Michael Ambrosino's Show; Words

Two men. Lots of ideas. I would swear out of town news and shelling. Downtown Boston. Book. Store. And George last. Monolog let's explore the ways we communicate. It looks like any regular. Magazine is down but it's not the other town . Where. You can get your life. Car driver Tom Joad house. Fashion. You can also get something else that's rather special. In another town newspaper stand. Right.

And . Well. Thank you . And all the world . China pictorial. Is on display. As we said that the. Person.

Where of. But if you want to get a view of what the world is like beyond just look at the American press. You've got to read I think the Middle East . Or Asia seen. Things like the Svenska journal from Poland. You want to find out what's going to happen. In. Your Magazines about the home in the next couple years. Watch the Italian monthly for interior decorating. Or the German interior decorating magazines or the one in French. And a whole collection of marvelous art and architecture magazines. From all over the world. That's one way of finding out what's going on. And if you're in the business of radio and television. I think you know what this is . Been here about seven years and I've probably one of the few people who remember the chaos even before it was changed to this to the style. And

I've been coming to get newspapers here as long as I've been here. I gave away Matt with a little while ago and I have a new one so I just got it there . At Harvard and I've been here two years on the software. Detroit offered

by the Free Press. Don't usually come here. I live about out of this ban but I came here to buy a magazine which was on Scientific American for September which is about what's in that like oceans. Oh sure why you would consider that my husband is . On the manage air and I just don't have time to read anything . Sheldon who comes in and buys all the papers at the out of town news. People are interesting trying to make a change here in Massachusetts to look elsewhere with the opportunities for themselves and their field might be electronics. It might be an architecture might be and teaching but to look in the areas where opportunity might be.

Present itself taking my sandal as looking at the classified ads in the newspaper. The housing. And getting on to the point of what opportunities are there for he or she or their family. That's interesting I didn't think any of us thought that job seekers were one of your main clientele I thought that people from Detroit would be picking up the Detroit Free Press to find out what happened last week. Not necessarily Mike it's there's a need for people that sometimes a death might occur. People want to look at the bitchery marriage or sport page but keeping track of what's going on. In a high school from a student in some sort of way and following. Various advertising promotions from advertising agencies. Who buys your papers from out of the country. People here who come over here in a short time it might go

to school people to people who are youngsters in school looking and had a reaction to French publications German or Italian. Domestic help was homesick . They come over here and have an opportunity to see what it is here in Massachusetts. The opportunities working working habits job opportunities and then while they're here they feel like what's going on back home who got married what soccer game was played today. If I was setting up an out of town news I don't know how I'd get past the obvious ones the London and the Paris and the Rome papers how do you how do you determine to pick up a paper from to Reno or Bogota as we saw a few minutes ago more or less you have to be a good listener. What people come into I mean to the newsstand. We might take a poll of these publications

you are and you poll them for a period of time and then you can merchandise these publications by advertising. Letting numerous foreign people and societies knowing that these papers available and this service is available through an advertising media. Most people I think feel that the Harvard community makes that most of the firing when obviously if you're carrying the many papers that you do especially twenty six different versions of the Irish papers a large population of the city of Boston is buying here as well. Mike and I was on these papers we polies newspapers we service these service the people who live in viral communities as far as the Cape. How did you get into all of this. It started back 22 years ago. My guy was selling newspapers in front of a subway entrance.

And at that time I was helping my father and saw the need of selling out of town papers by the calls that were coming from people coming by. Never Chicago baby here Philadelphia. It's very easy out in London Germany and I. Enquired about if there were any foreign publications ever saw the national publications in Cambridge. And I went further to the library and exploited this and found there was no search type of service. And at that time I. Looked. Into the possibility. Of. Bringing out of town papers here to Cambridge. I don't know what I was in for but I took the step. Do you know what you're in for now. What kind of a day to day put in. It's a long day it's a seven day week and. We're coming up to reading International. This

is another show up Sheldon Cohen in a prize that goes beyond just the way out of town papers. You're now working into the international educational foreign periodicals. How did this all get started. My wife Beverley and I always dreamed. Of owning a bookstore someday with people coming to browse and relaxing manner. And having a service to the community and to communities . Of students youngsters . Who are in junior high school reading French . As well as. As the college environment from numerous colleges the book give us service . In our community here. One of the reasons we started reading International was that people to come in and browse and walk a while longer usually in different

sections of the store from psychology to philosophy fiction nonfiction and to pick up a book . Glanced through it. Jenna page . My. See you see some of them sitting on the floor. This is what is different. What. I want to give to this in the store. Papers magazines books. That's how we talk to one another. Every once in a while though we need to fast direct uncanny idea and we resort to the poster. The

End of . The book . To . Get. The end . Of. The book. Thank you.

