30: The Sword of Pleasure

This is my quick video review of the cover of The Sword of Pleasure by Peter Green.

29: An Invitation To Sin

Usually, for something like this that I want to write about, I wanna hold it, possess it, ruffle it up you know. That much incremental joy improvement did not equal $5.24 in this case. So...is that not the most polite invitation to sin ever? Whatever dark emotionally malnourished part of my mind that creates this sort of thing told me that this is how my grandmother organizes orgies. Oh you nice young man, you just must come to our next key party. Now you have your invitation, please RSVP at your earliest convenience with the number of accompanying bitches you plan to offer to grandpa. Just sick. Or do I not want to disempower myself? I feel maladjusted suddenly.

28: Night of the Quarter Moon

Guess the year time! An accepted San Francisco society couple come under attack when it is suggested/discovered that the woman of the duo is of mixed racial heritage. She's part black they say while physically, yes physically, attacking them and throwing bricks through their window. Later, the woman who is light skinned, strips down (showin the nudey bits in other words) in court to prove that she is white. Also, surely a book about the then sensitivity to the mixing of ethnicities would not utilize a title that heavily suggests a racial slur regarding someone who has mostly but not all white ancestry. Nope. "Quarter Moon" is ever so delightfully just far enough away to give great big heaps of plausible deniability while doing nothing more than whispering "quadroon" over your should, into your ear and touching your mind with its dirty little raycess* fingers. It turns out that the woman actually did have a black grandmother (proud African-American they call her of course as that will make up all the difference) so not only did she dare mix in inappropriate circles, but she lied to them, too!
So, the year? 1917? Uh uh. 1925? Nope? Surely, not after WWII? How about all the way in 1959. Sometimes, though I want to hold firm, I wonder whether it is better to remember the worst of the past or simply wash it away. Oh, inconsequential note, this tied into the movie of the same title starring Drew Barrymore's dad which is his name now.

*Raycess is of course the more phonetically pleasing form of racist.

27: Jungle She

I have to think that the title--this is the 1953 1st edition--is a reference to Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, who was a pulp and comic star of the time and the time before. Actually, she was the first female star of a comic book, but...since no one today is going to get the allusion you gotta assume the author failed, right? That's his job--to be eternal and have the words last. Instead you reference something forgotten and exist not to be read, but for a possessiveness of the cover. Which is very nice, isn't it?

Trivia--this author also wrote what would be the basis for Elvis' Stay Away Joe feature which put the singer (in his late 60s persona) as a Native American. Naturally, this went just as swimmingly as you could expect and was in no way mocking of Injuns.

26: The Cuddle Sutra

Aww, it's such a sweet book for cute couples in loving and close relationships. Let's see how dirty I can make it!

Step 1. Just give the titles of some sample maneuvers and allow a wink and imagination to do the rest. Yes, these are real "cuddle positions" according to the text. The Layer Cake, oh yeah. The Two Pillows, uh huh. The Tete a Tete, qui qui.

Step 2. The same thing, list some of the positions with a little detail of your own fiction but not something that gives a full image. You still gotta let the nasty out of your imagination. Lile the Pinky Play--gonna need some sanitizer. The Gleap--or as it is sometimes known, the Detroit Haberdasher (because of what you do with your head). The Tug O'love for when there's just not enough time for the full Pinky Play.

Step 3. Just go all out silly with just enough left to the imagination to draw a filthier picture than even I intended. The Cherry Popsicles. Well, one time I crossed over at Laredo into old Mexico and you think the real crazy stuff only happens in Tijuana...but you'd be real wrong. A five dollar transaction and I'm in the filthiest bar ever watching two chicks perform the Cherry Popsicle. I learned alot that day. How God must not exist. That that particular shade can be bodily made. That I could still cry at my age.

25: The Retrosexual Manual

Okay, now this isn't a book for me. This is for those, all I gotta do is touch it sort of feeling guys. Science lesson time. Everybody is born with the basic package of feelings--sympathy, joy, bonhomie, jealousy, and so on. At puberty onset, your brain releases hormones that identify which elements of your emotional spectrum are present in your environment and eliminates those without recognizable matches. Say you were raised in a dour environment by a dysfunctional family--snip snip goes your natural forms of happiness and trust.

sigh...myself, well, they're not supposed to do this, but when I was 11...my feelings...they...molested me. They took advantage of me all alone in a dark room and suddenly and ever since I've been adrift without control seemingly. All I know is, if you're within the sound of voice you are not safe. So run...RUN!

