| THE FAB FIVE |
[15 Jul 2009|02:02pm] |
It's been a really mild summer where I live, so the flea market has been very pleasant and I'm not getting that "WHY DO I BOTHER????" feeling I usually get this time of year. Plus I keep finding REALLY AMAZING THINGS, so that helps kill ennui, too.
When I saw this wig/hat case, LOVE WAS BORN. I think I floated over to it the way a cartoon dog floats on barbeque smell.
Weird little doll version of Margaret Keane type waif.
I thought this paint by number masterpiece was very sweet--it was a collaboration between two girls (sisters? cousins?) who gave it to their grandmother in 1960.
A city of vintage lipsticks. A person more practical than me might say, "WHAT'RE YOU GONNA DO WITH ALL THAT? YOU AIN'T GONNA WEAR THAT!" but I love finding disposable odds and ends like this that only survived through a weird fluke. I wouldn't mind paying so much for lipstick if it still came in cases like these.
WOO HOO, I finally found a copy of PILLOW TALK and it was only 35 cents! Sylvia Robinson totally looks like RAVEN.
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[29 Jun 2009|12:25pm] |
I went to the flea market even though the weather was drizzly and lousy because I wanted to see if anyone was scalping Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett collectibles. Postmortem flea market scalping is so weird. I could be wrong but my theory is that since Michael Jackson died so young and was such a huge international icon that prices on MJ dolls and pins and records and ET picture discs could permanently remain crazy, just like Elvis Presley memorabilia.
Anyway, the lousy weather was probably a factor but I only saw a few dog-eared copies of WE ARE THE WORLD and OFF THE WALL and a total of two Michael Jackson dolls and one Farrah doll.
I thought I was dangerously close to having all of Lynn Anderson's early CHART label albums and then one of my flickr bros uploaded a picture of this album she found and I was like "WHAT IS THAT????" This weekend I got my own copy! This cover picture is so glorious.
I did not buy the Farrah doll but I bought this weird little doll in a helmet who I later found out is Batgirl. She's missing her utility belt, cape, and Bat logo so she just looks like a performance artist or a lady doing a really weird form of yoga.
I found a shoebox full of old Christmas stuff for three dollars. I threw a Cabbage Patch angel in the trash (God that felt good), but these knick knacks made the final cut:
A-frame Holy Family!
Sleepy and Dopey. Sleepy is missing one of his eye decals but I like the overall effect.
This wind-up Santa looks as stressed out as I imagine someone would be if they had to deliver toys all over the world in one night.
Dancing Santas.
Plastic deer.
I'm not as into gothic romances from the 60s and 70s as I was a year ago, but I still hoard them like a miser in anticipation of a return to the gothic romance theme.
More vintage nylons. I have this pipe dream of publishing a coffee table book of vintage nylon packages someday. I don't know if the fact that there's a whole weird sexual subculture that fetishizes old nylons is a selling point or not. I guess that's a silly thing to say, OF COURSE it would be a selling point. I almost wish there weren't old nylon fetishists because I always wonder if people think I'm ONE OF THEM when I buy these things.
OH YEAH last week at Goodwill I finally got this amazing Little Marcy album. Too bad some dumb kid scribbled over the sun. At least the corn cob with the purple beret isn't scribbled on. that would have killed me.
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| damn, girl (or: No amount of cleaning will remove the stains on your VERY SOUL) |
[25 Jun 2009|11:37am] |
This teen advice column letter from former Miss America Vonda Kay Van Dyke starts out normal enough and then Vonda Kay (or more likely Vonda Kay's ghost writer) gets really worked up.
Dear Vonda Kay,
I think my room should be the one place where I have privacy. My mother is always going in when I'm not there and putting things away, snooping into my pocketbook and notebooks when she does it. She pretends she's cleaning up my room, which I must admit is a wreck. But it is my room--I want a place of my own where no one is nosing around. Is that asking too much?
Kim
Dear Kim,
Of course you want privacy--and you have an easy way to get it. You keep your room as neat as your mother keeps the rest of the house and she'll have no reason to be in it all the time. You've asked for her presence by letting things get in such a mess. Hang up your clothes, put your books away, keep things in order--and you'll have your privacy.
