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[externally in pretty bad shape (see images and notes), with part of the front cover torn (or eaten) away, and general overall soiling and discoloration; the binding, however, is intact, and the internals are perfectly OK]. (B&W photographs) Here, my friends, we have that most lamentable and problematic of objects: a unique and highly collectable item that we must honestly acknowledge is in distinctly uncollectable condition -- the very sort of thing that the overworked verbal shrug "it is what it is" was coined to describe. And yet -- and yet -- there's no denying that it IS a thing, and quite a thing at that: an INSCRIBED copy of the FIRST printing of renowned artist Ed Ruscha's iconic first book, published under his own imprint in a numbered edition of just 400 copies (this being No. 87). The work itself is not "rare" -- there was a second edition (500 copies, 1967) and a third (a whopping 3,000 copies, 1969) -- and if your only ambition is to own a "nice" copy of this famous and influential work, well, heck, you might not even have to spend yourself into the four figures, and you'll still be one-up on the Library of Congress, which famously and politely rejected and returned the copy that Ed himself sent them in 1963, and to this day does not own a copy of any edition. (A not-too-subtle lack of respect for the 1960s L.A. art scene at play, maybe?) Anyway, those later printings are also "what they are" -- but THIS copy, for all its manifest depredations, is in a very rarefied class, having been INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the artist/author/photographer (in the year of publication, no less), as follows: "For / Sonny / From / Ed / 1963." The inscription has been authenticated by Mr. Ruscha himself, in an email exchange with our consignor in the Fall of 2022; a printed copy of these emails will be provided along with the book. Unfortunately, though, he couldn't recall, almost 60 years after the fact, who this "Sonny" was. It's fun to speculate that the inscribee might have been one of the notable Sonnys of American History -- Bono, Barger, Tufts, Jurgensen, and Liston come readily to mind -- but lacking any hard evidence, that's just a whole lotta wishful thinking. (And anyway, "Sonny" is about as common and all-American a nickname as you can find: even my little Nebraska hometown, population 900-something, had three or four Sonnys.) I have my own theory (although that's all it is), based on a comment of Ruscha's in a 1965 interview: "I showed the first book to a gasoline station attendant. He was amused." So I think that "Sonny" might well have been just such a pump jockey -- maybe even that very one -- possibly at one of the artist's regular fill-'er-up stops at the L.A. end of the California-to-Oklahoma journey that his book photographically traces. He might have been one of the Sons at the "Brown & Sons" APCO station in Oklahoma City, or maybe the guy who checked Ed's oil at the station that he depicted in his famous 1963 painting "Standard Station, Amarillo, Texas" (subsequently rendered as a widely-distributed print). Or -- to really play out the art-world fantasy -- maybe Sonny was the day-shift man at the famous "Double Standard" station, at the five-way intersection on the western edge of West Hollywood, that Dennis Hopper so memorably photographed (also circa 1963) -- which would make Ed's painting and Dennis's photo visual second cousins (or something like that). This is all wildly conjectural, of course -- but look at the poor little thing! Can we easily dismiss the idea that this shamefully mishandled copy of "Twentysix Gasoline Stations" might well have been stored IN a gas station for a few decades, possibly fallen behind an oil drum or lost beneath a pile of greasy rags? Maybe our man Sonny got fed up with the gas-pumping racket, stuffed his handful of belongings into a beat-up cardboard suitcase, lit out for Hawaii (where this copy was discovered by our consignor), and lived happily ever after as a surf-riding bea.
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