And Now For Something Completely Different...
Yesterday we stumbled across a very unusual store in Morton Grove, 15 miles north of Chicago.
Magazine Memories is one of only seven independent stores of its kind left in the United States, selling 100,000 periodicals from the 1860s to 2000 and 20,000 movie posters from Europe and the USA. The sad thing is that the store is going out of business because of competition from internet sellers like eBay.
The owner, author Bob Katzman, refuses to succomb to modern pressures, and would rather see his business die that transfer it to the internet.
Bob is a fifty something somewhat eccentric Jew, who self publishes his books rather than submitting them endlessly to prospective publishers.
I can't work out if he is a child of the sixties, disillusioned with modern day life, doing what he can to fight it with a mixture of supreme intellect and humour, or simply a raving lunatic.
If you would like to decide for yourself, visit him at his store, 6006 Dempster, Morton Grove, Illinois 60053, check out his blog http://www.differentslants.com/ or click on www.fightingwordspubco.com.
I'd be interested to hear what you think....
posted by Hilary at
9:06 AM
1 Comments:
Hey Hilary!
Nice to be noticed. Thanks for mentioning me. Good thing you didn't take my picture or you'd scare off any possible new customers. A note: it's 40,000 posters, not 20,000, but then, who's going to count them, anyway?
I'm 57, for eleven more weeks.
In the Sixties I was already self-employed, with police friends that hung around my newsstand. So...during the infamous 1968 Democratic convention, I was in Hyde Park at my newsstand, 7 miles south of Downtown,selling Chicago mainstream newspapers and also the Chicago Seed. Very rare to find one of those now. I was 18 and not anywhere near a counter-culture person. Grass and I were passing acquaintances, I regret, because you couldn't smoke dope and get up at 4 am to run a newsstand.
Not everything was wonderful between myself and the Chicago Police, however. But that's written about in bloody (and not Hilary's Brit meaning of bloody)detail in my 2nd book, Escaping and Embracing The Cops of Chicago.
Hilary, it was a delight to meet you and your silent bodyguard. I also like your extraordinarily complex blog! God!! Amazing.
I hope you enjoy my stories. It was unexpected that you bought my book. But I certainly appreciate it.
Shalom, Hilary.
Bob Katzman
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