min (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} dreamlogic) wrote,@ 2007-08-28 20:19:00 |
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One year of my life was spent as a rare and antiquarian book dealer.
Naftali was his given first name, but he went by Simon. The name suited him. He was short and gnomish, with wiry tufts of grey hair, spectacles, shiny black orthopedic shoes. You expected him to have a secret workshop where he cut, sewed, and hammered together leather shoes by hand. I favored black combat boots, and my hair was cut spiky-short and dyed pink. He was 87 years old when we met, and I was 20. We hit it off famously, of course.
I had recently moved back to Phoenix after a year's stint in Seattle. Simon had recently moved to Phoenix from New York City. His wife had died the year before; he had a painted portrait of her in her white wedding dress, dark-haired with lovely laughing dark eyes. His elder son lived in Phoenix with his wife and their newborn son; worried about his father living alone so far away, he had coaxed Simon to come live near them. I never warmed up to his son and daughter-in-law, especially the latter; she seemed shrewish and impatient, and I don't think she understood Simon well. She was a new mother of course, and very busy, but I never got the sense she had the proper appreciation for him. He was an inconvenience for which she had to put on a role and a smile.
Simon had owned a small and respected rare & antiquarian bookstore in New York for many years. Well-crafted books were his passion. He came to Phoenix and rented a fine 2-bedroom townhouse. Simon was not the type to sit around being "retired". The first thing he did was hire a carpenter to line every single possible wall of his house with custom-built tall bookshelves, which were immediately crammed end to end with books. Then he got to work setting himself up on the internet as an online rare bookseller, with the help of a man he hired to handle the computer end of things.
Simon was like that. He was nearing 90, but he was never afraid to embrace new technology. The possibilities excited him; he wanted to see what would next unfold. He had difficulty reading the screen, and his arthritis made his hand shake too much to control the mouse, but he never stopped trying. I loved that so much about him.
Simon was a German Jew in WWII. He told me about his escape from Germany, the hundreds of miles he walked. Shortly before his escape, he was once in a cafe when Nazis burst in and began arresting people. He was there with another Jew. Thinking fast, he stood up and immediately pretended that he was with the authorities; taking his friend "under custody", Simon marched him out of the cafe and to safety.
He went to medical school after his escape and became a doctor, but later turned to book publishing in England, becoming a small publisher of quality books. One of the books he published was an early limited edition novel by William Burroughs. He consorted with many of the famous and infamous literary figures of that time. Much later, he moved to New York City and became an antiquarian book dealer.
At first I was only entering books into an online database for him. I met him by luck; a friend of mine did data entry for him for a day through a temp agency and really liked him, but she was moving to Portland. At her recommendation, I went to his house and was immediately captivated by the wall-to-wall books.
The used bookstores around town all came to know him well. He'd take cabs, peruse their aisles for hours, and come home with boxes stuffed with books he'd picked up for cheap. For Simon, it was a treasure hunt, finding those castoffs that no one else could recognize. That worn, dusty book he snatched out of the $1 bin? Rare limited edition first printing, worth hundreds to the right buyer. It was never about the money, of course.
We'd research and decide together how to price these treasures, and I would enter them into the online database. He taught me the terminology, how to describe book conditions accurately. Folio, quarto, foxed, gilt edges, marbled endpapers, vellum binding. How to recognize first editions, first printings. The differences between the grades of good, very good, near fine, fine.
After a short while, I took over all parts of the business, from customer service to shipping to accounting to managing the online aspects. The other guy Simon had originally hired went on to something else, so it was just Simon and me for a while. Later, I brought in my then-boyfriend to help with book-sorting, shipping, data entry, and be an all-around extra hand. Most of the time, though, Simon and I would sit and look through old books and talk, argue, tell stories. He was tremendously well-read, sharp, opinionated, broad-minded, and eloquent, with an endless supply of anecdotes drawn from personal experience.
We doted on each other from the beginning, with simple and unreserved affection and mutual respect. Simon could be cranky and querulous at times, but this was more often than not with my boyfriend, towards whom he never quite warmed. That wasn't my boyfriend's fault; if Simon had been my grandfather and felt that he had a right to give his opinion, he would have thought no one was good enough for me.
A part of him tried to hang on to living, to keep that flame burning, after his wife died. But a greater part of him was slipping away, and I knew it wouldn't be long. It was a year or so after I began working for him that his heart began to fail. He was 88, and he lived a long, rich life.
Good night, Simon. I am fortunate and glad to have known you. I loved you like a grandfather. I hope I brought some measure of brightness into your life in your last year, as you brought to mine.
