It's ALIVE

.
My first post is up over at Fine Books & Collections. If you're not reading it already, you should. No kidding, they have some of the most interesting folks writing for them in the bibliosphere. Also, I've been playing with Twitter for a week or two now and will probably keep it going. I like it better than most other banalities of the internet. You should come look me up just to see my book trade label custom background over there! Wicked awesome.

Fine Books & Collections Blog 2.0

.
The finest bibliophilic publication in the USA has gone 100% digital. Except the annual, so actually 90% digital. Oh, and the publishing they're getting into... 85% digital. But according to "them", the Fine Books website had 45 times more hits than the magazine did subscribers, so we're back up over 100% again. That doesn't sound right. I was a history major, you do the math.

I say all of that to say this: I'm excited. At first I felt angry, betrayed, and a trifle weepy for the scrappy can-do magazine that made us love them over a couple short years. But I was only mad until they invited me to the party. Book collectors have no shame. None.

The new Fine Books & Collections blog will be written by a small flock of bloggers and I get to be one of them! And all the nerds yell Huzzah! The other bloggers are likely well known to all of you already, but will give a good cross section of the bibliophilic sphere. I'm very happy to see Scott Brown, the original editor of the magazine involved in this project especially as we don't get to hear from him much these days. We'll have rare book dealers in from the snootiest auction rooms of large cities where they have taxi cabs. We'll have new booksellers, old booksellers, kind and cranky, academics, and publishers. And me. They think I'm a librarian. I've also been mistaken for being named Barry, so there's no accounting for some things. Over at FB&C, I'll represent we who do not reek of globtrotting ozone, and only ooze trace amounts of green insidious envy onto our cherished tomes while reading of the book fairs, auctions, readings, and sightings. I promise, it'll be good.

STICK THAT IN YOUR READER!

.

Dang!

.
That dang isn't a short, forceful one, but drawn out, multisyllable: Daaaaa-ng.

Where has November gone? I'll tell you, though it is non-biblio content: Work. I work for a museum, and my time has been consumed over the last month to get a new exhibit out that I was in charge of. So, back to the book stuff for a bit. Hooray!

First, Chris at Book Hunter's Holiday has tagged me with the stuff that's going around. I didn't know she was contagious, besides the way she smiles when she writes.
1. Check
2. Check
3. A: My Mom once hit me with the car.
B: I'm one of those elusive under-30 bibliophiles. Barely. Heck, in this field, I'll be a youngster for another 20 years! Like being a museum curator. In 20 years I'll be "up and coming".
C: I took Hebrew in college. I wish I could say I studied Hebrew, but that would be generous.
D: If it is baked with cinnamon, it doesn't have long to wait until it is in my mouth.
E: I recently discovered the joys of Cuban jazz.
F: I whistle the theme song of Hawaii 5-0 at odd times (sorry Preach!) and often wake up with it playing in my head. No, I never played in a marching band.

4. I tag....
Bibliophemera (a great blog, who doesn't post enough! That sounds familiar.)
Archaeolibris (who has not blogged in a bit)
That's enough. I'm worn out.
5. Check
6. Check.

The Rules:
1. Link to the person or persons who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

.

1908 Chicago Fire

Trolling everyone's favorite global garage sale, I happened across this very cool post card. Having recently rode out another ice storm in Oklahoma, this striking image certainly caught my eye. I've seen this sort of thing before, having grown up in a different longitude than Oklahoma. Darkened buildings, ice everywhere: obviously there had been a fire in the dead of winter. That, and I keenly observed the firefighter standing in the road. Digging a little deeper, history now knows this as the Wabash Ave. Fire, January 27, 1908 in Chicago. Newspaper accounts of the period place losses at $1.7M in losses. Nearly all the newspaper accounts mention how the theaters were nearly empty as the fire caused the trains to run late. Of the insurance records, and newspaper articles, none mention the Morris Book Shop, whose little white sign can just be made out in the lower right quadrant of the postcard.

Digging a little more, I found the photograph on which the postcard is based. Walter Carl Schneider took this photo, I assume, on the morning of the 28th. By 1908 the 24-year old amateur photographer had seen his work published in The New York Herald. I couldn't find any information about Mr. Schneider selling this photo to be made into a postcard, but it apparently was.

The fire on Wabash Ave. didn't seem to keep the Morris Book Shop down though. Catalog 77 from the Morris Book Shop is offered via the ABAA website featuring 46 pages of "Books and Literary Material". No address given online, but it is dated 1917.