Rare books from Brian Cassidy Bookseller at Type Punch Matrix

n.p.: n.p., 1990. Very good plus.. Stunning and extensive collection of original artwork, album covers, and two lengthy reference books - all describing a vast imaginary world of 20th century rock-and-roll that never existed. Introducing the auto-fanfictive outsider art of The Indoor Kid - a Henry Darger of Greil Marcuses, Syd Barrett of Daisy Ashfords, Robert Christgau of Richard Dadds - who fell through the pages of ten thousand music magazines into a wonderland of his own making. The anonymous creator (hereafter The Artist) fashioned an entirely fictitious musical universe. From dozens of albums drawn and collaged over actual LPs (as well as what might perhaps best be described as concept art for those albums) to extensive accompanying commentaries whose tone owes a great deal both to zines of old and the once-popular Encyclopedias of Rock, the impression is one of carpeted suburban bedrooms and children longing to escape both backwards into lost decades and forwards into the autonomy and… Read More

San Francisco: The City Lights Pocket Bookshop, 1956. First edition. Very good plus.. Rare signed first edition of HOWL, inscribed in the year of publication, likely at one of Ginsberg's most infamous readings. The most likely opportunities for Ginsberg to sign copies of HOWL in 1956 were few and far between. First, the book was published late in the year. While Ferlinghetti sent Ginsberg "a few advance copies" in August of that year (Morgan, I GREET YOU, 5), and a small number of copies inscribed in September are known (the Sept. 17th issue of PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY lists the official publication date as Sept. 1st), HOWL seems to have only really begun to be distributed in October. Again, according to PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, "[t]he first edition passed through U.S. Customs in October, 1956" (April 29th 1957). In addition, both Gary Snyder and Louis Ginsberg report receiving copies they had ordered at the start of that month, likely from the earliest copies received at City Lights. Morgan's bibliography,… Read More

[Woodstock, NY]: n.p., 1969. First edition. Very good plus.. Wonderful and sizeable collection of over 100 photographs documenting a small group's road trip to Woodstock and weekend there. From road to campsite to town to wilderness, a well-ordered document of one group's Woodstock Festival experiences. While including several shots of stage construction and obligatory views of the immense festival crowds, as well as shots of vendors and close-ups of concert-goers, this collection is compelling for its personal focus. In a small number of pre-Woodstock photos dated July '69, a musical ensemble performs with trumpet, flute, keyboards, and guitar; in August, at the festival itself, the same ensemble plays on a small stage away from the main action (though not the official second stage). There are trips to the falls to frolic nude in the splendor of Nature; tents put up; drugs smoked; several attempts, finally successful, to light a fire; the Earthlight Theater's Aquarian Expo; a geodesic dome is… Read More

San Clemente, CA: Journal Concepts, Inc, 2017. First edition. Near fine or better.. Gorgeous 26-year unbroken run beginning with the debut issue of this elaborately-produced surfing magazine for the discerning enthusiast. 135-issue, 26-volume run of the highbrow surfer's bimonthly magazine, founded in 1992 as a quarterly publication following publishers Debbee and Steve Pezman's departure from SURFER MAGAZINE. Incorporating beautifully photographed travel features, profiles on such surfers, and technical articles on surfboard design, "opening an issue of the Journal was like stepping into a quiet, well-appointed library" (Warshaw). Conceived and produced as a collectible physical object and navigating an age of pivots to digital and print media crises, the Journal has survived for just short of 30 years while maintaining uncompromising quality standards and providing a home for long-form specialty journalism. Relying from the beginning on reader support over traditional advertising revenue (then an… Read More

New York: Jack Green, 1965. Near fine.. Complete run of one of the rarest and more unusual journals of the mimeo revolution. NEWSPAPER published seventeen issues from editor Green's Village apartment between 1957 and 1965, at which point Green ceased publication and refunded his subscribers. Best remembered today for almost single-handedly establishing the reputation of William Gaddis' THE RECOGNITIONS through Green's thorough and devastating deconstruction of the novel's negative reviews (originally published in Newspaper 12-14, reprinted as FIRE THE BASTARDS in 1992), as well as (most infamously) his 1962 full-page ad in the VILLAGE VOICE extolling the work's virtues, Green's eccentric journal also covered topics as diverse as Joyce and Faulkner, voting and peyote, William Reich (frequently), and insurance. "[P]art conceptual art, part political tract, and part 'zine [...] 'Green' used his underground tabloid for cultural commentary and deliciously satirical (yet superbly well-documented)… Read More

