While checking the amazon.com page for the Silver Birch Press NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology — released about 30 days ago — I noticed that several online booksellers had listed the book for around $1,000 (yes one thousand dollars). I have no idea what this is all about — only that some “experts” feel that the book is collectible. Perhaps Guy Budziak‘s superb cover art has led to this phenemenon.
Get a new copy today for the bargain price of $10.15 at Amazon.com.
Just in time for Christmas — in case you’re rich and looking for a gift for the book lover who has everything — on December 18, 2012, Profiles in History will auction “personal correspondence and manuscripts from the world’s greatest authors.”
The L.A.-based auction will feature “the property of a distinguished American private collector,” whose collection includes correspondence and manuscripts from Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, L. Frank Baum, William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe, Raymond Chandler, Joseph Conrad, and F. Scott Fitzgerald (letter shown above).
For more information, visit Profiles in History. From what I gather, the collection includes 3,000 items that will be auctioned off over the next two years. Since many of these letters can easily garner $10,000…well, that is some multi-million dollar collection.
The writer in me wonders a few things about this. Is the collector broke? Is the collector’s spouse fed up with all the time and money invested? Is the collector tired of rare letters and manuscripts and wants to move on to another type of collection? If the “American” collector doesn’t need the money, I hope he or she donates some of the rarer items to a museum or two or three somewhere in America. I’m sure there’s a museum in St. Paul, Minnesota that would love that Fitzgerald letter.
As mentioned in our August 31st post, the Campbell’s Tomato Soup cans with Warhol-inspired labels are available starting today at Target (yes, the “discount” store). Of those pictured in the photo above, I like the blue and green one best. Target will offer a limited edition of one million cans at 75 cents each.
Not to spoil the party (so I won’t talk about it here), but readers may wish to check out livestrong.com for a discussion of the ingredients in Campbell’s Tomato Soup. (Anyway, if I buy a Warhol-inspired can of soup from Target, I don’t intend to open it!)
Since we’re discussing Warhol and soup, this post includes another entry in The Cecilia Prize, the contest that honors the good intentions of Cecilia Gimenez — the parishioner from Borja, Spain, who picked up a paint brush and tried (that’s the operative word) to restore “Ecce Homo,” a flaking fresco of Christ on the wall of her church. This Warhol-inspired entry, Ecce Soup, was created by Twitter @ewajoan.
Most Americans will spend what many consider the last weekend of summer going to the beach or pool, having backyard barbecues, enjoying long bike rides, or getting the kids ready for school. But for art lovers, there is only one place to be this Labor Day weekend — your local Target store.
That’s right, folks, Tar-zhay! And why would an art aficionado spend the last precious days of summer vacation or last long weekend until Thanksgiving walking the endless aisles of a discount retailer? The answer: Warholia! Yes, exclusively at Target, starting September 2, 2012, you can purchase your very own “limited-edition line of Warhol-themed condensed tomato soup cans,” to quote from a recent L.A. Times article by David Ng.
Priced at 75 cents each, the cans commemorate the 50th anniversary of Andy Warhol‘s creation — yes it’s been that long (in 1962, the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles first exhibited Warhol Campbell’s Soup can paintings).
According to an official Campbell’s Soup spokesperson (how would you like that job?), a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
Silver Birch Press 