24: Ten Little Indians

Yeah, it's about racism again--there's really no physical limit to the number of these I can do. This is the third of three titles (by appearance order) for this particular book--all of which show how culture attempts to step away from overt racism. The first, and I don't want to even write it out, was Ten Little N-words. yeah the actual title had the real word. They didn't care much about it back when originally published in 1939.

Now, I can't move on without thinking about a comedic bit Louis CK does about inappropriate words including touching on the n-word. To him, and he's right, even using the sorta acceptable substitute just makes you think the original in your mind. Basically, someone has made you think the word aloud in your head without actually saying it themselves--raycess* virus.

The original title was published into the 60s, and by large-shoulda-known-better publishers like Penguin. There were some publishers as far back as 1940 who insisted on a name change, for some reason not universally held obviously, and the title became And Then There Were None which is how the book is generally published today. Ten Little Indians is an alternate title created after the source material was renamed for a movie.

Just the original dust jacket, with raycess name and little raycess caricatures dancing (I'll link here, but have no interest in showing the picture on my blog), costs near fifty dollars itself online. Though, that's not like the only potential racism about. As you can see, my copy names Indians but then adds the perhaps suggestive hanging body--during the 60s, come on! Even the supposed safe title, And Then There Were None can create dark overtones in comparison to the original. Now there's none of them left? Is that your goal, Christie and or publisher?

Regardless, enough people didn't care to the tune of 100 million printed copies--making this the highest selling mystery of all time. I myself own this copy and a more recent And Then There Were None.

23: Six Million Dollar Man #4; Pilot Error

Yeah, this book is cute in that "oh it's older than me so that makes it adorable in its attempts to communicate" sort of way, but that's not it. There's no way I would have the spent even the dollar it cost a couple of days ago if not for the happenstance awareness of the advertising material in the middle.

See? Yeah, books to push cigarettes? Like all out obvious where kids could find in their attempts to understand the jumpsuity universe of Steve Austin (thank you for retro hip shows like Venture Bros. for me even knowing that much). Then your little baby, 9 year old Tommy, is sucking on a tobacco tip like it has the cure for cancer at the end, which, yeah is really ironic for 39 year old Tommy.
The New York Times actually did an article about cigarette ads in books a few years ago. Apparently, this was actually quite common during the 60s and 70s. They tended to appear in the more masculine pulps and thrillers (Mack Bolan types), but actually could be found in such varied material as Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye (I would happily kill like three people--in order to rank my desire I will enumerate my kill/desire--for a copy of this just for the odd juxtaposition) and Dr. Spock's baby care books (which prompted a law suit by Dr. Spock when he found out). Considering my shock on discovery, it just shows the lengths to which culture can change while erasing the memory of its path.

Final note. I'm so off the tobacco path (quit smoking after I turned 18; legality made it all boring and shit) that I misspelled "cigarette" every time I try to use it.

22: The Man From S.T.U.D. in The Girl With the Polka Dot Box

1969. Why not convert acronym prone thrillers of the day (Man from U.N.C.L.E., Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D., S.W.A.T....damn I hate having to do that whole type, then period, then type, then period pattern; is this a really long parenthetical break or what? Oooh, maybe this is the real point of the paragraph and what is outside is cosmetic, or a dream, or only an entryway to my mind.) into paperback sex romps? What does it say about us that a thriller or a spy novel today is more likely to be genre mashed with vampires?

