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January 06, 2004
ONCE UPON A TIME IN NEW YORK
I don't know what got Mugs started. It could be our conversations about Eric Ambler, who I've been reading lately with an avidity bordering on madness. Some Amblers remain in print, about a half dozen. Many more are out of print. When you find them, they're shelved among the mystery and thriller novels. Mugs says that's the equivalent of putting Conrad in the naval section or shelving Melville under oceanography.
If you think that's an exaggeration, consider this from Christopher Hitchens in the December issue of The Atlantic Monthly: "The best novel of the postwar Stalinist purges -- the ones that spread to Eastern Europe -- is Eric Ambler's Judgment on Deltchev (1951)." Hitchens has long held that opinion and written it before.
Anyway, whatever got Mugs started really doesn't matter. He invariably offers a combination of outrage, insight and nostalgia. His memories, in this case literary memories, recall a city that has long since disappeared.
Ladies and gents, Mr. Mugs McGuiness: "I remember my early experiments with hookey trips to the Big Town, frequently climaxing at the second-hand magazine store on the north side of 42nd Street about 200 feet east of 8th Avenue. My obsession with science fiction -- another zone of futile expertise -- led me there. The place was about the size of a baseball diamond, all of it stacked with mags except for maybe nine cubic feet. The covers of those ancient pulps tore my pablum brain to shreds with erotic dreams, revenge fantasies and space-going escapes.
"I knew all of the $50-per cover boys when I was 15: Virgil Finley, Frank Paul, Ed Emsh, the lot. And the drama of the damned things led me to the still un-pulped mystery monthlies -- Spicy Detective, Dime Detective, Dime Novels, ancient Black Masks; into the fantasy game with Wierd Stories, starring endless reprints of H.P. Lovecraft's stuff. Christ, it was great. Gave me my first push into slobism. I've never recovered.
"The goddam magazines were 5 cents per, 25 for a buck, and wrapped discretely in a grocery bag. I'd land in those piles of decaying wonder with five bucks, spend three hours and about $4.70, leaving just enough to arrive home penniless and complaining like a crucified man about the torments of the schoolroom -- after stashing my stash at Artie Shapiro's house. It was pure heaven.
"It ain't nostalgia to know that kids today haven't a prayer of playing in those lost reader's leagues -- Book Row on 4th Avenue, the Marboro Books stores, and a crazy gypsy lady on 46th near the Algonquin, who would describe your past, read your fortune, and give you a vivid look at her breasts -- all for fifty cents. What a town."
And whatta guy.
Posted by at January 6, 2004 10:11 AM