[music playing] narrator: you know, i'mfree now, somehow. heading away from that lastchapter back east. it's my former life, you know,my former life that i leave behind me back there in newyork, new york city. i'd gone to school there. i-- i got a scholarship, took outsome loans, got a degree. despite the degree, i didn'thave any luck finding a job.
i ended up broke, broke in thebig city, and that's not a good feeling. i was living in a dark,strange place, and my roommate, who took careof the rent, he also happened to be an addict. he wanted the rentmoney quick. so i made an inventory ofeverything, anything i had that i could sell to pay therent, get a bite to eat. i had a lot of books.
yeah, books. during my college days, i hadbought a lot of books on the street from a street bookseller,a smiling southerner whose namei've now forgotten. i called him the book man. i decided, well, i woulddo the same. finally, i arrived at the spotthat i'd secretly chosen on my reconnoiterings theday before. [whistle blowing]
narrator: i penciled in myprices and laid out my books, and by god, they came. readers from the nearbyneighborhoods somehow sniffed out my books and descendedupon them. i was saved, snatched from thebrink of destitution by my friends goethe, camus,rimbaud, heidegger. well, i set up again the nextday, and again the next, and it wasn't long before i metothers, other booksellers from all over the city who had alsocome to west fourth street to
set up shop. -good morning, sir. male speaker (offscreen):ah. good morning. -what the fuck is happeningout here today? where is everybodyat this hour? it's going to rain, isn't it? soon. -it's going to rain. yeah, it's going to rain.
-it's really going to rain. it ain't gonna be like-- narrator: one of the firstbooksellers i met out there was everett. everett was an outdoorsman. he was impervious to the cold. he'd wear shorts and chineseslippers in all weather, every day of the year. rick.
rick sherman. rick was into timothy leary,robert anton wilson, so he was trying to rewire hisconsciousness through sheer non-exertion. he was an aspiring magician andhe'd practice his magic tricks at the book stand. helped us pass the time. and then there was alan. alan had some of the best booksaround, but he was a
little bit temperamental. -sir, you've looked atenough pictures. i think it's very strange. i'm joking. get the fuck out of here. -huh? -get out of here. -what? -just leave.
-you don't want tosell me a book? -absolutely not. narrator: um, who else? paul. paul was the youngest bookselleron the block, even younger than me, sohe was the kid. -jesus. i should have brushed myhair for this one. narrator: and then therewas al, the oldest
bookseller on the block. he sold only maps and atlases,so we called him al mappo. male speaker (offscreen): whatkind of cigars do you smoke? -um, philly blunts. narrator: polish joe, smokerof 100 cigarettes, had no regular spot. he was a drifter. he sold on west fourth street,3rd avenue, st. marks place, wherever the windwould blow him.
joe was often full of doubt andwas sometimes unlucky in the book trade. boris was from russia. he was a ruthless businessman. he disappeared a whileback and no one's heard from him since. thomas loved his books and hedreamed of opening his own bookstore one day. he took care of his books likethey were his children.
he'd find a beat up unwantedthe volume of pythagoras, erase all the blemishes, smoothout all the creases, meticulously repair the spine,add a dab of glue, and then give it a new home. i never once saw thomaseat or drink. he seemed to somehow derivehis nourishment from his books, living off of them as alichen lives off of a rock. all right. so there were a lot of otherbooksellers out there, but one
of the most successful, the onethat i learned the most from, was peter whitney,bookseller extraordinaire. a lot of people seekgood fortune. well, pete seemed to begood fortune himself. he had the touch. he was also a hard worker. -that one there, "treasury ofart and literature," if you it long enough, somebodywill buy it. these other two, these othertwo are going to be
real hard to sell. narrator: there wereothers, like zach. he lived in new jersey, landof the $0.10 book. tony was from the czech republicand he played a mean guitar on the side. emil told me escaped butnever said from where. and then there was myself, atrue bookman in my own right, although in the beginning,i was green. there was another street,another strip where
booksellers hung out, and thatwas only a few blocks away over on sixth avenue, theavenue of the americas. marv was the spiritual leader,the angel of the group. -up there. bam! man, i saw the lightfrom there on. i saw little devils flying outof my head because that's it. that was it. i didn't want nothing to dowith drinking and drugs no
more, no more. as a matter of fact,i was a recovering alcoholic right then. narrator: the guys out on sixthavenue had a different style, different method. they even had different books. but we were fundamentally thesame, being booksellers. -i want to sell youthese books. there are 65 books here.
everyone in university must readthese authors, otherwise they'll just leave here,like, illiterate. -you've got some goodtitles but, um, overall, it's a bad batch. -i just think a lot of themare not marketable, a high percentage of them. not that they're bad. and you know, when i goto people's houses and apartments, i saythe same thing.
just because i'm not buying it,it's not a reflection of your taste or the factthat the books are-- are bad in any way. it's just a reflection ofwhat i think i can sell. -offer the guy $4 for all thesebooks right here because i've got to make some money. male speaker (offscreen):yeah. -you understand? see, i'm offering $4 for them.
male speaker (offscreen):hey chief? hey chief? -we ain't got no money. we try and make money. -they're cheap. they are fucking cheap. [interposing voices] -one, two, three, four, five,six, seven, eight, nine. that'll be $1.80.
narrator: and so the streetbecame a market, a selling ground like the ancient souk. innocent street corners allaround the city were transformed into atomsof commerce. -check them out. $2.00. -hey, here we go. we got something. -what the hell would youcall a thing like this? it's got a lot of pictures,like, um--
male speaker (offscreen):encyclopedia? -no, no, no, not a "cyclopedia."like, um, photography like. male speaker (offscreen): ididn't see these books. -oh yeah? they were hidden. -they've been there weeks, allthe time i've come here? -no, i've had themabout a week. -and i came throughhere and i never--
male speaker (offscreen):what are they? -they're um-- it's a set ofseries of eastern religion. you see alan watts here? it's a three volume set. -well, i'll tell you what. i'll give you this oneif you pay full price for these three. give me $25 for the three. male speaker (offscreen): oh.
male speaker (offscreen):they came down here to harass us today-- harass us. here, take these outof my hands. male speaker (offscreen):how are you, ma'am? -fine, thank you. male speaker (offscreen): whatare you looking for today? -nothing special. just looking.
