Throwing in the towel!

Six hundred and thirty eight. SIX HUNDRED AND THIRTY EIGHT! That’s how many emails i’ve sent in the last four or so days to various book selling places. I’ve been using the Yellow Pages and searched for used and rare book stores and with the help of lists on wikipedia going through every city in every state with a population of +20 000 citizens. And i can’t take it anymore. I’m so incredibly sick of it all i feel like i might start to cry. Sometimes in the midst of all the copy/pasting it felt like it might actually make me go mental and i found myself totally lost in the somewhat pathetic task and all of a sudden eight hours had passed and it was time to go home from work… I’ve gone through every state except Washington, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York and Maine. So sadly i am not done yet, but i need a bit of a break from this crash course on US geography.

So far i’m guessing that i’ve actually gotten a reply from about a third of them. By now i’m also sick of the words no, never seen it, unfortunately, sadly, looked everywhere, regret to inform you… But oh well, can’t say i was expecting anything else.

I’m a little bit surprised at the number of small and local stores that keep websites and sometimes the designs of these sites made me chuckle a little bit remembering my own site that i kept in the mid 90’s. But those little chuckles are pretty much the only positive thing about it all. I’m also surprised at the number of christian / religious book stores that seem to be in business, lord knows i could use some of that devine intervention but i don’t know… I’ve not bothered to contact any of these stores, seeing as many of them keep a list of “banned books” where you can find books like Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland, Anne Frank, Private Parts, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Catcher in the Rye, Gone with the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird and pretty much anything by Stephen King i figured that since the book i’m looking for has naked angels on the cover such a book would be burned on sight…

I also found a couple of sites/people who specialize in tracking down hard to find books and who claim to have a pretty good success rate. A handful of other stores offered to try and do the same, i have of course accepted these offers but i don’t know what kind of magic they can pull off. But i figured it can’t hurt, there’s always the chance of one of them finding it at one of those library sale things. A slim chance but still a chance.

I was also pretty thrilled to see a fantastic looking copy of Cool Gabriels appear on ebay a few days ago, but then it of course rocketed to $350 in a couple of hours. Compared to last weeks big auction for Trombone by Three where i actually thought i might have a chance considering the condition and waited and waited for it to end i still prefer to have something take off early so you can just let it go straight away.

To end on a positive note i’ve now received the two books i’ve been waiting on and yesterday all the stuff that i’ve been stacking up at Frank Edwards was shipped and i’m very much looking forward to receiving that. After an embarrassingly long hiatus i’ve also put in some work on my Brillo Box and considering my track record i’ve set the humble goal of having it finished before the end of the year. But i’ve been having that same goal for a couple of years now, so we’ll see… you can’t rush a brilliant artist!

1 thought on “Throwing in the towel!

  1. Pingback: The Summer Dancers – Clyde Miller (Macmillan, 1961) | ratfab

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