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The Genius of the Crowd (1 Viewer)

I don't think so. He is building a collection, but cannot imagine him pulling the trigger on this. As good a deal as this is, it is still $7500 for a little chapbook...

Bill
 
That thing has really gone crazy. Didn't the last one that showed up on eBay sell for under $2k? Granted, that was a few years ago.
 
I don't remember seeing one sell on ebay ever. I would probably have gone at it for $2k and then panicked as I had no way to pay the bill. This is the first time that I can remember seeing a copy of this on ebay since 1997...

I could be wrong, though.

Bill
 
Wow... Andy's come down $9,000 from his price about six months back. Stiil way too rich for my blood. This is one of those things that I accept I will never ever own a ciopy of.
 
He still has this book on ABE for $12,500.
If he can accept $8,500 for it, I wonder what he paid for it.
 
bospress.net said:
That is a good deal for $7500, still.... I'm crazy, but not that CRAZY. If only I was wealthy...
Click to expand...

Sorry, Bill, but I completely disagree. That's an insane amount to ask. Can you imagine what else you could get for that kind of money? There are literary high spots that would age ($$$) much better than this will. I think.
 
Don't forget PEACE AMONG THE ANTS, and how that price dropped significantly when "out of nowhere" a lot of them hit the market. It's conceivable that the same thing could happen with this (we don't really know that they were all "confiscated" - just because few have turned up doesn't necessarily mean that few exist...legend also has it that Going Modern was "suppressed" but we know that isn't true), and whoever pays $8k for it will be hosed. Well, I have to agree with nymark - you're hosed paying that for it anyway. It just isn't justified for this.

Even if Genius is super rare and there are only a dozen out there, for 8 grand you could probably put a copy of every one of Bukowski's rare, early chapbooks onto your shelf. Which makes more sense? I'll take the early chaps, in case anyone is xmas shopping for me.
 
mjp said:
Don't forget PEACE AMONG THE ANTS, and how that price dropped significantly when "out of nowhere" a lot of them hit the market. It's conceivable that the same thing could happen with this (we don't really know that they were all "confiscated" - just because few have turned up doesn't necessarily mean that few exist...legend also has it that Going Modern was "suppressed" but we know that isn't true), and whoever pays $8k for it will be hosed. Well, I have to agree with nymark - you're hosed paying that for it anyway. It just isn't justified for this.

Even if Genius is super rare and there are only a dozen out there, for 8 grand you could probably put a copy of every one of Bukowski's rare, early chapbooks onto your shelf. Which makes more sense? I'll take the early chaps, in case anyone is xmas shopping for me.
Click to expand...


OK, OK, I agree with nymark & mjp. If someone gave me $8000 on the condition that I must spend it on books, I would not buy this book with my money.

Yes, just talking about Bukowski books (there are others that I would want, but to make it more topical) for $8000 you could get the following:

It Catches my Heart SIGNED $800
Crucifix in a Deathhand SIGNED $300
Poems Written before jumping $250
At Terror Street $500
Cold Dogs in the Courtyard $500
All the Assholes in the world $600
Poems & Drawings $1500
Run with the hunted (the 1962 edition) $3500
Confessions of a man insane enough to live with beasts $350

Also, although I;m a big d.a. levy fan, his books were not made of the highest quality and with the best paper. I have some here that because of the high acid content in the paper, they are on the verge of falling apart.


Who ever buys this book would be well advised to open it once and then keep from opening it anymore as it is too delicate to mess around with.

Bill
 
ROC said:
He still has this book on ABE for $12,500.
If he can accept $8,500 for it, I wonder what he paid for it.
Click to expand...


I paid $8500 for it (all of the current listings on eBay are at or below my cost). Clearly, I think it's worth more, but I need the $. A lesser copy listed on ABE for $8500 sold in a day or two recently. Prior to that, I have not seen another copy offered for several years - before the recent run-up in prices.
 
Incredible and amazing chapbook, but it doesn't feel like $7,500 to me. I'd go with Bill's list for that kind of money. Not that I'm buying anything beyond used paperbacks these days.
 
Yeah but I already have six out of his list...

Can someone spot me seventy five hundred wing wangs?
 
A wing wang is a unit of measurement used to describe the quantity or degree of effort put into making up a bullshit definition.
By some wildly improbable coincidence the current exchange rate is 1 wing wang = 1 USD.

NOW COUGH IT UP!
 
