The Ripper reexamined: Historian Mei Trow reveals a new, viable suspect for London murders

Serial murderers, including serial murderers with sexual motivation, have terrorized humanity since time immemorial; we just don’t know to what extent. The vampire and werewolf legends of lore no doubt account for many of these, and I think it’s interesting that a recent medical theory attributes some historical cases of vampirism to rabies infection: It seems that humans who contract the virus have been known not merely to bite a lot but to have supercharged, insatiable sex drives. Think what you like, it had to have been a lousy way to go, for everyone involved.

But I don’t mean to be flip. In this age of advanced communications, we are used to knowing – or being able to access – the news any time we want it and, with simulcasts, even as it happens. The same goes for crime forensics: Who knew even 25 years ago that DNA analysis would be so widely and routinely used to identify perpetrators and discount innocent suspects? Yet, 1,200 or even 120 years ago, what reasonable explanation or law-enforcement measures could be offered when, one by one, people suddenly went missing or turned up mutilated in a remote area of China or Peru or France or Russia?

Or Victorian England … That’s where the most notorious, the most enduring series of murders (in terms of the public consciousness) took place within a few short months in 1888, in an area of London called Whitechapel, by a butcher who fearful Britons would nickname and the world would come to know as Jack the Ripper. At least, in the teeming capital of the British Empire, news traveled fast, and any supernatural theories – if any were offered – fell before modern psychology. And while I would point out that Bram Stoker knew his audience when he published “Dracula” nine years later (in 1897), in the waning years of the 19th century, modern, enlightened Londoners knew Jack was no vampire but a very human and very dangerous nutcase. The fact that the murderer was never caught or his identity conclusively confirmed ensured that “Ripperology” would be a rich subject for writers and filmmakers to mine for the next century; I’m certain it will remain so for at least one more.

I won’t recount the five horrific murders of prostitutes that have been “canonically” (according to the Wikipedia entry) attributed to this particular deviant: All the gruesome details, including a number of hideous police photos, can readily be found online, along with some theories linking subsequent murders to the Ripper and others, ranging from the cockeyed to the credible, suggesting any number of contemporary and new suspects as the killer. There have also been a couple of pretty fascinating programs about the case on the Discovery Channel, one of which submits that Jack booked passage to the United States and resumed his killing spree in New York City. Another, “Jack the Ripper: Killer Revealed,” which I find even more compelling, is based on the book “Jack the Ripper: Quest for a Killer” (Barnsley, U.K.: Wharncliffe Publishing, Nov. 2009) by British historian and former high school teacher M. J. (“Mei”) Trow, who has written a slew of mystery novels as well as historical studies of Spartacus, the 11th-century Spanish nobleman Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (“El Cid”) and Vlad III (a.k.a. Vlad the Impaler, the 15th-century Wallachian prince on whom the character Dracula was based).

In a nutshell, Trow has gone through the published records of the Ripper murders and identified an overlooked individual, Robert Mann, as a very likely possibility for Jack. A workhouse inmate employed as a mortuary attendant, Mann was called to testify at the first two inquests (in the slayings of Mary Ann Nichols and Annie Chapman) but was disoriented and incoherent – which not discounted him as a credible witness but also failed to raise a red flag, so to speak, that Mann might have had something to do with the crimes. What’s more, using the modern investigative procedure of geographic profiling pioneered by Canadian police investigator Kim Rossmo – whose amazing mathematical system can show on a map where a serial killer likely lives and/or works, based on the locations of the crime scenes, with a success rate as high as 85 percent – Trow demonstrates that (1) both Mann’s living quarters and the mortuary where he worked fell well within the high-probability area for the Ripper’s home turf, and (2) based on where the victims were discovered, Mann would have been well aware that at least two of the bodies would be brought to the very same mortuary where he worked, giving him more opportunity to gloat over his handiwork (in his 1999 book “Geographical Profiling,” Rossmo has written that 22 percent of serial killers return to their victims’ dump sites).

