Down These Mean Streets A Man Must Go - The Film Noir Thread

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

I might have to get them too. I had to get rid of all my crime novels, over 1000 of them when the boy MTDS was born as I had them in what would be his bedroom.

A thousand?

Wow!!! Were they all pulpy paperbacks or hardback similar to the Sci-Fi book club ones doing the rounds in the sixties and seventies?

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

I might have to get them too. I had to get rid of all my crime novels, over 1000 of them when the boy MTDS was born as I had them in what would be his bedroom.

Good job I don't have any real human attachments. I get to keep everything. Including carrier bags.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

A thousand?

Wow!!! Were they all pulpy paperbacks or hardback similar to the Sci-Fi book club ones doing the rounds in the sixties and seventies?

Paperbacks. This was in the days when charity shops still sold books over a year old and you could pick up loads of reprints from the 60s of older crime novels that hadn't been republished in years. Also there was a fantastic resurgence in noir/hardboiled writing in the 80s/early 90s. I also used to collect a lot of American imports.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

Good job I don't have any real human attachments. I get to keep everything. Including carrier bags.

I'm gonna get rid of the boy to make way for the books.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

I'm gonna get rid of the boy to make way for the books.

You could always use your cellar for books rather than your 'other' hobbies.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

All this noir talk has made this book pop into my head, "The Dogs of Winter" by Kem Nunn...mystical surfer noir. I first heard of him on the inner sleeve of Sonic Youth's "Sister" lp where they reference his first book "Tapping the Source" and James Ellroy's Lloyd Hopkins novels.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

I'm gonna get rid of the boy to make way for the books.

Well, my folks always told me that nothing will illuminate one's real priorities like having kids.
'Joking' aside, you're making me nostalgic for that golden age of charity shops and dodgy market stalls when everywhere was rammed to the rafters with knackered second books that you could browse for days and never truly get your head round. No more, it seems.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

Well, my folks always told me that nothing will illuminate one's real priorities like having kids.
'Joking' aside, you're making me nostalgic for that golden age of charity shops and dodgy market stalls when everywhere was rammed to the rafters with knackered second books that you could browse for days and never truly get your head round. No more, it seems.

There used to be an excellent second hand shop in Manchester which was a real mix of academia, crime novels, comics, vintage porn and sci fi. The bloke who run it had no hands and was fitted with two fixed plastic hands that looked like he'd stolen them from a mannequin.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

There used to be an excellent second hand shop in Manchester which was a real mix of academia, crime novels, comics, vintage porn and sci fi. The bloke who run it had no hands and was fitted with two fixed plastic hands that looked like he'd stolen them from a mannequin.

I like it!
Thinking back to that time (it does feel like an era that's gone), you used to get book shops that'd spring up for a few weeks, months at a time, then disappear. In cellars and knackered buildings, back when Leeds had a grimmer, nastier edge. And they'd all be run by really strange men. I can't remember any striking prosthetics, just people with slimy looking gums who maybe just stood a bit too close or something. I remember bits of porn and bits of Marxism on the same shelves, all garbled together. It all seemed to die out with the coming of the 21st century.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

I like it!
Thinking back to that time (it does feel like an era that's gone), you used to get book shops that'd spring up for a few weeks, months at a time, then disappear. In cellars and knackered buildings, back when Leeds had a grimmer, nastier edge. And they'd all be run by really strange men. I can't remember any striking prosthetics, just people with slimy looking gums who maybe just stood a bit too close or something. I remember bits of porn and bits of Marxism on the same shelves, all garbled together. It all seemed to die out with the coming of the 21st century.

There was another shop near to where I used to live run by a huge fat man who didn't bother with shelves having everything stacked floor to ceiling. Also he stacked books in rows in front of each other so you couldn't get to them without causing a paper avalanche. This place was like a warren with only space for one person to walk at any given time or place. How the owner managed to squeeze his way through the shop still puzzles me to this day.

I presume the internet killed off these type of shops, that and the phase when shops, especially charity shops, would mark up the price of anything older than five years and class it as collectable. My local Oxfam did just that with loads of 60s garage punk reissues I gave them. They had them in the window priced as original releases! And yes it was the boy who again played havoc with my vinyl collection too. Bastard.