-[speaking french]. -is that a camera? i'm just taking some pictures. -of me? -watch my stuff whilei chicken sandwich. male speaker (offscreen):chicken sandwich? -it's the preferred lunch offourth street booksellers. male speaker (offscreen):what is that? -chicken sandwich withwhite sauce.
male speaker (offscreen):how'd you do? -i didn't do very well. it was kind of short. male speaker (offscreen):i know. same here. i was down on the end, but ididn't do very well at all. -hey, ja-- um, what do you call it? zachary said he didwell or something.
male speaker (offscreen):really? -he said he prepared. he had like all kinds ofillustrated books or things like that, you know? narrator: after a day or two ofselling, your table would grow stale, and it was timeto get more books, time to hunt again. more books was the mantra ofthe street bookseller. i went with peter whitney on hisrounds of new jersey, land
of $0.10 book. -seen books anywhere? -um, i'm not really lookingfor them but-- -well, they're around. it's all junk. male speaker (offscreen):where? -i can tell you from here, it'sall junk popular fiction. if i find three or four booksin here, i'll be lucky. looks like today is goingto be a washout.
why don't we takena dean koontz. there's a popular fictionyou can sell. woman (on tv): she always findsthese sorry guys that are no good for her, and idecided, i was like, well if i can find her a man that wouldbe like a fantasy to her, maybe she would feel betterabout herself and-- -ferlinghetti. male speaker (offscreen):what's that? male speaker (offscreen):hidden away, huh?
-uh-huh, as if it weresomething obscene. narrator: but they were morethan just inanimate objects. i mean, they had a life. they had a soul. and the beauty of the bookgame was we didn't need a license to sell them thanks tothe good old first amendment of the united statesconstitution because the first amendment guarantees everyamerican's right to distribute literature, and also protectsour freedom of speech.
sure, the first amendment is agreat idea, but all i really wanted to do was hang out,read books, and make $1. -between leonard and jerry, wewere able to make it through that awful afternoon, and iwas able to fly out that evening to my father, warmed bytheir love and affection. that's what makes thisepisode my favorite. narrator: now what is that? what's that from? "star trek memoirs?"
-"star trek memories." -i'll sell "jonathan livingstonseagull" or adolf hitler, whichever you like. um, people will buy it, it'sgood to them, they have a right to read it. -um you have anything on,um, floral arranging? -nietzsche goes very quickly. sometimes you can'tfind him out here. they're all sold out iswhat it amounts to.
-no, these guys are all right. they might be cheap, butthey're all right. you know they gotto be all right. look who they got on theirtable, elvis presley. -do you know anybody who dealsin elvis memorabilia? you know, books and magazinesand stuff? -well, you know-- hp lovecraft. narrator: different books soldin different parts of town.
on sixth avenue, youhad more comic books and porno magazines. west fourth street was heavyinto literature, philosophy, and psychology. -which is the bestseller? um, well, let's see. what's the bestsellers? "naked lunch" is a bestseller. "on the road" is good.
male speaker (offscreen):the beats. -the beats, yeah. male speaker (offscreen):does beat and occult stuff sell best? male speaker (offscreen):not really. fiction sells best,doesn't it? male speaker (offscreen):yeah, fiction. male speaker (offscreen):fiction and bad religion. -fiction and bad religion.
-kurt vonnegut. they're-- they're buying familiar stuff. they're buying familiar books. or if you have really kick assreligion, philosophy, like dave and alan up there, realheavyweight stuff. male speaker (offscreen): yeah -then yeah, of courseyou'll set that. to like the yeah guy.
you know the professor, the guywho comes around with a topcoat on? he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah. -you mean i actually stood thereand i sell these things, these books, they're called? -oh. yeah, books are going to makea comeback, but right now, books are heading theway of the opera. it's like the opera.
-hi. female speaker (offscreen):hi. -how are you? male speaker (offscreen):what did you buy, ma'am? -um, eudora welty. -excellent. -"the golden apples" -it's a good day when yousell eudora welty. it's nice.
-really? -right there, "the greatgatsby." a structural novel, and a depiction of america at aturning point in the 1920's. it was the greatest american-- yeah, i mean, you've got to givea word to "moby dick." -what is this? is this like they stoleit out of the coffin? male speaker (offscreen): no,what it said-- what it says is some research that you know,christ vanished between 12,
the age of 12 and 30, andnothing's really written about what he did during those years,though there's records of him in-- in tibetand in india, studying, um, body mastery. like he became a yogi. -black and white magic. male speaker (offscreen):technology. male speaker (offscreen): "thesecret of atlantis." "the secret of atlantis."
male speaker (offscreen):that's right, "secret of atlantis" -which i haven'tseen out here. see, i haven't seenthe secret. see, if i had seen it before andbought it, then i wouldn't have bought it from you. -"the secret of atlantis." -um, castenadas-- yeah, two castenadas.
and, um, let's see, "animalfarm" and "catcher in the rye." -tom robbins, skinnylegs and all. -biofeedback. self regulation. narrator: found a lot ofinteresting things in books that i've sold-- love letters, oldtrain tickets. once i had a volume of "ulysses"with a four leaf
clover between every page. female speaker (offscreen):which means they-- they actually made the recipes morethan once, plenty of stains. made-- oh-- this one not worth the effort. this no. it was made but not liked. narrator: we weren't all asobsessed with books as thomas.
we didn't all love books,but most of us at least liked books. they had a weight, a feel. they had a smell. they had a soul, made them seemsomehow alive, and that's why i needed to bearound them. that's what our customerswent for, too. our customers. -i don't know.
if you consider the, um, thebuyer to be somewhat of an addict, which i think a lot ofus are, we'd probably just find another addiction. i don't want to call it a-- a sickness, you know. i started to say it's asickness, but i would say it's more like, um, somewherebetween a passion and a compulsion, you know? narrator: well, it wasn't longbefore i became a friendly
neighborhood bookseller,and soon i attracted a group of regulars. male speaker (offscreen):how are you? -how's everything? male speaker (offscreen):good. how are you doing? -all right. anything new with the film? male speaker (offscreen): um--
-what are you doingon bloomsday? you'll be around or-- male speaker (offscreen):i don't know. i want to check out one ofthose marathon readings. -i'd be into that. -i don't know if youever saw it. there's a book-- well, "the subterraneans,"i'm sure you know. and one of the editions,paperback in 1966, was a
cheapy grove press, andi got paid $35 to model for the cover. jason just asked whatbookstore i like? haiku. good zen, not dt suzuki oracademic zen, koans. male speaker (offscreen): well,we want it on film. -yeah, well. male speaker (offscreen):two excellent choices. female speaker (offscreen): letme read in english now?
