#brazenhead

[lokibones]

Lots of interesting things have happened in my life on this day throughout the years. I once got engaged 9 years ago today. But Also I was at The Brazen Head established in 1198 in Dublin Ireland before one of our gigs! Good times 😃 #brazenhead #dublin #ireland https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn47oArJWXo/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[sparklygraves]

“But isn’t there something you’ve wanted for forever that feels closer than it used to be? Even a little?”

Ronan thought: about the Post-Its on Blue’s fridge, and about Persephone’s regular pie-making schedule—every other Monday night, like clockwork. That one painting at Orla’s show, the warmth of it and the assurance that Fox Way would always be there, and even if it wasn’t that it would be okay, because it would still be there in all the ways that mattered. The spot in the desk drawer at Brazenhead that belonged to whatever book Opal was reading at the moment. The corner of Adam’s smile, his socked feet tucked under Ronan’s leg, the cup of tea they passed back and forth that cold morning.

What did he want?

What had he always wanted?

To go home.

—this pynch fic i’m obsessedy with❤️

[tonyhurtado]

Fourth and final from Dublin! . . . . #Dublin #Ireland #vacation #travel #fishnchips #leoburdock #pub #thebrazenhead #brazenhead #ramen #theramenbar #guiness #drank #photography #photo #iphonephotography #tonyhurtado (at Dublin, Ireland)

[alphadesigner]

Title page draft with an illustration of an automaton I did a while ago, originally for an article about a pre-Renaissance pope. 📚🎨

[bretthorton]

👹

Brazenhead - Clutch

[justforbooks]

A Wake for New York’s Last Pirate Bookseller

Whisky, wine and memories as friends mourned Michael Seidenberg — and also Brazenhead, a secret bookstore he ran out of his Manhattan apartment.

On the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a somber procession of New Yorkers walked into an apartment building and rang a buzzer to attend the wake of a bookseller named Michael Seidenberg. Up some stairs and down a corridor, the din of a gathering poured from a door, and they entered a small apartment lined with long libraries and heaps of paperbacks that houses Mr. Seidenberg’s clandestine secondhand bookstore, Brazenhead. Wading into the crowd, they hugged old friends and wiped away tears.

They were there to mourn Mr. Seidenberg, who died on July 8 2019  at 64, but the gathering was also a dirge for the poetic notion of New York that he represented. His secret bookstore became a haven for book lovers who knew its address, and it was famed for its blurry salons that lasted until daybreak.

Mr. Seidenberg, who was missing a front tooth and wore disheveled unbuttoned shirts, was a romantic, bard like personality who smoked a pipe and could not bear selling books he was fond of. To the Brazenhead devout, he was the cherished conductor of a bookish universe that formed nightly within the walls of his apartment.

As his friends gathered in the sweltering apartment, leaning up against bookshelves and nursing stiff drinks, they exchanged memories of a man who they said had created a literary sanctuary unlike any other.

“I used to fall asleep in the stacks near the Philip K. Dick novels, and when I woke up at 4 or 5 in the morning Michael and I would just talk about life,” said Alex Brook Lynn, 37, a journalist. “We once discussed what a conversation between James Cagney and John Cassavetes would have sounded like.”

“One of the great joys of living in New York has been bringing people to Brazenhead,” said Isaac Butler, 40, a critic who is writing a book about the history of method acting. “The experience only got richer when you passed it on. Brazenhead was the fantasy of New York you came here to get, but it was only here. The myth of New York still existed in this place with this man.”

A bell was occasionally rung to silence the crowd, and guests offered remembrances. One of them was the novelist Jonathan Lethem, who worked for Mr. Seidenberg as a teenager in Brooklyn, accepting books as payment, and later wrote him into his novels.

“I walked into Michael’s Atlantic Avenue shop in 1978,” Mr. Lethem said. “I kind of just decided it was going to be my life to be Michael’s right hand for as long as I could be, and it changed my life in a lot of different ways. I think I might be Patient Zero.” Then he looked to the crowd and added, “You all self-selected to be part of this tribe.”

