Away like Batman/An ampersand for Judas/Batman

[a transformer's puzzle, completed on my coffee table<

Kathy Acker selections, two books I didn't have + a cheap signed 1st pristine HC Pussy, King of the Pirates:


The perfunctory tone of the crooked, unadorned signature has it's own charm. This was her last novel, from 1996.


The design of the book by Grove is elegantly cheeky, from the graphic marbly end papers to the hot pink flaps, to Kathy's attractive author photo.



These two volumes couldn't be more different, though both are fun (the Patterns of Symmetry is somewhat valuable). Lust Damned, an original Midnight Reader, was the best title out of stacks that all featured the same style of contents & design. Patterns of Symmetry, out of UMass, 1977, ties for coolest book of the haul, & deserves its own post sometime.


The back ad of Lust Damned speaks for itself:


Inside Lust Damned:



Then the beloved books on books. Kraus' A Rare Book Saga adjacent English Books 1475- 1900, a signpost for collectors. Both are A++.


A snapshot of the snapshots at the center of the Kraus:



Obligatory poetry volumes, affordably had. Both coincidentally U of California P products. All Poets Welcome comes w/ a CD of pretty much everyone New York in the 60s, including John Wieners' classic "Poem for Cocksuckers", Ted Berrigan reading a handful of sonnets, & a Clark Coolidge audio file I've not heard before, "Machinations Calcite".



A further selection of 1-handed reading. Robert Duncan approves!


Lastly from this haul, the livre du grand gidouille grand, & the fifth U of California P item displayed in this post (2 more are below):




These next three were AWP acquisitions, yet haven't made it home until now. Stein Mac Low Moriarty. They are rescued. It shouldn't be news to anyone, but Thing of Beauty is one of the best realized books of recent years, from production to contents. Kudos to Anne Tardos in conjunction with U of California P.



Inside a Thing of Beauty:



The selection from perhaps my favorite Mac Low book, Pieces o' Six:



A spread from the Laura Moriarty volume A Semblance, recently out from Omnidawn:



& a signature:

(*) (*) (*) (*) (*) (*)

Now, a pictorial tour around Sawyer & Darton's 2-volume English Books, 1475-1900, printed in 2000 sets in '27. Undoubtedly the items I've spent the most time with since acquisition.

Snapshots of My Childs

I was walking around in my library the other day, cam in hand, & decided to take a few snaps of what was there. For one, so I could continue my new trend of letting the pics do the talkin on this blog, for two, to document what was standing next to what--because it remains, except for a few small sections, entirely unorganized since I last unpacked it more than 6 months ago.

Such a status has rendered it almost useless several times, as you search through the whole fucker looking for the one single book. But, as all collectors know, the fruitless search becomes the pleasure, as you find something else usually more interesting & forget about the initial target. Then, a few days later, you look up & right in front of your face, the book you couldn't find come hell or high water before is looking right at you.

So many of these pics are both random in my selection to photograph them (as opposed to some other section) & random in their arrangement. Somewhere between 5 to 10% of the whole is accounted for in the following photos. The amount of prose versus poesie is an interesting outcome, but then again there was an entire alley of the collection that was too narrow to photograph properly, kicking those stacks out of the extravaganza that follows. The final pic is a single glimpse into the 'money shelves'--this level shows some signed Hubert Aquin adjacent a ton of choice Atlas Press stuff adjacent some signed Zizeks.