Why do I blog on a Jack the Ripper investigation? Because I believe that collecting – of objects or information – should be an intellectual adventure, a quest to discover something new and interesting or even momentous. We are always hearing of “cold” cases that are not just revisited but solved, and the perpetrators brought to justice decades after committing their crimes; of recent archaeological discoveries that force us to revise conventional views of people and events in the distant past; of newly found books and letters and photographs long buried in library stacks and archives that add something surprising to subjects we thought we knew all about. I think Mei Trow’s research, based as it is on new methodology, can broaden any collector’s or armchair historian’s or even criminal investigator’s vistas.

Here’s my recent interview with the author. If you have any specific questions or original research on Jack the Ripper, you can contact Trow at isjack@live.co.uk.

AmeriCollector: Is there still a lot of interest in Jack the Ripper among Britons and Londoners in particular?

Mei Trow: The Ripper crimes form the basis of an ongoing industry, especially in London itself, where there are nightly tours of the murder sites and other related areas. Although Ripperology now has an international dimension – Jack is famous throughout the world – it is inevitable that the real focus of interest should be in the place where the crimes were carried out. Bookshops throughout Britain that contain true, crime sections invariably have books on Jack, and The Whitechapel Society with its regular periodical sends out to a wide fan base.

AC: Is this still considered an open case by the police? Are there officers assigned to the case to assist researchers, or do some do it purely out of personal interest?

Mei: There is a general belief that no unsolved case is ever closed, but that is simply not true. The Ripper case was officially closed in 1892, although documentation relating to it has survived to the present day. There is therefore no dedicated team of serving police officers working on the case, although several retired policemen have gone into print with various suspects.

AC: The online edition of the Daily Mail (Oct. 2009) indicates you have been actively focusing on Robert Mann as a suspect for the past two years. When and how did you have an “Ah ha!” moment when Mann appeared to you as a viable perpetrator of the crime? Did anyone at all suspect him at the time?

Mei: The “Ah ha!” moment probably came when I realized that Mann had been abandoned in the workhouse as a child by his mother, who would have been in her forties at the time. This corresponds not only to the ages of all his victims (except Mary Kelly) but is also consonant with behavioral psychologists’ ideas of serial killer motive. The fact that Robert Mann was dismissed as being liable to fits and therefore unreliable as a witness at the inquest into Annie Chapman means that he was never seriously considered as a suspect. Four of his seven victims were brought to his mortuary, and the idea of a disturbed mortuary attendant first surfaced in the profiling carried in 1988 by John Douglas of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico.

AC: In “Jack the Ripper: Killer Revealed” on the Discovery Channel, it was pointed out that Mann was called to testify in the Mary Ann Nichols and Annie Chapman inquests. Yet, was he not merely a workhouse inmate assisting in a mortuary and, one would assume, assisting a doctor performing autopsies? Why would he have been called as a witness? Would his responsibilities in a mortuary gone beyond moving corpses around and cleaning up? Could he have gotten actual training in opening up bodies?

Mei: I think it unlikely that Mann would have received any formal training but he would have been on hand to observe autopsies at close hand. We know from other sources that he was trusted to go out of the workhouse to collect corpses, so he is not merely “moving bodies around” in the confines of his own mortuary. Anyone connected with the deceased, from relatives and friends to any eyewitnesses, the police and auxiliary staff (e.g., Mann), would be called to an inquest as a matter of routine.

AC: At the time of the murders, Whitechapel was an impoverished area where many immigrants lived, and in fact there were some immigrants on the list of suspects. Mann was supposedly born in Mile End New Town around 1835, yet Mann is a German name, and he was called Mansel in one account. Is it possible that he was in fact an immigrant? Would that be relevant to the investigation?

Mei: I do not believe that Mann was an immigrant but the fact that his father was a weaver may imply that the family were among the religiously persecuted Huguenots who emigrated to England for safety in the 17th century. Although largely French, some of these Huguenots would have lived along the Rhineland border with Germany. The name Mansel and Marne, which is also ascribed to him, are simply careless work by British journalists.

AC: Your belief in the authenticity of the “From Hell” Ripper letter (sent to Scotland Yard with part of a victim’s kidney) was pretty compelling: The handwriting, spelling and other characteristics seemed uncontrived. Are there no confirmed writing samples belonging to Robert Mann that might be compared to the letter to prove Mann had written it? (Mann would have been about 54 at the time of the murders.)

