NOTES OF A USED AND OUT-OF-PRINT BOOK DEALER

Issue #18. December 31, 2001

Continental Books publishes this free email newsletter for the edification and pleasure of its customers and interested others. It nestles in the niche between fact and opinion that has been dominated by the institutions of mass media but is now open to private internet initiatives. We all have the option of participating in a media bypass, sharing what we know, or think we know, and calling attention to the chiaroscuro missed by the conventional spotlight. Gigantic organizations aren't required for large effects. The pre-colonial path from what is now Manhattan to Albany was tramped out by a myriad of independent wayfarers.

1. Review. If you have the legs for it you can walk from Afghanistan to Shambala.
2. Cityscape. An alternate street name in an alternate language. A Larry Conshohocken Story
3. Observation. On weighty books.
4. Continuation. Other ways to use books.

JACK AND JILL CLIMB UP A VERY BIG HILL

The finger of Afghanistan pushing up to the northeast with Tajikistan on the left, Pakistan on the right and China dead ahead is called Vakhan. It is one of the more inaccessible places in the world but it is, for all that, the traditional land route to the Far East from the Mediterranean. Called the Silk Route, it was the outward-bound road for Marco Polo and has been the trail for all those from the West emulating him since.

Jean Bowie Shor and her husband Franc met and married in China during World War II, and traveled from Peiping into the Gobi desert to Urumchi, in Chinese Turkistan far to the west, on a honeymoon trip that, it turns out, was the very same last leg of Polo's trip out. Later, in the early 1950's, on assignment for National Geographic, they attempted to complete their copy of the Polo voyage by going from Venice through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and up into the Vakhan and on through to the Gobi link.

In the event, they were stopped at the border of China by the political change of regime from Chang to Mao, but not until they had made a harrowing transit over assorted mountains, cresting the final pass at 20,000 feet before a helter-skelter descent just as their food, water, medicines and energy gave out.

The classic travel-explorer tale is told in Jean's book, titled "After You, Marco Polo," issued by McGraw-Hill in 1955. It has everything: romance, imprisonment, a picnic with the Shah of Iran, meetings with the King of Afghanistan and the Mir of Hunza, literally a cliff-hanging trail, desertion by their official guides, seriously dangerous bandits, life-threatening illness. It's almost unbelievable that such a handsome, star-crossed couple could get into so much trouble. But if not them, who?

Their ordeal didn't end in China, as they expected it would, but in a far northern valley of Pakistan called Hunza, still high in the almost unreachable mountains but to the weary travelers a momentary paradise of abundance and friendly hospitable people in a near barter economy. A place of minimal crime and sickness where just about everyone lives for 120 years or thereabouts. This was one of the claimed models for James Hilton's Shangri-La, otherwise called Shambala by the occult cognoscenti.

A rejuvenated Jean and Franc descended back down to sea level, promising that they would never stop traveling. And they appear to have continued to write and edit for National Geographic well into the 1970's.

Notes.

1.
For the fictional experience of Shangri-La read James Hilton. "Lost Horizon"

2
Roosevelt named the presidential retreat in Maryland "Shangri-La" but Eisenhower, in his wisdom, renamed it "Camp David," removing the idea of a living paradise from the national consciousness at about the same time he inserted God into the Pledge of Allegiance. For a wealth of information on Camp David visit http://home.rose.net/~dingdong/CDHistory/

3
The latest foray into the Vakhan was by Francis O'Donnell and Denis Belliveau. See "Marco Polo's Guide to Afghanistan" in Smithsonian, January 2002, Volume 32, Number 10.

4
For a general map of the Afghanistan area see http://www.un.org/Depts/Cartographic/map/profile/afghanis.pdf

On the internet search "Vakhan" and "Hunza" for histories, maps, tours.

ON AVENUE C HEADING DOWN TOWARD DELANCY WITH LARRY CONSHOCKEN

1
The New York City Department of Transportation has fallen into the habit of tacking on alternate street name signs to the poles on street corners. So, for example, the southeast corner of 42nd Street and 2nd Avenue, one block from the beginning of the UN complex, is called Nelson and Winnie Mandella Corner. You wouldn't expect a letter posted to that address to actually arrive but still the sign is there floating above the passing crowds and linking us to the South African heroes. It's a form of honorific, recognizing the various ethnic, religious, business, arts and crafts interests and institutions representing the city's several population sibs.

Practically, it establishes an alternate web of names that contradicts the official, more or less rational, system. In the formal grid, numbered and lettered in order, you usually know where you are going, but it is only with the alternate labels reflecting the encasing neighborhoods, that you nearly always know exactly where you are.

2
But sometimes there is confusion

Larry Conshohocken was escorting an out-of-town visitor down to Katz's Deli on Houston Street via the M-21 bus, going south on Avenue C. The visitor noticed the alternate name of Loisaida Ave on practically every corner. "Isn't this a Puerto Rican and Hispanic neighborhood?" he asked.

"Yah," answered Larry.

"So Loisaida must be a Caribbean heroine like our Betsy Ross or Eleanor Roosevelt or Greece's Helen of Troy. She is obviously a very honored individual."

"Well not exactly," said Larry. "She's not really a person but the name of this section of town. You don't recognize it because it is in Spanglish. It says Lowa-ess-sid-a, that is Lower East Side."

"Oh," said the visitor, "I guess I presumed "

"Fogedabowdid," chorused all his fellow riders.

Notes

1
Larry is the eldest son of Elmer Conshohocken, the composite book dealer.

2
For an article on the languages spoken in Loisaida see http://language.home.sprynet.com/langdex/loisaida.htm

"LIFT," HE SAID.

Books in bulk are a significant weight, physical as well as cultural and intellectual. To deal in books is to deal in solid reality. Each book box full-up is 30 to 60 pounds. It doesn't take much to reach a ton. A few days ago we moved 30 boxes, a heavy ton at least. Some people think that book dealing is one of the secrets of a long and interesting life, requiring the constant exercise of two sets of muscles.

All the physical exercise at the gym seems such a waste, could be expended in shifting and cataloging books instead. Some say, "Oh no. Physical work leads to physical distortion. The workers are all twisted and ugly while those working up a sweat in exercise classes are all beautiful." But it's in the selection, not the action. Pretty in, pretty out.

Anyway we moved a ton and we felt good.

That is our slogan: We move weight.

FOLLOWING UP ON OTHER WAYS TO USE BOOKS

1
In Stevenson's TREASURE ISLAND there are two threatening black spot notes passed. The first from Long John Silver through a blind messenger to the old sailor retired at the inn. The second from the disgruntled pirates to Long John when his plan for stealing the treasure fails. This latter message is drawn on a page from the bible and Long John centers his answering critique on this act of sacrilege.

In our note on the alternate uses of books in the last issue (#17) we collapsed these two literary incidents and asserted that Long John sent the black spot on the page torn from the bible when he was, in fact, the recipient.

Our thanks to Attila the Hun for urging this amendment.

2
A reader sent us a cartoon by Tom Cheney (USA Weekend's Wit & Wisdom) showing a man with a reversed baseball cap sitting on a chair made of books watching a TV sitting on a table made of books. Makes sense to us. Been there, done that.

Thanks to hshale.

That's it, friend. Happy New Year.

Subscribe at subscribe@continentalbooks.com
Unsubscribe at amk104@columbia.edu

Copyright Alvin Katz. 2001