My second humor piece in Esquire landed in this month’s (Nov. 2010) edition. If you didn’t catch the first one, it’s here.
Here are the ones included in the magazine - followed by a few that didn’t make the cut.
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Why Print Still Matters
A sampling from our new catalog of hard-to-find titles.
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- Barbara Eden
My Story, 1989
First edition, first printing of Eden’s classic take on the challenges of being a television genie in love with an astronaut in the 1960s. Boldly inscribed: To Willie von Straat, who has changed the coagulant-membrane-filtration industry, by Eden’s coauthor, Guy Erikson. $6.95
- C. Fortenz Milloy
It Is So Interesting, 1837
“Behold in the light borne of the Lord, that which we find, shall be left unfound in time immutable when the night flees daybreak. It is in this morning light when Truth will shout, shout, shout.” Fine three-volume edition of Milloy’s landmark nonsense work, handsomely bound in nineteenth-century iguana. With engraved portrait. $9.50
- Trish St. Hammerapple
What We Talk About When We Talk About Talking So Much All the Time, 2007
One of only four copies printed on the Xerox machine at S&A Metal Forming Machinery, Inc., in New Brunswick, New Jersey, by St. Hammerapple. Late example of the most controversial and important masterwork by this winner of the Constantin Pudârma-Dresleaba Prize for Moldovan-American Violent Science Fiction. One of St. Hammerapple’s only known signatures. On anything. Folio. $5.69
- Reginald Kipple
The Works of Reginald Kipple, 1999
Only copy of Kipple’s 894-page spiral-bound thoughts about everything from the trash-collection districts of unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, to why women are allowed to wear pants these days. A seminal turn-of-the-century volume, recently found by his son Roland under some sheets near a fondue set in Kipple’s basement. $2.50
- Ben Vereen
I Was Tenspeed, 1986
Important contribution to the Vereen canon. The best, most complete volume, which also includes “I Was Pippin” and “I Hate Jeff Goldblum.” First edition, one of only twenty-nine copies, illustrated and signed by Robert Guillaume. Includes thirteen copper-engraved folding plates. $12.49
- Wilhelm von Straat
Coagulant Membrane Filtration & Me, 1989
If there’s one name most people think of when they think of coagulant-membrane filtration, it’s Kyle Sommersheld. This book, by Sommersheld’s onetime assistant, tells the “true story,” in von Straat’s words, of the coagulant-membrane-filtration wars of 1982. In the scarce original first-issue dust jacket, warmly inscribed by him: Hagman, you seriously have to give me Barbara’s number. $0.99
- Aleksei Alekshaskin
The Horrid, Immoral Life and Grisly Butchering of Pyotr Petrovin, 1956
A children’s classic; first trade edition, among the earliest issues of Alekshaskin’s lovely first book, with color illustrations by him. A beautiful copy in the bright original dust jacket. $11
- Ron Toofhart
Make Cheese in Your Shoe TODAY! 1994
A title perennially at the top of the American Cheese Society’s “must buy” list, this lavishly illustrated volume remains an influential statement on making cheese in your shoe. $2.95
- Greta Schurrd
The End of Books, 2009
First edition of the first volume of Schurrd’s dystopian fantasy, set in a frighteningly realistic - and eerily immediate - future when the written word has been completely digitized. In Schurrd’s darkly comic telling, all information is conveyed through a personal screen called the Pad. As the author’s towering devil figure, Jobs, tells his slaves: “All that you need, the Pad will give you. Trust the Pad. The Pad knows you. The Pad loves you.” Extremely rare presentation copy; full Moroccan-gilt binding with woodcut illustrations. $1.29
- Scads McMartin
She’s a Hag, Man, 1977
“In so many ways, she was joyous, and in so many others, she might as well have been a gimp.” So begins the title essay in McMartin’s Fapper Prize - winning collection. Exceptionally fine first edition with striking sepia-toned photographic plates. Includes “You Didn’t Hear It from Me but Eden’s Got Scabies,” “If You’re Really Giving Me a Choice, I’ll Have a Shasta Lite,” and the surprising “Low-Concentration Phage Ms2 Flocculation Pumps and You” (regarded by some as the “greatest piece of membrane-filtration literature in existence” - Lawrence Hagman), none of which appeared in subsequent editions. $4.99
A few that didn’t make the cut…
- Hal Sork
How to Manage a CiCi’s Pizza Buffet Restaurant, 2004.
“It sounds bad, but honestly? First thing you do is hire hot teenage girls.” A timeless management classic with Sork’s signature tipped in. Finely bound and inscribed by Sork while he served two years of an eight year prison term for arson to Cindee for all your support and also for all your top(less)ings. $3.75
- Cassandra Bolinpuck
Lithographs, 1967.
First edition of the first volume of the catalogue raisonné of Bolinpuck’s lithographs. Earliest obtainable edition richly illustrated with 12 original lithographs, signed and inscribed by Bolinpuck during a time when she was going through some serious shit with White Crunch meth (”respect”). With folding maps. $14.95
- Chester Arthur
Beans to the Pendleton Act, 1883.
The 21st president supported the Pendelton Act, which established a bipartisan Civil Service Commission, forbade levying of political assessments against officeholders, and provided….Who’s asleep? Everyone? Yes. This timeless tract by Arthur shows heartfelt frustration with his incredibly boring presidency. Extremely rare presentation copy; includes full 15-line text of “Chinamen and Lunatics Get Out,” Arthur’s poem detailing his immigration stance. $16.00