I wonder how zalozalo will feel when he gets this piece.
I have bought some expensive books in my time... the most expensive being the most limited edition of Not Quite Bernadette for 3500USD... that was back when the Aussie dollar was around 61US cents.
So I paid...what? 5,500 Aussie dollars.
All I can say is when you spend that much on a single book it better feel worth it to you, the buyer. Whatever that means.

Not Quite Bernadette is huge and complex in construction - yes, that's the most appropriate word - and it did appear to be worth a great deal of $ - and even then I started to question my sanity.
I just hope zalozalo can enjoy this little booklet and not start trying to eat the wall paper - driven mad by extreme buyers remorse.

P.S. - I've since sold NQB and got exactly what I paid for it. I just wished I'd photographed it so I could share it with all you fuckers.
I sold it because there was just nowhere to display/store it other than under the bed. And what's the point of that?
 
zalo is in Italy, i believe. I do hope that he is happy with it. This specific copy has changed hands many times in the last couple years. It has probably found a home in Italy now.

BIll
 
If he's in Italy and he pays using euros, then he's spending 5,090€ on this, which is not that bad. When I was in States, the dollar doubled the Spanish currency! Back then, $7,500 were, more or less, 15,000 Spanish pesetas (9,000€ six years ago!).
 
ROC said:
That was The Curtains are Waving...
Click to expand...
D'oh!

ROC said:
Not Quite Bernadette is huge and complex in construction - yes, that's the most appropriate word - and it did appear to be worth a great deal of $ - and even then I started to question my sanity.

I sold it because there was just nowhere to display/store it other than under the bed. And what's the point of that?
Click to expand...
I saw a copy of NQB at an art fair (?!) in Santa Monica a year or two ago, and it struck me as a bit of an albatross.

As you point out, it isn't exactly something you can stick on the shelf, and you wouldn't leave a book worth thousands of dollars out on the coffee table (well, most of us wouldn't), so what do you do with it? Heat Wave is the same thing - a big, expensive, "white-glove" book. I leave those to the completists.

And I thought Crucifix was a pain in the ass because it was taller than everything else on the shelf. Heh.
 
cirerita said:
If he's in Italy and he pays using euros, then he's spending 5,090€ on this, which is not that bad.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but I still think that's way too much to pay -- even considering the advantagous currency rate. Again, consider what else you could buy for that kind of scratch.

I've never owned a copy of NQB because it's -- what's the word I'm looking for? -- ugly.
 
An ugly albatross - sure, it is. Just too damn big really. And the cover paper art and the really ugly denim clamshell case - very 80's.
Heat wave I don't have a problem with. It just so happens that the bookcase I keep all these things in is deep enough to hold Heat wave and when you take it out and lay it on a table there is enough table left to put your elbows down.
With NQB you could have added legs and it would have been a table (when opened).
mjp - you said something in another post once about the virtues of reading things in book form as opposed to on a computer screen. That is very true, but it also size is important. NQB is just too big - it doesn't feel right.
Beautifully made though.

Oh and Crucifix is gorgeous. Don't dis Loujon work or I'll fly over there and punch you in the throat while you're drinking a hot coffee!
 
ROC said:
mjp - you said something in another post once about the virtues of reading things in book form as opposed to on a computer screen. That is very true, but it also size is important. NQB is just too big - it doesn't feel right.
Click to expand...
Funny you should say that, because as it turns out, there is an ideal page size and format for presenting text. Printers and typographers have had 400 years to figure it out, and it's always funny to me when people come along and think those rules don't apply to them.

If we're talking about art, then there are no rules. But we're talking about poetry or prose books, and those kinds of books - last I heard - were for reading. So if you make a book (expensive or not) that is a cumbersome size, you distract from the words. And the words are the thing, yeah?

Which is my long winded, too much Kentucky bourbon way of saying that it makes sense that the book didn't feel right to you. It wasn't right! They were making an art book, not a piece of literature.
 
Thanks for the link to NQB images, Father Luke. Great prints, butt ugly binding. The demin cover looks like some homemade crafts project you'd find at a garage sale. I'm amazed it was released like that.
 
Genius of the Crowd

Was paid for in $ and will remain in the good old USA.

Comparisons between Genius and NQB strike me as the height of silliness - pitting a beautifully produced artifact of its time against a manufactured artist book forcing another dubious marriage of artist and poet (see Heat Wave or the Joyce/Matisse edition of Ulysses) in which the whole is less than the sum of its parts.
 

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