South 12th

Selections from the S. 12th personal library: signed copies of books.

• Adverbs, Daniel Hadler. “I wrote this book, [signed] Daniel Hadler, 7.XII.2007.” I really, really hated this book. The cutesy notation and the “XII” instead of “7” or “July” make it even worse; it’s like the author is making fun of me for owning it. If you feel I have the wrong idea about Mr. Hadler and you would like to own this book for your personal library, please email me and I’ll send it to you. No judgment; I understand that tastes vary. Just PayPal me a few dollars to send it FedEx.
• Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory, Mickey Hess.Mickey was the first writer I ever saw read short fiction in a bar, sometime in 2001. That’s maybe something you and I perhaps take for granted now, but it made quite an impact on me (as my continuted partnership with Herbach proves). This book is probably the most accurate account of what it is like to live and work and make art in Louisville (second most accurate: Bonny Billy’s Funtown Comedown). Mickey lives in Philadelphia now, so any of our Philly art kid readership should make a point to see him perform sometime. Either way, you should track down this book, because it’s just been republished and it’s very funny.
• The Third Freedom: Ending Hunger in Our Time, George McGovern. This was a birthday present from the St. Paul poet Paul D. Dickinson, who is also a book dealer.
• The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas, Davy Rothbart. “For Andy! Keep on pimpin’! Peace — Davy.” Why did Davy think I would ever stop pimpin’? Or, actually, why did he think I was pimpin’ in the first place? Davy Rothbart is the creator of Found magazine. There’s a blurb from Arthur Miller on the front.
• Elvis Presley, Bobbie Ann Mason. Just a signature on the title page. This is one of my very favorite books on Elvis, along with Greil Marcus’ Dead Elvis and Guralnick’s Careless Love. Mason describes her father seeing Elvis for the first time on the Sullivan show, and instead of the typical “what the hell is this trash” reaction you might expect, he slaps his knee and shouts “Boy, he’s good!”
• The Wrecking Crew, Thomas Frank. I went to go see Frank to a reading at a Unitarian church in Uptown the night Obama won the nomination. The note inside compliments me on the FDR lapel button I was wearing. People asked him a bunch of crazy questions, which he handled with aplomb. I am really glad to hear The Baffler is apparently returning.
• Drink This: Wine Made Simple, Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl. Grumdahl is a food writer here in Minneapolis, formerly of one of our storied alt-weeklies. Her farewell essay for that paper, on the subject of moving to Minneapolis from the east coast and winding up as a food writer, is perhaps the best transplant narrative I have ever read in newsprint (“Minnesota became, in my mind, an exotic land of rock and truth-telling. It really did.”). There’s a very nice note inside that mentions Facebook.
• Barney’s Crew, Sean Carswell. “Barney’s Crew,” the short story from which the title of this volume derives, is one of my favorite object lessons in building a really great joke throughout the course of a narrative and then blowing it up at the end; it unfolds perfectly. I met Carswell when he was on tour with Mickey Hess, and he wrote a nice note in the front. There’s a blurb from Howard Zinn on the back that says Carswell “will make you laugh and make you think.” I remember singing the Dr. Frink theme song to Carswell when I read this, which he only found partially funny.
• Cheap Novelties (The Pleasures of Urban Decay), Ben Katchor. This one is made out to “Andrew Sturdevant,” with a little drawing of Julius Knipl himself inside! You all know how I feel about Katchor. One of my most treasured possessions.
• The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg, Geoff Herbach. I don’t actually own an autographed copy of this, but Herbach lives ten feet away. I am certain it could be arranged.
  

Invariably used without permission.

A few years ago Nate came up for a visit, and we were at the Half Price Books in St. Louis Park. Nate was stocking up on Henry Roth paperbacks or whatever, and I was perusing a very handsome three-hundred page hardcover volume on Tijuana bibles. We’d been in the store for about an hour, and it was about time to leave.

“What’s that?” asked Nate.

“Oh, it’s a book on Tijuana bibles,” I told him. “Really interesting. Very titillating, very scholarly — that’s a rare combination.”

“Well, bring it up front and let’s go.”

I shook my head. “Naw, I’m not going to buy it,” I said, admiring a crude rendering of Cary Grant’s wang before reshelving it.

“Why not? It looks great.”

“It is, there’s some really good essays and really charming drawings of Cary Grant’s wang, but I don’t have any money.”

“How much is it?”

“Five dollars.”

“Five dollars? Are you kidding? You have five dollars! Come on! Buy it!”

“Naw, my personal library doesn’t need an informative, well-researched illustration-heavy book featuring drawings of Cary Grant’s wang,” I said dismissively. ”Let’s go.”

“Fine, but you are going to regret not buying that,” he warned.