The wake carried into the night. Bob Dylan played from a speaker. On a stoop outside, two women sat drinking wine as they exchanged stories about Mr. Seidenberg. The writer Luc Sante, a longtime Brazenhead patron, bought a book before going home (a first edition hardcover copy of Don Carpenter’s 1981 novel, “Turnaround”).

“I loved Michael deeply,” Mr. Sante said. “He was a universal soul. A connector of people. A pirate bookseller. He also believed in books as a social glue, and there’s not much of that left now.”

Mr. Seidenberg’s path to becoming a literary hero was an unlikely one. He opened Brazenhead Books in Brooklyn in the late 1970s. Shortly after, he moved his store to the Upper East Side but eventually lost his lease. Unable to afford another storefront, he relocated his heaps of books into the apartment he was living in down the block and, as he plied his trade selling paperbacks on city streets over the next decade, the heaps grew into mountainous piles. In 2007, he pursued the radical idea of operating a bookstore out of his rent-controlled apartment.

“I didn’t want to sell online; that’s repulsive to me,” Mr. Seidenberg once said in an interview. “So then I thought to do this. I thought, I’ll make a space where people can come to see my books. I’ll make it into a bookstore, but it’ll be in an apartment. That was that.”

“Secondhand bookshops have been banished from the city,” he reflected at another time. “There’s no place for them. It’s a losing battle. We’ve lost. I just want to do as much as I can.”

The bookshop’s address was passed along through word of mouth, and discovering Brazenhead became a rite of passage for young literary New Yorkers. On a typical night, guests sipped Famous Grouse whisky from plastic cups as Mr. Seidenberg held court and recommended books, while marijuana smoke leaked out from a discreet room containing Brazenhead’s first-edition collection.

But by 2014, Brazenhead’s address was too well known, and Mr. Seidenberg was served an eviction notice that summer. Its final months resembled a farewell tour, and the apartment throbbed nightly with visitors eager to experience the secret literary landmark.

“By the end there were a lot of hangers-on who were there for booze and not for books,” Mr. Seidenberg said at the time. “The inner-circle people weren’t happy those last days.”

The following year, however, Mr. Seidenberg quietly reopened Brazenhead in another apartment on the Upper East Side, which is where it resides today, and he continued operating it by appointment only. The cause of his death was heart failure.

At the wake, Brazenhead’s future seemed uncertain. “I would say Brazenhead is indefinitely closed,” said Gracie Bialecki, 28, Mr. Seidenberg’s longtime assistant. “Because Brazenhead was Michael. It was his bookstore, and now he’s gone.”

As midnight approached, the gathering became intimate. People browsed the stacks quietly. Others lounged around discussing politics. In the kitchen, cluttered with empty liquor bottles, someone sang and played the guitar. J.T. Price, a writer, noticed a book sitting out of place on a shelf. “The last time I saw Michael I told him I wanted this book,” he said. “He knew I wanted it. He must have put this aside for me.”

The bell rang again and the apartment fell silent. Hugo Perez, a filmmaker, took the floor and paid tribute to Mr. Seidenberg. Then, he raised his glass, and so did everyone else.

“We few, we happy few, we band of Brazenhead,” he said. “We toast to Michael. Brazenhead forever. Long live Brazenhead.”

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[deephousesoldier]

Treble Treble per chance? #celtic #trebletreble #brazenhead (at Brazenhead) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bx5RgGLh3_4x2LFSbL7xNXCkpqSMl992x9gGAk0/?igshid=vd0npuakelov

[bambambranson]

Eating dinner at the Brazen Head before we leave tomorrow. #dublin #ireland #brazenhead #pub #guinness (at Brazen Head) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bwm2yOoFnDq/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=8f2uhbw5gsxn

[justforbooks]

Tucked high above the bustle of the street, Michael's secret secondhand bookshop is a mecca for those who savor the story behind the volume.