I can't help wondering, though, Kim, what is it that you don't want your mother to find. If she is in your room because she suspects you are hiding something from her, then no amount of cleaning is going to help. All I can say is that--more than just your room--you had better keep your life in order, too.
Vonda Kay
WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? Apparently if you don't want your mother rooting around in your purse or reading your diary it means you're selling heroin to pregnant teenagers from your bedroom closet. LESSON LEARNED!
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| I was annoyed by a cookbook last week |
[22 Jun 2009|12:05pm] |
I checked out this book someone donated at work because the super pink design beguiled me and the recipes sounded good. Since it was about cooking for your own damn fool self and not cooking to catch a man I thought it wouldn't be too pukey even with the I'M NOT MARRIED YET AND I HAVE A SHRINE TO AUDREY HEPBURN ON MY DRESSER title and I was hoping to get some tasty and simple recipes and maybe even some Heloise level kitchen tips. Instead it made me want to immediately stick my head in a oven.
These vaguely Doris Day movie credit sequence looking dainty little advice books for single ladies look so cute and pink and fun but when you actually read them and the repeated references to hunting for men and bridesmaid dresses and your mama wanting grandchildren and going to the gym to work off the vodka and cranberry cheesecake you ate last night and Dear God all my friends from college are married now when it is going to be MY TURN???? you get the feeling that even if the recipes in the book sound delicious that everything you would prepare would end up tasting like self loathing. From now on I'm sticking with those cheesy cookbook magazines they sell at the checkout counter. Their design is pedestrian but at least I know when I'm reading them I'm not going to see any inane references to trunk sales at Barney's.
I'm not sure what it says about me that a book that most people have a "OH CUTE, it's like SEX AND THE CITY meets Julia Child!" reaction to just made me angry and annoyed. Is there a cookbook for the terminally cranky (suggested title: SHOVE THIS ARUGULA UP YOUR ASS!)?
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| I would rather think about old suitcases than curse the darkness |
[17 Jun 2009|10:31am] |
I was gonna write about a letter to Annie's Mailbox that annoyed me yesterday, but I don't have the time for a big indignant fit right now. Oh, what the hell, I'll have a big indignant fit and then I'll talk about old junk.
Dear Annie: You missed the boat with "Sexless Lady," whose husband only has makeup sex. You didn't address the possibility that he's just given up.
My wife could have written that letter. When we first met, she dressed sexy, and we made love everywhere — in a closet, in the car, at the lake. After we married and had kids, she changed. Fifteen years later, we have sex at 10 p.m. on Saturday night, under the covers with the lights off. She sleeps in a cotton nightgown that goes from neck to ankle. I haven't seen her cleavage in 13 years. My wife is attractive at 45, but to her, sex is a chore. I went to a marriage counselor, read books, bought marital aids, tried to romance her, but it didn't help.
It's been three years since I initiated sex. I am staying for the kids and have let her believe my sex drive disappeared. One day, I will leave and find a woman who doesn't see fondling as perverted, who dresses with sex appeal and who might cook breakfast in the nude. Ladies, sex starts with the mind. If you aren't into it, he will find someone who is. — Just Waiting
Dear Just: We'd be happy to start a National Married No Excuse Sex Day, but once a year doesn't seem sufficient. And it won't encourage your wife to dress in a more sexually provocative manner. Have you told her? If not, please do.
His wife has changed the way she dresses in the past fifteen years? Your sex life changed after you had kids? NO WAY.
My scientific findings indicate that men who whine about their wives not being sexy anymore are the most dumpy, unappealing, poorly dressed men you can imagine, so I'd really like to launch a sack of cat turds at JUST WAITING. Also, what is it with straight guys and naked chores? Yeah, I'm sure this sexy dream girl you're going to leave your wife for someday is just dying to fry you up some bacon and eggs with her tits hanging out. God I hate this guy. I really hope Kathy and Marcy decide to track him down and kill him for bothering them with this letter.
There, NOW I FEEL BETTER.