Naftali was his given first name, but he went by Simon. The name suited him. He was short and gnomish, with wiry tufts of grey hair, spectacles, shiny black orthopedic shoes. You expected him to have a secret workshop where he cut, sewed, and hammered together leather shoes by hand. I favored black combat boots, and my hair was cut spiky-short and dyed pink. He was 87 years old when we met, and I was 20. We hit it off famously, of course.
I had recently moved back to Phoenix after a year's stint in Seattle. Simon had recently moved to Phoenix from New York City. His wife had died the year before; he had a painted portrait of her in her white wedding dress, dark-haired with lovely laughing dark eyes. His elder son lived in Phoenix with his wife and their newborn son; worried about his father living alone so far away, he had coaxed Simon to come live near them. I never warmed up to his son and daughter-in-law, especially the latter; she seemed shrewish and impatient, and I don't think she understood Simon well. She was a new mother of course, and very busy, but I never got the sense she had the proper appreciation for him. He was an inconvenience for which she had to put on a role and a smile.
Simon had owned a small and respected rare & antiquarian bookstore in New York for many years. Well-crafted books were his passion. He came to Phoenix and rented a fine 2-bedroom townhouse. Simon was not the type to sit around being "retired". The first thing he did was hire a carpenter to line every single possible wall of his house with custom-built tall bookshelves, which were immediately crammed end to end with books. Then he got to work setting himself up on the internet as an online rare bookseller, with the help of a man he hired to handle the computer end of things.
Simon was like that. He was nearing 90, but he was never afraid to embrace new technology. The possibilities excited him; he wanted to see what would next unfold. He had difficulty reading the screen, and his arthritis made his hand shake too much to control the mouse, but he never stopped trying. I loved that so much about him.
Simon was a German Jew in WWII. He told me about his escape from Germany, the hundreds of miles he walked. Shortly before his escape, he was once in a cafe when Nazis burst in and began arresting people. He was there with another Jew. Thinking fast, he stood up and immediately pretended that he was with the authorities; taking his friend "under custody", Simon marched him out of the cafe and to safety.
He went to medical school after his escape and became a doctor, but later turned to book publishing in England, becoming a small publisher of quality books. One of the books he published was an early limited edition novel by William Burroughs. He consorted with many of the famous and infamous literary figures of that time. Much later, he moved to New York City and became an antiquarian book dealer.
At first I was only entering books into an online database for him. I met him by luck; a friend of mine did data entry for him for a day through a temp agency and really liked him, but she was moving to Portland. At her recommendation, I went to his house and was immediately captivated by the wall-to-wall books.
The used bookstores around town all came to know him well. He'd take cabs, peruse their aisles for hours, and come home with boxes stuffed with books he'd picked up for cheap. For Simon, it was a treasure hunt, finding those castoffs that no one else could recognize. That worn, dusty book he snatched out of the $1 bin? Rare limited edition first printing, worth hundreds to the right buyer. It was never about the money, of course.
We'd research and decide together how to price these treasures, and I would enter them into the online database. He taught me the terminology, how to describe book conditions accurately. Folio, quarto, foxed, gilt edges, marbled endpapers, vellum binding. How to recognize first editions, first printings. The differences between the grades of good, very good, near fine, fine.
After a short while, I took over all parts of the business, from customer service to shipping to accounting to managing the online aspects. The other guy Simon had originally hired went on to something else, so it was just Simon and me for a while. Later, I brought in my then-boyfriend to help with book-sorting, shipping, data entry, and be an all-around extra hand. Most of the time, though, Simon and I would sit and look through old books and talk, argue, tell stories. He was tremendously well-read, sharp, opinionated, broad-minded, and eloquent, with an endless supply of anecdotes drawn from personal experience.
We doted on each other from the beginning, with simple and unreserved affection and mutual respect. Simon could be cranky and querulous at times, but this was more often than not with my boyfriend, towards whom he never quite warmed. That wasn't my boyfriend's fault; if Simon had been my grandfather and felt that he had a right to give his opinion, he would have thought no one was good enough for me.
A part of him tried to hang on to living, to keep that flame burning, after his wife died. But a greater part of him was slipping away, and I knew it wouldn't be long. It was a year or so after I began working for him that his heart began to fail. He was 88, and he lived a long, rich life.
Good night, Simon. I am fortunate and glad to have known you. I loved you like a grandfather. I hope I brought some measure of brightness into your life in your last year, as you brought to mine.
