Up, Up, and Aawy...

The prevailing wind in the Pioneer Valley is south to north, so every spring, summer and fall the early morning and early evening sky plays host to colorful hot-air balloons which take off down toward Springfield and drift up the valley over the broad fields of corn, potatoes and pumpkins to land here in Hatfield or just to our north in Whately, short of the rocky prominence of Mount Sugarloaf.

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The view from the top of Mount Sugarloaf, looking back down the Valley along the Connecticut River-

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In the spring and summer, when the windows are all open, often the first warning we have of a balloon overhead is the "whooooooosh!" of the gas-powered hot-air blower pumping more hot air into the balloon.

The balloons are all followed by chase crews, who are in radio contact with the balloon pilot and drive pickups or vans pulling the trailer that the balloon will be packed up into at the end of the flight. The balloon crew carries a bottle of champagne which they present to a farmer if they land in his field.

Last summer in the early evening a balloon drifted over the house and began to come down in the soccer field of the high school across the street. As the balloon slowly descended an entire convoy of vehicles came down the street, chase truck and trailer in the lead, followed by at least a dozen cars full of people. The balloon drifted left toward some trees, and the pilot "hit the gas", making the balloon bound upward and start to drift north toward a neighboring potato farm.

The convoy of followers turned into the school's long driveway, raced around the circle in front of the school and came racing back out, tearing off down the street in the direction of the rapidly-disappearing balloon.

A number of neighbors were out on the sidewalk at this point, because you never see a convoy of cars that large chasing a balloon, and we were curious about what was going on. The mystery was cleared up when a young woman in one of the last cars leaned out the window, holding a cell-phone in one hand, and yelled to us-

"She said YES!!"

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Most balloon fly-overs are far less dramatic, except for the random low-flyer who looks as if he may take the top of our chimney off. Balloons are beautiful at any time of year, but they are especially triking against the colorful fall leaves in the crisp, blue autmun sky.

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And Now for Something Completely Different...

Computer Haiku

A file that big?
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.

The Web site you seek
Can not be located but
Countless more exist.

Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.

Aborted effort:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.

Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.

Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.

First snow, then silence.
This thousand dollar screen dies
So beautifully.

With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
?My Novel? not found.

The Tao that is seen
Is not the true Tao until
You bring fresh toner.

Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.

A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.

Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.

Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.

Children of the Corn-

On Sunday morning we made our annual trip with our friends and their kids to Mike's Corn Maze at Warner Farm in nearby Sunderland. Past mazes have pictured Julia Child and Louis Armstrong, and this year's maze is called "Odysseus and Polyphemus, An Odyssey in Corn" -

Ready? Let's go!

Uh oh. Which way?



Um, no, this is a dead end.



A bridge! I wonder where it goes...



Of course, it's everyone's favorite, the spud cannon!



A new feature this year is a gazebo with a camera obscura inside-



For a better view, you can climb the viewing platform-



Our friend Jeff appears satisfied with the day.



For completing the maze, finding the 24 numbered checkpoints, and getting out again, we got a free pumpkin, but not the one Jeff is sitting on!

So- Who Was He?

The gentleman in question was George E. Ohr (1857-1918), the self-proclaimed "Greatest Art Potter on Earth", also known as "The Mad Potter of Biloxi, Mississippi". Ohr was certainly very talented, and not at all mad, though he was quite annoyed that he never received the acclaim he felt he deserved in his own lifetime.

His pots were ahead of their time, and not at all in keeping with the art pottery fashion of the day. Critics even accused him of "torturing" his clay...

In 1905 Ohr was invited to send four pieces of his work to be exhibited at the annual United states Potters Association convention. He sent the pieces, along with a note stating-

"I send you four pieces, but it is as easy to pass judgment on my productions from four pieces as it would be to take four lines from Shakespeare and guess the rest".

Ohr was also an amateur photographer, and delighted in creating improbable scenes featuring himself-

Potting at the Ohr pottery was a family affair-

Ohr's pottery never sold widely, and his work was largely forgotten after his death, but in 1972 a cache of more than 6,000 pots was discovered, forgotten and covered with dust, in a family warehouse. It was eventually purchased en bloc by an art pottery dealer, who took 3 months to unpack it, and then put it on the market gradually over a period of years, and so Ohr pottery is widely appreciated and avidly collected today.

It's too bad "The Greatest Potter in the World" never got to see that.