I bought more suitcases this weekend. If this trend of finding beautiful suitcases in my favorite colors continues pretty soon I'll be able to build a little hut in my bedroom for the cats to play in while I'm at work. COOL.
Another Betty Dain creation.
This is Maddie Mod, a weirdface Barbie pastiche from the late 60s with an opulent mod wardrobe and a face that could sink a thousand ships. I mainly bought this Maddie because of the cool box graphics. Don't tell her--I don't want her to cut me.
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| flea market and rummage sale finds |
[08 Jun 2009|03:52pm] |
all these objects came from the same booth at the flea market, and they hold DEEPLY SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE to me. I thought it was really cosmic that three things I'm obsessed with (the Blessed Mother, weird little dolls, and vintage hair ephemera) would be laying there out on one plastic tarp. Plus the illustration of Mary is really odd in how glamorous she looks. She reminds me of that one Lynda Barry cartoon where Maybonne's cousin gets in trouble at his Catholic school for making Mary look like Paula Prentiss and his art teacher was like "THE BLESSED MOTHER IS NOT A BEAUTY QUEEN!"
( Read more... )
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[01 Jun 2009|11:55am] |
I just renewed my livejournal for another year so I guess I should start writing more and not just copying and pasting stuff from Annie's Mailbox, Good Lord (although today's column has another amazing "I WALKED IN ON MY HUSBAND HAVING SEX WITH THE STOCK BOY, COULD HE BE A HOMOSEXUAL?" letter).
I'm in the middle of one of my Virginia Graham phases. I re-read DON'T BLAME THE MIRROR, her weird, free-form book length meditation on the nature of glamor and beauty this weekend and now I'm thinking I should just break down and buy a copy of her autobiography There Goes What's Her Name. I keep waiting to find a copy at a thrift store or someplace but it never happens. I know this book would bring me joy and merriment and I keep putting it off because I don't want to spend the extra money on shipping.
Reading Don't Blame the Mirror in the incredible future year of 2009 really makes you realize how much things have changed for the ladies since 1967. I have a reputation for being kind of a Polly Prissy Pants for the way I dress, but Virgina Graham made me feel like a real slob because I don't wear white gloves or set my hair. Plus during one of the weird parts of the book that is just a transcription of Virginia Graham talking with her ghost-writer she totally zings this lady over not having manicured nails. "I FIND YOUR NAILS QUITE UPSETTING, COULD YOU DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT?" This book also taught me that Cindy Adams could apply her false eyelashes in a darkened phone booth.
On the old school beauty and grooming tip I also read this thing Eileen Ford wrote in the middle of a mid-life crisis, and at the very end of this grueling 21 day course in beauty she has the nerve to write, "if my 21 day beauty course did not work for you perhaps it is time to seriously consider plastic surgery. it is now socially acceptable and starts at 1000 dollars." The only part of the Eileen Ford 21 Day beauty regimen I have adapted to my own lifestyle is the chin exercises, so if I don't exude feminine beauty from head to toe I have only myself to blame.
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| THE BURNING |
[20 May 2009|10:24am] |
Dear Annie: I am 23 years old and a virgin. I have never seen a naked man in my life because I believe virginity should be kept until marriage. The other day I went with my sister to watch my nephew's baseball game. He plays on a field that is uphill, so you can see the backyards of some of the houses across the street. My nephew had heard from his friends that one of the men in those yards sits naked in his hot tub. I always assumed this wasn't true.
When I got to the game, I instantly remembered those rumors. I didn't intend to be a Peeping Tom, but I looked around and saw a man in a hot tub. I assumed this was the guy, so I kept watching. Five minutes later, he got out of the hot tub and really was naked. I instantly got a headache and my eyes burned. I want to do something to prevent children from seeing him. I know he was in his own backyard, but you could see him clearly from the field. Would that count as public nudity? Do you think I should report him? — Scarred for Life
This is the greatest Annie's Mailbox letter EVER.
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| oh yeah, flea market season started |
[18 May 2009|03:35pm] |
I'm always in a better place mentally when flea market season starts again. Especially right now, before the summery weather starts and the joy of walking around in a open field full of junk for sale is somehow diminished with humidity and temperatures in the mid to upper 80s.
