Curling At the Edges

The Old Postcards

I have often thought

of justice, of setting

my own square inch in order

of sending them back, of finding

someone to send them to

or of some simple ritual

involving water

but the old postcards of Prague

are still there in my room.

My grandfather found them

in a London street during the war

and for no good reason

took them home.

They were in a handsome album

with family photographs and the next time

he came to see us he brought the album

as a present for his small grandson.

My parents first removed the snapshots

and threw them on the fire - I could see people

curling at the edges. Laying the postcards

out on the floor I used to wonder

at so many synagogues

at tangled cemeteries with headstones

curiously inscribed, and turning them over

at captions in several languages

with German always carefully struck out.

Having since grown

a language away from my family

I offer these words

to one who may have lost the need for them.

By Keith Bosley, from The Young British Poets, Edited by Jeremy Robson, St. Martin's Press, 1973

Offered as of 8-12-09 by Chewybooks: http://www.amazon.com/shops/chewybooks

The Magic of the Hour

"The moon was coming up over the eastern hills, flooding the pastures and fields with a silvery radiance, and bringing the dark outlines of the encircling forest into bold relief, like an etching.

"A whippoorwill was calling from down the road, and a screech owl sent his plaintative cry from the edge of the timber. The myriad insect life was tuning up for the night's orchestration. The earth seemed to be at peace.

"Eric Brown felt the magic of the hour and was thinking of what little account are all the vain and futile strivings of man." *

*Greater Love Hath No Man, David P. Allison, 1938, currently offered as of 8-11-09

Chewybooks at
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Saturday, August 9, 1969

"It was so quiet, one of the killers would later say, you could almost hear the sound of ice rattling in cocktail shakers in the homes way down the canyon.

"It was hot that night, but not as hot as the night before, when the temperature hadn't dropped below 92 degrees. The three-day heat wave had begun to break a couple of hours before, about 10 p.m. on Friday - to the psychological as well as the physical relief of those Angelenos who recalled that on such a night, just four years ago, Watts had exploded in violence.

"Though the coastal fog was now rolling in from the Pacific Ocean, Los Angeles itself remained hot and muggy, sweltering in its own emissions, but here, high above most of the city, and usually even above the smog, it was at least 10 degrees cooler. Still, it remained warm enough so that many residents of the area slept with their windows open, in hopes of catching a vagrant breeze.

"All things considered, it's surprising that more people didn't hear something.

"But then it was late, just after midnight, and 10050 Cielo Drive was secluded.

"Being secluded, it was also vulnerable."*

I forgot how engrossing Helter Skelter is - tragic, sad, frightening, and completely mesmerizing.

My copy is packed away, so I borrowed my daughter's (yes, this morbid fascination is apparently genetic). It's one we bought at a library sale. Today we opened it up and found the oddest thing.

On the first loose endpaper, in the top outside corner, the previous owners name, and date, December 1974.

And there in the center, in a large scrawl:

"To Sharon Tate Aug 5, 1975"

Sent chills down my spine.

* Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders, Vincent Bugliosi

What Was It?

It was a fearful page in the record of my existence, written all over with dim, and hideous, and unintelligible recollections. I strived to decypher them, but in vain; while ever and anon, like the spirit of a departed sound, the shrill and piercing shriek of a female voice seemed to be ringing in my ears. I had done a deed - what was it? *

Since the very first mystery flowed from Edgar Allan Poe's imagination, what was it and who did it have consumed both authors and readers.

From The Tell-Tale Heart to The Premature Burial, Poe dug deep until he found the deepest fears of both his contemporaries and modern man.

By the turn of the century, mystery had turned from describing horrible mysteries to solving them, thanks to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Inspector Sherlock Holmes.

I had called upon my friend Sherlock Holmes ...with the intention of wishing him the compliments of the season. He was lounging upon the sofa in a purple dressing-gown, a pipe-rack within his reach upon the right, and a pile of crumpled morning papers, evcidently newly studied, near at hand. Besides the couch was a wooden chair, and on the angle of the back hung a very seedy and disreputable hard-felt hat, much the worse for wear, and cracke din several places. A lens and forceps lying upon the seat of the chair suggested that the hat had been suspended in this manner for the purpose of examination. ..."I suppose....that as homely as it looks, this thing has some deadly story linked on to it - that it is the clue which will guide you in the solution of some mystery and the punishment of some crime."**

Modern mysteries are not my favorite genre, but as a bookseller, I have hundreds in stock. What I do enjoy immensely are their titles - usually a twist of wit and magic:

• An Unkindness of Ravens (Ruth Rendell)
• Legend in Green Velvet (Elizabeth Peters)
• Where There's A Will (Aaron Elkins)
• The Quiche of Death (M.C. Beaton)
• Murder, My Suite (Mary Daheim)
• Dance Hall of the Dead (Tony Hillerman)
• Footprints in the Butter (Denise Deitz)

And my absolute favorite (and more-than-appropriate): The Bookwoman's Last Fling (John Dunning).

But as entertaining as these titles are, no one compares with Poe himself:

Out -out are the lights- out all!

