Monthly Archives: September 2011

In my last post I spoke of my dilemma concerning a set of four factory-sealed albums from the 1940s: they're mine now, but do I open them? Two are from 1945; one from 1949; the last from 1950. They have … Continue reading →

Today I exulted in the rare privilege of taking a 62-year-old record album on its maiden voyage. RCA Red Seal DM-1340 was recorded in San Francisco's War Memorial Opera House on April 19, 1949. It is two 12" discs, making … Continue reading →

Today I spent part of my afternoon happily dubbing a beautifully preserved album of Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony performing the Brahms 4th Symphony, on five 12" shellac discs, RCA Red Seal DM-730. The records are in stellar condition, … Continue reading →

Today I made a raid on Amoeba Records over on Stanyan and Haight, enjoying the gaudily beautiful San Francisco day—it's the sort of weather we like to pretend we have all the time and know damn well we don't—by shopping … Continue reading →

From an RCA Victor promotional blurb, mid-1950s: How This Record Bargain Is Possible There are certain similarities between RCA Camden Records and paperback reprints of great books. In both instances works of merit are reissued in lower priced editions. There … Continue reading →

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s The Mote in God’s Eye came out in the 1970s to a blare of trumpets and a gush from no less than Robert Heinlein, who praised it as “possibly the best science-fiction novel that I … Continue reading →

The closure of Serendipity Books in Berkeley warranted a blurb in the NY Times but not in local rags. Then again, there wouldn’t be all that many people here in the Bay Area who would mourn, care, or even notice. … Continue reading →

A CNN article about a failed school experiment caught my eye. A group of administrators and educator-squirrel types were in a tizzy about their school’s tanking test scores. So they decided to go high-tech about it all and spent a … Continue reading →