Friday, November 2, 2012

Paperback 577: Club Tycoon Sends Man to Moon / Felix Mendelsohn Jr. (Book Co. of America 13)

Paperback 577: Book Co. of America 13 (PBO, 1965)

Title: Club Tycoon Sends Man to Moon
Author: Felix Mendelsohn Jr.
Cover artist: [signature illegible] [Brennan? Boorman? Boron?]

Yours for: $20

BCA13.ClubTycoon
Best things about this cover:
  • That! That is what I want to look like when I'm 75. Like an old Greek rap star supervillain. If I don't end up with a Money Throne, a Soviet missile, and a real-life Modigliani model in my house by the time I die, I will consider my life wasted.
  • I assume that throne is also some kind of hovercraft. I mean, why would you go through the trouble of building something that awesome if it couldn't fly?
  • I bought this book because it is insane-looking. A silly-sounding title from a very minor press, written by a guy with a ludicrous pseudonym. If I had a "Kabinet of Kooky Kuriosities," I'd put this book there.

BCA13bc.ClubTycoon

Best things about this back cover:
  • You have no idea how much I *don't* want to know what "built-in stump" means.
  • You can get your "World's Greatest Lecher" mug at CreepyChristmasGifts.com
  • I love how "wonderfully gay" is echoed further down the page by "a bachelor by choice" (and, possibly, "Cryptanalyst").
  • According to that final sentence, the author and I are 80% alike. This worries me.
  • Publishers were correct in their prediction that this would not be Felix Mendelsohn Jr's last novel. He seems to have written one other, "Superbaby," which I Must Acquire:


Page 23~ (the book is exactly 122 pages long)
Wayne: "What's your line, Mr. Dormin?"
Dormin: "Laxatives."
Sure. Why not?

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

P.S. Hope my east coast readers weathered Sandy successfully. We had a state of emergency up here, but nothing happened. Still, I was prepared:

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P.P.S. I've been meaning to post this pic of a sign for a local deli — in Endwell (!) NY — just 'cause. I haven't been in yet, but I am ... curious:

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7 comments:

Unknown said...

I think that dapper old man on the cover is Our Man Flint in his later years.

Graham Powell said...

That is without question the finest author bio I have ever read. I think from now on I'm going to list my occupation ast "plagoer and boulevardier."

Retro Hound said...

That deli sign is great!

Anonymous said...

When Peter Falk got tired of his Columbo gig he posed for gay boulevardier painters.

Anonymous said...

In Seattle for many years there was a old corner market called S&M produce. I think they probably sold more t-shirts than groceries near the end of their life. Sadly, they are no longer there, replaced by a Starbucks, I think.

Alaska Salmon Fishing said...

Felix Mendelsohn Jr. is such a great writer. I love all his books.

Anonymous said...

Bizarrely enough, Felix Mendelsohn Jr. is apparently not a pseudonym. According to the New York public library website:
Biographical/Historical Note

Felix Mendelsohn, Jr. (1906-1991), was an advertising copywriter based in Chicago. As a young man, Mendelsohn aspired to be a journalist. He found work writing promotional copy, booklets and brochures for various companies. He died in 1991 at the age of 84.

And abebooks apparently believes that Franklin Mayfair a pseudonym of Mendelsohn:

http://www.abebooks.com/book-search/author/mayfair-franklin-pseudonym-of-felix-mendelsohn-jr/

Mayfair actually has a book already on your blog:

http://salmongutter.blogspot.com/2009/06/paperback-245-over-my-dead-body.html