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As a dealer with a strong interest in Western Americana, I occasionally come across books which describe a gruesome activity practiced by Plains Indians, primarily in the late 19th century, called the Sun Dance. Though variations of this ritual existed among different tribes, more often than not the Sun Dance involved one or more participants dancing about a tall pole fixed in the ground. Straps were tied to the top of the pole, then attached by means of skewers to the flesh of the dancers, who in turn danced for hours, sometimes days, until the straps were ripped free - as you might imagine, leaving gaping wounds. Once all dancers had danced free of their worldly abominations, so to speak, they retreated in solitude seeking visions.
The Sun Dance intrigues me because it was strikingly similar, at least in principle, to religious exercises practiced by Christian mystics, specifically a deeply-mysterious group who haunted 18th century Europe and founded what is now an all but forgotten school of Catholicism called Quietism. Quietists used far less bloody means, of course, but still sought a state of detachment from worldly life in a kind of inspired dance around the pole of selfhood, or pride, with its ultimate destination in spiritual rebirth. What does this have to do with bookselling? Well, spiritually speaking, nothing, but I'm vitally interested in the subject of attachment, especially as it impacts buying books for resale.
Attachment, as a general thing, can be good or bad. If one has a crush on somebody, for example, obsesses over that person day and night, I think most of us will agree that this is attachment in the extreme. It's also blinding - and bad. When we're blind, we often do stupid things.
Attachment can be good as well, but this is where we need to qualify it: it can be good, useful to us, but only up to a point. Take books. Say we're looking at a wall of them. As we glance from title to title, occasionally something will catch our eye, not necessarily the title itself, but some feature of the book, perhaps a leather binding. If it's sufficiently interesting, we might look closer. Other things might catch our eye as well, say, gilt lettering or marbled text-block edges. This is attachment, in this case three instances of hooking a "strap" to a "pole." This is also useful if it helps us identify what we should buy. It becomes blinding, however, if we don't dance away from it soon after we set our hooks.
Every instance of attachment to something keenly interesting about a given book constitutes what I referred to as a "flashpoint" in the previous article. The reason I call them flashpoints is that I often feel a tiny flash of warmth in my solar plexus when a particularly special one pops up, though sometimes it's so subtle that I feel nothing at all, especially if it's a flashpoint I've encountered 100's of times before.
What these are, in reality, are small excitations that are duly recorded in the brain in what noted scientist Karl Lashley first postulated as engrams: changes in neural tissue that produce memories. The more intense the excitation, the more pronounced the engram and the more lasting the memory. There is initial excitement because your reactions are suggesting to your mind that you may have found something special.
I have a mental list of flashpoints that's probably a mile long. The longer I buy books, the longer it gets, and the better I get at buying books. Depending on what they are, also on how many are present in a given book, I use them to make buying decisions. If a group of them converge into a chorus of beaming angels, well, there you are. Money is on the table.
There are flashpoints, the kind that need four or eight or more accompanying flashpoints before the "buy" light goes off in my head; and there are Flashpoints, the kind that are so powerful that strobe lights go off no matter what else is going on with the book at hand. The latter are rare; the former, the norm. An example of the latter, the "power" flashpoint, would be fore-edge painting (painted scenes appearing on edges of text blocks).
This is a buy every time. An example of a "garden variety" flashpoint would be a book that's thin (more about this specific flashpoint in the next article in this series).
It's important to note that not all flashpoints are physical elements of a book. Some are one step removed from this. If the following title met my eye, for example:
"Functorial Knot Theory: Categories of Tangles, Coherence, Categorical Deformations, and Topological Invariants"
The phrase "knot theory" would function as a flashpoint for me, and yet this isn't an actual knot, only the phrase that suggests one and indirectly gives rise to my reaction.
Flashpoints can also be actual titles of books - for example, "On the Road" - but these are the least useful of flashpoints because they are specific to one book and one book only, surfacing only on rare occasions. I don't recommend filling your head with them. The most valuable flashpoints are those which have wide applicability.