I AM SO HOT for Boontonware right now. The shapes, the colors! Right now the centerpiece of my knick knack shelf showcases a copy of DEAR VONDA KAY flanked by a pale pink cream and sugar set. DREAMY.
DOMESTIC TIP: even if you don't smoke ashtrays make nifty catchalls for the smaller things in life. This is especially true if you collect dolls and you always have little shoes and purses and things rolling around that you don't want your cats to choke on.
I found this itty-bitty nurse figurine in a box of shitty modern toys. I think she's a cake decoration. She's incredible enough on her own, but her tray of medications takes her into a new universe of strangeness and wonderfulness. Thank you for making so many amazing plastic oddments, Hong Kong.
This weird cat-headed cello baby rattle was in the same box. I don't get it, but now my dolls are prepared for any crazy beatnik jazz musician moods.
I guess this tiny figurine is intended to be an elfin creature, but since she's wearing a full body snuggie type garment I like to imagine she's the leader of some obscure woodsy cult. Plus she kind of looks like a melted Wendy the Good Little Witch.
Yesterday I bought this random issue of the unbelievably shitted comic book adaptation of Dark Shadows and was horrified to see my two favorite characters ARTISTICALLY SLANDERED!
In conclusion, Grayson Hall and Thayer David should have sued.
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| what's hot in 2009 |
[27 Apr 2009|02:22pm] |
Two things I am obsessed with right now:
old children's books about precocious, neurotic rich children growing up in New York City (or is that redundant?). It all started when I picked up The Long Secret at work. If you're not familiar The Long Secret is a companion book to the better known Harriet the Spy. From there I went to Eloise and on Saturday I bought a copy of The World of Henry Orient. What is it with rich pre-teens falling in love with down and out pianists? Harriet the Spy's friend Beth Ellen was in love with one and the girls in Henry Orient are into musicians, too. I guess I just answered my own damn question.
The cover for Henry Orient was designed and illustrated by Seymour Chwast and it is gorgeous. I love the look and feel of old children's books.
ANYWAY, I read a lot of these books when I was a kid and the girls in these books acted nothing like anyone I knew--it gave me a real, "WOW, NEW YORK CITY!" reaction. Between Harriet the Spy and the Guardian Angels appearing on Donahue I had this perception of New York as being the most glamorous, dangerous place in the world.
The other thing I am obsessed with is ANNIE'S MAILBOX, the most depressing advice column EVER. It's basically the old Ann Landers column carried on by her assistants Kathy Mitchell and Marcy Sugar (oh, and MARCY SUGAR is the best name ever--with a name like that you're either gonna be teaching Sunday school or trying to karate chop James Bond).
Nothing says ALL BUSINESS like having a photograph of yourself on the phone on your official website.
Annie's Mailbox (I know, the name is horrible and to me calling Ann Landers ANNIE is an act of extreme poor taste--her name is ANN. Miss Landers if you nasty) seemingly gets all the really bizarre, creepy, or just plain cringe-worthy letters that the new Dear Abby doesn't want to touch with a ten foot advice column pole. Like last week some guy wrote in because his wife was having an online affair with a man in her world of warcraft guild.
( KATHY AND MARCY'S GREATEST HITS )
I wish I could get into all the weirdness and nonsense generated by a series of letters about women of a certain age not being able to find clothes for their on the go lifestyle, but this is already pushing the limits of TLDR and I don't want to get sued by Creators Syndicate.
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| disturbing themes in 80s career lady comedies |
[18 Mar 2009|02:22pm] |
OK, I watched Outrageous Fortune last weekend (now that I don't have cable or the internet at home movies are even more essential to my lifestyle than they were before) and I have to get two things off my chest:
WHY THE HELL ARE SHELLEY LONG AND BETTE MIDLER FIGHTING OVER PETER COYOTE? He is not all that. When I think of men of the 80s I would throw down in the streets over Peter Coyote is not in my top ten. He is not even in my top 100. The only explanation that I can come up with is that it was the 80s and women in their 30s still thought they had a better chance of getting killed by terrorists than getting married. Plus without their SHRIEKING DESPERATION there would be no movie, so there is that.