Anyway, past or present, this is no Tijuana Bible or Rule 34, this is actual parody via a hell of a lot of mentions of "bush" and "broads." Actual sentence from the book: "He led her by the bush to the bed." Other than that, well, you could say the flagrante is detailed. One could blush or laugh, but never both.
This isn't the most collectible/expensive of the odd books in my collection, but it would be one of the harder to replace if accidentally destroyed. Naturally I found it in a dusty used book shop of the lesser of the two types. Used shops can either have deep, valuable, or recent selections...you know, obvious from the first glance of worthy delving. Or...they can be those leftover shops still occupying a local niche long since past its prime. No longer do locals trade-in the latest Cussler or whatever the oldies are reading these days. When you walk in, you look around but all you see are items from 10 to 20 years ago at the latest. This shop, where I found this one, was of the later. Still, hidden in the back, and past a narrow gap in shelves, was a selection of nice 60s pulps like reprints of 30s and 40s heroic fare like Doc Savage and the Avenger and sex romps like this one. Why be shocked that the heirs to the unwanted creations of others lack the imagination to notice the truly unique?

21: The Hater's Handbook

I don't know coach; you heard what the doctor said. If I hate just a little more than I do like normal now my heart could explode. Yeah, I wanna hate, but...

Alright, I'm gonna do it. For little Johnny back in Brooklyn. Open it up then. Yeah...yeah...YEAH, I feel it! I hate you! I hate little Johnny! I hate Brooklyn! You did it, you ugly fucking Italian bastard. You're not even Italian, but I got so much inside I just gotta throw slurs all over the place!

20: Comic Epitaphs

For this one, you just gotta read this bit, from just before the main text:

The following collection of gravestone inscriptions is hardly a serious historical one. Most of the items are genuine, but many are suspect, and a few are frankly contrived. In some cases genuine inscriptions have been somewhat altered; and the place names are not reliable. Scholars are there warned not to find fault; but all men--and also any women who choose--are invited to read further for a little ghoulish amusement.

So, not only is this book partially fraudulent, but women might, might, read it as well as men. Probably cause they're mentally frail or something, so says the 50s when this was published.

Oh fine, here's two examples of "comic epitaphs" from inside:

FIRST A COUGH CARRIED ME OFF, THEN A COFFIN CARRIED ME IN.

SHE LIVED WITH HER HUSBAND FIFTY YEARS AND DIED IN THE CONFIDENT HOPE OF A BETTER LIFE.

Yeah, comic indeed.

19: The Klansman

Well, I haven't looked at any outright horrible books in a bit so let's try one on.

Hmmm...oh, no, there's probably nothing going to be wrong about a book entitled "Klansman" and showing a white man in a power pose before a disheveled black woman on her knees before him. Also, I love the signal of a woman meekly attempting to pull one sleeve that had fallen back over her shoulder. Before books started reflecting reality (in oh, let's say 1991) that sort of subtle gesture or image was code. The meaning of the code changed over the years but in this case it definitely means rape. Sure, I don't want it to be rape...but it is what sells. Or something sordid--Mackenzie Phillips says what?

The author, William Huie (which I have to guess is pronounced something like hoo-ee cause of the Southern birth of the man), was pure Alabama--born there, graduated from an Alabama school, wrote about Bama football, and lived through and journalistically covered some of the high/low-lights (which is best?) of the Civil Rights Movement. Then he right promptly used some of that material to write what I guess I could call in my best PR impersonation "racially charged."
Just looking at the man's history brings back all sort of twisted thoughts on Southern heritage. I was born in Alabama and still find myself rooting for Auburn...but, damn there is a lot to be ashamed of culturally. So this cover, and I don't care enough to review the interior, just reminds me of all that. Like most of the ephemera I've collected in the past years, I keep this bit cause it reminds me of a different past. Not just some scrubbed rendition of "before and after" or "this=good and this=bad," but a real world of shadings...a world where books with covers like this were bestsellers should be remembered if not fondly then just coldly.

18: Instant Replay

This one, originally from 1968, is one of the first of the now way common technique (plot? device?) of following a team over the course of a season and attempting to provide something of an insider view. The Packers, of course, were the dominant football team of the 60s and Jerry Kramer was one of their star offensive linemen.

Of course, professional athletes are a tight brotherhood forever distinguishing between those who actually played the game and those that did not--for example, most reporters and announcers. To breach that brotherhood by providing to those outside some of the internal secrets is to place one's own position within at some risk. For Kramer, his memoir possibly created enough ill will as to prevent his being voted into football's hall of fame--the NFL network has proclaimed him as the best player not currently enshrined. The, in reality quite vanilla, tell-all provided the basis for the far more risque Ball Four in 1971 and all the subsequent "turn back the curtain" attempts since.