[Various]: n.p., 1927. First Edition. Collection by Peter R. Betz with detailed and captioned photographs of the Philippines Campaign, as well as many other experiences of a soldier's life during the WWII. Peter R. Betz (identified by his name and postwar address in the rear of two of the albums) served with the U.S. Army in the Pacific, and his photographs document that theater and the Philippines Campaign in detail. Nearly every photograph features Betz's neat, holograph captions, and the albums in general are highly organized, making for an incredibly thorough photographic biography of a soldier. The earliest photographs are dated 1927 and feature images of a Boy Scout troop and camping trip. Two of the albums also contain several images of the Betz's family, including parents, siblings, and cousins. Many of these family portraits are hand tinted. Betz's documentation of his Army career begins in 1937 and '38, with his service in Hawaii and Panama. The photographs regarding this time are casual… Read More

New York: n.p., 1970. Overall very good.. Collection of original art and collage from New York underground artist Kasoundra Kasoundra. Kasoundra moved to NYC in 1960 and quickly made herself a fixture among Village bohemians. Chelsea Hotel regular, illustrator to the Olympia Press, assistant to Edward Gorey and Joseph Cornell, co-dedicee of Germaine Greer's landmark THE FEMALE EUNUCH ("For Kasoundra, who makes magic out of skins and skeins and pens, who is never still, never unaware, riding her strange destiny in the wilderness of New York, loyal and bitter, as strong as a rope of steel and as soft as a sigh"), ALICE'S RESTAURANT actress, and Harry Smith collaborator, for decades Kasoundra wove her way Zelig-like through various downtown scenes. And the collection of works offered here in many ways captures her overlapping talents and associations. From a strikingly-altered copy of a Lou Reed LP and an exquisitely collaged Cornell-esque artist's book, to a pair of darkly subversive manuscript tales… Read More

Various (Fort Lewis, WA and The Pacific Theatre): n.p., 1944. Very good overall.. Freshly-discovered 8mm color film footage of World War II service - quite possibly the only entirely amateur WWII color footage by an American soldier extant - shot by Montana-native Charles W. Hash of the 41st Infantry Division. Hash (b. 26 May 1910, d. 26 Feb 1998) enlisted in the Army in 1930, served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, earning multiple decorations, including the Silver Star for actions in the Papuan Campaign. He was commissioned as a captain during WWII, commanding Company H (a rifle division) of the 163rd Infantry Regiment of the Montana National Guard. He later commanded the entire Army Reserve Forces of Northern California, and retired a Colonel in 1965. Despite his clear interest and skill, we find no evidence that Hash was officially involved in film at any point in his long and distinguished military career. Spread across four, approximately 200-foot reels of film (totaling some 45… Read More

[Reading, PA]: np, 1875. First Edition. Good.. An eccentric piece of 19th-century scholarly humor, the more remarkable for being the product of a small, provincial American city. The author, using the pseudonym of "Beaumont & Fletcher," purports to present a scholarly translation of a medieval Latin MS by one "Albigraecus Cacatus Pedo" (which loosely translates as "Dog Turd - Shit Foot") on the many shapes, varieties, and life-histories of the "Cactus Humanus," the author's euphemism for the singular unit of human excretion, or, if one prefers...the turd. Using the language and format of nineteenth-century scholarly botanical treatises (with which he is clearly familiar), the author delineates the taxonomy of various "Cactus" species, including sub-species and local variations. Throughout, the text is peppered with multilingual puns (Horace: "..."Exegi monumentum aere perennius"); broad double-entendres ("Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air"); and… Read More

[Queens, NY]: Salamander Editions [Joseph Cornell], 1954. Very good.. Scarce first edition, privately printed by Cornell in an edition of about 100 copies and given away to his friends as presents, augmented with a collaged element to the last page. This work was inspired by nineteenth-century opera singer Maria Malibran-Garcia and was produced with the same precision and care Cornell brought to his other productions. It is in many ways a Cornell work in book form, not only due to the collaged element present, but also in the appropriation of text, the use of a decorative headpiece from yet another book, and focusing on one of Cornell's signature obsessions. A box of leftover copies of MARIA was discovered with Cornell's estate and are seen on the market with some regularity. These are identifiable, however, by a lack of any collage element in the rear of the book, no blue tissue (which according to his diaries, Cornell labored to find just the right color of), and their generally fine condition… Read More