I didn't buy Craig T. Nelson as a man worth fighting for in TROOP BEVERLY HILLS either.
The other thing about this movie that leaves a bad taste in my mouth is sort of squirm-inducing archetype in 80s comedy in general. The surly, physically imposing black man who scares the shit out of some crazy white lady or ladies. Those scenes with the grumpy cab driver in Outrageous Fortune make me want to barf, then die. It just seems really inconceivable that two women living in New York City would be so ill-equipped to talk to a black guy. I didn't like the episode of the Golden Girls where they think the new housekeeper is doing the voodoo on them because she's from the West Indies, either.
Now that I think of it, George Carlin's Native American buddies riding dirt bikes and whooping and hollering is pretty offensive as well. I better stop thinking about this or I'll never be able to enjoy this movie again.
A final thought: would a production of HAMLET with Shelley Long in the title role be SRO? DISCUSS.
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| OFFERINGS |
[16 Mar 2009|01:54pm] |
I watched a horror movie from the late 80s last week, and it was inept and a totally weak ripoff of Halloween, but God help me I loved it. I thought it was strangely charming and it brought me joy and merriment and now I wish there was a whole deluxe box set of Halloween ripoffs. Someone get Criterion on the phone.
( DON'T EAT THE PIZZA )
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| DEAR DOCTOR LIVEJOURNAL |
[06 Mar 2009|03:19pm] |
I e-mailed this to someone already but they're out of the office for the day so I'm gonna do the HELP ME LIVEJOURNAL HELP ME thing:
Can I ask you a stupid apartment question? This is driving me NUTS, and I don't know if I'm just being a pissy primadonna bitch or what, but I've been in this whole passive aggressive WAR over whether the fire escape entrance is locked or unlocked with my upstairs neighbor.
A couple of months ago she posted this sign on the fire escape door that said "PLEASE DO NOT LOCK DOOR" and I can see leaving it unlocked to take the trash out or go have a smoke or bring in groceries, but to leave it unlocked CONSTANTLY, all night (and she doesn't even close it--she just pushes it shut a little)? I don't think that's safe, especially since our building is OLD and all the doors in it are the kind with big glass windows, no deadbolts. So I posted this note asking her if we could please keep the door locked when she was at home and I didn't think it was safe to leave it unlocked all the time, bla bla bla, and she just ripped it down.
Then I posted this OTHER note that just said, "Can we compromise and lock it at night at least?" She didn't touch that note for about a month, until this morning I found it ripped down and thrown on the floor, like TAKE THAT! I was so annoyed that I ripped HER sign down (I didn't leave it on the floor, though) and then I felt like an idiot. And now I'm writing this.
I am so annoyed by all this because I've been locking the door at MIDNIGHT every night, so it's not like I'm shutting her out of her apartment while she's out there or something, but it obviously bugs the hell out of her that I'm doing even that, and our schedules are really different so I can never catch her in the hallway and actually talk to her (not that I really want to but it might clear the air at least). Am I being a jerk about this or do I have legitimate beef? BE HONEST.
I was going to send to this ANNIE'S MAILBOX but I thought I'd ask here first.
FOOTNOTES:
--the sign was written in UNDERLINED CAPS so I automatically got even more annoyed when she posted it. That's on me, though.
--the neighborhood isn't awful but it isn't that great either.
--this is the dumbest thing I have ever written.
--original subject: CLASH OF THE PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE TITANS
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| KEEP HOPE ALIVE! |
[12 Feb 2009|05:10pm] |
Lately I've been TOTALLY OBSESSED the character HOPE BARTHOLOMEW in the amazing busted direct to video horror epic CRAZY FAT ETHEL (aka CRIMINALLY INSANE 2). Hope Bartholomew is the head of Bartholomew House, a sort of halfway house for people who have been released from mental institutions but are not yet able to live on their own. Our protagonist Ethel Janowski gets released to Bartholomew House even though she's INCURABLY CRIMINALLY INSANE because of budget cuts. DAMN YOU, RONALD REAGAN!
