From The Vault Of Art Shay: Heading To Auction
By Art Shay in News on Oct 31, 2012 7:00PM
Florence and I both loved the view from the street when Titles, Inc. was brimming with customers on a Saturday afternoon.\r\n
After 31 years on Sheridan Road, her landlord tried to double her rent. She moved her shop a few football fields away, to St. John\'s just south of Central. Florence didn\'t hold a grudge nearly as well as I do, but did manage a smile when the subject of her poor ex-landlord\'s not being able to rent her old space for two or three years came up.\r\n
I was surprised to be Titles\' first author to rate a signing party. I wore a tuxedo borrowed for the honor from artist Jordon Krimstein. It was 1988 and we had to air-ship the first 100 books in from the factory because the U. of Ill. Press did everything right... except logistics. They needed more than the six weeks we allowed to get the books from Champaign to Highland Park! \r\n
Long before she came down with ovarian cancer 15 months ago, Florence hosted the second book signing she ever did for me, for \<em\>Chicago\'s Nelson Algren\<\/em\>.\r\n
There it is: my dear wife\'s winning smile of discovery at finding a book for a client! \"I knew I had it somewhere,\" she\'d say triumphantly.\r\n
Florence, a few months ago at the helm of Titles, Inc. Kalena , our care-giver, had put on her make-up early for a shopping trip, and Florence liked the way her new blonde hair looked, so in my absence, she called her other favorite photographer, our son Richard, and he put off a client and came running from his Emporium Studio in Glencoe, to do what turned out to be her obituary picture.\r\n
Frank Lloyd Wright shares a spread of literary bargains in a section that includes DeKooning, Avedon, John O\'Hara and Eloise!\r\n
A rare book by Toulouse Lautrec shares an auction lot with some recondite Asian art books. Florence once had two computer \"hits\" inquiring on a book on falconry that she \"put up\"—one from a samurai in Japan and the other from a sheik in Araby! How she resisted the computer when I talked her into one years ago!\r\n
On Titles\' wall was a framed tableau of Joseph Heller kissing Florence at a book signing. They were great correspondents and she framed a postcard from Heller saying what a good writer she was. Several first editions of \<em\>Catch-22\<\/em\> are in the auction. By the way, it was two reviews by Nelson Algren that first called \<em\>Catch-22\<\/em\> to national attention, so Florence gave him Algren\'s phone number so he could thank him in person. \r\n
Florence\'s wall snapshots reflected her enthusiasms. Billy Corgan respected her wisdom on poetry books, editing, and her Jewish-mother advice to him on his love life. He also became a collector of my vintage pictures and signed me up for an ongoing project of him piecing together an album. My son Richard did Billy\'s newest album cover for \<em\>Oceania\<\/em\>. Richard\'s girlfriend, photographer Jami Good, recently toured Germany with her son, David and saw the picture near the Berlin wall and photographed it for Billy Corgan\'s Madme Zu Zu\'s Tea House. Billy was delighted first with the album jacket and then with Jami\'s enterprise. \r\n
B.J. Armstrong, former Chicago Bulls star and current NBA superagent (Derrick Rose is a client) shopped for philosophy books and surprised Florence with the intellectual thrust of his discussions. She had one Chicago Bear and one Wrestler as clients. And David Mamet. And Maurice Sendak. Rick Kogan pointed out in his loving Printers Row obit that the book lady he knew all his life once got a call from Maurice Sendak who was doing the stage set for \"The Magic Flute\" and wanted all the books he could round up on Mozart and his operas. Sendak got three he could use in NYC and six from Titles. Highland Park! Where the wild books were!\r\n
Governors like Jim Thompson and Jim Edgar, above, liked the atmosphere of Titles and its humorous and knowledgable doyenne.\r\n
In my memory my beloved wife will always look like this, smiling when I picked her up for dinner, books in hand, asking me \"are you really going to the restaurant in that racquetball T-shirt?\"\r\n
(Legendary Chicago-based photographer Art Shay has taken photos of kings, queens, celebrities and the common man in a 60-year career. This week, Art prepares for an auction of his wife's prized books.)
My wonderful, late wife Florence would have loved Leslie Hindman's auction catalogue of many of her rare books! There is the autographed Booker T. Washington; the two or three copies of Catch-22 autographed by her big fan—its author Joseph Heller—who admired Florence's writing style, as did many of the readers of her blog about being in the rare book business these past forty years.
Adolescent readers with book stars in their eyes and money saved up for their favorite Nancy Drew books— heads of libraries at Yale, Harvard and the Smithsonian, fellow rare book dealers—especially members of her beloved Caxton Club, whose magazine she often contributed to, adding irreverence to her apercus. All, all have sent me sad, joyous notes of appreciation for my 90 year old mate now two months past.
So it's come down to our auctioneer friend Leslie Hindman's sale of many of Florence's better books at high noon on Nov. 7 at 1338 W. Lake Street in Chicago: 39 pages of them.
Florence would not only have loved the catalogue's heft and design, but the fact that our acquaintances-the Charles Bentons—I shot a cover of the beautiful Marge Benton for North Shore magazine years back. The Bentons also have some rare books going on the block. Florence would have appreciated her full page picture and announcement on page 156-plugging the Dec. 6-9 final sale at her shop (1821 St. Johns Ave, Highland Park, Ill.).
The store closes on Dec. 31, outliving the lady who gave it life by a mere three months.
If you can't wait until this time every Wednesday to get your Art Shay fix, please check out the photographer's blog, which is updated regularly. Art Shay's book, Chicago's Nelson Algren, is also available at Amazon.