male speaker (offscreen):oh yeah? female speaker (offscreen):yeah. male speaker (offscreen):instead of? female speaker (offscreen):portuguese. male speaker (offscreen): ah. out of $20? -just another the case of thekind of magnetism that a bookseller projects, kindof pulling in a-- a-- a woman, and then making herescort or companion feel
very uncomfortable. i don't claim to feel proud ofit or even know where it comes from, but it's somethingyou have to live with. male speaker (offscreen): whydo you like buying from the booksellers? -because i'm a seekerof knowledge. i want to know all the knowledgein the universe. female speaker (offscreen): iwas right in the middle of it about two weeks agoand i lost it.
male speaker (offscreen): yeah,whatever it is, you know. -oh, this one's great. that one's great. -especially when you have asentence like, "nietzsche proudly despises his ownemotional illusions." narrator: miriam was one ofour most loyal customers. she was a historian,a true scholar. she had been working 20 yearsto correct the chronology of
history preceding the conquestsof alexander the great, and thereby hoped todetermine when and if the word of god might once againreach the ears of modern day prophets. -um, "ancillate's classicalreading," i got that from dave. "nature of greekmyths" from dave. "diogenes laertes." i gotthat from thomas. "human sacrifice in historyand today." i think i got this from tony.
looks like tony to me. this, i got from you, "amanual of spherical and practical astronomy,"two volumes. then i had this book that ibought from everett, which smelt a little mildewywhen i bought it. -and, um, i did everythingi could think of. i cleaned it off with,um alcohol. -and i put it in baking soda orboric acid or whatever it is, and it still smells.
you can't get ridof the smell. the revolution in physics." narrator: but of course, noteveryone who came to the book stand was a pleasureto deal with. male speaker (offscreen): don'tlean on the table, man. it's going to break the table. you know what i mean? -i have been over here fivetimes looking for you. -yeah, the weather's been bad.
but i'll be-- -no, the days that i came out,the weather was nice. -well, i can't be hereevery day, you know? yeah. was only last friday. you were going to come afterthe weekend on monday. -i know, and i did. -yeah. -and you weren't here.
and i came on tuesday,you weren't here. -i came on wednesday,you weren't here. i came on thursday,you weren't here. i was out a few of those days. did you come in the mornings? -yes. well i-- male speaker (offscreen):i'm there to make money. -all right?
male speaker (offscreen):sure. not here for-- -nobody, they onlycome around-- they only come around lookingfor bargains. -that's-- you knowwhat i mean? it's bargain day forthem, you know. only when it's convenient forthem, they come around, but it don't work like that. you come around everytime, you know?
male speaker (offscreen): yeah,it was a mistake, the price tags. -oh, come on. male speaker (offscreen):we bought-- i am not kidding. we bought these froma book dealer. -it was $4.50 in the back. -right. that's what we paid for it.
exactly. i mean, my philosophy is reallyyou didn't buy it when you put it back. i was definitely going to sellit to you for $7.50 because it was too late, as far as i wasconcerned, not to sell it, but it's-- you did put itback and walk away. narrator: but that was thenature of the beast. the book table was opento any and all comers. -there's louis the loser.
-what the fuck you doinghere with that camera? -aha. what about the romulans who weretrying to kill all the members of the enterprise-- male speaker (offscreen): thisguy has been here reading this book for about 20 minutes andi want him to buy it because if he buys it, i could leave,feel good about myself. so if he buys it,i'm out of here. but he really should buy it.
he's almost read thewhole thing. -yeah, it's a good one. you too. i could see his point. why should he buy it? i mean, he's read it. no matter how many times ithappens, it always hits like a punch to the heart. i could feel the money leavingtheir wallet and going into
mine, and then, um,something happens. you know, a butterfly flaps itswings in argentina, and then i don't makethe sale here. narrator: and so the customerswere our mirror image, our reflection, and without them,we wouldn't be out there in the first place. if there were no demand forour books, we'd just be standing around. as boris used to say, we're notout here to get a suntan.
we're here to make money. how much did we make? well, on a slow day, youmight not make $50. on a good day, you might makea few hundred, depending on your books, the weather,and your luck. -how you-- how you, um,calculate a day is not necessarily much money youmake, but how-- how the sales are going. if it's going constantly, salehere, sale there, you know, a
sale every five minutes,you know. -it's good. ok, now see, we go on twodifferent times of day, three different times, really. ok now, we're going in themorning time until about 12:00, and that's called likegetting the scrap money. -$6. -but see, 12:00-- between 12:00 and 5:00 is reallyslow, so this is the
second time period, afterfive o'clock. after five o'clock is whenpeople get off, so we call it rush hour crowd. male speaker (offscreen):oh, oh. we've got a sale. somebody's going to buy. -if it's kind of like i'm in aslow rush hour from 5:00 to 7:00, 8:00, we might stay from8:00 to 10:00, stay for the late crowd.
and the late crowd is usuallyvery brisk, a brisk period of time, and it might last fromhalf an hour to an hour. and it usually starts from about9:00, sometimes 8:30. but mainly about ten o'clock,you know it's over with if you don't have no money. -seven, eight, nine, ten, imade my goal, two bills. two bills. we got $200. i did all right.
-yeah, this is one. this is two. he can go inside andwalk back with us. the homeless man, theyget to be a big man. i can't be homeless. i'm going with john gotti andmartin luther king and president kennedy. i'm going with the big guys. i have to vote this year.
narrator: we'd worked hard. we'd stood out in the elementsall day, dealt with the riff raff, grime of the city. it's almost volcanic, the way itsettles on the back of your neck and on your books. some booksellers would go overto ray's bookstore after work. ray was a street booksellerhimself. -what i'm saying is that if youwant to learn something about it, you should grab achair and sit down and spend
some time with it, andsee if you like it. -you know what it is? i'll tell you, to be quitehonest with you, as much as i do want to expand my mindand grow, i have a very hard time reading. -no, there's a song called "thewreck of the old" or "the great southern railroad." thatsong was a very true song. in 1910, that happened. wait, what state are you from?
