"Should I throw this out? I don't know. I'll put it on Fresca's desk."
I'll sometimes come into work to find a mystery item a coworker left on my desk--anything from wonderful vintage to utter junk. Either way, I'm glad they check before throwing or recycling it. It's not that I necessarily know, but I'll look it up online, which a lot of coworkers don't.
Yesterday, three vintage dishtowels (more yellowed than they appear here). I priced them six for the set, hung them in BOOK's, and they sold in minutes.
BELOW: I don't know if these two art pieces were donated together, (Art Volunteer had not hung them together--I did this), but the one looks like a copy of the other.
Also, BOOK's in Action! The customer here bought a pile of books--I wish I'd looked to see what they were. If it's a regular, sometimes I ask, "What did you find today?" but I didn't recognize this woman.
I should maybe take more photos of unrecognizable people shopping in BOOK's--as long as their faces don't show. (Or, I could ask permission and take portraits.)
In contrast, the view across from the thrift store. The street dealers' barbecue grill, which the cops cleared out twice, is now a barrel for fires. This produces even worse toxic fumes. Persistence wins, that is for sure.
BELOW: Some books in the glass display case
An envelope of photos of Sean Connery's James Bond in Goldfinger. They sold in a day, so maybe I'd underpriced them at $30? (Only the top photo was a lobby card--valuable––so I didn't bother to look them up because I was lazy.) If I did, that's fine.
BELOW: Doctor Zhivago (first English ed; nothing terribly special--they're plentiful, but such a nice hardback copy). Probably overpriced at fifteen dollars--tho' that's only half of a new hardback book today.
Can you see the embossed cover behind? It's Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists [1905].
Mrs Piggle-Wiggle. Oh dear. I just googled this series and it's full of tales of humiliation as a "cure" for children's bad habits. A girl who won't bathe, for instance is "left unbathed until she is caked with dirt, then radishes are planted on her".
[Hahaha---bink commented that that would've enticed her as a child--growing radishes on her own body. LOL--yeah, let's try it!]
BELOW: First ed. of Heinlein's Have Space Suit–Will Travel (1958)--cool art, but no dust jacket... Fun write-up of the story, at TV Tropes.
BELOW: Samuel R. (Chip) Delaney's memoir The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village (1988), signed by the author.
I read it years ago--among other things, I remember it as a celebration of the fun a gay man could have in the Village in the 1960s.
He called himself "merrily promiscuous"--very spicy-radishy--definitely hadn't been squashed by Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle.
ABOVE: Delaney at Wesleyan, c. 1972--from his page on the Greenwich Village Preservation Society.
I saw him speak once [oh, wow, in 2008--I blogged about it--I was thinking "recently"]. I liked him a lot--calm and kind, funny and smart.
During Q&A, an audience member said she had taught writing in college and wondered how to balance writing and teaching.
He advised protecting your time: "Get out of academe."
BELOW: Complete Pictures of the Eight Noble Steeds, China, undated.
