, or a yard sale
on Baldwin Avenue, or an old warehouse on Montecito Avenue.
First, let’s start with BOOKS IN PRINT {Bowker, Ann Arbor, Michigan}. Available at the local library or in CD Rom form, this valuable source will help you determine the status of your book (In Print, Out of Print).
Is it a First Edition? Try A Guide to First Editions by Robert McBride, as well as Points of First Editions. Most used and out of print booksellers carry this handy reference book – and you can, too. Collected Books: The guide to Values, by Allen and Patricia Ahearn, is a readily available pricing guide and reliable source for determining the collectibility of many rare and scarce books. The Ahearns include some 25,000 titles, and this book is an easy guide and a starting point for collectors. It includes the input of several American and worldwide booksellers who specialize in out-of-print
books.

Next, go to Abebooks.com or Addall.com on the net to look up your books. Be careful not to look for just the highest price – that might not be your copy – but then, it just might! Remember, the internet often features sellers who
have unrealistic expectations based on the Uncle Ernie or Auntie Em pricing theory. Just because a seller wants to fetch a high price and finds some other wannabee high pricers, doesn’t establish rarity. Look for consistent price quotes (a spread) from lots of different dealers and look
for patterns from established booksellers. Don’t forget Ebay – lots of discount books are available here; as well as from Bookfinders.com.
Desirability, scarcity, condition.

Before He Was A Bookseller, Arnold Herr and Steve Gibson Re-Invented 3-D Adult Movies

The Saga of 2 Men, A 3-D Camera Rig, And Big Screen Sex Stories

Famous Hollywood Bookseller Arnold Herr, author of “The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Bookseller”, has a new book out.  It is the story of his life before books:  Arnold was in the adult film business, churning out porn films, but with a kicker, his films were in 3-D.  (His memoir on Hollywood bookselling is currently out of print, with copies going for about $100 if you could find one.)

Arnold Herr’s new book “Skinflick” is important for two reasons.  The first is the “deep dive” into his years of work in the field of 3-D photography and his experiences in working and producing 3-D sex films.  The second, equally important reason, although not stated in the book, shows how outsiders can affect an entire industry by thinking outside the box, in this case outside the camera, and use their inventiveness and creativity to explore unknown territory.

When Mr. Herr began to be interested in film in the late 1960s, he must have looked at the established ladder of cinematic success, and experienced a sinking feeling.  The ladder running up from the USC, UCLA, and New York film schools was packed with thousands of young folks from rich and well-off families who had absolutely jammed the rungs of the ladder.  Even a monkey couldn’t find a hand hold.

So Arnold Herr began his career by going in the opposite direction, down the ladder through a few layers of our tawdry civilization to find a starting point that wasn’t so crowded with the offspring of the well-to-do.  He took a film class at L.A. City College, a well-worn series of buildings in an edgy part of Los Angeles.  To supplement his income, he got a low-paying job as a projectionist in a porn theater.  He later jumped into porn filmmaking finding an even lower paying job with a local porn film company.  He was on his way.

“Skinflick” charts his journey not just into the production of erotic films, but into the world of 3-D filmmaking with his partner, 3-D pioneer and inventor Steve Gibson.  You will enjoy reading how they developed techniques of setting up specialized 3-D cameras, lenses, and special effects.  There is a lot of inside information here.  And because 3-D needed glasses, Mr. Gibson became the king of them, filling a warehouse with millions of pairs that he had manufactured. (He still has a few hundred thousand if you know someone who could use them.)

The secret lesson of this story is that Mr. Herr and Mr. Gibson together invented new techniques and explored new areas of movie making that 99% of the graduates of the expensive film schools have failed to do.  This is not directly mentioned in the story, but is a lesson that will be evident in absorbing it.  Sometimes coming up in an industry the hard way, from the bottom, gives a person a perspective that can’t be purchased by being pegged in near the top.  The hardships of start-up entrepreneurs puts pressure on the creative section of their brain, if they have one, to come up with solutions to vexing problems.

Although not discussed in the book, Mr. Herr and Mr. Gibson went on to film a 3-D horror film that won awards in 3-D festivals, but has still not seen release several years afterwards, a real shame.  As the Movie Theater business has been slammed by many factors like the Covid Lockdowns, big finance buyouts, and competition from streaming and internet, many movie theater chains are either in bankruptcy or looking at it.  Maybe a 3-D film revival will bring some crowds back to the theaters.  It’s tough to have a home set-up for a 3-D film, but certainly a lot of fun to experience it in a movie theater.

“Skinflick” is a fun read, but is also informative for those interested in filmmaking.  It also appeals to those who have an interest in some of the guys and gals in the “adult” film industry, quite a few of them are present in the book, including Bill Margold, (RIP), actor, writer, and Hollywood Press film critic with the great adult film reviews; Serena, John Holmes and many more.

NOHO Farenheit 451

Arsonists Set Fire at Iliad Book Shop in NOHO

by Paul Hunt

Book Shop is open but still blowing out the smoke.

A fire was set at the entrance of Iliad Book Shop in North Hollywood, CA. on late Thursday night November 3, 2022.  This was a deliberate act of arson, as not only were books piled up against the entry doors and set alight, but threatening fliers were posted on several walls of the shop.

Luckily a passerby spotted the fire and was able to flag down an L.A. Fire Department truck that was driving by.  Quick action by the Firemen extinguished the blaze, but the store filled with smoke, damaging many books.  The two bookstore cats, loved by the customers as well as the owner, were rescued.

Most of the smoke has been cleared, but remaining damage has to be taken care of.  If the flames had spread inside it would have been a much worse situation, as the smoke can ruin books and then water pouring on them will, of course, ruin the books totally. 

 

Owner Dan Weinstein

Dan Weinstein, owner of Iliad Books is grateful for the quick action of the LAFD, but also that his two beloved cats, Apollo and Zeus were saved.  You can see a photo of Apollo sleeping on a ladder at the home page of Bookstore Memories. Sometimes when I was sitting on the floor in the Iliad browsing through books, Apollo would come over and closely inspect my choices, letting me know which books I should buy.  A very literary cat!  Zeus, the other feline, seemed to like the warm basket on the counter, accepting adoration from the customers.  Dan certainly has two of the best managers a bookstore could ever ask for.

We will be reporting further on this attack.  The questions of who set the fire and why, and the incredible series of recent arson fires in NOHO.  Meanwhile, please go to the Iliad Book Shop website.  They have a Go Fund Me page if readers can donate to help them replace the doors and install security cameras.

 IliadBooks.com