Collectible Items

Zak & Mandy in LA, July 2007

I couldn’t resist this item which just came rolling through my google alerts. A copy of Zak Smith‘s (aka porn performer Zak Sabbath) book Pictures of Girls is up on ebay – and here’s what the description says about what makes this particular copy a collectible:

A “must-have” title for Zak Smith collectors. This copy is very prominently, wittily, and beautifully signed and inscribed in black marker on the title page by the artist: “I am writing this while talking to Audacia Fucking Ray! ZZS”. There is no recipient named, but Zak Smith was evidently multi-tasking and slightly overwhelmed in the presence of Audacia Ray. A writer, photographer, publisher, producer, and filmmaker, Audacia Ray is the author of “Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads and Cashing In On Internet Sexploration” and the writer/director of the film, “Bi Apple”. She is a cult figure among savvy Internet addicts, especially devotees of pornographic films, through her role as editor of Spread Magazine, which takes the genre seriously as a legitimate medium of expression. This title has been out-of-print for some time and is now highly collectible. This is the only such signed and inscribed copy available online, the best by Zak Smith we have seen so far, and has no flaws, a pristine beauty. A rare, one-of-a-kind association copy thus. 88 plates. One of the most brilliant living American artists. A flawless collectible copy.

The funny thing is that I actually remember Zak signing several books this way – when his book Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon’s Novel Gravity’s Rainbow was released, he did a talk and signing at Barnes and Noble on 22nd and 6th, and I went to say hi because he was only in town for a few days. After the attendees of the signing were gone, B & N asked him to sign his way through a stack of books so they could sell signed copies. I sat and chatted with him as he did it, and he came up with a variety of clever things to write in the books.

And so, ebay.