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Cheap copy of At Terror Street... (1 Viewer)

Pogue Mahone

Officials say drugs may have played a part
In case anyone is interested in a cheap copy.

Or you could buy it and try to remove the sticker piece by piece. It would make a great thread - one picture a day. High suspense for this crowd.

$T2eC16V,!ykE9s7tw3epBRwOpJ2oFQ~~60_12.JPG
 
You could remove the sticker, but you'd remove most of the underlying cover with it. Kind of like when you steamed your dad's copy of Yesterday and Today to get to the butcher cover hidden underneath and wound up with a pile of wet cardboard pulp.

That's a great book to have in "readable" condition like that. For twice the starting price of $40. Even though a nice copy sold for only $140 at PBA last week.
 
I wonder what something like Naptha would do to the cover? I know that jordan has messed around with chemicals to remove things glued down.

Bill
 
maybe we should hire one of those Japanese painters, who do their job with a one-haired brush on a matchbox. They have the patience.
 
Now that I look at mine, I think someone already tried to get the sticker off. Though I doubt they knew what was under there.

terror001.jpg
 
How about walking through the security at an airport with it, where they x-ray and scan virtually everything layer by layer (and asking them to show you the pics)?
 
The funny thing is that I, like many of you, would love to be able to remove that white sticker, but even if you were a professional restorer, I doubt that you could do it and not leave even a hint that it was there. There will have to be a bit of fading on the cover that would not be under the label. What makes the 18 copies valuable, in my opinion, is that they were the 1st 18. It seems that removing the sticker would not make the book any more valuable. that being said, I'd probably still try it if I had a cheap copy to mess around with. If you do and screw up the cover, send the book to me and i'll reprint a cover and bind it in boards. It will not look like the original and will not be worth any more than you paid for it, but it will look neat....

Bill
 
i'd love to give it a shot. you'd have to be very careful what solvent you used, because you'd run the risk of bleaching, warping, or coloring the paper. something like naphtha or toluene would probably leave tide lines, because it would clear dirt and oil that had accumulated over time. if you have a beat up copy and just want to see what's underneath, that's probably not a concern. naphtha is pretty toxic, and toluene is VERY toxic, so you'd have to consider that too.

i've always been curious about the glue they used. i doubt it's archival, which means it probably isn't reversible by any standard method. if i had a copy to mess around with, i would wrap the text block in plastic and improvise a jig to hold the text block up in the air so the cover could lay flat against my desk. then i'd apply heptane to the back of the cover and use a iron and a micro spatula to try to coax the label off. i don't think it would work, since heptane tends to work better with adhesives that still have some tack to them (as opposed to glue that dried over 50 years ago), and you'd need so much heptane that it would be almost impossible not to stab through the paper with the spatula. still, it'd be fun to try.
 
I wonder a bit that nobody of the non-hardcore fans around has already asked why we make such a fuss about removing this little piece of paper. Or does everybody in the world know?
 
The original cover has a typo. Can't remember exactly, but I think 'terror' was misspelled. Or maybe it was 'agony.'
 
it was sreet.

what makes it wanted so much is that there have been made only a few couple of copies till they realized and corrected it.
 
The original cover has a typo. Can't remember exactly, but I think 'terror' was misspelled. Or maybe it was 'agony.'

Alas, it wasn't "Terror" - or "Agony" - I know this because I did a little test on my own copy - the old flashlight behind the paper trick - it was "Street" that was misspelled. They left out the "t" in "Street," thus:

ts1.jpg


I realize how lucky I was to acquire my own copy for the sum of $35. Of course, I did so in the late seventies, when prices weren't as crazy as they now are. I say that I was lucky, because the prior owner didn't mess with the label. My copy is almost like new.

ts2.jpg
 
hey that's one with no white label at all! God Dammit!
From whose collection is this? (so I know, where my Sicilian and Romanian freinds have to go next)
 
... and yet another fine member of this joint who forces me to hate him.
Don't feel bad, Roni. At the time I purchased it, that sum of money represented an entire day's work (and then some).

hey that's one with no white label at all! God Dammit!
From whose collection is this? (so I know, where my Sicilian and Romanian freinds have to go next)
Dreams are free, remember that. Besides, it's what's INSIDE that counts.
 
what's inside, I already have.
in this case it's like having a nice reader's copy of the Gutenberg Bible which you can enjoy and then somebody comes around with an original from 1450.
well, not Quite like that.


Yes, of course, I understand. Bear in mind that I've been at this book collecting thing for almost half a century (although I stopped actively collecting a few years back - due to dwindling funds and no more space). In any event, over the course of decades, along the way - one CAN get lucky now and then. Here are two examples - neither of which involves Buk, although one of them involves a man who might have been his favorite writer. And, unfortunately, although my copy is a signed and inscribed true "first," it is not in the best condition and lacks the dj. The other book is certainly in better condition - much better - but also lacks the dj. In the end, we must learn to appreciate what we have, I suppose. But I have to admit - I would LOVE to have a nicer copy of the Fante. And I could kick myself now, for selling (in one of my scattered cash-hungry moments) my MINT copy of Wait Until Spring Bandini - in a mint DJ. Arrgh!