-brooklyn. narrator: and then it was timeto go to bed and dream of books and the street like weall did, and get ready for the next day. male speaker (offscreen):this has got to be it. -well, we can take thisemily dickinson. this is a german one. well, it seems to be abouthitler youth, you know? it's an old book, seems tobe about hitler youth.
it's got pictures in there. it's in german. i can't read it. 1939. but, um, all right. we'll take it for $1. male speaker (offscreen): whatare you going to do with them? -i collect, um, toads. male speaker (offscreen):live or dead?
narrator: i went with pete backto his loft in newark. this was the heart of hisbookselling operation. male speaker (offscreen):what is it? -snake skins. shedded snake skins. this is the skull of a frogmade out of shoe trees and chair parts. you've got sculptures heremade out of books. over here, you have a wholesection on insects.
more books on snakes, birds ofprey, owls, beetles, ants, breughel, bosch, cornell, ernst,magritte, man ray, andre breton, hans bellmer,molinier. arcimboldo. male speaker (offscreen): seeyou have in arcimboldo here a face out of fig leavesand potatoes and, um, pumpkins and squash. -so we've combined these squash plants here in a terrarium.
for three years now, they'vebeen growing here, since there was a sculpture here. can you see the crickets singingat the front of the terrarium there? if i'm bored, and had a hardday, i worked, sometimes i just come to the studio andfiddle with books a little bit and watch the terrariums anddon't really get to any particular art project. male speaker (offscreen): is thetoad on top of the skull
sort of thing? well, there's an interestingstory that goes with that. some time ago, in this jar,which you see nothing right now, i had a toad. it was in this terrariumand was sick. it was the firstone i'd gotten. something didn't seem right. so when it didn't seem veryhealthy, i moved it away from the other toads into aterrarium by itself.
a couple weeks later,it was dead. i said, oh. it looked all dried out and kindof a nice toad specimen. let me put it in a jar and keepit as a specimen, a relic of my toad adventures. well, about a week later, ilooked in the jar and the toad had completely turned to ablack mush, and crawling around inside the mushwere these maggots. so i did a little research inmy insects books, of course.
there's a kind of a fly thatlays its eggs in the nostrils of a toad or a frog and theneats it from the inside out, and this is the remains of thetoad that was eaten by the maggots inside out. so we placed it in the reliquaryhere inside a skull. narrator: so how does abookseller on the street become a bookselleron the street? i mean, we all startedas innocent, pristine young babies.
even boris was a babyonce, you know? as i continued my adventuresin the book trade, i eventually learned everybody'sstory. different stories, true, butalso still the same. -a neighbor of mine threw out awhole library of books, so i took that as a sign from, um--not a sign from above, because his apartment is below mine,so a sign from below that i should start going for thebook trade for a while. -there used to bea pizza shop.
it's now a bar and restaurantright near the corner of ninth street and sixth avenue. i was panhandling. and one guy came up to me andsaid, this is his block. then a lot of old ladieskeep coming up to me, that's his block. no, you're not supposed topanhandle over there. then the guy came up to me andsaid, yo, here's a bunch of comic books.
why don't you go try and sellit and get off my corner? -and i love books. i'm a bibliophile. so if i were going to beretailing any piece of merchandise, i couldn't seedoing anything other than books. -well now, the wholething is freedom. you do what you want, youdon't have to listen. for instance, i was verycaught up in--
in the so-calledamerican dream. i had inherited it frommy parents, a fierce-- though i was-- though i wasterribly drug addicted for many, many years, ihad inherited-- in fact, the reason i was drugaddicted was because i had inherited this fierce desireto be part of the american dream and work within thesystem, and i hated going to work every day. male speaker (offscreen):what did you do?
-i hated-- i sold-- i've been a stockbroker,sold commodity options. -i was working in newyork public library. male speaker (offscreen):and how was that? -i was horrified at, for theregular libraries, how many bad books they wouldbuy, genre novels. you know, it was unfortunatelya real reflection of, um, the sort of 100 channel societythat we now live in.
-i guess about 15 years ago wheni started doing collage, um, i found that i couldn'tget enough materials so i started going to book sales,public library, looking for collage material. of course, at the sametime, i started buying books for myself. when i realized people wereselling books on the street, i also started buying with theidea that i might resell them. male speaker (offscreen): howdid thomas get on the street?
male speaker (offscreen):mm-hm. male speaker (offscreen):probably like the rest of us. he's a book maniac. he couldn't get to work ontime, and he had too many -he should read a goodbook, smoke a good cigarette, you know? this is the cafeof the outside. narrator: what is it that bringsstrangers to the same place to spend some timetogether and then move on,
like you and me heretogether right now? is it chance or fate? what is it that brought borisfrom russia, tony from the czech republic, ron fromjamaica, thomas from california, neilfrom the south. neil. yeah, that was his name, neil. that was the southerner. huh.
and i'd grown up in ohio in asmall town a long way from the city, and i never thoughti'd end up on the street selling my books. but at least i wasmy own boss. i was working for myself and imade cash in my hand at the end of the day. you start off naive andthen you change into something else. for example, in the beginning,i didn't know
george eliot was a woman. i mean, her name is,you know, george. but after a while, a coupleseasons of selling books, one year, two years pass, and boom,i could talk about all my books expertly, even theones i hadn't read. it's that sixth sense thatyou get when you do something long enough. you become what you do and youknow it like the back of your hand, just like anyoccupation.
for example, there are thetools of the trade. we had our own tools-- elmer's glue, razorblades, rubbing alcohol, scissors, tape. it ran the gamut. and that's when the whole gigbecame a science and an art. male speaker (offscreen): hereyou have hydrators from old refrigerators, metalhydrators. they work real nice becausethey don't rub.
they're a very smooth surface. narrator: but banana boxes werethe traditional method for storing books. male speaker (offscreen): whydo you use banana boxes? male speaker (offscreen): why? it's just a tradition. male speaker (offscreen): it'sjust a silly tradition? -they work well. -they're free, they'resturdy, and i like
little pictures of bananas. cheer me up. narrator: thomas hadmore books than the rest of us combined. he kept them in a specialclimate controlled storage room, piled high inbanana boxes. male speaker (offscreen):del monte. male speaker (offscreen):you use del monte banana boxes too?