And over each quivering form,

The curtain, a funeral pall,

Comes down with the rush of a storm,

And the angels, all pallid and wan,

Uprising, unveiling, affirm

that the play is the tragedy, "Man",

And its hero the Conqueror Worm. ***

*Bernice, Edgar Allan Poe

**The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

***Ligeia, Edgar Allan Poe

Beneath Tropic Seas

"You are standing on a metal ladder in water up to your neck. Something round and heavy is slipped gently over your head, and a metal helmet rests upon your shoulders.

"Turning your head you see emerald waves breaking upon the distant beach of ivory, backed by feathery palms waving in the sunlight against a sky of pure azure.

"You wave goodbye ..and slowly descend, climbing down step by step. Then the world changes.

"There is no more harsh sunlight, but delicate blue-greens with a fluttering of shadows everywhere. Huge pink and orange growths rise on all sides -you know they are living corals.

"Now your feet touch ground ..an ostrich feather of a sea-plume as tall as yourself sweeps against you...at your elbow is a rounded table of lapis lazuli on which are blossoming three flowers...Their petals are resplendent in hues of gold and malachite,and are fluted and fringe like some rare unknown orchid.

"You are troubled with a terrible sense of loss that twenty, thirty, or fifty years of your life have passed and gone without your knowing of the ease of entry into this new world.

"Only a moment has passed since you left the world overhead, or was it many hours?

"All I ask of each reader is this- Don't die without having borrowed, stolen, purchased or made a helmet of sorts, to glimpse for yourself this new world. Books and aquaria are, to such an experience, only what a time-table is to an actual tour, or what a dried dusty piece of coral in a parlor is to this unsuspected realm of gorgeous life and color existing with us today on the self-same planet Earth"

From Beneath Tropic Seas: A Record of Diving Among the Coral Reefs of Haiti, by William Beebe, published by Blue Ribbon Books, 12th Printing, July 1936

Offered for sale as of 7-27-09:
http://www.amazon.com/shops/chewybooks

The Value of Military Discipline

You never know who will show up when you throw a Revolution. Could be a young officer, thirsting for his first success, destined to be the Father of His Country. Could be a fiery Virginian, shouting Give me Liberty or give me Death.

Or it could be a penniless, unemployed, recently discharged-for-dubious-reasons, German captain who arrives dressed in a red -and-blue British general's uniform.

Enter the man who would become General von Steuben, said to be a curious mix of "Baron Munchausen and Don Quixote".

Enter the man who would become the second most important man in the American Revolution, the first being Washington himself.

Steuben contributed the incomparable ingredient of military discipline to the ragtag Continental Army.

From General Von Steuben*:

"The progress attained seemed almost miraculous...as the soldiers grew in skill they grew in soldierly pride and that a new morale nevermore to be extinguished soon pervaded the ranks of the Continental Army. The army grew rapidly in numbers and in discipline at the same time. This new birth of the Continental Army as a trained fighting machine is Steuben's contribution to the history of the War for Independence."

No small contribution. Translation: If it wasn't for Steuben, we might still be British subjects.

His contemporary Alexander Hamilton stated:

"I never knew or conceived the value of military discipline till that day."

Listed this evening through Chewybooks at Amazon, this particular copy includes some interesting extras tucked inside its covers:

• A letter from the author Brigadier General John McAuley Palmer dated January 1938, to The Steuben News, thanking them for the most kind review of his book, and ordering extra copies of the paper.
• A letter from the Chairman of The Steuben News, attached, dated February 1938, with both letters sent to Bertha Schrader, the author of the book review and also the owner of this particular book edition (her name is written on the first loose endpaper)
• An original newspaper clipping of the actual review Ms. Schrader wrote
• A newpaper clipping of an eloquent plea for recognition of General Steuben, with the enigmatic dates of 1777-1927
• The remains of the original front and rear panels of the dust jacket

All foldout maps are present and in pristine condition. Pages 206 and 331 have carefully tape-mended corner tears.

*General Von Steuben, by Retired Brigadier General John McAuley Palmer, published 1937, Yale University Press

The Innumerable Silences of Stars

The photo above is often attributed to being the wonderful T.E. Lawrence and his favorite camel, unfortunately it's a fake, nevertheless, it conjures up the spirit of his best-known work: Seven Pillars of Wisdom:

Some of the evil of my tale may have been inherent in our circumstances. For years we lived anyhow with one another in the naked desert, under the indifferent heaven. By day the hot sun fermented us; and we were dizzied by the beating wind. At night we were stained by dew, and shamed into pettiness by the innumerable silences of stars. We were a self-centred army without parade or gesture, devoted to freedom, the second of man's creeds, a purpose so ravenous that it devoured all our strength, a hope so transcendent that our earlier ambitions faded in its glare.

Blood was always on our hands: we were licensed to it. Wounding and killing seemed ephemeral pains, so very brief and sore was life with us. With the sorrow of living so great, the sorrow of punishment had to be pitiless. We lived for the day and died for it.

Lawrence wrote his memoirs back in the day when an author was expected to enchant and seize the reader with the first sentence (Some of the evil of my tale may have been inherent in our circumstances).

Tell me, did it enchant you?