Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness (2 Viewers)

I had some questions about the original City Lights edition of Buk's short stories 'Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness'. This is hands down my favorite single collection of Buk writings.
I know that later printings of this book (after '78?) were distributed as the two separate collections (Tales and Most Beautiful).
Since I love this collection, and this forum is filled with experts, I was just wondering if anyone could shed light on my questions to satisfy my love of Buk lore and trivia. Thanks in advance.

1.) I have heard that these stories were complied from both some of his small press/magazine submissions and certain selections from his weekly newspaper column. Can anyone elaborate?

2.) How many printings of Erections were there? When was the first and when was the last? How many total copies are in circulation?

3.) Why did City Lights vie to separate Erections into 2 separate books? My thoughts were to either make more money from the collections, or that the book being so thick and in soft cover easily wore out quickly, separating from the spine after multiple reads. Any ideas?

4.) I've noticed that 1st printings of this book run for a pretty penny, and also noticed it's very difficult to find a copy of this in good shape on auction sites. I just purchased a copy of a 1974 printing of Erections on ebay in supposed "very good' shape (haven't received yet). If someone were looking for this book, not in a 1st edition, but for just a clean readable copy ("Very Good' condition), what would be an adequate price range? I've seen copies ranging from $75 to $1000.

5.) I read somewhere in a forum posting on this site (I think with regard to Buk's new City Lights collection "Notebooks') that Martin passed on a lot of Buk's grittier stuff, which in turn was gathered by City Lights. So where did the writings in "South of No North' come from (L.A Free Press columns?), and why did Martin want to include those on a BSP release, as many stories seem on par (gritty) as Erections?

6.) Any other 'Erections' facts, trivia, or anecdotes welcome. As a side note, I have turned on legions of people to our boy Hank. For a small handfull of special people I spend a little money and give as a gift what I call my "Bukowski 6-pack". (2 novels, 2 short story books, 2 poem books). A kind of multifaceted sampler to start a young impressionable person down the rewarding road of being lifelong Buk fanatic. My 6 pack is as follows (Novels: Factotum, Women, Short Stories: Tales of Ordinary Madness, The Most Beautiful Woman...Poems: Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame, Last Night of Earth Poems). What would be in your 6-pack?
 
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Lotta questions for your first post, huh? ;)

All the stories included in Erections had been previously published in Open City, Berkeley Barb, Adam, Knight, etc.

The stories in SoNN come from the very same places. The "grittier" stories ended up in the CL collections and the milder ones in the BSP books.

This reminded me of something. In quite a few books by Bukowski "scholars" they say something like: "The stories in Hot Water Music are vastly superior to the stories from the early 70's. They show a more distanced narrator..." to prove that the "late" Bukowski was better than the "early" Bukowski. BULLSHIT! I'll say it again: BULLSHIT.

Many stories in Hot Water Music were written in the 70's, but as Martin never dated poems/stories, those scholars thought the stories had been written in the 80's. Oh, well...
 
Lotta questions for your first post, huh? ;)
..

haha. I know...too many questions in one post. :o
This site is amazing!
Very interesting about HWM. Didn't know that some of those were older 70's stories.
There is so much valid discussion about what Buk did for poetry, but I've always been so enamored at how he worked the short story.
I think he always really dug what Faulkner, Chekhov, Sherwood Anderson, etc were doing with the short story, and he took it to another level. There are so many moments in Erections that are laugh out loud, roll on the floor funny. There is some quote on the back of the reissue, Tales of Ordinary Madness', which says something to the fact that no matter where you stand on Buk (love/hate), you will never come away the same after reading the stories.
They really do have that power.

Of course, he would have said that the only difference between his poems, short stories, and novels was just length; but he was a modest master of the short story.
 
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If someone were looking for this book, not in a 1st edition, but for just a clean readable copy ("Very Good' condition), what would be an adequate price range? I've seen copies ranging from $75 to $1000.
$75 is way too much for a "very good" copy of this book - assuming we're using the booksellers definition of "very good" (i.e., beat to shit but still has a cover and is readable). You should be able to pick up "very good" copies for closer to $25, unless they have somehow been tied to the price of gas...

One thing is for sure though, I wouldn't pay $1000 for this book in any form. Where the hell did you see that?
 