It's a little later in the day. It's another part of town. The bridal bookshop five West Street. 120 What a dedication to George Wallace he said to George Bross for wrongdoing and booksellers is more durable than the New England granite more colorful than the full foliage and more valuable than the service one.

It's five stories tall but 15 rooms. Only one doesn't have books with floor to ceiling . Some people come in looking for bindings to hang on their walls. Other people come in looking for ideas and books pocketbooks of all sorts and descriptions curios even a souvenir of the celebration of Mark Twains 70th birthday published in 105 Sex and the Single Girl by Helen Gurley Brown. Did you know Paul Ben's going to fire Boston's Coconut Grove a moveable feast by Hemingway American heritage. Really lays rockets missiles in space travel not too long ago it was printed in The Saturday Evening Post the face of America . We even found writing for television printed in 1940 we now use

it for the next letters by James Joyce. He will the hurt child by Hertha Rhys and one of the fine books and shot by Henry Adams all sorts of things. The encyclopedias are up on the second floor and the books here on the shelf in and out of Boston with children by Bunny Chester. If you're going anywhere this year you've got to get a copy of the National Geographic I asked George to pick out the April 39 issue because it had the hurricane of 38 in it and showed how I lost some houses in West Hampton Beach when I was a child. He found it. It's here too as well as fully bound and hand painted volumes of The Three Musketeers and fully bound in brown leather Elizabeth Barrett Browning has the two unpublished poems and stories 1861 by the bibliophile society that's here too. And of course a glossary of the construction

decoration and use of arms and armor in all countries and in all times together with some closely related subjects. By George Cameron St.. In 1861 Harper's Weekly a journal of civilization published a picture of Abraham Lincoln addressing the people from the Astor House balcony February 19th. That's here too . Excuse me. This is a riot book. Some of you know it as the book that George auctioned off on the channel to auction for about four hundred twenty dollars. There are a couple of copies here it's one of the most beautifully illustrated books in America that was ever made when the best printing jobs we know Andrew Wyeth and his son Jamie. And we forget that he also had a father and CYF the last of the Mohicans. He did the illustrations printed in 1919. We found that here too we didn't salt it. This is what we found. All of the stacks five stories George

. How did you ever get into this business. Well it isn't a business it's a joy sheer joy an ecstasy . Ever since I could read I started to collect books in fact I remember standing in line at it when I was only eight in the morgue memorial in the St. Vincent de Paul all these places and getting books and stories of collecting and finally swapping them and then finally selling them. And it's been a great great joy for me this way of life not business in the truest sense of the word. I have some favorites right in front of me of you but you started out as a hunter of books what where do you hunt for the where do you get old. Well I get up at 6 every morning and like Jim Hawkins and Treasure Island I'm out on a great treasure hunt each day brings new treasures and I hit the best junk yards in the city I hit the all the way houses an antique stores and furniture stores and then I have ads in the newspaper so I'm constantly up Addicks and down sellers and I'm digging into the every repository

possible to get the finest books possible and I roll up to the store with about two or three hundred book every single day cumulate about 2000 books a week in this building's getting more and more filled. Five stories in underground tunnels. We call them my catacombs. Do people come in here who think they've got great finds for you. Oh yes people constantly come in to sell me books so I've got a big sign on door we buy we buy books and we buy many books that way too and many treasures too. The other day I caught an Isiah Thomas Bible 1793 very very early American revival that came in right through this door. How much did you get in for it all. I don't recall something like twenty five or thirty five dollars for our church. This is the fourth place you've been. Yes I've had to move four times. I'm almost like a perennial ating bookshop. I moved from 32 Brattle Street to 60 cornmeal to 50