n.p. [Czechoslovakia?]: n.p., 1923. Fine.. Singularly striking work of folk art executed as a travel album that documents an extensive tour through the Vysoke Tatry mountain range in Slovakia, featuring hand-painted illuminated backgrounds and borders. The artist, here unnamed but presumably identified by the monogrammed and dated painting that ends this album, has filled each page and framed each image with elaborately marbled and intricately detailed elements. These expert illuminations, which seem influenced to some extent by Art Nouveau, exhibit a brilliant palette and a decidedly modern sense of design. A whirlwind of effects - from geological patterns that evoke the mountainous terrain of the journey, to pointillist enameling reminiscent of matryoshkas, and abstract geometrics that call to mind the burgeoning avant garde - all carefully arranged to accentuate colors, subjects, and other details in the mounted photos and postcards. Quite simply one of the most impressive and beautiful… Read More

[London, et al.]: [London Features International Press Agency], 1991. Near fine.. Archive of original photographs from the London Features International press agency, documenting David Bowie's career over an approximately 30-year span and focusing heavily on the later years of the 1970s. The earliest images show Bowie circa 1962-3 with his first band -- in performance, lounging alone with saxophone, or having his hair tousled by a Kon-rads bandmate in a posed group shot. From there, the archive progresses through the end of the 1980s, with the bulk of the collection concentrating on the mid- to late '70s as Bowie entered his Thin White Duke period and, through 1976-79, appeared to grow more glamorous and vampiric by the hour. Most images show Bowie in rehearsal or performance around the Station to Station / Berlin trilogy era(s) but a substantial minority capture him out and about, including one striking image from a Moscow street. Several pictures show Bowie with other famous (Keith Richards,… Read More

(Los Angeles): Edward Ruscha, 1966. First edition. Near fine in near fine slipcase.. Signed first edition, second issue of this quintessentially Los Angeles book, and one of the great photobooks of all time - with the original wrap-around band intact. Ruscha's fourth book, and arguably his finest, captures the Sunset Strip at a particular moment in time. A monumental and continuous accordion-fold scroll that opens to more than 25 feet, Ruscha documents - as the title suggests - the entirety of the Strip, with even numbered addresses running along the top the page and odd facing opposite along the bottom. "The effect is less like the fluid cinematic pan [...] than a series of jolting jump cuts [...] a ragged progression of gas stations, motels, apartment houses, parking lots, strip-malls, and honky-tonk signage" (Parr 182). A beautiful example of a notoriously fragile production. 7'' x 5.5''. Accordion-fold printed recto only and mounted in printed wrappers. Housed in original silver Mylar… Read More

Davis and Sacramento CA: Composer / Performer Edition, 1973. First edition. Very good plus to near fine overall.. Complete eleven-issue run of this arguably the greatest publication to emerge from the mid-century experimental music scene. Elaborately-produced and edited by Larry Austin (UC-Davis instructor and director of its New Music Ensemble), SOURCE aimed not only to document the experimental music scene that centered primarily on the West Coast (Mills College, etc.), but to expand the very idea of the musical score: "Our idea of a 'score' is broad. To us it is transcribed information about the composer's music-making process and contains a way of imparting this information to those who might recreate the composition" (Austin, issue 1). Much like frequent contributor John Cage's 1969 book NOTATIONS, SOURCE argued in part that the score should be viewed as much as a visual art as a musical one. This was reflected in the magazine's production: a Dick Higgins score riddled with actual bullet holes,… Read More

(New York): (Roaring Fork / Aspen Magazine), 1971. First edition. Very good plus to near fine overall.. Complete ten-issue run of this elaborately produced and hugely influential artists' magazine, one of the defining publications of the 1960s. Intricate and ornate, ASPEN appeared irregularly over the second half of the 1960s and through ten issues assembled one of the most impressive rosters of writers and artists to appear in any magazine of the time: J.G. Ballard (an excerpt from CRASH), Roland Barthes ("Death of the Author"), Samuel Beckett, William Burroughs, John Cage, John Cale, Merce Cunningham, Willem De Kooning, Duchamp, Allen Ginsberg, Philip Glass, Dan Graham, Al Hansen, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, John Lennon, Sol LeWitt, Roy Lichtenstein, George Maciunas, Angus MacLise, Marshall McLuhan, Jonas Mekas, Charlotte Moorman, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Robert Rauschenberg, Lou Reed, Ed Ruscha, Richard Serra, Susan Sontag, The Velvet Underground, Andy Warhol, La Monte Young, to name only a… Read More