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when i was a student and couldn't afford to buy the English originals (that was WAY before the cheap imports by amazon!), i used to take them from my university library and xerox-copy them.

i once held a version of the original 'Erections' in my hands, due to these occations - and simply copied and gave it back.

given the fact, you literally Never see them on the German market, maybe that was stupid. it woulda been so easy to 'have lost' it and pay the fine ...
 
One thing is for sure though, I wouldn't pay $1000 for this book in any form. Where the hell did you see that?
Agreed. I would not pay $1000 for this book, in mint condition, and signed by Bukowski to the Publisher, or to his wife, or to his best friend. Add an acrylic painting, and it is probably worth that, but who ever is offering this at $1000 is in need of help.

I think that I paid $75 for mine a few years ago (not more than 4 years ago) and mine is a first edition in fine condition.

Bill
 
My 6 pack is as follows (Novels: Factotum, Women, Short Stories: Tales of Ordinary Madness, The Most Beautiful Woman...Poems: Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame, Last Night of Earth Poems). What would be in your 6-pack?

Well, this is of course all opinion, but probably my six-pack would be: Novels, Women and Post Office. Short stories, the original Erections, Ejaculations etc. and South of No North. And poems, Play the Piano Drunk ... and You Get So Alone ...

The short stories are the ones I'm surest about. Factotum and Ham on Rye could just as easily be on my list at the two novels I picked, but I'll stick with what I said.

Depending on the depth of the person's Bukowski knowledge, Pleasures of the Damned could substitute as a replacement for either of the poetry books I chose.
 
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No, roni. Not returning it would have been stupid. You done the right thing, bro.
thanks.
it sure was the right thing to do in terms, that this attitude is the ONLY one, that makes the idea of libraries Work.

but then - i'd feel glad now to buy them NEW copies of 'Most beautiful woman' and 'Tales', so they do have the same texts anyway, in order to get this old, dirty, hackneyed (right word?) edition with that ubercool cover.
 
I paid $10 for my copy of ERECTIONS, several years ago. It's a 7th printing, in near mint condition. Actually, it was my second copy. My first copy was a first printing, inscribed by Bukowski to me, with a drawing, and he scribbled all over his face on the cover, but that's another story. I sold it for a measly $50 around 1981. Not a good thing to do.
 
1.) I have heard that these stories were complied from both some of his small press/magazine submissions and certain selections from his weekly newspaper column. Can anyone elaborate?

Well I don't want to steal Cirerita's thunder but some of the stories came from NOLA Express.

For instance: Purple As An Iris (Dec. 25/70); the nazi symbol story (Jan. 22/71); Would You Suggest Writing as a Career? (a couple issues later --freakin' hippies and their lack of dating!).

(I'm not trying to be cryptic or mysterious about this. About a year ago I posted that I had access to the Underground Press collection of microfilm. Cirerita picked up on that and I spent more time than I thought it would take to get things done. Sorry for that. And sorry that some things beyond my control, like one roll being missing, prevented the work from being fully completed. Anyway like I say, I don't feel it's my place to steal Cirerita's thunder. I was just trying to help him get a good grade. :D)
bp
 
My thunder's fine, don't worry ;)

you're right, though. Some of there stories came from Nola Express and I bet a few of them came from LA Free Press as well. Am too lazy to double-check that now.
 
I paid $10 for my copy of ERECTIONS, several years ago. It's a 7th printing, in near mint condition. Actually, it was my second copy. My first copy was a first printing, inscribed by Bukowski to me, with a drawing, and he scribbled all over his face on the cover, but that's another story. I sold it for a measly $50 around 1981. Not a good thing to do.

Now THAT famous copy, I'd pay some money for if it showed up. Of course, that copy has been written about before. That would be better to me than one signed to his laywer, certainly. Did you sell it to a dealer or a bookstore? Any chance of it showing back up on the market?

Bill
 
To a bookstore that I think turned it around to a collector. The store was in Fort Wayne, IN, I seem to recall.
 
My first copy was a first printing, inscribed by Bukowski to me, with a drawing, and he scribbled all over his face on the cover, but that's another story. I sold it for a measly $50 around 1981. Not a good thing to do.
Well, don't worry yourself too much with hindsight and second-guessing, it's bad for the soul. If you live long enough, chances are you've sold something (or a lot of things) for a tiny fraction of what it is worth now. The alternative is to keep everything forever, but that's not possible for most people. Not if you lead an interesting life, anyway. ;)
 
I know I've sold many things for a fraction of what they are now worth. That's what comes of being a book collector with four kids who always needs grocery money. I may whine a lot, but it doesn't really bother me. Now my mom did manage to keep damn near everything she ever had. After she died, me and my brother split it up. What was funny were the worthless old bookclub editions of bestsellers carefully wrapped in plastic, all of which I donated to the Goodwill. But then later we found a vintage King Kong movie poster, folded up, on top of a stack of old newspapers in the basement, like it was junk. That sold on eBay for over $1,000. Her judgement on relative values wasn't very good. I never did find her stack of Bukowski books, damn it.
 
