McHuston Booksellers

Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

Tag: paperback (Page 23 of 40)

What’s the frequency, Kenneth?

October 5, 2013 /

I’ve dragged out Dad’s radio. An old beast. Single speaker job, pre-stereo. It used to sit on his desk. He was proud of that new FM thing.

I have plenty of gadgets in the office. TV. Computer. But no radio.

And I needed a radio. The OSU Cowboys are playing football on TV. So I need a radio.

Sometimes when you hear someone talk, you just wish they wouldn’t. Maybe if they’d change the subject, it would be more bearable. Maybe if ESPN’s Rod Gilmore talked about tree pruning or gourmet cooking I could listen.

Football?

Sorry, Rodney. I would listen if you were giving me legal advice, I promise.

He’s a practicing attorney in San Francisco, in addition to his television broadcasting chores. A bright guy. Stanford graduate. Howard Cosell was a lawyer, too. Couldn’t listen to him either – but I don’t think it’s the attorney thing.

The Oklahoma State Cowboys radio network is carried by radio stations all over Oklahoma and I tried a list of them that stream their programs on the internet. There must be some sort of legal angle that prohibits the games from being streamed over the internet. Rod could probably tell me.

The TV and the game were on. While I was cringing at his commentary, I glanced over and spotted Dad’s blue-tube stashed on a shelf.

Plugged it in – and it works!

Well, it works as well as the technology from that era should be expected to work. It’s a Philco model 926 from 1962. Sold for about twenty bucks brand new. The technology was different back then – what they called “vacuum tubes.” Those were replaced by transistors, which allowed radios to be produced in much smaller – and portable – versions.

On the back are a couple of posts sticking out that allow a wire to be attached. Amazingly, I just happen to have a radio antenna loop here in the office, which pulled in the FM stations. Turns out the game is carried on KFAQ – an AM station – which didn’t need the antenna.

KFAQ’s radio frequency is 1170, but you can see in the second image that the old radio doesn’t believe it for a second. The analog dial indicator is sitting midway between the 10 and the 11. Doesn’t matter to me.

I get to listen to the home town announcers, and more importantly, I don’t have to listen to Rod Gilmore while watching the TV coverage.
Nothing like going old school. Watching the game remembering my dad and his FM Muzak, symphonic versions of the Beatles. I hope his radio holds up long enough to get through the fourth quarter and the Cowboys hold up long enough to win the game.

PISTOLS FIRING! (a radio announcer touchdown thing…)

Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main Street, Broken Arrow OK!

Bligh’ me, yer a smart one Weazel!

September 30, 2013 /

Suddenly, Pat hurls himself at the maniac Weazel!

Can’t ask for much more excitement than that, don’t ya know… In fact, before even hitting Page 1, there’s a scary pop-up in which Connie must peel potatoes or lose his ears. Sounds like my childhood! Zowie! (Kidding there, Ma…)

Almost eighty-years ago, a young fellow named Milton moved to New York City. The kid could draw. Got himself a job with the Associated Press in the features department – that’s the bunch in charge of comic strips. The head of a competing art syndicate liked Milton’s work, and hired him to draw a comic strip he had envisioned.

It hit the papers in 1934. Terry and the Pirates.

Loads of action and adventure. Great artwork. Terry was a cabin-boy type on the ship of the worldly Pat Ryan, who had some outlandish confrontations with Dragon Lady, the Pirate Queen of the Orient.

Milton Caniff drew the comic strip for a dozen years, but – back in those days – the publication rights and ownership of the character belonged to the syndication group. Caniff was paid a salary for his efforts.

As anyone who has ever hoisted a Dilbert coffee mug will realize, there’s Gold in them-thar Marketing Rights.

Caniff quit adventure on the high seas and traded it for adventure in the clouds – leaving Terry and the Pirates and creating his own strip called Steve Canyon. The high-flying Air Force hero appeared in newspapers nationwide, enjoyed by millions of readers. He continued the comic until his death in 1988.