cornmeal to 163 Washington Street and now to five West Street. Four of these moves were made in Alaska by eight last eight years and when I moved in 62 I gave away 25000 books when I moved in 64 I gave way 50000 books and the last time only two months ago I gave away 100000 books and a day later I went around on a covered wagon which had on at the big plaque out go west five West Street Brattle bookshop and I gave away 10000 books as I circled the city with the Lodge Percherons hawses over a ton each. And I was tossing up the books and the people grabbing them like starving Chinese are Indians they were reaching up and grabbing at these books if you're going to toss all your books away. How many have you got. I still have 150000 books here and they're coming at at the rate of two thousand a week so I'm not worried about books. What kind of you got into that I should mention this. I believe in the biblical expression you cast your books of upon the water and they come back a hundred

fold. And that's the way they're coming in here. What kind of books are coming and what are also some of the collection and this is a heterogeneous conglomeration of cultures you might say have got everything under the sun. See books always were gross no books are the books of books on Boston Those are great sellers on books of books on American history the Civil War books on spies Business Economics American heritage you see the whole they are just livid with the American Heritage books in fact. If you want a book you can get it right here and if I kind get it I have enough friends all over America the required. Why do you keep so sort of your favorites around the pile here over there I said I just happen to see a few here. Is Boston always hide by and folk by George Weston a junior. And here is another Massachusetts the anatomy of of quality and it's by Jean farmer and Scott the modeless photographed by Ted and hears of Boston that

night Boston image by Dave law filled with the only marvelous pictures of Boston or an on the wall I should mention we have a bunch of books here for different people waiting for people is a little America by Admiral bird this is waiting for Dick bird or his mother. Adam Adam a bird came in here and bought about 500 books and now was what I was buying every one of his books that I can get my hands on. For people who are asking for them and then has a book by Donald McMillan he comes in here regularly He's now the greatest living explorer and his wife wrote a book and he's very anxious to get that. The walls of just a littered literally filled with books all here a few books by James T Pharrell right down here who has been getting books for me for the last 20 years and he comes in here every time he gets town and so I have quite a few books for him. Nearly every great author on every every great writer everybody who loves books comes to the

bridal bookshop in time. You put away a couple of what we consider priceless things for us to look at we're only as I have a few real treasures that I set on this table . Is one a bound volume of the Boston chronicle of 1767 de 1768 and it contains in it the first Liberty song. This whole book is really a preview to the American Revolution. It's a modest bit of a chunk of American history and listened to the way the song went. Come join hand-in-hand brave Americans and all and rouse your bold heights of fan Liberty's call no tyrannous act for us all suppress your just claim and it ends up winning freedom with Born of freedom and live. A person is already a steady friend steady not as slaves but as free men and in money will give. Two years later there was a Boston Massacre in and within seven years the

American Revolution had started. And here is a very interesting book for Scott's magazine printed in Edinburg and in 1770 for five whole year and it contains in it an account of the Battle of Lexington Lexington and Concord and the Battle of Bunker Hill and listen to the statements like this as our troops enter the green. We were fired upon by the rebels. And it also goes on to say such was the cruelty and barbarity of the rebels that they scalped and cut off the ears of some of the wounded men who fell into their hands. And after the troops got back they received fulsome praise for their great triumph. And However there's a casualty list at the end. Two hundred and seventy two killed. And then on the Battle of Bunker Hill. Here after they say this action has shown the superiority of the king's troops who under every disadvantage attacked and defeated the above

three times and then again we find full some plays of the general and it ends up with a casualty list. One thousand and fifty three . This sort of reminds you of pork chop and Hamburger Hill sort of reminiscent of things that have taken place in our time . And then here's a final one on the Emancipation Proclamation a great document of American history and a Bostonian got this. Here's something to look at . Real nice little and it's the first printed pamphlet of the preliminary proclamation. And you'll see it was in the hands of a Union soldier. It was a million of them were given out meant for law the slaves and for the soldiers to rouse them up against slavery. And the funny part it's so small that only about seven of them in the libraries today. Very very few of them exist and this is excessively rare. This is a real document of American history as the

other two. They are what I consider great items of American history. People welcome to come into a store like this. Welcome Here they are greeted with open arms and the books are open for their perusal they can get all a war hero all the greatest books of the human mind is created. We use books to present ideas in an orderly fashion some sort of rational sense. We also use pictures in an orderly fashion in an emotional sense. The following is called Tree watch. We've been to two places and we've visited with two men and we've seen two methods

of communication that have nothing to do with books and magazines. But are quite interesting in their own right. The poster and the photo montage on television . You can visit the places and these are men that you can come to know yourselves . And. Treat me with special thanks to the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.