male speaker (offscreen): no. male speaker (offscreen): didyou ever in your life, knowingly or unknowingly, usedel monte banana boxes? yes or no? -i hope not. male speaker (offscreen):don't try to avoid the question. narrator: it became more andmore of a hustle, and the deeper i got into it, the moreintricate became the tricks of
the trade, which i soonlearned from the other booksellers. male speaker (offscreen): howdoes a bag affect the price? -um it makes the price. -well, that's another point. that's definitely another point,the psychology of it. sure. male speaker (offscreen):which is? -which is that you've made itspecial by wrapping it, so
therefore it's worth more andyou can get more for it. it looks different from theother books on your stand. it's been given a special auraby putting plastic on it and making it inaccessible. -you take any book thatobviously you know you're not going to get $2 for, so henceyou wrap it in plastic, and then you can sell it for waymore than it's worth. male speaker (offscreen): it'sa plastic society, man. -exactly.
$2, plastic, now $8. now $8. -bible? -i like a bible on the table. well, for some reason, when abible is on the table, it makes the table thatmuch better. for some reason, thetable just sells-- male speaker (offscreen):energizes. -yeah, it energizes.
i don't know why it is. maybe it's, i don't know,because i feel that way, this happens. narrator: all thesetricks, huh. in the beginning, i wonderedif all these tricks weren't somehow immoral. -immoral? what are morals? morals are absurditiescreated by religion.
we quote the divine marquis. he says, you know, what actuallyis religion but a means whereby the mightyenslave the weak? how does the latter believetheir manacles are of a divine origin, and what does worshipconsist of but grotesque ceremonies? and who could be more barbaricthan the originator of christianity? anyway.
narrator: i got rid of theshopping cart and i bought a car, and once a week, i'd goupstate to visit my connection at the friends of the library. it was my secret source. i won't tell you exactlywhere it is because it's still a secret. -hello. is june here? -she's in the back?
-she's outside. morning. she's in the back. male speaker (offscreen): soyou get that delivery in or you still waitingfor that one? -no. we just got-- we justgot our delivery. where are those books? -ok, here.
i'll show you. keep telling-- telling-- you to get a crutchor something. -i know. i'll fix it sometime. i'll fix it. -ok? boy.
well-- -that's it. -once again-- -all right, bye bye. thanks for the books. -thank you. -i'll see you soon, of course. -bye. give my best to your motherwhen you talk to her.
-yep. -and now rick wouldoften accompany me on my hunt for books. he was learning the ropes fromme, just as i had learned from the others, often providingleads of his own. male speaker (offscreen):shit, i don't know. he said there'd be threegas stations. male speaker (offscreen):oh man. i should have talked to him.
male speaker (offscreen):i dragged these directions out of him. i made him give me overand over, give me more and more detail. male speaker (offscreen):excuse me. sir? excuse me, sir. male speaker (offscreen):the gas station's right down there.
male speaker (offscreen): isthere three gas stations? male speaker (offscreen):yeah, there's a bunch. there's a russian dinerover there. one, there's two,there's three. yeah, take a left here. if we get-- if we getto the guard house, we've gone too far. male speaker (offscreen):the guard house? male speaker (offscreen):yeah, if we
get to a guard house. it's up a hill. look for johnson court. this is it. we've gone too far. male speaker (offscreen):we have gone too far. this is the guard house. male speaker (offscreen):so where do i go? male speaker (offscreen):turn round.
see? this is a sign thatwe have to-- [horn honks] -you think $25 is unreasonablefor this? -chagall. male speaker (offscreen):chagall? male speaker (offscreen): aw,see if you can get $25. why not? what were you thinking?
male speaker (offscreen): goton these boots-- these heavy-duty boots and shit. see that shit, man? got on two hoods. see, i got two hoods on. look here, you see i'vegot one hood and another one, you see? male speaker (offscreen): youcouldn't keep a watch on these books for a few minuteswhile i go water the
hole across the street? male speaker (offscreen):water the hole? what do you mean, take a leak? -yeah, take a leak and geta slice of pizza, too. male speaker (offscreen):all right. -i'll be right back. male speaker (offscreen):i'll be here. -it's a cold one today. i did pretty good,considering.
male speaker (offscreen):yeah? what did you do? -$185. -i was hoping to make $200, buti didn't really expect to. i would have settled for $100if that's all i could get. i think my limit is about $30,but i look for a day when it's going to get up to $40. we're talking aboutthe high, not-- this time in the evening, it'sgotten colder than that.
the high was supposed to be 40something today but if it's gone and i haven't had any--been able to work for a week because it's been in the 20's,i get a day that the high is going to be 30, i'll be outhere if i need the money. narrator: so, um, where did wego at night when it got too cold, we booksellers? weren't we just homeless bums? i couldn't think of anyone outon west fourth street that didn't have a place to go, andi used to think that some of
the guys on sixth avenuewere homeless until marv told me otherwise. -like, like-- people likeishmael, rock, they hard core, you know, um, i wouldn't callthem homeless people, but, um, what's a good word for them? people who live out-- theydon't live in a home. they live outside, but they cango inside any kind of way they want to, even ifthey can buy them-- ishmael don't even wantto go inside.
he can always afford to get aroom out here, like everybody else, out here, they'vegotten a room over in the white house. you know-- male speaker (offscreen):what's the white house? -white house is like aflop-- flop house. narrator: eventually, though,that fateful winter day would arrive, the coldest of the cold,and view that selling was over for that season.
some of us went awayfor the winter. i went out to new mexico oneyear, worked on a western. but if you stayed in the city,you had to resort to alternate means of making a living. -what kind of sink is the otherplace going to have? female speaker (offscreen):much better. -much better than this? -it's more like 160,much better sink. pete (offscreen): thisis kind of shallow.
-it's too shallow. then we do the shampoo. narrator: pete had builtup a regular clientele. he'd been cleaning some of thesame cats for 15 years or so. -no estate sales, no housesales this time of year. in a week or two, they'llstart again. the book sales are pretty muchgone until spring, so-- -here we go. come on, big boy.