Mei: Nothing has come to light yet. My belief is that he probably received a rudimentary education at what in England were called National Schools (for ages five to 10) and thereafter as a child in the workhouse might have received continuing educational basics after that. It is unlikely he would be required to write anything, even in the context of his job as mortuary attendant. Since he never married, we do not even have a signature on marriage records.

AC: Is there any Ripper material that, in your opinion, has not been adequately examined and that may conceivably yield more leads?

Mei: There has been so much research into this case especially over the last 50 years that I doubt whether anything has yet to surface. Having said that, to give you one example, the autopsy notes on Mary Kelly compiled by Dr. Thomas Bond had gone missing and were posted anonymously to Scotland Yard in 1987. A number of items from the original police investigation have gone missing and have not been returned. It was not the custom of any British police force to keep artifacts from cases after they were closed. The exhibits in Scotland Yard’s Black Museum are there almost by accident.

AC: Are there other avenues that you are pursuing that may help confirm or discount Robert Mann as a suspect?

Mei: It would be great to learn more about Mann’s childhood and how other people (e.g., workhouse inmates) regarded him. Unfortunately, people of this class were usually illiterate and so left nothing in the way of letters, diaries, etc.

AC: You have said that we will probably never know conclusively who Jack the Ripper really was. Have you ever brainstormed with other Ripper investigators, either privately or in a panel discussion, on your respective preferred suspects? Are Ripper investigators very competitive about their findings, or do you ever collaborate?

Mei: I would love to take part in a television debate of this kind. However, I suspect we would all end up shouting at each other and achieving no consensus!

AC: Certainly, modern forensic technology (like plotting on a map the likely area where a killer lives or works, based on the murder locations) has helped your investigation. Are there other aspects of the “Internet Age” that have been of special value to you in your research?

Mei: Many records, such as census information and workhouse details, are now available online. Although all these exist in various libraries and institutions around the country, to be able to work on them at the press of a button is obviously a huge advantage. I must mention the excellent Casebook: Jack the Ripper site (www.Casebook.org), which contains a mass of material collated by Ripperologists and forms a basis for ongoing research.

AC: Do you ever receive viable ideas or leads from amateur investigators? Are there many collectors of Ripper lore, and what do their collections comprise? Have you encountered many people with a strictly sordid fixation on the case?

Mei: There is a body of Ripper-related material – the first full book on the murders was written in 1908 – and there are people who collect anything to do with the case. I myself have 20-plus books written from a number of different angles. Undoubtedly, there are people obsessed with the murders purely because of their grisly nature. The same people probably collect details from the lives of Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Henry Lee Lucas, etc.

AC: There have been some very graphic crime photos of Ripper victims in books and even on TV: The Mary Kelly murder scene is a case in point. Yet, “Jack the Ripper: Killer Revealed” showed only the faces of some of the dead victims. Was this intended to de-sensationalize the subject and focus more on the investigatory aspects of the story?

Mei: Yes, this decision was taken by the program’s director because we wanted to focus on the new suspect and the mechanics of finding him. Having said that, I think the dramatic reconstructions were very vivid and caught something of the horror of the original.

AC: Many people nowadays – adults as well as younger people – express no interest in history; many have negative memories of history class from their schooldays. Are you still a high school history teacher, and does your writing inspire your students to pursue historical subjects?

Mei: I gave up teaching last year to pursue writing, TV appearances, etc., and I like to think that a lot of students remember my lessons with interest and affection. It is all too common an experience that a fascinating subject is killed stone dead by a boring teacher; I hope I was never one of those. Yesterday, I received a phone call from a student of mine of over 30 years ago asking me to contribute to a forthcoming TV history program. This has nothing to do with Jack, but he told me that the first lesson he had with me, which was an introduction to the problems of historical research, was about the Ripper.

AC: What’s your next project?

Mei: At the moment I am updating my biography of Vlad the Impaler to take into account the new wave of interest in vampires.

