The Altered Book Art Show

Yesterday Leslie took me to “The Altered Book Show” at the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art  in Novato, Ca. They are having an exhibit of art made from discarded  books. It was really a kick and I’m putting some pictures I took of the works here. All of the works are being auctioned off. Contact the museum for more information.

More Photographs from the Cody’s Authors Collection

Philip Whalen

This is another of my very old photographs. It was probably taken in the late 1970’s. Philip Whalen was one of the great Beat Poets. I believe that at the time this reading occurred, he had become a monk at the San Franciso Zen Center

Gary Snyder

Photograph from the mid 1980’s. A much younger and very handsome image of one of our great poets.

Susan Sontag

This photograph from the early 80’s.

Studs Terkel

From the Early 80’s. This picture of Studs captures his earthy charisma.  He was in the back room smoking a cigar. That was before smoking became illegal in California. After he left, we found the cigar butt in the ash tray. Somebody nailed it up to the wall with a sign saying “Studs Terkel’s Cigar”. The cigar remained on the wall for another 10 years.

Author Photographs and Memories from Cody’s Books

Khaled Hosseini

Over a 30 year period, I took these photographs of authors reading at Cody’s. I’m going to post some of them and try to conjure up my recollections. The photographs were all framed and resided on the walls of Cody’s  . When Cody’s closed in June, 2008, they seemed to have disappeared. Happily they have been recovered recently and given to the Berkeley Public Library .

This photograph was taken while Khaled was signing books at a Cody’s  event at the First Congregational Church in Berkeley. At a previous Cody’s event, a conversation with Michael Krasney, he was asked a particularly incisive question.   “The Kite Runner was  imbued with these universal, epic, almost Wagnerian themes of sin and redemption, how did a first time writer conceive of such an audacious project?”  Hosseini said that he really intended to write and intimate personal narrative. It somehow ended differently. And the rest is history. His themes  resonated with the deepest feelings of the peoples all over  the world and according gained a world audience.

Margaret Atwood

Circa 1980 at Cody’s Books. I don’t remember much about this event except that her travelling companion told me that Peggy thought I was cute.

Joseph Heller

 I took this picture   in 1979. This was one of the first photographs of the entire collection. When they set up the event, they said: “Don’t Publicize it.” So we didn’t and there were about 20 people there. Heller said he didn’t expect us to do such a great job of not publicizing. Fred Cody introduced him as a writer, who’s first novel, Catch 22, was modest book with some limited critical and commercial success. I wish my introductions had been that clever.