Was it worth it? Would I be willing to share the secrets of any particular society to which I belonged for some spending money and literary notoriety? Of course I would, why else would I be spending time just playing with words as I am?

By the by, I thought his 1985 book had a far more cute title--"Distant Replay."

17: A Coney Island of the Mind

As far as I remember into my past, I was always a voracious reader. Poorly stocked libraries, the inattention of my parents, and a lack of discretionary cash largely led me to a vagabond reading selection of remaindered books, donations, loans, or outright thefts (as opposed to forthright theft? Gotta think about that one.).

One incident in high school provided some of the first shape to my reading patterns--my high school received and gave away several cases worth of paperbacks that had had the cover stripped off. Now I know that these were the remnant of some return to the publisher (Penguin in this case), but at the time they seemed to sum up the overall shabbiness of the school.

These books were piled up on tables in the library and given away on a "take whatever you can carry, we don't care" basis. Now, most (or all as I can remember) were of a high literary quality. The only two that I can absolutely remember taking was a copy of Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory and The Beat Reader though I took a hell of a lot more than that. The Beat Reader was a collection of sampler pieces of all associated with the Beat Generation meaning they ranged from core members like Kerouac to muses like Neal Cassady to barely/fringe influenced people like Bob Dylan. These pieces rocked my literary world and spiraled me into a literary world that, while it didn't end there, included chanting the full length of Allen Ginsberg's Howl out loud at midnight a few years later on Ole Miss' campus. And if you don't know, "Howl" is a hella long poem.

Eventually I even made the pilgramage, as I considered it, to one of the great remaining landmarks of the Beatnik faith--City Lights bookstore in San Francisco. Owned and operated by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the associated press published many of the first and major works of the movement including "Howl." The guy is still around, over 90, and by sheer luck I got to meet him in one of the two visits I made to the shop. That's where I got my signed copy of the book shown above.

So, after saying all of that, what I really want to talk about is that San Francisco people are really freaking rude. After getting my signed copy and after Mr. Ferlinghetti walked away, I told the cashier in awed tones that I was so shocked at actually meeting one of the original guys that I just didn't know what to say. He scoffed at me and snidely suggested that next time I try "Hello" and then walked the fuck away from the register...while I stood there about to pay for the signed book. When I went back there the next day to get something I had forgotten, the same guy initially refused to be bothered to remove the item I wanted from the window of the store saying it wasn't for sale despite the prominently displayed price sticker. I finally got it, but that was about what I got from San Francisco folk. A city I loved so much that I have taken two vacations there and a people that make even my own anti-social tendencies blend into a general genteel manner of the well heeled South by comparison. Current resident of said city, and hilarious comedian, Greg Proops has frequently noted on its savage social nature. Recently he noted on his podcast that it is the sort of city where the reply to a hopeful "I'm trying to get to the Asian Art Musuem" is more often met by a caustic "Well good luck with that then" than not. Funny.

16: When Duct Tape Just Isn't Enough

Not one of those funny (or at least intended to be)"100 unnatural uses for duct tape" type of books, this is for those actual, practical applications. It's a signpost for my type of mind, but I'm way more aware of jokes regarding the utility of duct tape than any actual worth. Sure, I've made a recent habit of attempting to replicate the appearance of a more mature human male, but this thing is talking a whole lot of another language.

Just from the back, this book has cures for broken gutters (do all houses have those?), frozen door locks (like ice?), mysterious leaks (mysterious like magical or mystery berry slurpees?), flooded basements (okay, you're probably exaggerating a tiny bit there) and knocking radiators (of which I've never seen an actual one in a home outside of movies where they exist only to handcuff victims to. Perhaps it is more of a further north thing?).

This was a free book from another life and vocation which I've obviously kept as it potentially held all manner of information not naturally passed onto me by either nature or nurture. You know, stuff that the internet could absolutely never hold...so, it's maybe more obviously a hedge against either the rapture or the complete dissolution of society.