_______________________________________

Book by Mei Trow:
JACK THE RIPPER: QUEST FOR A KILLER

Have you read “Jack the Ripper: Quest for a Killer”? We welcome your impressions of Mei Trow’s book. Please post here or send them, along with a line or two about yourself, to LetsCollect@AmeriCollector.com.

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‘Performance’ artist: Gary Houston’s posters document Northwest music scene

Poster art, like album cover art and T-shirt art, has been part of the iconography of American music since the 1960s – that decade of so many great, misguided and/or lost causes – when music really started to make a statement. You can trace some of the evolutionary branches of rock and roll through its graphics: The “Sergeant Pepper” and “Magical Mystery Tour” covers; the Grateful Dead’s various skeletons; the Ramones’ American eagle; the Boss’ leather-jacketed back on “Bruce Springsteen’s Greatest Hits,” electric guitar rakishly slung upside down – and Weird Al Yankovic’s parody of the same image, with an accordion instead of Telecaster … Whatever the era, whatever the music, the art embodied and immortalized it long after the bands left the stage.

If you love poster art – but art that’s not so mass-produced that it’s as ubiquitous as Mick Jagger’s lips at a Rolling Stones concert – check out Portland, Ore.–based master silkscreen printer Gary Houston at VoodooCatBox.

I first saw a sampling of Gary’s work on a wall of Powell’s Books in Portland four or five years ago. I was and continue to be blown away: Some of Gary’s hand-printed posters for musicians’ tours and performances at local venues are a nod to classic concert posters (think Rick Griffin’s “Flying Eyeball” for Jimi Hendrix and John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers or any of the Fillmore East concert posters), but he has his own vision, his own style, and I think you’ll like it as much as I do – not just for the artwork but for his sense of time and place.

You see, Gary is a chronicler of musical events through the prism of the Portland music scene – not everyone who blows through town, of course, but music is a matter of taste. Certainly, he features lots of Northwest groups, like Alice in Chains, Death Cab for Cutie and Foo Fighters, alongside legends like B.B. King, Joan Baez, Jorma Kaukonen, Patti Smith, David Byrne, Steve Miller Band and Elvis Costello. Your biggest dilemma will be which prints to choose. They are really reasonably priced – generally around $30 each – but don’t dawdle: These knockouts are produced in limited runs (in editions of as few as 80 signed, numbered copies), and they SELL OUT!

(I need not point out that they make GREAT gifts … for yourself or the music lovers on your holiday shopping list.)

I recently interviewed Gary about his posters. You can see some of his work – along with that of dozens of other sensational artists – on display in “The Art of Musical Maintenance VI” through Jan. 25, 2010, at The Goodfoot Pub & Lounge (www.thegoodfoot.com), 2845 SE Stark, Portland, OR 97214, (503) 239-9292.

AmeriCollector: What’s your art background?

Gary Houston: I studied art at Wichita State University, Kansas, and Bethany College in Linsborg, Kansas. My formal background is more in drawing, sculpture and art history.

AC: How long have you been doing music posters?

Gary: Since 1994 or ’95. I was going through a divorce, and it was a good way to work out my angst and my frustration: It was a way of being constructive instead of being self-destructive. I also did posters back in high school and college, but not to the degree of the present. I do like the freedom that doing posters affords.

AC: Are you asked to do them by the musician or by the venue?

Gary: A lot of times we do posters for the venues, and sometimes we do touring stuff for the bands. A lot of times I do stuff because I want to: I’m not getting paid for it. I do it because I’m a music junkie: I’m a big fan of people who do really quality work, music-wise. I always think we do the “Americana of music”: I do a lot of blues/R&B/twang, with a little punk stuff. Obviously I do some things that harken back to the psychedelic era.

AC: Do you get to do what you want, or are you pretty much told what to do?

Gary: It depends on the band. For example, Los Lobos lets us do anything we want to do. Some bands micromanage, and that sucks the fun out of it.

AC: What is the printing process?

Gary: They’re silkscreen prints. I screen-print everything, I hand-pull everything. I don’t know how many colors there will be until something’s on the light table. It’s always a surprise, and I enjoy making changes, but it’s kind of addictive: I try not to be obsessive about it.

