One night in the mid-1960s, while working as a bartender at the Village Vanguard, the storied New York City jazz club, Burt Britton found himself all alone with Norman Mailer at last call.“What do you want from me, Kid,” Mailer inquired. Screwing up his courage, Britton blurted out, “draw me your self-portrait.” MailerNow, over forty years later, that self-portrait by Mailer is one of 213 self-portraits of writers, photographers, musicians, and athletes that Britton solicited. His collection is now being offered at auction byBloomsbury – New York on September 24, 2009: Arthur MillerPortrait of the Artist: The Burt Britton CollectionBritton...
Collecting Non-Existent Books
When Cynthia Gibson, a bookseller in New York, casually mentioned “non-existent books” in a recent note I presumed she was referring to deascensions from Milton Berle’s joke library:The Old Man, the Bull, and the Boat. Hemingway’s melding of his two favorite pastimes, deep sea fishing and bullfighting, set within the confines of a small dingy. The fish are biting. The bull is charging. Drama and suspense ensue.Tom Jones in Vegas. The sequel to Henry Fielding's novel of a foundling follows our randy hero to the nadir of his existence as a tin-eared troubador singing eighteenth century songs to highly aroused...