BTW, I highly recommend this book by Tully. It has a lot of the same type of fire that we find in Fante and Buk. Tully was another Hungry Hollywood Hopeful, although he had quite a circuitous route to Hollywood.


John Fante and Jim Tully - two association items.jpg
 
Bill, the interesting thing is I knew nothing at all about Jim Tully when I came across this first of Ask the Dust (circa 1976-76). It was several years later that I happened upon Beggars of Life, and I recalled the inscription to Fante. First the title caught my attention, and then I remembered the inscription to Tully. Back in those days, there was virtually no interest in either author, thus finding a copy for $10 was no big deal at all. While I don't consider Tully's work to be at the same level as Fante's it is still damned good and certainly did not deserve to languish in obscurity. Thinking about John Martin at the moment...realizing that he really did have the vision - and cojones - embark upon his publishing journey when he did. Were it not for John Martin, we may well have never been able to access Buk's work the way we have been able to do.
 
Were it not for John Martin, we may well have never been able to access Buk's work the way we have been able to do.

i hope you meant that in more ways than one...

you could also say if it weren't for john martin, bukowski's work would be accessible as the writer intended.
 
OK, I’ve been thinking about this all day and could go into a 20-page rant, but I’ll try to keep it short.

In my experience, the most compelling thing Michael writes is the following:

“But as I would read each of the posthumous books I couldn’t help feeling that they were a little off. Reading them could give you the distinct and uneasy feeling that maybe Bukowski had lost it when he had written this stuff. That the quality of his work began to slip at some point...”

I will admit that I gave up on Bukowski’s work after he died. I looked forward to each new book and hoped it would go on forever. But as I read them, I got bored very quickly. I assumed that he had went the way of Hunter S. Thompson – or in Bukowski’s case, Hemingway, who clearly let Buk down near the end.

Maybe it was switching from a typewriter to his Apple computer (Shadow of the Rose seems like evidence). Maybe it was moving into that beautiful home and living the life that he’d finally earned with Linda. Maybe he just got melancholy as his last years went by.

But if he was actually castrated like we’ve seen in a few poems, it really is a case of identity theft. This guy was my hero and I couldn’t imagine the fire going out until his body went cold. I excused it, of course, when I read those books, because he had already given me so much – who the fuck was I to complain?

But now I feel guilty that I may have given up on the man -- the way he did with Hemingway. But without just cause…

There’s a post that goes back a while where Roni asks for proof. It seems like we’re seeing some of that proof now, but I’d like to see even more so we all know the truth. Otherwise, we can keep on speculating until we give up and give in…
 
There’s a post that goes back a while where Roni asks for proof.
That's a good thread.

You could very easily find a lot more similar changes in the posthumous Black Sparrow books. The reason there are only a couple dozen on the comparisons page is because I can't do any more. It makes me too sad and angry. Like watching the President piss on your mother's leg. You can't do anything to stop him, and most people witnessing it say, "Shut up, it's the president, he's a great man."

I find the desire for concrete proof to be funny. The proof is on the fucking pages. If someone can't see it, they should just run along and forget about this whole thing. It doesn't concern them.
 
MJP, I read your blog, and I have to admit - this is unfortunate, to put it MILDLY. To put it honestly, it SUCKS. I don't own that many of the posthumously published books, thank goodness. Editing of content is fine with some things - but NEVER with poetry. Never. Period. There is simply no justification, no excuse. Still, I do remain grateful to John Martin for his dedication to Bukowksi and his willingness to lay down the hard cash during the risky years. But that gratefulness is certainly tempered by the posthumous editing. And I AM grateful to you, MJP, for doing your homework and laying it down as it is. As a writer myself, I have had to deal with intrusive editors. But with my genre of writing (primarily booze reviews, believe it or not), it is reasonable for a magazine editor to make certain editorial changes. Although I have to admit, I was really pissed off that some of my best work wound up on the cutting room floor. I can only imagine how a poet or novelist would feel. As I see it, it is indeed criminal for an editor to change ANY content when it comes to poetry; and it is dangerously close to criminal (if not downright criminal) for an editor to do this with creative prose. I have done my own share of editing, and I am proud to say that I do my best not to "fuck with copy." The highest compliment I ever received on my editorial skills came from German author Gundolf Freyermuth. (I edited his book, "That's It," which was a memoir of his experience visiting Bukowski in his final days, along with his friend Michael Montfort.) Here's what Gundolf had to say about my approach to editing:

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