The Mast-Head: Holding the Past
There are people selling ghosts on eBay, I have heard. Well, actually, I checked, and, yes, this week you can bid on a "ghost in a bottle" from a seller in New Jersey. But that's not the only thing I was surprised about recently on the Web site - you can buy raw coffee beans there and original photographic prints from the heyday of The Village Voice.
Every week or so, I cross the great divide to Sag Harbor to get a pound of coffee from my friends the Bedinis who run Java Nation. Consider this a shameless plug, if you want to, but I think they have the best coffee, bar none, on the East End. I have tried just about every bean they sell. When I am feeling particularly flush, I'll spring for the $20-a-pound Kona or Galapagos.
This time, I noticed a handwritten sign for some Bolivian organic fair trade beans that seemed to me to be reasonably priced at $15. I can get about seven days' worth of brewed coffee for two people out of a pound of beans. Try that at Starbucks, I dare you. Talking to Andrew Bedini about the beans later, he confided that he had gotten them from a seller in Boston.
About a month ago I happened across something else on eBay that really caught my interest. Fred McDarrah of East Hampton, who was a Village Voice photographer back when the newspaper meant something, was selling prints and bits of other memorabilia from his collection.
Fred's great images included photos of people from Fred Friendly to Allen Ginsberg. Most of them have been sold now, but a few remain available. A print showing Leo Castelli, Ethel Scull, and Jasper Johns at a 1960 art opening drew 15 bids and went for $260 to a buyer calling himself thomas-b. A friend of mine from San Francisco walked away with a great shot of Divine for $31. A great picture of Oliver Stone from 1992 is still available. Bidding starts at $9.
Perhaps the best feature on eBay is one in which you can set up "favorite searches," keywords for the things you are interested in. I did this for old copies of The East Hampton Star, and the first hit I got was for the very issue from 1907 that I had been looking for. Between that and the coffee, I am still buzzing about it.