Unfortunately, things can get more complicated before the fog lifts. There may be other features about a book that function as anti-flashpoints, something I call "extinguishers." Extinguishers can counteract the spark of a flashpoint, sometimes a group of flashpoints; sometimes they can even put out a raging fire of enthusiasm. These also vary in degree of power. Often extinguishers are condition issues. An example of a power extinguisher is an intense infestation of mildew.
Okay, these are the basic concepts. Now, how do flashpoints actually play out in the buying process? Things begin by the (usually subconscious) event of attachment, hooking onto one or more flashpoints in a given book. You see a pretty Victorian cover, and thwack! You're hooked. The process of spotting flashpoints, even if multiple ones are involved, often occurs in an instant, as fast as your eyes can move from book to book. If the flashpoints are sufficiently powerful and plentiful, a certain aura gathers around the book, signaling that a complete attachment has taken place.
At this point the attachment should be danced free of. This happens or should happen simply by noticing that it has happened, then acknowledging it. As ineffectual as this might seem, this is sufficient to break the spell (the figurative strap attached to the pole), and allows a certain degree of objectivity - a state of detachment that helps a buyer reach a good buying decision.
To get an idea of what this feels like, put your hand on the desk in front of you, then look at it as though it were either a disembodied hand or one belonging to somebody else. Then try this with a book. With practice you can get quite adept at this. Decisions to buy should, whenever possible, occur in a state of detachment. If this state of detachment isn't reached, mistakes can multiply.
As anyone who has ever experienced intense infatuation knows, attachment is draining. This is why even a short session in a used bookstore or sale can be exhausting, also why when we leave excited about what we've found, we're much more likely to go home with an armload of dogs. BFS (Biblio Fatigue Syndrome) can be deadly. On the other hand, if we're able to dance - hook and snap, hook and snap, hook and snap, etc. - use flashpoints only as a tool to focus on possibilities, then detach from them before tucking books under our arms, we're far more likely to make successful buys and may even leave fully energized.
Let's look at a real-life example: mildew.
Several years ago I had an opportunity to purchase over 10,000 books that had been originally obtained in an auction after the closure of a naval base library. To say the least, I was in an advanced state of anticipation before I arrived to look at them because the lot consisted of numerous military books, some quite old; and, ex-library or not, many of them were strong titles. Not only that, the seller was willing to let them go for what amounted to a dime apiece.
Well, when I walked through the doorway of the shed they were stored in, I was nearly overcome with a gushing, expansive odor of mildew. The books had been packed in cardboard boxes, and some of the boxes were in contact with the dirt floor of the shed, obviously infested. However, after a brief examination of the boxes stacked on top of them, it appeared as though the books inside these were fine. I fanned open several dozen books in as many boxes, sniffing as I went along, eagerly glancing at titles. No detectable odor.
A few moments later a deal was struck. I loaded about 2,000 of the books in the back of my truck, coughed up a deposit of $200, promising to return within the hour, and drove home with a smug sense of success.
Unfortunately, as I later discovered when I began to unpack the books in my garage, what I couldn't detect in the shed was painfully obvious at home. Our noses can be powerful tools at first sniff, but pound those sensors with the odor of mildew right and left for several minutes, and you can convince yourself that you're smelling roses. The only good news was that I hadn't rented a U-Haul, given the seller $1,000, and taken all the books.
The lesson of this story is that, had I not been so caught up in the excitement of the moment, fully immersed in that vast ocean of flashpoints, it would have occurred to me to take several books outside, let my nose recover, and examine them for odor.
Remember this: the best buyers are the ones who are able to calmly swim in an ocean of books, spotting trophy fish as they appear, and at the same time keep their heads above the surface of excitement. Those 18th century Quietists knew that this was equivalent to the Biblical urging to be "in" the world but not "of" it. Bad buyers, of course, are very much of the world, plunging in head first at every opportunity, thrashing around, and sometimes drowning. Good buyers? That's us.
We swim.
If this is beginning to sound like a load of theoretical you-know-what, I assure you we'll march straight into some practical, concrete examples in the next article in this series, and in the succeeding article offer a glimpse at the Holy Grail of Book Buying: a starter list of flashpoints.
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