Who Am I?

I was the greatest at what I did,
my self-assertion knew no lid.
And unlike some whose talents rot-
my genius never went to pot.

Answer on Monday!

I'm Staying Off Trains-

Suddenly the stock market seems to have everyone's attention. Yesterday's 500 point loss was certainly dramatic, but represented less than 5% of the NYSE value, and it's what comes next that has really analysts worried. Suddenly everyone knows what AIG stands for.

The current brouhaha brought back my memories of a really impressive melt-down, that of October 19, 1987. On that Monday, the NYSE plunged 22% -to equal that, todays market would have to lose 2,400 points in a single day. Ouch.

I can remember exactly where I was on Monday, October 19th, 1987- I was on a train to Chicago, where I was going to attend a big book auction on Tuesday. I've never been crazy about flying, so Sunday evening I got on an Amtrak train and headed from Boston to the Windy City, planning to arrive sometime after lunch on Monday and go over to the day-before-auction preview.

Back in Ye Olden Dayes, of course, we didn't have cellphones or WiFi or anything, so when you were on a cross-country train you were essentially cut off from all news of the outside world. When I rolled into Chicago around 1 pm I hadn't heard a word of news all day.

I grabbed a taxi for a ride to the auction house, and got a chatty driver. This was one of the big-city fancy-schmancy auction houses, so I'd put on a tie, and was carrying a briefcase which had my jammies & toothbrush in it, so I probably looked like a disheveled bond trader or something. The driver immediately started making cryptic remarks about "what a crisis, huh?" and "ever seen anything like this before?".

In situations like that I have this odd reflex reaction of trying not to look stupid and playing for time until I can figure out what the Hell is going on, so I made a few non-committal remarks, and we were suddenly at the auction gallery.

I got out of the cab with the odd sensation that the world was ending, and everyone knew it but me.

Big city fancy-schmancy auction houses are not the sorts of places you go up to someone and ask "pardon me, but have you heard a newscast lately?", so I got my catalog and started previewing. All round me the gallery front-office staff, which at places like this is mainly composed of attractive, well-bred young women trolling for well-off art-collecting husbands, had a hushed feeling of dread. They were whispering things to each other like, "my fiance sold all his positions this morning but we got wiped out anyway," and "well, my boyfriend works at the Board of Trade, and he says this could be the end of it ALL".

hehehehehe... I thought- I got to get me to a radio...

...and I eventually found one, playing softly in one corner of the gallery. The newscasters were using comforting phrases like "the worst disaster since the 'Crash of '29".

At times like that I am thankful that my business of buying and selling century-old books lends me a certain long-term perspective on such things. Well, the books and a few stiff scotch-and-waters did, anyway. And the good news was that on Tuesday everyone was completely spooked and I got some good buys at the auction.

And, of course, the markets went back up eventually. So a 500 point drop, or even a 1,000 point drop isn't something to worry about. It's that AIG thing that has me hoarding canned goods and being thankful we have 4 acres of cuttable firewood out back.

And I'm staying off trains.

The Hurricane of (18)'15-

It's hurricane season, and we apparently even have one headed this [New England] way for the weekend. It reminded me of an interesting passage in the 1859 book "Two Hundred Years Ago; or, A Brief History of Cambridgeport and East Cambridge" by Sophia Simpson. The "Great Gale" she describes so vividly was in fact the Hurricane of September 23rd, 1815, which meteorologists today estimate was a category 3 storm. Sophia starts out-

"On the 23rd of September, a violent gale of wind destroyed a large amount of property. At sunrise the clouds seemed to be gathering, and there was every indication of an approaching storm-

We've got a picture of the book here.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

A New Catalog-

The Book Elves love the internet very, very much. One of the things they love about it most (besides seeing who can sign up the most 'friends' they've never met before on Facebook) is the great offers they get through the email. But before they packed up the old VW Microbus and headed off for their new oceanside timeshare condo in Wheeling, West Virginia, they finished our latest catalog of books-

RECENT ACQUISITIONS FOR SUMMER, 2008 - Books on the decorative and fine arts, trades, and related subjects. The catalog is posted online.

An Important Aucton-

This week we've added a spectacular early American art auction catalog to our Ebay store-

"Catalogue of the Art Collection formed by the late Mrs. Mary J. Morgan..."