AC: Do you have help?

Gary: Someone does the computer work for me: the film, the typography and the scanning. Her name is Hailey and she’s very good at the digital stuff, and easy to work with.

AC: How many posters are in each edition?

Gary: Most of my editions are anywhere from 100 to well past 1,000 (for tours).

AC: Do you sign and/or number them?

Gary: I sign and number my stuff. There are times when I do an overrun and they don’t get numbered, but they’re all signed.

AC: Do you ever exhibit your work?

Gary: I’ve exhibited in flatstock shows in Austin, Texas, in Seattle and in Germany, and I’m currently in “The Art of Musical Maintenance VI” at The Goodfoot Pub & Lounge in Portland with around 50 other poster artists. It’s a spectacular show and will be up through Jan. 25. I’ve also had shows here in Portland and in Kentucky and California.

Many thanks to Gary Houston of www.voodoocatbox.com for giving us this great interview.

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‘Unforgivably Jack’: The centennial of the 1910 Johnson-Jeffries fight promises to be a knockout!

“They called it the “Fight of the Century” – and while that century was still pretty young, the hype wasn’t exaggerated.

Imagine it: Reno, Nevada, on July 4, 1910, in a whole different age. The 19th century had ended a decade earlier, with the Old West teetering on the edge of oblivion, but neither had completely vanished yet: Men who had survived their service in the Civil War were just reaching the age that a lot of Vietnam veterans are today. Mark Twain was still alive; so was Wyatt Earp. Geronimo had died in Oklahoma the year before, at age 79. (He had been thrown from his horse – some say while drunk, but that may well be a myth – and in an alternative version of the story I once heard the old Apache warrior had driven his car into a ditch, which may have had its roots in the famous photo of him behind the wheel of a 1905 Locomobile with a few braves along for the ride. What IS true is that he lay on the ground all night in the February frost before succumbing to pneumonia at Fort Sill.) Wild West showman Buffalo Bill Bill Cody and frontier poet/former cavalry scout Captain Jack Crawford were planning to break into motion pictures (I actually own a 1910 letter by Crawford in which he says just that; the movies were still silent then, of course), and Pancho Villa was only starting out on the road to revolution south of the border …

Reno must have still been a pretty wild place in 1910, almost 40 years before Bugsy Siegel and the New York mob brought glitz and glamour to the Nevada desert. Because of the abundance of fresh water, Reno was already a way station for wagons and, increasingly, motorcars heading for the coast, and “The Biggest Little City in the World” would have been filled with miners, railroad men, drifters, grifters, working gals, entrepreneurs, students (the University of Nevada had been relocated there) and couples wanting quickie divorces. There were saloons and brothels and gambling dens until Oct. 1 of that year, when gaming was made illegal in the state. (It became legal again in 1931, after construction began on the Hoover Dam: The boys needed some way to blow their Depression-era paychecks, after all.)

In July 1910, however, the bets were still on, and at least 22,000 people packed a specially constructed stadium to see Jack Johnson, originally from Galveston, Texas – the son of freed slaves, and the first black world heavyweight champion boxer – square off against former champion James J. Jeffries.

For years white champions had refused to give Johnson the chance to contend for the title because of his color. But the “Galveston Giant” was a masterful self-promoter – the spiritual ancestor of Muhammad Ali – who knew exactly how to force the issue: by going to the press. After knocking out an earlier champion, the “Fighting Blacksmith” from New Zealand, Bob Fitzsimmons, in only two rounds, Johnson badgered the current champion Tommy Burns, of Hanover, Ontario, to defend his title by dissing him to sportswriters. After two years of ignoring Johnson’s public challenges, the Canadian relented, and in December 1908, in Sydney, Australia, Johnson pounded Burns for 14 rounds until police stopped the fight – as well as the movie camera that was filming the spectacle before the knockout blow was landed, so as not to show a white fighter falling at the hands of black man.