15: Ali Rap

Thinking about possession. Now I've owned this book for at least four years and, for all the urge I felt to buy it at the time, I've yet to actually unwrap and read it--let alone just flip through the pages. Actually, I have little idea what the interior is even like other than vague ideas of Muhammed Ali being some sort of early pioneer or touchstone for actual rappers, what with his impromptu rhymes at interviews. Well, it is published by Taschen of whom I'm aware of in general "they make nice art books" sort of way so I'm sure there are nice and possibly even never before seen pictures of Ali and various musicians.
More, I'm not even going to open it now. Four years and the only strong urge I feel towards it is possessive--no way would I sell it or give it away. I feel that urge since I'm quite aware that if I really want this book then I should take the time to appreciate it and thus must combat my common sense with what I guess should be called uncommon sense. Someday maybe I'll read it. At the very least I want to be the type of person who owns a book about Ali and rap.

Final note--what makes me appear way sillier is the fact that I paid close to retail originally while copies are now readily available for a penny for used copies.

14: The Subterraneans

Ten dollars spent a couple of years ago for a 1959 paperback. Nothing funny, just...it's one of those touchstones in my book collection and I wish I knew a better word offhand for "collection" as that suggests some sort of sealed and separated assortment kept clean and untouched. As close as "right now" can be to moving quickly to typing, that's how recently I was just rustling the pages, examining the bends and cracks in the cover, and the decimation of corners of the most fragile pages within.

All those Beat Generation guys were the literary equivalent for me that the band Nirvana had been for my music taste a couple of years prior. They were the widening of expectations.

13: The Cautious Amorist

While a novel, this one is nonetheless supposed to "recount in realist terms what would actually happen to three men and a pretty woman on a desert island." This innocent portrayal, from a 1938 Time article regarding the author, is towards my main point--really? I'm a bit more negative so my assumption was rape...yet this book is completely without. I mean, I wasn't looking for rape when purchased (the cover was the complete reason for that), but surely I expected some to occur. Or maybe it would be that archaic romantic trope of the woman struggling against the stronger man's initial physical overtures only to wrestled to arousal. Nope. Instead there's a whole lot of "aplomb" being tossed about besides the occasional "you beast."

Sadly, my copy is a later 1955 printing lacking any of the original's many illustrations (also by the author). See below for sample of both drawing and male/female interaction from the story.
Finally, there's a whole bunch of slurs attached to being Irish about which...come on this was the 30's! At different times being punched is considered more ill for having happened from Irish fists and later efforts are made by the non-Irish to protect the lady's ("pretty lady") innocence. As appropriate to my race and modern mind, I am merely and utterly fascinated (not offended or whatever) that people could get raycess* about Irish folk. As a historical document, The Cautious Amorist** just assumes the Irish are monsters and is done with it.

*"raycess" being the more phonetically pleasing form of "racist."

**Spellcheck continues to insist that "amorist" is not a real word while I counter that spellcheck needs to see something of the world before making such an accusation.

12: The Illustrated Texas Dictionary: Volume 5

By "illustrated," the author here means big photos of himself with pithy examples of phonetically challenged Texas dialect. So, ideas? Ideas are created at some point in time--simple. Then, the passage of time and the varying cultural interests that must be appeased (like commercialbility) take ownership of that idea and tweaks and changes.
Now what interests me is the speed of that process. For example, Ambrose Bierce published a similar book all the way back in 1906 called the Devil's Dictionary which also was in simple term and sartorial definition framework. This volume was published in 1979.

Take the quote above from the Texas Dictionary which, while the entry is specifically regarding liars it is in a more general fashion directed insultingly at lawyers.
liar--a person whose profession is to conduct lawsuits for clients.

Fine. Now allow me to show the entry for lawyer from the Devil's Dictionary.

LAWYER--one skilled in circumvention of the law.

Similar in tone sure, and maybe Everhart (author of Texas Dictionary) read Bierce at some point. Bierce's tome, best as I can discover, has never been out of print. So, more than seventy years after Bierce a series of more local subject in the same style is published. The idea has continued to exist but has been altered to fit what was obviously in retrospect (by the existence of four prior volumes) easily popular enough for justification. The idea decays, and some 15 years later Jeff Foxworthy is performing standup with placards of Southern phonetically mangled words like "Preshadit"--like "I'd preshadit if you didn't tell no one about how I acted after all that drinking last night."