The catalog published in New York by the American Art Galleries for an auction held from March 3rd to March 15th, 1886. Subscriber’s Edition, limited to 500 numbered copies.

The very scarce Deluxe, illustrated edition of the catalog to one of America’s earliest blockbuster auctions and what was, for a time, the most famous art auction in America. The contents of the collection included modern paintings, Chinese porcelains, jades & crystal objects, “cabinet objects”, Sevres and other European porcelains, Minton porcelains, Webb cameo glass, other fine glass, silver, wood carvings, bronzes, and etchings.

Mary Morgan was the widow of a shipping tycoon, and collected a vast array of paintings and other art in her New York mansion. Upon her death Thomas Kirby of the American Art Association, the forerunner of Parke-Bernet, decided to make the Morgan sale a “can’t-miss” event.

The collection was controversial –Mrs. Morgan had simply walked in and bought her pictures from leading dealers instead of ingratiating herself personally with the artists as was the tradition of the day. Further, Lot 341 was an 8-inch Peachblow vase which Mrs. Morgan had bought from the American Art Association’s own retail galleries for $12,000 a few years previously. A print war broke out between the New York Times, which claimed Mrs. Morgan had paid a zero or two too much for the vase, and that in any case, there was no such thing as “Peachblow”, and Charles Henry Dana and the New York Sun, who stoughtly defended the AAA and the vase.

the Peachblow vase-

During the 3 week exhibition at the galleries prior to the auction 100,000 people viewed the paintings and Oriental art. The sale itself was standing-room only, and when they got to the vase, Baltimore connoisseur William T. Walters won it for $18,000 (which in no way stopped the controversy over its actual worth). The sale finally totaled $1,205,000 –with the exception of the 1882 Hamilton Palace sale in England, this was the highest total for any art collection at auction anywhere in the world.

The catalog itself was a groundbreaking achievement- “[Kirby’s] most striking innovation was the Mary Jane Morgan catalogue, a 305-page quarto volume that so far surpassed any cynosure of art collecting previously published in the United States that it not only launched the business at hand but synthesized Kirby’s whole new concept of the elite auction. Printed on heavy rag paper, with twenty-nine etchings, bound in pristine white boards with rich gold lettering, this weighty tome cost $40,000 to produce. It was a book to rest in splendor on the tables of the proudest salons. There was, of course, an ordinary catalog, without illustrations, for ordinary customers, the deluxe edition being limited to 500 numbered copies. The price was $10, but if mere money could have bought such a book, its propaganda value would have been lost. Except for a few copies sent to other cities, the entire edition was delivered by hand, with the compliments of the American Art Association, to the front doors of the most exclusive mansions in New York”.

For those wanting a more in-depth account, Wesley Towner devotes an entire chapter to Mrs. Morgan, her collection, this auction, the catalog, and the Peachblow vase in his book, “The Elegant Auctioneers”, from which we quoted above.

To see a full description and more pictures, go to our Ebay Store listing.

Now, Tell the Truth-

Book Geek Test -
-by Joyce Godsey

Have you ever deliberately bought another copy because it had a different cover than the one you have?

Have you ever bought extra copies just so you could give them away?

Have you ever spent more than 20.00 to replace a book you read as a kid?

Have you ever pre-ordered a book as soon as it was humanly possible?

Have you ever maxed out your library card?

Have you ever tried to acquire absolutely everything an author has ever written including, text books, liner notes and book jacket blurbs?

Can you sense whether there are books at a yard sale or a flea market booth before you get there?

When you're shopping with friends do they try to rush you past the books and then groan audibly when you stop?

Have you ever not heard your named called in a bookstore? On purpose?

Have you ever been asked to leave a bookstore because it was 10 minutes past closing?

Do you fix mis-shelved books in bookstores?

Do you help customers find books in stores you don't work in?

Have you ever stood outside a bookstore waiting for it to open?

Have you ever scribbled a recommended book title on the back of your checkbook register or deposit slip?

Have you ever made up fake plans so you could read undisturbed?

Have you ever stayed up all night to finish a book and then called in late the next morning?

Have you ever started reading a book at the store and bought it so you could finish?

Have you ever flung a book you didn't like across the room?

Do you turn magazines sideways so you can read the book titles in the picture backgrounds?

Do you surreptitiously try to get the titles off the books people are reading on the subway?

Do you wonder why the people on TV don't have more bookcases in their homes?

