A not so close call in Sin City and other news

Good morning bookies! Stand by for news.

I haven't been to Las Vegas, Sin City, for many years now, since my days repping electronics for a major Japanese corporation. Early every January we were required to head for California to learn about our new lineup of car audio gear for the coming year, then it was off to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show. There wasn't much time during that massive gathering of salesmen, designers, techs, high-level executives pretending they knew what the heck the younger people were talking about, and the glitzy models and clowns and hangers-on that generally lounged about the convention center, to actually see Las Vegas. You saw your hotel, the casino, maybe a neighboring casino, and that was about it.

You certainly didn't see anything like Bauman's Rare Books. And for me that could be a good thing. A bookie with a credit card in the midst of such splendor could have been very, very dangerous. http://vegasblog.latimes.com/vegas/2008/09/folios-to-flemi.html

Wow, that was almost a close call.

Can you imagine kicking around a garage sale early one Saturday morning, the sun's just up, it's cold outside and you haven't had enough coffee and breakfast is still in the future but you know that to get the best stuff you have to beat the next guy to the sales. So there you are in somebody's driveway, they're sipping coffee as their garage sale cranks up, watching you dig through their stuff. You find a book with an odd looking bookplate in it, cradle it, pay for it (all the while hoping the owner doesn't change their mind), get home and discover that bookplate is what you thought it was: the personal bookplate of Adolf Hitler. It could happen.

It does not happen in the article herein linked. That's not what it's about. But bookies like me read the part about GIs taking books from the Berghof, Hitler's Bavarian home, and instantly our imaginations kick into gear and make dreams like the one above appear in our minds.

http://www.nysun.com/arts/timothy-rybacks-hitlers-private-library/86436/

It's a fine article and Sir Ian Kershaw certainly has the street cred to review the book. I disagree a bit with his conclusions, but only a bit. I'd like to read that book.