She didn't have a garage -- just a basement full of old newspapers and 78s, We had to pick through the newspapers carefully because every once in a while there would be some 18th century map or silent screen star photograph in the stack, at random places. Clearing out her place was a cross between an archeological dig and a treasure hunt. But no Bukowski. I did snag a box full of Jack Kerouac firsts. Can't complain.
 
Despite your loss at the time, and I've lost my mom as well, so I understand; that sounds like it must have been a nice treasure hunt, no matter the financial reward. There's something about seeing something that a passed member of the family used to have that reeks of a distant history, never written about in a history book.
 
Yes, it was a great treasure hunt. Both of my parents collected stuff and loved old books, and then there were tons of family photos and old letters -- none of which I'd seen for decades. My mom was kind of tight with stuff and never wanted anyone to borrow the old family photos for copying -- she didn't even want to bring them out to show us (she thought one of her sons would make off with them). To understand that mindset, you have to know older people who grew up during the great depression of the 1930s. They were dirt poor and everything was precious to them. A lot of those people who survived the depression went on to fill their homes with stuff and now their kids are dealing with it. Some of the stuff I found is priceless. Like an envelop full of cards and letters from my grandmother to me, written in the early 1950s. Class photos from when I was in elementary school. Stuff I never even knew existed, that she'd kept. It was a revelation. A trunk full of letters between my mom and dad, when he was in the army during WWII. Wonderful family artifacts. And then hundreds of cool old books. I didn't have space for all of it, and gave to Goodwill the books and other things that didn't interest me and had no resale value. I kept what I liked or could sell on eBay. A lot of it is too cool to sell. Incredible weird old things you'd never find anywhere. Yes, it was fun going through her stuff, despite the sadness of losing her. I suddenly felt a bit like royalty, inheriting treasures (although many would think it a bunch of old junk.)
 
Don't mean to dig up an old thread, but I'm considering purchasing this book(s) next in my quest. Are the current printings of the two separate books "good enough" or should I actively pursue the original version?

My shelf is full of Eccos...
 
If you just want it for reading then Tales of Ordinary Madness + The Most Beautiful Woman in Town contain all of the stories from Erections.

And reviving an old thread is better than starting a new one IMO.
 
If you just have to have an original you can find a more recent printing of EEE&GTOOM for not too much money; first editions are around $100 or more and then you can't really read them. The sheer size of that volume makes it prone to spine problems (rather not unlike Dolly Parton), and as chronic says (see above).
 
Well, after all that I discovered that I liked the looks of the old single volume better, so I got one from an Amazon dealer. 1977 fifth printing. Picked up a fifth printing of "Dirty Old Man" too, while I was at it. Dinged up, but sturdy. They look nice on the shelf together.
 
My copy of Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Madness just arrived. I purchased it for 20 bucks and it's in really nice shape. I'm thinking I'm going to have to slip on a cover to this if I want to read it during my break at school. I'm not sure if this is best to be read cover to cover or if I should just pick and choose the stories. Also, after flipping through, The Murder of Ramon has that tongue and cheek forewarning footnote. Does anyone know if that is just a creative element added by Bukowski or was it really added out of necessity? I was debating this with a friend and I felt it was definitely Bukowski creativity, but I don't claim to be an expert on this.
 
This story is fiction, and any events or near-similar events in actual life which did transpire have not prejudiced the author toward any figures involved or uninvolved; in other words, the mind, the imagination, the creative facilities have been allowed to run freely, and that means invention, of which said is drawn and caused by living one year short of half a century with the human race . . . and is not narrowed down to any specific case, cases, newspaper stories, and was not written to harm, infer or do injustice to any of my fellow creatures involved in circumstances similar to the story to follow.
The story is inspired by a real event so... The real life victim was veteran actor Ramón Novarro who was killed in 1968.

The story is discussed further here:-

https://bukowskiforum.com/index.php?threads/story-the-murder-of-ramon-vasquez.2960/
 

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