Meanwhile the original thought exists like some early Platonic form, but noone cares. Currently the most popular version of Bierce's work is the 50th best selling Amazon title in the genre of educational reference titles that focus on idioms and slang. Yay!

11: Dressing Right

Some books, like Great Gatsby, are timeless...expressing eternal memes of desire, frustration, loss, or whatever unchanging human concept. This book is not timeless. Haphazard leaving around of documents like this one are why younger people are absolutely right to either ignore or ridicule the generation prior (or more). Then, the elderly are ignored/shunted into malpractice prone nursing homes as one can only stand a joke for so long.

This one, from 1978, is another discovery at a Texas estate sale amongst an eclectic mix of cheap, thriller paperbacks, old Asimov magazines, and survival guides. Naturally, I have samples of the later two and skipped the first choice. Let's look at some sample pages and see what sort of vaguely funny comment I create.
So...1978...and here is documented the original creators of the modern slang connotations of the word "bear." Much like the original creators of psychology's DSM (diagnostic manual for your brain's malfunctions), these three brave innovators barricaded themselves inside a lush New York high rise overlooking Central Park for an entire weekend surviving on whatever remnant luxuries from prior soirees until they had created the new homosexual lexicon.
This...is exactly how the homeless in San Francisco dress now which provides the basis for my calculations of the speed of fashion from the highest economic level to the lowest.
Oh and this, is just awkward like John Mayer born into a time that is not his own.

10: Truths Series, Volume V

This little book I own only for the cover--found in some bargain rack at used book chain Half Price. I didn't check the interior at purchase date and only twice since, upon return home and right before now. No part of me is concerned that what I have is part five of some not-even-google defined multitude or that it is regarding some deep aspect of Catholic doctrine. It's just pretty...pretty and old and worn and read obviously more than once in that at least a reference capacity. Just for sake of variety in genres, I would buy Dan Brown if Angels and Demons was thus bound...or Ann Rule, or Dean Koontz, or Joel Osteen, or even, and this is painful to admit, Garfield.

And I wouldn't share, at least I wouldn't with a cover like this. Must I hide it from visitors? This is my vanity or jealousy wrapped into possession. Like any other, I must be connected to that which is pretty...to me at least.

9: The Baseball Life of Willie Mays

This effort, from 1972 which places itself near the end of Mays' career, is one of those literally priceless Scholastic efforts of which the only price to be found was within those little pamphlet-esque catalogs handed to schoolchildren. These sort of things existed to at least my experience in junior high though I wonder if they indeed exist in that form to this day. Replaced by official, product on site, book fairs, perhaps?

Anyway, I've written more here in introduction than I plan on exerting on the main point. Here, it is only funny that the emphasis on the title is on the baseball career of Mr. Mays as the text itself excludes any mention of a personal life beyond interactions with others affiliated with the diamond. And such it should be...our athletes entertain us with their repeated attacks on the limits of human prowess and so is my/our attention pointed except in the occasional interlude or indiscretion.

8: Flattened Fauna

Here I present a proud selection/purchase of mine from an in house estate sale--one of those where the deeply bereaved allow strangers to burrow through the belongings of the deceased, evaluating and pricing all thus found. So yeah, I spent maybe a quarter for it. What can make even that seem more melancholy is that the book itself bears none of those markings of possible resell that an experienced bargain book hunter such as I could notice. While this copy was printed back in 87, there are no stamps from hole in the wall used book shops. On no corners or along the spine are the residue of stickers. Within the cover are no penciled notes as to a revised price. Likely as not, this book had been the property of the recently gravely met since originally purchased back in the late 80's.

Though the spine is crisply without breaks, both covers show that singular wear from being shelved and removed in similar rubbing fashion. He probably read it more than a couple times a year...or showed it to guests/children as evidence of humor not otherwise apparent. Wrinkles are an excellent mask against the facial expressions of happiness, of course. Then he died and I bought it. Bought it laughing and with a smile placed it on a shelf with other books* of similar mind breaking premise. As I shall not die, my laughter is a sure giveaway, this leaves two owners in total. So...does this make the book sad or happy?

*Sometimes, I feel like I should throw in the occasional "tomes" just for evidence of thesaurus capability...but that's not really how I talk of think. This sorta junk is, however. So it gets flung here.