Now, in July 1910 – the summer of hate – the white boxing establishment was banking on the Reno fight ending in Johnson’s ignominious defeat, proving definitively that a Negro could not best a white man in the ring and make it stick. Indeed, boxing greats like John L. Sullivan, “Gentleman Jim” Corbett, Tom Sharkey and Joe Choynski threw their support to Johnson’s opponent, Jim Jeffries, the brawny outdoorsman who had taken the heavyweight crown from Bob Fitzsimmons in 1902 and was undefeated when he retired from the ring in 1905.

Jeffries had lived in Los Angeles since the age of 16, when his family moved there from Ohio in 1891. Now dubbed the “Great White Hope,” he was big, tough and fearless – and, given his size and build, had been amazingly fast and agile in his prime – but he had been out of training for the better part of five years. Nonetheless, Jeffries yielded to the urging of supporters to come out of retirement and put the uppity Johnson in his place in a contest tainted with bigotry that went far beyond sports: It cut to the heart of what American democracy and society were all about. This clash between two prizefighters, one white and one black, mirrored the one between white Americans’ sense of racial superiority, mental and physical, and black Americans’ aspirations to the social equality that had, in theory, been theirs since the Union victory over the Confederacy only 45 years earlier. It could even bring out the “dominant primordial beast” in an otherwise liberal socialist like Jack London, who made no bones about wanting to see Johnson get thrashed.

The “Fight of the Century” went 15 rounds before Jeffries – who had been knocked down twice for the first time in his pugilistic career – conceded defeat. Other Americans were not so inclined: Race riots across the country resulted in the deaths of 23 blacks, two whites and hundreds of injuries of people of both races. Moreover, to punish Johnson for his cockiness and his romantic liaisons with white women, he was pursued on trumped-up charges of violating the Mann Act, which made it a federal crime to transport a woman over state lines for “immoral” purposes. Johnson fled to Europe, relinquishing his title in 1915 to a Kansas cowboy named Jess Willard in the 22nd round of a 45-round bout in Havana, Cuba. (Johnson later maintained in a letter to Ring magazine publisher Nat Fleischer that he had “thrown” the fight.)

Jack Johnson returned to the United States in 1920, surrendered to federal authorities and served a year in Leavenworth. He died in 1946 after being denied service in a South Carolina diner, again because of his color: Infuriated, he peeled out of the restaurant parking lot, lost control of the car and hit a light pole. He died soon afterward, at age 68.

Johnson’s life was portrayed on the stage and then on-screen in the 1970 film “The Great White Hope,” starring James Earl Jones (the voice of Darth Vader in “Star Wars”), and was the subject of the 2004 Ken Burns documentary “Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson.”

Why am I telling you all this? For one thing, I think it’s important and timely as we come to the end of our first year as a nation with our first African-American president, and as we approach Black History Month in February.

For another: On July 4, 2010, the City of Reno will commemorate the centennial of the Johnson-Jeffries fight in a program of festivities that will include multimedia presentations, a dinner celebration, panel discussions, films, autograph sessions with past heavyweight champions, memorabilia auctions, book signings and a night of professional boxing. In addition, the organizers of the celebration are joining with civil rights groups and others to petition President Obama to pardon Johnson for his conviction under the Mann Act. (A resolution supporting the pardon was approved by Congress in July.)

I believe that this event, which I hope to attend, is of importance to all Americans – but also to collectors in various fields: African-American history, American social history, legal and constitutional issues, sports history and more. The organizers of the celebration are boxing historian Gary Schultz and USA Boxing executive director Mike Martino.

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Recommended reading:

• Jack Johnson vs. James Jeffries: The Prize Fight of the Century Reno, Nevada, July 4, 1910

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Another one for the books

Virtually every serious collector needs professional services of various kinds at various times: anything from insurance, appraisals, legal help (if ownership is in dispute) and tax advice to matters of consignment (when selling or auctioning items), authentication, conservation, repair and display.

You may even need a shrink to help you rein in your compulsive spending on your hobby – or a bankruptcy attorney if you’ve already gone to far.

I plan to address all of these aspects of collecting in future blogs on AmeriCollector.com – as well as the psychological mechanisms behind collecting, i.e., why the hell DO we love to collect, anyway – and why do we collect what we do? Why do some people – including some GUYS – collect dolls, while others are turned on by antique restraining devices, like handcuffs and balls and chains? Why are some women gaga for Gallé glass, others are willing to kill for the right Colonial sampler and still others are ready to rumble for a vintage Indian “Four” or a Harley “Flathead”?