A year after Terry and the Pirates made its debut, Caniff wrote and illustrated a hardback book version, complete with three “Pop-Up” pictures. It’s not politically correct these days, but its Oriental dialogue-affectations might be compared to the dialects in Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer adventures.

Needless to say, the book is scarce in any condition. With all three pop-ups completely intact, it’s a rare find and nice addition to the shop’s offerings.

I’ve long been a fan of the newspaper comic strips. As a kid, I aspired to draw that sort of thing for my living. (Bligh’ me, yer a smart one Weazel! …another pipe dream, busted.) I remember admiring artwork like The Spirit, another action hero drawn by Will Eisner – a contemporary of Milton Caniff.

I still read the “funnies” in the Tulsa World, but the artwork just isn’t the same. You can click on the image to compare the portraits of Steve Canyon and “Dilbert” – the creation of cartoonist Scott Adams. (The humor in the Dilbert strip is as sharp as anything out there, and particularly sharp on the modern office culture.)

But it ain’t Terry and the Pirates:

THEN, out of the South came the great terror of the China Sea – TYPHOON!

Here that wind, Limey?” exclaimed Weazel. “We strike now!

And how they struck! They cut the ropes on all but two of the lifeboats, scuttled the ship, took command of the entire crew at the point of guns! Dmitri carried out his foul part of the scheme, too. Drawing a gun, he shoved Mr. Drake, Normandie, and Terry, who had come to warn them, into a closet and tied them up.

Suddenly Connie remembered something. He ran to the place he had hidden the life preservers. “Yipple Dipple!” he exclaimed. “Come now lickity-skip!”

It doesn’t get much more exciting than that, huh?

Come visit, lickity-skip!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main Street, Broken Arrow OK!

March of the Orange Barrels

September 11, 2013 /

As Granny Mamie would say: Ya canna keep Troubles from comin’ round, but ya needn’t offer ‘em a chair.

That pretty well sums up my feelings as the Rose District construction approaches the front door of the bookshop. As you can see in the image, the orange barrel invasion has swallowed all but the doorstep of my neighbor Jason’s – Main Street Tavern. The block just to the north is next.

That’s this place.

Probably next week, I’m thinking. A little bit of trouble, convenience wise, and comin’ round. But I’ve already brought the sidewalk bench indoors. Needn’t offer a chair. Speed things along.

Giving credit where due, the contractors have gone out of their way to accommodate the merchants as the construction progresses. When the last segment of sidewalk was all that was left down the street, workers kept at it all night so the chips & salsa, margaritas, and enchiladas could be served as usual when Fiesta Mambo opened the following day.

The most-asked question lately? Is the construction bothering your business? Well… I don’t think barricades, front-end loaders, jackhammers, and road-closed-signs are GOOD for business. There are some once-regular customers who had just found the shop at its new location whom I haven’t seen for a time.

The other side of that is – with a stop sign at every intersection – some folks are slowing down (and stopping hopefully) long enough to look around and notice the businesses in the area. The Main Street Expressway, where speeds regularly hit 45 to 55 mph (not an exaggeration), was not conducive to business. Too risky to take your eyes off the road or cell phone when a pesky pedestrian might step out to cross the street.

That’s my primary hope: that – once the construction troubles pick up and move along – the Rose District will be a little friendlier (traffic-wise) to shoppers and side-walkers. It would be great to have people cruise the business district like we used to do, styling and profiling, circling the loop between the Sonic and the A&W. (Different town, different era.)

There will be plenty of new things to see once the street-scaping project winds up. A couple of new buildings. Several new restaurants. There are already new shops settling in with the long-term residents. Half of one block is complete with newly-painted parking space lines. It’s going to be great, I just know it. The sooner they move in front of the bookstore, the quicker it will be finished. No sense fussing about it.

As Granny Mamie would say: You can’t drown your sorrows. They know how to swim.

Make some waves. Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main, Broken Arrow OK!

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