-this is sherlock holmes. he's 17. -wow. that's not 17 pounds,like rick's cat. narrator: and rick, who hadbeen practicing his magic tricks, broke out his deck ofcards, got a haircut, and landed a few gigs. -so no? like this.
pick any one of these cards. some go this way, somego that way. some go up, some go down. susan, this is your card. -that tv reception is justnot going to do. but you know, for my lastcigarette, i really don't want to be futzing with it. narrator: so another year hadcome and gone in what seemed like the blink of an eye, andour roman calendar moved
forward one more year. male speaker (offscreen):turn it over. turn it over. because we always hunting. we go out and hunt for books. we don't wait for people tobring books to us to sell us, you understand? we go out and go get stuff, andwe always get new stuff. so why don't-- why we're goingto keep the old stuff?
we're not going tohave any room. -yeah, the old stuff is notgoing to sell, and if we don't sell the last three days,why keep them? male speaker (offscreen): yeah,because we're always going to get stuff. -hope for luck thatit's gonna sell? -those guy, the reason why theystick to their prices, too, is because theybuy the stuff. they put out money toget their stuff.
male speaker (offscreen):yeah, right? -we don't put out anymoney to get our stuff most of the time. we go out and get-- male speaker (offscreen):hunt for it. male speaker (offscreen):that's how we work with a partner. one stays and makes the sales,the other one goes out and gets the stuff.
male speaker (offscreen):you understand? male speaker (offscreen):right, right, right. -we want to-- we want to keep goingout and get stuff. if we keep the old stuff, a lotof the stuff that we don't think might didn't work out,iffy stuff, like iffy, if it might sell tomorrow, it mightdiscourage us from going out because we might look and say,oh, we've got a lot of stuff. so what we do, we weed it out.
we weed out all the iffy stuffat the end of the day and keep only the thing that we're sureis going to sell tomorrow. -this is at least two, see? this is about $10 worthof stuff right here? see what i'm saying? male speaker (offscreen):how much? -$10. male speaker (offscreen):excellent. -at least $10, at least.
i don't want you following me. male speaker (offscreen): youdon't want me following you? male speaker (offscreen): huh? -you don't want mefollowing you? male speaker (offscreen):yeah, you guys all in. you've got enough. oh, now come on now, grady. male speaker (offscreen): ithought you'd be on that god damn street.
male speaker (offscreen):no, no, no, no, no. you go on then. go on then. don't let me see you nomore, you hear me? male speaker (offscreen):you got all this right here in one place? -over there, down thenext street over. not this street, but next--not broadway but-- male speaker (offscreen):yeah, but that's old.
-i don't care. i don't care nothing aboutit being old, marvin. still get $2 or $3 forthe motherfucker. i don't care how old it is. -he'd been sober for a year anda half, a little bit more than a year and a half, henever hunted before that. and then once he gotsober, he said, oh shit, what am i doing? i'm missing the boat.
he picked up on it real quick. huh? male speaker (offscreen): betterto be the bull than-- -than be bullied by. male speaker (offscreen):bullied by the bull. -yeah, bullied by the bullbecause you could have a sort of comfortability because thebull will-- like a corporation or outfit where, youknow, where people work, they settle for--
let's say, they saya lifetime. you work here 20 years,you get retirement. but how often are youhearing downsizing? how often are you hearingcompanies going out of business? how often are you hearing,um, you have to have more education to-- to-- to continuein your phase and your field? oh man.
forget all that. narrator: well, winter finallygave way to spring, and with it came the idiot's frightfullaughter. springtime, my favoriteseason. time of haircuts, timeto get outside. -look at this motherfuckerright here. look at this. male speaker (offscreen):it's a good shot. ouch.
-hi, guy. bobby, bobby. -whoa, nice butt. nice butt. you're so cute. let me record you. you're so-- you look so good. let me see your butt. oh!
female speaker (offscreen):oh, he did show it to you. female speaker (offscreen):let me see, let me see. deborah. female speaker (offscreen):oh, we're going to have some fun. female speaker (offscreen):mr. metal man. because you had your doubtsbefore that he would even-- male speaker (offscreen):get through the winter. male speaker (offscreen): but sohe has, and i'd say he's on
a plateau now. hello. how are you? male speaker (offscreen):everett. how you doing, man? male speaker (offscreen): that'swashington square park. where do-- where do you wantto go greenwich village? -i don't know, justfor a visit. male speaker (offscreen):uh-huh.
um, you might want to godown to bleeker street. -you've got-- there's something odd. it must be-- i can see something inyour-- in your-- well, that should catch thebeauty-- you should catch the beautiful color of thiscustomer's hat. thank you very much. male speaker (offscreen):we really like your hat.
nice hat. male speaker (offscreen):nice color. i like it, too. i don't think i couldpull it off, but-- -you might, you might. -with the right color hat. male speaker (offscreen):that was the '70s. -hi, jason. do you think i--
i'll be ok in a sweatshirt? -i mean a t-shirt's a t-shirt. do you have like an extrasweatshirt or something? male speaker (offscreen):i've to a sweater. -got a sweater? my car got towed last night. male speaker (offscreen):why'd they take it? i've got to call the sheriff'soffice today. didn't get a chance yet.
male speaker (offscreen):the sheriff took it? -rosco p. coltrane took it. coo, coo, coo, coo. he found moonshinein the back. i'm always trying tofight the system. male speaker (offscreen):ready for the book sale? -i only got $20. male speaker (offscreen): well,the books are a dime, so don't worry about it.
-the cormack mccarthywas the unusual one. -yeah, in new york, ithink it goes better than it does elsewhere. male speaker (offscreen): nice,clean copy of "on the road." looks prettybleak, huh? we got jim and we'vegot everett. that looks like it. male speaker (offscreen):there's tony. male speaker (offscreen):tony.
jim, everett, tony and steve,all clustered here around the, um, mailbox. narrator: we didn't know it yet,but the mayor had just implemented a plan for the citycalled quality of life, and part of his plan involvedcleaning up the streets, getting rid of undesirableelements. we noticed mysterious orangeand yellow lines suddenly appearing on the curb sideswhere we sold our books. -yellow lines is, um, that'swhere they want everybody to
set up at, right-- right betweenthe lines because they measured it according to them. anything that's in between thesenew lines is a certain feet away from the door. [shouting] -i'm not going, you big queer. narrator: and we could sense,very subtly at first, that the streets had become lessfriendly somehow. -that looks like it couldpossibly fly.
seems to have a head injury. -number one, number one. i tie 'em-- i tie 'em to a chair. i tie 'em to a chair,their arms and their legs, all right? then i start cutting them inlittle places, let 'em bleed in all different places. out of $5?