I waved my hand and frowned and made that pfffft sound. We left the store and drove back down Excelsior Boulevard and the Miracle Mile, back into Minneapolis.

That was four years ago. There is not a week that goes by where I don’t think about that god-damned book.

Items currently in use as bookmarks.

• A Metro Transit transfer from March (Edwin Mullhouse, Steven Millhauser)
• A hot pink Post It note, folded in half, with directions to an address on Johnson Street in Northeast Minneapolis (The Pets, Bragi Olafsson)
• A pricetag from the Savers thrift store on Lake Street, for a 99-cent “bed and bath accessory.” (Atmospheric Disturbances, Rivka Galchen)
• A business card (doubling as a “key to the city”) from Mike Haeg, Mayor of Mt. Holly, Minnesota, with a handwritten message from Mayor Haeg on the reverse (Nigger: An Autobiography, Dick Gregory)
• The red plastic top for a jar of organic raisins (You Call It Madness: The Sensuous Song of the Crooner, Lenny Kaye)
• A receipt for Micron pens and Bristol pads from Art Materials, Inc. in Uptown Minneapolis, with handwritten instructions to save it for tax purposes (Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression, Morris Dickstein)

Selections from the S. 12th personal library: “The Ordering of Assholes,” by the Oberpriller Brothers.

A few years ago I was sitting at the bar at Nye’s Polonaise with a friend, making the bartender mix me obscure, fruity cocktails from the ’60s that I’d never heard of (the bartenders at Nye’s are almost all ancient Northeast natives that have a sense memory of every cocktail ever created, even the really farty ones, like a “Blood and Sand”). It was still pretty early in the evening, before the 8pm rush, so there weren’t many people around. Just me and my friend, some lone diners, the bartender, Gina the hostess, and two identical twins in their 50s, sitting a few seats down.

The identical twins were bickering about something or other, and the conversation began to spill over to our end of the bar. I forget what the dispute was about, but it came down basically to them politely accusing each other of being assholes, and then asking me and my friend for some arbitration on the matter. I don’t like to call people assholes because I’m a wuss (who else drinks a “Blood and Sand”?), but the twins were adamant. Cheerful, even.

“The thing is,” said one of them, “that we have studied this issue for a long time. We are both assholes. You are, too, probably.” These two brothers had a very elaborate personal taxonomy of assholes, identifying themselves as Number One Type assholes, and me as a Number Two Type, or possibly a Four. They began to describe their system in some detail.

“We’ve written a book on the subject,” said the other. “If you give us your address, we’ll send you a copy.”

They seemed like OK guys, so I gave them the address of the house in Phillips I was living in. They thanked me and both left the bar, and I went back to my Blood and Sand and forgot all about it.

Six months passed.

One day, I received a mysterious package in the mail. It was a copy of The Ordering of Assholes: A Useful Study by Craig Wiese and the Brothers Oberpriller.

The Ordering of Assholes is less a book than a pamphlet, but a fascinating one. It’s copyrighted 1989, though the “eleventh printing” I own seems to date from 2003. “We’ve thought about this very hard and our findings are important because the world is full of assholes,” it begins.

They then go on to identify four types of assholes:

1. Perfect Assholes: Guys who are totally conscious of being an asshole and enjoy being one.
2. Real Assholes: Guys who are assholes but don’t think they are.
3. Can Be an Asshole: Guys who the skills to be PERFECT ASSHOLES.
4. No Assholes: Guys who aren’t assholes, and don’t try to be, as in “he’s no asshole.”

“You’ll note we said ‘guys,” they clarify. “Females don’t count in the world of assholes. Most of them would be TWOs or FOURs anyway.” The distinctions being drawn here are rather delicate, of course, but I am fairly certain I’ve known at least a few female Number One types. Still, they wrote the book, not me.

Regardless, the brothers go on to identify the four types in some detail. “Perfect assholes” will often “do the exact opposite of what you tell them to do” and “make people very nervous at social gatherings where certain behavior patterns are expected.” “Real assholes” are “not a good thing to be”; they have “a self-perception that is wildly out of sync with reality.” Number Threes “are very successful drinkers because they can often become ONES for an entire evening.” Number Fours are “just nice,” and “very relaxed.”

The pamphlet concludes with this enigmatic statetment: “There are certain Hall of Fame assholes who have achieved the rare distinction of 5-STAR ASSHOLE status. There is no honor higher known to mortal man. Pay homage to this rare breed of asshole.” Who are they? We aren’t told. Presumably, once we’ve absorbed the lessons in the pamphlet, we’ll be able to identify them in the wild.

There is no contact information in the text, though the Brothers Oberpriller are written about here; turns out they were part of a twins study at the University in the 1950s.