Here's where I'm putting things I'm not quite sure where they go. Or maybe they belong in several categories at once. This page reflects the variety in my personal collection... It's hard to know where to put them all -- both in this virtual world, and in my cluttered real world, too.

On this page, you'll find collections of photographs, humor, children's books (that even grown-ups can enjoy), reference books, pop-up books (really!), and anything else I don't know where to place. I imagine this page is going to be a lot of fun, and probably more representative of my personality than any other part of the Bookshelf.

Enjoy browsing! If there's something you especially liked, or if you have any recommendations, please send me an email!
 

Bellocq: Photographs from Storyville, the Red Light District of New Orleans
Reproduced from prints made by Lee Friedlander. Introduction by Susan Sontag. Interviews edited by John Szarkowski.

This oversized "coffee table" book is one of the true prizes of my book collection. It features photographs, taken around 1912, of prostitutes in the infamous Storyville red light district in New Orleans. The photographer was a client, so it's said, a hydrocephalic dwarf named E.J. Bellocq. The photos are nothing short of breathtaking.

The interviews in the book are fascinating. Storyville was an experiment in a legal red light district, from 1897 to 1917. It's nickname comes from a New Orleans city alderman, Sidney Story, who wrote the legislation. I'm sure he wasn't thrilled to be immortalized in this manner.

Photographs of prostitutes from the turn of the century are quite rare. I find it obvious that Bellocq was a client, because his subjects are often very relaxed, even playful, in the photos. The photos are the product of an "insider" relationship. No one outside of the business could have possibly achieved the same effect.

For me, there is a bittersweet sadness about these photos, for so many reasons. The photos in the book are taken from Bellocq's original glass negatives, which were lost for many years, are damaged by time and elements.

But not all of the damage was natural. Many of the photos were defaced in later years... the faces of the prostitutes were scratched off the glass, so that only the images of their bodies remained. My favorite is of a standing woman, who is in the act of drawing a butterfly on the wall, a symbol of freedom, change, joy, beauty, happiness. Her face has been scratched off.

The defaced photos are the ones that speak to me most deeply, that touch a grief inside that's always there... for they create a horrifyingly perfect metaphor for their lives, and sadly, my own. For prostitutes, in our culture, are often seen as nothing more than bodies, physical representations of a morally corrupt concept. The faces, the essence of who we are, all too often become lost.

And yet there is joy, happiness here. I love these curvy women, who remind me that my body, in another time, is the beauty ideal. I see funny commonalities -- why is it that most prostitutes seem to collect artwork depicting women? Or pets -- cats, or little dogs? in these photos, I see happy women, who feel good about themselves and their lives. I see myself.

The Gashlycrumb Tinies and The Curious Sofa by Ogdred Weary
Stories and illustrations by Edward Gorey

Edward Gorey is so wonderfully twisted and deranged. While I knew him for his dark and whimsical illustrations and animations on PBS' Mystery program, I was unaware of his many amazing books. I'm listing just two here in the Bookshelf, but all of his work is well worth exploring.

I first encountered "The Gashlycrumb Tinies" when I was in college. One of my housemates had a poster, depicting each page of the book. The dark humor was marvelous. The book is a hideous children's book of sorts, featuring a rhyming alphabet of children, and all the ways they died. My favorites: "N is for Neville, who died of ennui" and "Z is for Zillah, who drank too much gin."

The book reminds me of another book in my library, an antique from 1845 called "Slovenly Peter." Children's books in the past were often filled with horrific stories of terrible things that happened to children who didn't behave. In "Slovenly Peter," for example, a child who sucks his thumb will have a terrible tailor visit him, and cut off his thumbs. Or the cry-baby girl's eyes fall out. Disturbing puts it mildly -- can you imagine the nightmares of those nineteenth century children? Yikes.

"The Gashlycrumb Tinies" is not horrifying, like "Slovenly Peter," but rather a parody of such books. It's just funny. You can actually read the entire book (takes two minutes), from "A" to "Z," by clicking here.

After I discovered the "Tinies," I began collecting other Gorey books. I don't have them all, but I'm working on it! "The Doubtful Guest" is marvelous, "The Haunted Tea Cosy" just deranged, and "The Epileptic Bicycle," with it's out of order (and often missing) chapters is fun.

But I'm including my especial favorite here, "The Curious Sofa by Ogdred Weary" (the author's name being an anagram of "Edward Gorey"). The book is "A Pornographic Work." What is brilliant about the book is that you could actually read it to a child. There's nothing pornographic about the illustrations or the text -- except in your own mind. The reader, and their perceptions and imagination, make the book dirty. The book works purely on the power of suggestion. And it's very, very funny.

It's hard to describe "The Curious Sofa." I'm including an illustration here, which might give you something of an idea. It's the story of a girl named Alice, who, after meeting a "well-endowed" man, is taken for a ride in a taxi, "on the floor of which they did something she had never done before." "After they had done it several times, in different ways," he takes her to the home of his friend Lady Celia. Alice participates in a weekend party, featuring outrageous guests, including people with wooden legs ("with which they could do all sorts of interesting tricks."). I may not have the quotes perfect, so don't hold me to the exact wording -- I went to check my book and remembered I'd loaned it out to a friend. Some madness is meant to be shared.

Gorey's books are just treats. The two little books I'm sharing here can be read in five minutes or less. Yet despite their size and brevity, the enjoyment is tremendous.

The Random House Thesaurus of Slang: 150,000 Uncensored Slang Terms
By Esther Lewin and Albert E. Lewin

I love reference books of all sorts, and have all sorts of interesting reference works in my personal collection -- from traditional dictionaries to rhyming dictionaries (organized phonetically). But my absolute favorite is my slang thesaurus.

Slang is something that grows virally, and rapidly becomes outmoded. For truly modern, up-to-the-minute slang, the Urban Dictionary online is the place to visit -- though I think the search feature is lacking.

But The Random House Thesaurus of Slang features the true classics of slang, including archaic slang, which never fails to amuse, and is often quite helpful when writing historical fiction. Of course, when picking up a slang thesaurus for the first time, almost everyone flips right to "penis." They are rewarded with such classics as "cock" and "prick," but also the anachronistic "fountain pen," "bishop," "pego," "hotchee," and my personal favorite, "dangling participle."

A slang thesaurus is a lot of fun. It can liven up everything from advertising to MySpace pages, IMs, and faltering conversation. But you don't need a "flesh peddler" or "shady lady" to tell you that.