-i drain their bloodright out of them. i roast those bastards. i burn then alive. that what i would do. male speaker (offscreen):yeah, that's the one. that's the one yeah. yep. what's that cop doingover there? male speaker (offscreen):is he there for you?
-no, they're there for-- you didn't hear about alan'sconfrontation this morning with a mailman and the police. male speaker (offscreen):what happened? ask alan. i don't know exactly. male speaker (offscreen): iheard you had a run in with the mailman? no?
-well, um, apparently, the guyprobably wanted him to move, and he refused to move, so themailman called the cops. cops came by and told him tobe cool, treat the mailman with respect. he's your superior. male speaker (offscreen):what did alan do? what did he say? -i wasn't there, so i can'tsay what he said, but i-- male speaker (offscreen):can only imagine.
-i can only imagine that hewon't give him respect the next time either. -yeah there's the, um-- there's the public servants. male speaker (offscreen):wow, there's cops all over the place. male speaker (offscreen):cops. -talking about the cops. did you notice the cops go by?
male speaker (offscreen):there were cops here when we got here. -no, in the car. they-- they're like more-- -and then the cop comes by andsays you've got to be out of here by 11. male speaker (offscreen): right,because they give one table a person, right?
-no, well-- male speaker (offscreen): oh,they've got curfew now? -yeah, because they came up withthese new, um, sets of laws, this qualityof life thing. oh wow, look at this lady. i was watching. -you were strictlywatching, right? narrator: and so it went forawhile, this squeeze play on the part of the city with theorange and yellow lines
getting closer and closerand more numerous. and then they closed down afew spots over on the east side, like, um, over on astorplace by the wine shop where i used to sell, too. and then, suddenly, like locustsstraight out of the old testament, they camefor the books. a tax identification numberwas introduced, and it was required that each of us obtainone, but the tax id number was arbitrarilyenforced.
it was really just a pretext forgetting some booksellers off the street. male speaker (offscreen):what's up? male speaker (offscreen):pack it up. male speaker (offscreen): theytold you to pack it up? why? -i'm packing up. why don't you ask himwhy i'm packing up? male speaker (offscreen): slim,why they telling you to
pack up? -i don't have a tax id card. if i take a summons, he's goingto take 'em anyway. female speaker (offscreen):oh my god! male speaker (offscreen): youwant to take my shit? you want to write mea summons too? i'm not taking a summonsneither. you can't write me a summonsand take my shit, too. narrator: meanwhile, over onwest fourth street, officials
from the nearby university tookit upon themselves to try to get rid of the booksellersin the vicinity, so they put monster planters along the curbsides without notifying the community board or gainingpermission from the city, and thereby hoped tosqueeze us out. good old alma mater. male speaker (offscreen): that'sthe line right there? male speaker (offscreen): yeah,some arbitrary line. he was the cop who paintedthe line, i think.
male speaker (offscreen): heused to have the long hair? -yeah, that one, ithink that one. used to have long hair. see, this is the real line,this blue thing. -and this is another linethey had considered. this is actually probablythe true line. male speaker (offscreen):that dot. -that dot. but they, um, they decided thiswas more inconvenient
because you can't get an eightfoot setup in here, so. narrator: but it was the guysout on sixth avenue that got hit the hardest repeatedly. -you make your own fuckingjob hard for you. you make your own fucking jobhard for you because you always doing foulshit to people. i don't give a fuck. i'll be here. you know where i'll be at.
[voices on police radio] preacher (on radio): i'veheard the thunder roll. i've felt sin-breakers dancing,trying to conquer my soul, but i heard the voice ofjesus, and still to fight on. he promised never to leave me,never to leave me alone. no, never alone. promised never to leave me. -nobody can stop mefrom setting up. you know why?
because the people in thevillage, you know why? they want to read. this ain't brooklyn. this ain't the bronx. these people want to read, andwhen they get a hold of a rare book, it's like theyget intoxicated. it's like they get high. they want it, and thenthey want more. where you get this book from?
they don't have itat the library. they don't have itat bookstore. i've talked to lawyers,doctors, everybody. you understand? some of these people, theyinherit their money, but still, they be writers,whatever. they love to read, and then whenthey see me with a book, a certain book, a certain book,and they remember me. damn, that guy, damn.
narrator: over on west fourthstreet, we decided to hold a meeting to determine what ourcourse of action should be with none other thanthomas at the helm. -right, but let's do it anddo it now and do it right. male speaker (offscreen):i agree with you. that i'm not arguing. -and the fucking traffic guy gotout of his car and he said to me, the university doesn'twant you here anyway. now, that's ridiculous.
male speaker (offscreen):that's wrong. -that's fascist. i don't have to hear that froma fucking new york city department of traffic person. -see, my feeling is that that'sdecide what we want to do and agree on it now,and let's do it. -my question is that if i cameout here tomorrow morning, how much space am i allowed toclaim for my operation? -here's where we're going tohave a problem in what's going
to be an acceptablenumber of books. male speaker (offscreen):wait, hold on. what he's bringing up-- -the feeling is, ok, when i seeyou guys with three tables that i know is over eight feet,i don't have a good feeling about it. i've never said it to youbecause it's not my business. male speaker (offscreen):of course. see, i don't see it that way,not that it's a bad idea.