Has anyone in your household encouraged you to open a bookstore so you can sell all the books cluttering up the place?

Have you ever used something for a bookmark that was important and forgotten what book it was in?

Have you ever sat in the car in the driveway while listening to an audio book?

Have you ever sat in the car in the driveway reading a real book?

Do you take more books on vacation that you could read in three vacations?

Do you have more than 4 unread books on your bedside table? more than 10? more than 25?

Do you have no bedside table, just a pile of books?

Have you ever fantasized about a 10 minute bookshopping spree?

Do you know the home city of all the major publishers by heart?


-Joyce Godsey is a bookseller and author of the Bibliophile Bullpen Blog

Summertime!

Ah, Summer is really here- the corn is in!

Please forgive me if I get a bit pedantic for moment, because summer corn is one of my favorite topics. Here are some guidelines to follow for the best summer corn- the kind whose sweetness and freshness just pops like a firecracker in your mouth.

First, a few observations- the main thing you have to be aware of is that the sweetness in corn is the sugar, and that this converts itself to starch after the ear is picked, and that this process goes more quickly dependng on how hot the ear gets and how old it is. Grocery store corn is hopeless, as it was picked a few days ago, and was probably not stored properly. Save your money.

For the best taste, buy your corn in the morning from a farm stand that has just harvested it. The ears need to be cool to the touch, and moist. If the tassels are brown you don't need to peel it down and look inside- just look for bug holes in the ear itself. Take it home and put it in the refrigerator until you are ready to cook it. City people take heart- when we lived in the city, our local farmer's market consistently provided corn that had been picked that morning and was still cool when bought shortly after the market opened.

When cooking corn, get the biggest pot you have and fill it with water, and bring it to a boil. Then throw in the corn and bring it back to a boil as quickly as possible- put a cover on the pot if it has one. The point is to keep the corn in the water for as short a time as possible. Boil it for three minutes, not a second longer, take it out and plate it, with a towel for a cover until you eat it with butter, salt and pepper, hopefully within fifteen minutes.

There is no better summer food than fresh picked corn on the cob, if you store it and cook it correctly. Trust me- I bring a lifetime of experience to this question. Here is your diligent reporter harvesting corn straight from the garden some, um, well... ok, maybe 40 years ago.

Our New Furniture Catalog-

Our new "Books on Furniture & Cabinetmakers" catalog is ready, and features 288 scarce and out of print books and catalogs on all aspects of antique furniture.

You can browse the catalog on our website.

Books, Books, Everywhere!

We have three separate collections we are in the middle of cataloging and offering for sale at the moment- a collection of fine books on Islamic arts, oriental carpets and ethnic textiles from a former dealer, a collection of reference books on silver, ceramics and glass from a customer, and of course there are still about 40 boxes of books on furniture, folk art and Americana from the reference library of Wayne Pratt.

So, despite a taxing Summer schedule of barbecuing, gardening, woods-clearing, and reading on the porch, the Book Elves are hard at work getting all those books catalogued, pictured and up for sale! We'll be issuing printed catalogs on Furniture, Oriental Arts, and "Recent Acquisitions" this month, which will also be posted on the web, so stay tuned!

A Martha's Vineyard Cookbook-

We have a somewhat beat-up but desirable Martha’s Vineyard cookbook of an unusually early date up for auction this week-

"Island Cook Book. A Collection of Approved Recipes Contributed by the Women of Martha’s Vineyard for the Benefit of Martha’s Vineyard Hospital" Printed by Herald Printing Company of Oak Bluffs, in July, 1924.

This cookbook features several hundred recipes contributed by Vineyarders, as well as scores of advertisements by local businesses. In fact, leafing through the ads is almost as interesting as looking at the recipes, and gives one a real sense of life on the island at the time. Included is an ad for a “public Market” run by the Cronig brothers, which was located in Vineyard Haven (as it still is) and Oak Bluffs. If memory serves me right, Cronig’s was started in 1924, so the markets were only five years old at the time!

You can see the auction here. It began down low, and as always, there is no reserve!

Back at Work (sort of)-

We're back from a short Spring vacation, and it's time to get back to cataloging some of the vast piles of books that are now lining the hallways and stacked in every corner. First up this morning, taking some pictures for our Ebay store.

Um, wait, why is the table shaking?

oh.

oops.

ok, never mind.

[no kitties or books were hurt during the filming of this scene]

And Now for Something Completely Different...