But I digress. Right now I won’t address the whys but a “what” and a “who.”

The “what” is book restoration and repair, custom binding and related products and services, like archival clamshell boxes for storing rare and/or delicate volumes, and blank journals, logs and albums bound by hand in leather, snakeskin, vellum and other materials.

The “who” is Joel Radcliffe, the master bookbinder, book artist and publisher behind ARS OBSCURA Bookbinding & Restoration, in Seattle.

Now, I have blogged on a fine bookbinder once before (see “Bound to please: Relief for book lovers,” Sept. 22, 2009). But bookbinders are a lot like plumbers: When you need one, you want one who’s REALLY GOOD and isn’t going to rip you off. And unless you know one already, you want somebody who comes recommended by a trusted friend.

(Incidentally, don’t think you have to be a Book Collector in capital letters to need a bookbinder. Is that your old family Bible, published in 1790 – with all your ancestors’ birth- and death dates going back that far written in – that you’ve been using as a doorstop, so that the covers are coming apart? Have you left Great-Great-Grandpappy’s Civil War diary lying on a chest in the attic where the mice and silverfish can nosh on it? Have you been passing around your signed first edition of “The Cat in the Hat” so much that Dr. Seuss wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pen if you asked him to autograph it today? Or how about having a well-loved tome or album repaired or rebound – or having a box made for it – as a holiday, birthday or anniversary gift for a loved one? Or are you a treasure-hunting bibliophile like me, who occasionally snaps up a prize really cheap just because it has a few condition issues? If any of these scenarios applies to you, a professional bookbinder can help.)

I asked Joel to repair an uncommon and usually pricey illustrated work I’d won cheaply on eBay because it had been knocked around some and the covers were detached; I just wanted some basic repairs so I could read it without it completely falling apart. Joel did an excellent job without charging me an arm and a leg – something like fifty bucks plus shipping, which I thought was very reasonable.

Keep in mind that every book, like every family, has its own issues, that repair costs will vary and that Joel – or any bookbinder – can only estimate those costs based on photos. The best thing to do is e-mail him with some good images and as much information as possible about you want done (there’s a useful questionnaire on his Web site that will help you do this) and see what he says. If you want to proceed, he’ll ask you to ship the book to him for a closer look.

ARS OBSCURA Bookbinding & Restoration is open by appointment only – small surprise, because Joel is in really high demand and therefore BUSY. For the same reason, he may not respond to your e-mail right away: Be patient. The fact that he’s so backlogged is an indication of his talent, but that may mean waiting a couple of months for your repairs to be completed or paying more to expedite them.

Learn more at www.arsobscurabookbinding.com or call (206) 340-8810.

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Collector spotlight: Bob Rosner!

If you’re not Paris Hilton and actually have to work for a living, then Bob Rosner is required reading.

A New Jersey native now based in Seattle, Bob writes “Workplace911” (formerly “Working Wounded”), the internationally syndicated weekly column about workplace issues. He’s also a best-selling author of “Working Wounded: Advice That Adds Insight to Injury” (Warner Books), coauthor of “Gray Matters: The Workplace Survival Guide” (Wiley) and “The Boss’s Survival Guide: Everything You Need to Know About Getting Through (and Getting the Most Out of) Every Day” (McGraw-Hill), a motivational speaker and employee retention expert, a surveyor of workplace attitudes and experiences, a radio talk show personality and a contributor to CNBC.

How’s THAT for a résumé?

But that’s not all: Bob can add, under “Additional Information”: “Collector of funeral home bowling shirts” – further proof that Bob really does care about the working stiff, so to speak.

How do I know Bob? Because I formatted “Workplace 911” for its weekly space in a certain Tacoma daily newspaper, so I not only got paid to read Bob’s column, I continue to benefit from it as I write these AmeriCollector entries. The fact is, Bob’s down-to-earth writing style – combined with his upbeat, positive approach to dealing with workplace issues and challenges – is a model for any blogger. The same goes for the varied content of each of his columns, which usually consists of a reader’s question, Bob’s advice in the form of four key points, some enlightening, often humorous survey findings and an inspirational or at least fun quote from someone notable who, very often, has been in your shoes.