-you should never have a thirdtable, which you guys have had, but i don't wantto get into it. male speaker (offscreen):i'll agree with that. -it's none of my business. i don't care about it. i'm not going to makeit my business. male speaker (offscreen):but i do care about it. i set up with fucking 12 feetat the end to make room for people on the other sideof the planter.
i always fucking have. a come out at 8:00 am in themorning and i take another fucking spot so other peoplecan get spots. don't give me thatfucking bullshit. male speaker (offscreen): let'sget down to the issues. narrator: if the police tookyour books, you had to go to the precinct as soonas you could if you wanted to get them back. otherwise, they were destinedfor a giant
warehouse in queens. male speaker (offscreen): youhave to be patient to watch. it's almost a zen activityto watch toads. see, the cricket, once youstrike at it and you miss it, once it freezes, the toad isn'tgoing to strike until the cricket moves again. if the cricket freezes longenough and the toad loses attention and it looks away,then the cricket is free to move if it's ableto sense that.
the contact has been broken, andsome crickets are able to sense that, and thenthey'll run away. narrator: well, we managed tohold onto our way of life, to continue selling books despitethe pressure from the city. we went to communityboard meetings and spoke in our defense. we went to see the judgeand he threw out our bogus summonses. but it would neverbe the same.
a snake had enteredthe garden. there was now an air of tension,and where we had once freely plied our trade, whichso many people in the neighborhood appreciated, wewere now pariahs and we were branded undesirable. the newspapers started printingarticles about how all our folks were stolen. that wasn't true. that wasn't true at all.
except for a few unscrupulousbooksellers, it wasn't the case, but it didn'tseem to matter. were the forces at work in thecity greater than the plans of any single politician? i mean, what is this thingthat seeks to regiment, control, organize, and commodifyeverything in its path, this thing that cleansthe streets, this devouring worm which eats our citiesfrom the inside out? male speaker (offscreen):emil!
come over here, will you? i'm talking to you. wait, don't make withthe fucking hand. come here. uh, hey-- uh, emil. male speaker (offscreen): imade fucking shit money. you understand that? male speaker (offscreen):ok, all right. male speaker (offscreen):but you got a mouth.
you could talk, you know. -yesterday, i made some fuckingmoney, but today, fucking shit. no one fucking dollar,believe or not. -you didn't even make a sale? -that's what i said. -i know how you feel, man. sometimes-- sometimes i don't makeany money, either.
and my friend eddie,he couldn't even sell his books either. he had good books, you know, butthe only trouble with him is he used to fight withhis customers. when he had the chance, heused to fight with 'em. -so, how's it goingdown there? i haven't been down there. -has it picked up? well, did it pick up sincei talked to you last?
-paul seems to bedoing all right. i mean, he's not gettingrich, but-- narrator: as the city continuedto shut down legal selling spots, competitionbetween us became more and more fierce. everett stayed out later andlater, longer and longer, in order to secure a holdon his favorite spot. it wasn't long beforethe first bookseller threw in the towel.
that honor belongedto polish joe. male speaker (offscreen): what,joe's getting rid of his books? -yeah, joe is kindof troubled here. he says-- he just laidout here and said, look down on the books. male speaker (offscreen): justthis past year, you decided to get your-- -decided it wasn't worth thehassle, the combination of the
police, their new regulations,the taxes, and many other things, you know? seemed like they got downon even booksellers. -it's my last day. joe (offscreen): as if we're inthe commerce of something like illegal substance orsomething, which is information. -john o'hara. -didn't take you long to makeyour mind up, did it?
-psychic powers. narrator: let meconfide in you. i was also gettingsick of it, too. i was just tired ofstanding around. after three years ofbookselling, i felt like i needed to move on, and the humanforces that opposed us-- the mailman, the cops, themayor, the university-- they still weren't enoughto drive me away, to force me to change.
this required higher powers. -whoa, come on, man. it's raining hard now. male speaker (offscreen): yeah,but you're not going to even put all this shit in. here, take this one. male speaker (offscreen):you've got four. that's four, right? narrator: and like they sayin the famous book,
um, the rain fell. the rain fell on the justand the unjust alike. it was right after that greatstorm that i realized and that i felt that i'd reachedthe end. i went out one last day to getrid of the remaining books, but business was so slow,i didn't see any hope of becoming free of them, ofselling them off to the civilians, as alan usedto call them. suddenly it occurred to me.
i'd sell them off to theother booksellers. male speaker (offscreen):you know, this is the last of the, um-- male speaker (offscreen): whatdo you mean last of the books? male speaker (offscreen):last of the books. i'm getting out ofthe business. is that what it is? male speaker (offscreen):hell yeah. -this is not all your books.
male speaker (offscreen): thisis the last of the books. this is the last-- -wait a minute. you must have had morebooks than this. male speaker (offscreen): ihad eight crates of books. -what happened with them? male speaker (offscreen):sold them off, man. -you must have-- everett must have got 'em.
male speaker (offscreen):everett got some of 'em. -uh-huh. and tony? male speaker (offscreen):tony got some of 'em. male speaker (offscreen): aha. male speaker (offscreen):steve got some of 'em. -and you left mewith the shit. male speaker (offscreen): no,you weren't around, bro. you weren't around.
well, it's all right. male speaker (offscreen): sowhat do you think about my books, man? are you interested inthis last batch, or? -hey man, i didn't go throughall of them yet. wait a minute, will you? male speaker (offscreen):all right, all right. -i'm going to takea fucking chance. i'm taking a chance, because themoney i got on me, man, is
my food money. male speaker (offscreen):i hear you. -but i'll take a chance. -go ahead. what the fuck? i made a deal. here, here's your $20. here. male speaker (offscreen):no, listen.
i'm going to give-- narrator: and theni went home. i gathered up a few of my prizedbooks, like my favorite volume of "leaves of grass,"some rilke, some dostoevsky, some kerouac, gotready to leave. and you know what? wally was right. let the money go unearned andlet the books be unopened. i take to the open road withyou, and i'm glad you're here.
oh yes, a little news fromthe road regarding the thomas, who loved his booksso much, he got a store. and paul started selling hisbooks on the internet. but everett, well, he stayedout there too long. the city was too much for himand he cracked, and he had to leave the street. polish joe is still strugglingto give up the books, but he did manage to quit smoking. pete?
well, pete's still outthere when he's not doing a cat grooming. you might find him tearing apartone of his old books to use as collage material. as for the guys out on sixthavenue, well, they're still getting hassled a lot, butthey're still out there. marv took a break. he met a girl, starteda family. and how could i forget?
slick rick shermangot married. he and beth tied the knot. and things are constantlychanging, of course. a lot of the old timershave left. there are new faces comingto the street. as for me, i'm heading out westto start something new, to get some perspective onall of this, everything. institutions, nations,civilizations, they'll all come and go.
even the empire state buildingwill one day crumble. but as long as there are humanbeings who live and inquire and question things, there'llbe words and stories. there will be roomfor everybody. read a good book. smoke a good cigarette.
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