Well, dear readers, I feel that the theme of today’s notes shall be the third movement of Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony. It’s quite a lovely theme, perhaps my favorite theme ever written. Yes, Virginia, that will be the theme of today’s notes. Did you know that it’s such a lovelier than lovely theme that it has been ripped off countless times by composers so diverse as Eric Carmen (Never Gonna Fall In Love Again), Barry Manilow (If I Could Love Again – or something like that), and Don Sebeskey (You Can’t Go Home Again – and isn’t it interesting that all three of those pieces have “Again” as their final word). There are other examples as well. Of course, now the theme is running through my head like a gazelle gone awry. Speaking of awry, yesterday was a day that moved right along. I got up, did some work at the piano, some work at the computer, then went to Staples to buy paper and shipping envelopes, then went to the mail place, then came home, then did more errands, then made some telephonic calls, then answered some e-mails, then made a steak, then ate the steak, all to the tune of the third movement of Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony. I then sent out an eBlast for my book signing. I then sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched about eight episodes of Twin Peaks. The nadir came with an episode directed by – wait for it – Diane Keaton. It was awful – bad writing, and worse direction, and Miss Keaton should stick to acting and photography. In most of these second season episodes that are post the solving of Laura Palmer’s murder, there are just way too many annoying subplots – and you just sit there and scratch your head how this show could have gone so far astray. Still, the main plot of an insane former compatriot of Agent Cooper is fine, and the episodes that feature scenes with David Lynch as FBI man Gordon Cole are hilarious. The Richard Beymer Civil War subplot is the worst, and there are several others that come close to being as bad. Apparently, in the extras they talk extensively about how the show went off course in season two, so I’m looking forward to those extras, which I’ll get to at some point later today.
In between episodes, I was checking some prices of books I own and I must say some of them have skyrocketed in the last couple of years. I did that because I got a catalog from a dealer who is still listing books he bought from me a few years ago, when I had to sell stuff to pay legal fees, and the prices he’s charging for stuff he got very reasonably was making me nauseous. This dealer calls me all the time wanting to come over and pick through my stuff, but I don’t let him anymore. When I get something cheap that I buy on speculation, I’ll occasionally call him and occasionally he’ll take the book and I make an enormous profit and he makes even more. But the days of him cherry picking are over. I have a few books that aren’t available anywhere on the Internet in any condition – for example, a first edition in jacket of Blazing Guns On The Chisolm Trail by Borden Chase. It’s a very scarce book, and almost impossible to find in jacket – my copy, which I got at a book fair at a very good price, isn’t perfect. The dust jacket is slightly trimmed at the top and bottom, but otherwise is pretty decent with no big problems. The book itself is in very good condition. The book is valuable because it was the source material for a little movie called Red River. I also have a copy in jacket of The Ghost And Mrs. Muir, also very hard to find. It’s a pretty bad dust jacket, but the book is in good shape – last I looked there were no copies available in jacket at all. A couple of English books I speculated on a few years ago, have gone up quite a bit, especially two Raymond Benson James Bond books. I got them for just over cover price, and they’re now going for close to three hundred bucks, maybe more. In any case, it’s always fun to look up values of things you have. One regret I have is having sold two copies to the dealer referenced above of Harry Grey’s The Hoods, both in excellent condition in excellent jackets. He paid decent money for them (about four hundred each) but he ended up selling them for close to two thousand each, and now one of my copies is going for close to four thousand. Of course, it hasn’t sold, and who knows if it will, but I wish I’d kept one of them. And we won’t even talk about my wonderful copy of I Wake Up Screaming by Steve Fisher, which I paid one hundred bucks for and which would now go for five grand (there is currently a copy for three grand that has a SECOND edition dust jacket). And then there was my most valuable book – a signed first edition of Raymond Chandler’s The High Window, signed by Chandler to Billy Wilder the year they wrote Double Indemnity. I sold it for huge dough, but imagine my disgust when I found that my copy had ultimately sold for over thirty thousand dollars. Ah, the joys of book collecting.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because the third movement of Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony is roaming around the windmills of my mind.
Today, I have things to attend to all the livelong day, and then I’ll be attending a book signing of my pal Tony Slide over at the Studio City Samuel French, at seven o’clock. There will be wine and cheese, and for any of our West Coasters, stop on by and meet Tony – he’s a great guy, and I’m sure there will be many interesting folks there.
Tomorrow, I may or may not be having lunch with former dear reader Hisaka, and then I’ll be seeing Miss Emily Rozek go on as Galinda in Wicked, which I’m looking forward to.
I will also buckle down Winsocki and begin cleaning and organizing this home environment – there are just too many piles of things laying about like so much fish, and I cannot stand it anymore. By the weekend, things will be just the way I like.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do errands, attend to things, organize, and then attend a book signing. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your most treasured books – your rarest, your most beloved, your oldest, and ones you could not live without? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst we all hum the third movement of Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony whilst singing the words of Never Gonna Fall In Love Again by Eric Rachmaninov Carmen.