Hope Bartholomew is played by this lady who seems sort of shell-shocked by the punishing lens of the video camera. I have often seen the same glazed expression she wears on the faces of small children in locally produced used car dealership advertisements. She speaks slowly and haltingly, which makes the already strange dialog seem even more other-worldly. She is one of those bad actors who is so awful that her performance automatically becomes ART. Plus she wears a really beautiful op-art housecoat type frock for the duration of the movie. I could watch her open doors, serve soup, and talk on her cordless phone for hours on end.
"all we need is a little Hope."
"Ethel wouldn't take her medication, and there was a terrible scene."
What a trendsetter! She's the patron saint of old ladies who get all dressed up to go to the supermarket. Little wonder Ethel Janowski identity-thefts her ass at the end of the movie. Just looking at these pictures again makes me want to answer the phone by saying, "Bartholomew House!" the next time it rings.
As an aside every reference to CRAZY FAT ETHEL I could find on the internet is like, "HAW HAW THERE'S A FAT WOMAN IN THIS MOVIE!" (uh...DUH?) or "HAW HAW, THAT LADY IS OLD!" These would-be comedians should really leave the glorified home movies to the DEDICATED.
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[26 Jan 2009|02:16pm] |
I found the BEST THING EVER at the Rescue Mission on Saturday. A combination jewelry/music box shaped like a console stereo. Had you been there in the store with me that morning I swear you could have seen little cartoon hearts spinning over my head.
It plays "TIE A YELLOW RIBBON"--hardly my first pick for a music box jam (I wish it played JUICYFRUIT by Mtume), but for two dollars it seems rude to complain.
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| notes from the 12 items or less lane |
[21 Jan 2009|11:18am] |
the best part of the incredible busted horror movie MAUSOLEUM is this conversation between La Wanda Page (in a REALLY LAME throwback "feets don't fail me now" type Stepin Fetchit role that she kind of subverts with her attitude and foul mouth) and Bobbie Bresee as the rich housewife possessed by a demon with fanged breasts:
BOBBIE: ...and buy seven guavas...
LA WANDA: how do you spell that?
BOBBIE: g....u.....(long pause) buy cantaloupe.
BOBBIE: we'll also need an eight pound chateaubriand.
LA WANDA: what for?
BOBBIE: For the Silvas next week....
LA WANDA: THEM? They can eat hot dogs!
as much as I enjoyed the movie I could have easily sat through ninety minutes of their grocery store conversations.
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| don't hate the player--hate the GAME. |
[07 Jan 2009|02:42pm] |
I have a good feeling about 2009 because last Saturday I got two long-coveted items: a dinette set with chrome legs and trim and a hairstyling practice head.
There was some guilt and illicit behavior involved in the obtaining of the practice head. I found her in a garbage bag of donations left in front of a thrift store closed for renovations. Usually I consider abandoned donations to be strictly OFF LIMITS. They totally freak out when you even look at unprocessed donations cross-eyed at my local Salvation Army and thrift stores are way too important to my on the go lifestyle to lose my shopping privileges and be BANNED FOR LIFE.
So I was going to just walk on by, but when I read the thrift store's press release about their renovations pasted in the window I saw the phrase "not a thrift store but UPSCALE CONSIGNMENT." Those words are the kiss of death. I have seen the best thrift stores of my generation destroyed by upscale consignment. I told myself that the managers would chuck a stray practice head in the trash in the name of upscaling or even worse, stick a NOT FOR SALE sign on her neck and use her to model ugly hats. Both of these things were simply unacceptable.
She will live a wonderful and advantaged life with me.
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[05 Dec 2008|11:32am] |
There's a very nice write-up about my ongoing doll giallo project (if you can call me goofing off with weirdface little dolls a PROJECT) here.
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| HITCHHIKE TO HELL! |
[14 Sep 2008|08:33pm] |
I was going to write about the junk I got at the flea market but this movie was so hilariously awful that I HAVE write about it while it's still fresh in my mind.
( Read more... )
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