Michael Seidenberg, whose clandestine bookshop and literary salon on the Upper East Side was much loved by bibliophiles, literati and inveterate browsers, died on July 8 2019 in a hospital in Danbury, Conn. He was 64.

“We few, we happy few, we band of Brazenhead.”

“We toast to Michael. Brazenhead forever. Long live Brazenhead.”

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[justforbooks]

We few, we happy few, we band of Brazenhead.

We toast to Michael. Brazenhead forever. Long live Brazenhead.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[arizonacolleen]

The baptism. 28 February 2019 #dublin #guinness #visitingfamily #brazenhead #publife #firstpint (at Brazen Head) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bubu6Z9gipA/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=vu954d7nxd1o

[andraemcrae]

Do not wait to strike ’til the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking. - - We are exciting for some big news coming! - - #Toronto #rugby #football #sports #love #England #selfie #me #ootd #photooftheday #fun #tattoo #sendnudes #suits #highfashion #fitness #silverhair #brows #tanned #prettyboy #follow #20likes #brazenhead

[aaronstveit]

hello! would you mind sharing your favorite pynch fics?

hi anon!!! sorry for answering this so late!!! i would love to share some wonderful fics with you !!!!! first things first i link some all-time favs in this post, and i still highly recommend all of them!! and here are some more that i enjoy:

like thunder under earth by laumonie rated t, 67k words, 13/13 chapters The boy who worked the graveyard shift at Brazenhead Books was bird-thin, and pale, and kind of scowl-y. He was always reading enormous dry texts with titles like Tort Law and Alternatives and Intro to Comparative Constitutional Law. He drawled like Matthew McConaughey and the hair just above his right ear never lay flat. Ronan was probably in love.

it's nerf or nothin' by wisteria_leighrated t, 2.6k words, 1/1 chapter “You. You are the worst, most obnoxious person I’ve ever met.” “That’s not an apology.”

no hard feelings by vitale not rated, 3k words, 1/1 chapter Parrish stops in his tracks and blinks at him, and for the first time tonight, he doesn’t look like he wants to murder Ronan anymore. Ronan would even say he looks a little impressed, though it’s less in a ‘I-am-totally-charmed-by-your-desperate-attempt-to-get-my-number’ way and more in a ‘I-can’t-believe-you-have-the-nerve-to-say-this’ way. “Did you just make a pass at me after I found you passed out drunk in my bed in my shirt that you stole from my closet?” Ronan shrugs nonchalantly, trying to hide his obvious agitation. “I guess.”

looking by feeblehtp not rated, 1.1k words, 1/1 chapter Adam tries to figure out his feelings for Ronan. The problem with Ronan was that he was not a language that lent himself to learning.

some kind of burning by emkayss rated t, 5.8k words, 1/1 chapter In Ronan’s language of half answers and whole truths, this is a cautious admission. This is Ronan admitting to wanting Adam, carefully and circumspectly. This is a step forward, albeit a small one. Adam takes the next.

[moss-wizard]

@make-a-fist tagged to shuffle 10 songs to make a playlist.

Violet Cold - Synergy

Unto Ashes - Ah, Sunflower!

Sigur Ros - Seaglopur

Kashiwa Daisuke - Broken Device

Clutch - Brazenhead

tricot - 初耳

Faunts - Of Nature

Archivist - Escape Velocity

vvilderness - Devour the Sun

Tenhi - Hiljaiseksi Lampi Jää

[bretthorton]

1. Who Wants To Rock? 2. Pure Rock Fury 3. Sea Of Destruction 4. Immortal 5. Careful With That Mic... 6. Impetus 7. El Jefe 8. Rock And Roll Outlaw 9. 12 Ounce Epilogue 10. Big News I 11. Big News II 12. Brazenhead 13. The Soapmakers 14. Escape From The Prison Planet 15. Rats