Just spent the long weekend at an old family house that's supposed to be haunted. I've never seen anything there, but others say they have. It reminded me of this absolutely true ghost story-

This happened about a month ago just outside a little town in the backwoods of Maine, and while it sounds like a Stephen King tale, it's real.

This guy was on the side of the road hitchhiking on a real dark night in the middle of a thunder storm. Time passed slowly and no cars went by. It was raining so hard he could hardly see his hand in front of his face.

Suddenly he saw a car moving slowly approaching and appearing ghostlike in the rain. It slowly crept toward him and stopped.

Wanting a ride real bad the guy jumped in the car and closed the door, only then did he realize that there was nobody behind the wheel. The car slowly started moving and the guy was terrified, too scared to think of jumping out and running. The guy saw that the car was slowly approaching a sharp curve, still too scared to jump out, he started to pray and beg for his life, he was sure the ghost car would go off the road and in the marsh and he would surely drown, when just before the curve, a hand appeared through the driver's window and turned the steering wheel, guiding the car safely around the bend.

Paralyzed with fear, the guy watched the hand reappear every time they reached a curve. Finally the guy, scared to near death, had all he could take and jumped out of the car and ran to town.

Wet and in shock, he went into a bar and voice quavering, ordered two shots of whiskey, then told everybody about his supernatural experience.

A silence enveloped and everybody got goose bumps when they realized the guy was telling the truth and not just some drunk.

About half an hour later two loggers walked into the bar and one says to the other: "Hey Jack, there's that idiot who jumped into our car while we were pushing it."

Our Latest Catalog-

Spring has finally come to Foggygates and the Book Elves are in full fettle, cleaning up winter debris, getting the flower beds in order and expanding the vegetable garden beds on the side lawn. Never ones to take a long route when a shorter, more dramatic one is available, the Book Elves decided to employ what they termed “advanced quarrying techniques” to break up the new beds. . .

What I find most troubling about the ensuing “incident” (as the State Police report terms it) isn’t simply that they attracted the attentions of the fine folks at Homeland Security when they advertised for 2 cases of dynamite on Craigslist, it’s that they were actually able to purchase them, rig them, and send half of our lawn sailing into the Connecticut River before anyone could stop them.

But before they created a really dandy crater in the yard which we can use as a root cellar, and sent a new island floating lazily south on the Connecticut River, in the direction of Hartford, the Book Elves finished our new Spring Catalog, which features almost 300 books and catalogs on furniture, folk art, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwares, fine arts & prints, many from the reference library of a noted Connecticut antiques
dealer.

The catalog is posted on our website.

We also have free printed copies.
If you would like a free printed copy,
please send us your mailing address.

All Feasts, All the Time-

We just got in a wonderful new publisher's overstock on the history of feasting-

"Charlemagne’s Tablecloth. A Piquant History of Feasting" by Nichola Fletcher. Published by St. Martin’s Press: 2004.

“Not only Charlemagne himself, but King Midas and Robert Burns also make appearances in this award-winning history. From a humble meal of potatoes provided by an angel and the extravagance of medieval and Renaissance revels, to Mardi Gras and the refinement of the Japanese tea ceremony, Charlemagne's Tablecloth covers an astonishing array of unique feasts.”

Hardcover. 6.5”x9.5”, 256 pages, black & white illustrations, dust jacket. New condition. $12.00.

You can buy a copy in our Ebay store.

By the Rude Bridge-

It's Patriot's Day here in Massachusetts, a legal holiday not familiar to many folks outside the Bay State. It commemorates the Lexington-Concord Battle of 1775, as immortalized by favorite son Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his famous poem written for the ceremony for the completion of the Battle Monument at the bridge, April 19, 1836-

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.

Patriot's Day now means an 11 a.m. Red Sox game, the Boston Marathon, and services and re-enactments in many towns which have companies of volunteer Minutemen who dress up in colonial-era garb and march on their town greens. The Lexington-Concord area has the whole panapoly of celebrations, including a local company of the British 10th Regiment of Foot, the soldiers who were among the companies that marched to Concord that day. As a kid growing up in Concord, I always wanted to be one of the Redcoats. My illusions were shattered one day when I was walking down by the post office and saw a lanky Redcoat take off his tall tin hat and squeeze himself into a tiny VW parked by the curb.

Oh well. Happy Patriot's Day!