For these reasons, I consider Bob a mentor.

So imagine our surprise, delight and gratitude when I asked Bob if he collects anything; and, if so, if he’d be amenable to being featured on AmeriCollector.com; and what does he collect, anyway? – and he replied: “Yes”; “Yes”; and “Funeral home bowling shirts”! (Talk about breaking new ground in the collecting field!)

Now, funeraI home bowling shirts may sound bizarre to some and downright macabre to others: Who knew such things even existed? To me, at least, bowling shirts may be as little as 50 percent cotton and 50 percent polyester but they’re 100 percent Americana, and FUNERAL HOME bowling shirts in particular have all the offbeat early-1960s black humor of “The Munsters” and “The Addams Family,” Ed “Big Daddy” Roth’s “Rat Fink” and Forrest J. Ackerman’s fanzine Famous Monsters of Filmland – pure boomer nostalgia.

Anyway, here’s my interview with Bob … (And incidentally, if you ARE Paris Hilton, e-mail us quick, we need a sponsor.)

AmeriCollector: Why bowling shirts???

Bob Rosner: Why not?

AC: Do you bowl?

Bob: Rarely. I was the captain of the bowling team in high school: not because I was any good; it just so happened that I had enough spare change to pay for a bunch of people’s shoe rentals. If you ever want to be an officer for a bowling league, I’ve learned, bring change!

AC: How many shirts do you have?

Bob: I have 21 shirts. I’ve been told by the Bowling Hall of Fame that this is the largest collection of its kind anywhere in the world. At least, that’s what they said when they tried to get me to donate it to their museum and called me every few days for two weeks.

AC: When did you get started?

Bob: I was looking through a bin of shirts at a vintage clothing store in Boston. I came across Carlson’s Funeral Home, 1174 Payne Avenue. It made me laugh.

One day I was at a party and a very beautiful woman and I got into a conversation. The chemistry was remarkable. There was actually beautiful music in the background as our eyes connected. It was pure Disney, although I don’t remember any songbirds flying around my head. It was magical and clear to both of us that we were destined to spend the rest of our lives together. Then I asked her if I could get her a drink. She said yes. When I turned she said, “Ugh. Funeral Home. That’s disgusting.” I replied, “How can you say that? I worked at Carlson’s for three years.” (For the record, if you look at the word “replied,” it also contains the word “lied,” which you could consider an apt description of my response to her.) She asked what I did at the funeral home. I told her, “I was activities director.” She didn’t laugh. So I continued, “We had a balcony, we’d hook strings to the bodies and hold dances.” She slapped me across the face, still the only time I’ve ever been slapped by a woman. At that point, I knew I was onto something.

AC: What do you enjoy about collecting the shirts?

Bob: I love having bowling parties, watching people change shirts every few minutes. And, trust me, you haven’t felt love until you’ve gone into a bowling alley wearing a shirt from a funeral home. They automatically treat you like family … well, to be accurate, like a cousin twice removed, but family, nonetheless.

If you ever do get invited to a party, wear a long-sleeve shirt under any shirt from your collection: To preserve their cultural and historical impact and integrity, the shirts should never be washed.

AC: How do you build your collection?

Bob: A friend made me a business card. It was gray and said, “Bob ‘First Strike’ Rosner” on it. It also had “RIP” across the top (which of course stands for “Recreation in Polyester”), I would hand cut each one into the shape of a tombstone. The card became very popular at vintage clothing stores. In fact, the last five shirts were given to me.

AC: What’s the highlight of your collection?

Bob: embroidered version of the famous hand bowling out of a casket shirt (it’s in the middle of the photo). This is the only shirt that consistently frightens people.

AC: What are the characteristics of a great shirt?

Bob: A bowling shirt with the word “Funeral” on it. This is not rocket science.

Many thanks to Bob Rosner. (Visit Bob’s Web site at www.workplace911.com.)

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