Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Quote of the day
From Bookslut
"Today's librarians aren't all old women with glasses and their hair pulled back in buns, reports the AP. Also, today's police officers aren't all fat Irish guys who swing their night sticks jauntily about while giving shiny pennies to street urchins and telling them to stay out of trouble. And today's newspaper reporters don't have cards that say 'PRESS' stuck in the bands of their fedoras, and almost never say 'What a scoop!'"
"Today's librarians aren't all old women with glasses and their hair pulled back in buns, reports the AP. Also, today's police officers aren't all fat Irish guys who swing their night sticks jauntily about while giving shiny pennies to street urchins and telling them to stay out of trouble. And today's newspaper reporters don't have cards that say 'PRESS' stuck in the bands of their fedoras, and almost never say 'What a scoop!'"
Sunday, October 02, 2005
One last Halloween link
If, like me, you like reproductions of Halloween stuff for general, decorative, non-collecting purposes, I recommend Dragonfly Design Studio. I ordered some cards and decorations from them last year, and was very happy with the products and the service. They've also got some real vintage stuff, an excellent selection of books, and just about everything you need to give your home an old-fashioned Halloween look without going crazy on eBay.
Hallowe'en Greetings
Lisa Morton, another Halloween author, has some great images of Halloween postcards--along with the Halloween rituals they depict. Most are for finding out who your future spouse will be, a pastime that perennially delights young girls (boys don't seem so concerned).
Boo!
A must-visit site for Halloween collectors, old and new, Halloween Collector has a lot of great advice and interesting history from Mark Ledenbach, author of Vintage Halloween Collectibles.
Like him, I started collecting vintage Halloween in the 80s, when I was going to the Tulsa Flea Market every few weekends, and you could still pick up Halloween stuff cheap (as long as it wasn't too Deco-looking; Art Deco was big in Tulsa in the 80s, and anything with an Art Deco look went high at the flea market). I also saw the sharp increase in prices almost as soon as eBay came along--I remember buying a great die-cut at an antique shop for $6 and going home to find the same thing going for twice that on eBay in about 1996 or '97. Of course, my collection was never that expansive, and I've more or less quit collecting Halloweeniana (or whatever you want to call it) since the prices and demand have gotten so high.
But back to Halloween Collector, be sure to check out the great photo gallery and the excellent FAQ, which should help new collectors avoid some of the pitfalls of, well, being a new collector.
Like him, I started collecting vintage Halloween in the 80s, when I was going to the Tulsa Flea Market every few weekends, and you could still pick up Halloween stuff cheap (as long as it wasn't too Deco-looking; Art Deco was big in Tulsa in the 80s, and anything with an Art Deco look went high at the flea market). I also saw the sharp increase in prices almost as soon as eBay came along--I remember buying a great die-cut at an antique shop for $6 and going home to find the same thing going for twice that on eBay in about 1996 or '97. Of course, my collection was never that expansive, and I've more or less quit collecting Halloweeniana (or whatever you want to call it) since the prices and demand have gotten so high.
But back to Halloween Collector, be sure to check out the great photo gallery and the excellent FAQ, which should help new collectors avoid some of the pitfalls of, well, being a new collector.
Saturday, October 01, 2005
Housekeeping, part 1
It's far too nice a day to stay inside and do all the things I have planned for this site, like moving it over to WordPress from Blogger, revamping the design entirely (with switchable themes, which I had planned from the very beginning and have known how to do with PHP and CSS for YEARS now), implementing the Dell Mapback database now that I have an ISP that supports PHP and mySQL, and adding features instead of just blog posts. Those things have been waiting for several years and it won't hurt them to wait a little longer.
But I did finally remove the broken link to Squaresville, the site I am forever indebted to for providing me with the line drawing you see to your left. I love that drawing. It makes me think of a Faith Baldwin heroine, stealing an hour from a busy day to read a classic novel... of Nancy Drew reading up on the latest theories in criminology as Hannah Gruen bustles around in the kitchen in that lazy hour before twilight, when Carson will come through the door and dinner will be served... of a time when you simply HAD to read the latest bestseller, so you could discuss it at cocktail parties or ladies' luncheons or sewing circle meetings and show that your BA in English Lit from State U. really means something.
I'm not sure if that graphic is original artwork or not; most of the graphics on Squaresville seemed to be, but the guy might have been considering "original artwork" as "scanning images from old magazines and adding clever captions" or something. You never know. In any event, the site seems to be gone for good, and now, so is the link.
But I did finally remove the broken link to Squaresville, the site I am forever indebted to for providing me with the line drawing you see to your left. I love that drawing. It makes me think of a Faith Baldwin heroine, stealing an hour from a busy day to read a classic novel... of Nancy Drew reading up on the latest theories in criminology as Hannah Gruen bustles around in the kitchen in that lazy hour before twilight, when Carson will come through the door and dinner will be served... of a time when you simply HAD to read the latest bestseller, so you could discuss it at cocktail parties or ladies' luncheons or sewing circle meetings and show that your BA in English Lit from State U. really means something.
I'm not sure if that graphic is original artwork or not; most of the graphics on Squaresville seemed to be, but the guy might have been considering "original artwork" as "scanning images from old magazines and adding clever captions" or something. You never know. In any event, the site seems to be gone for good, and now, so is the link.
"We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."
Metafilter brings us a bunch of great links to articles and trailers for Good Night and Good Luck, which opens next week.
People usually find the McCarthy Era pretty fascinating, but it's hard to make stuff like Senate hearings interesting on film. For the final project in my government documents class, I did an annotated bibliography of publications of the House Unamerican Activities Committee (or whatever it was called from 1940-1945; I had to limit it because of the sheer number of publications, and it changed names more often than the WPA ((which, to be fair, only changed names once)) ). Let me tell you, those hearings are deadly boring reading, no matter how many dramatic clips you've seen of an actor playing McCarthy thundering "ARE YOU NOW, OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN, A COMMUNIST?" This one looks really good, though, and there's an unapologetic political message that comes through even in the trailer, so it's sure to get bashed by assorted right-wing loonies as an attempt by Hollywood Liberals like George Clooney to make them look bad--as if they weren't doing just fine all by themselves on that score.
Okay, okay, I promise I won't go all Lileks and use my retro blog as a venue for amateur political analysis, the title of this post notwithstanding (and frankly, I'd feel even LESS justified in doing that if my retro and pop culture writing came anywhere near the exceptional quality of his). Instead, I'll just say that I think the black and white cinematography on this one looks awesome--I like black and white anyway, but even judging from my tiny little laptop screen it looks like they've done an outstanding job with light and shadow here. I can hardly wait to see it... although I know that when Mr. Vintage Reader gets back in town, the first movies on our list will be Serenity and Mirrormask.
People usually find the McCarthy Era pretty fascinating, but it's hard to make stuff like Senate hearings interesting on film. For the final project in my government documents class, I did an annotated bibliography of publications of the House Unamerican Activities Committee (or whatever it was called from 1940-1945; I had to limit it because of the sheer number of publications, and it changed names more often than the WPA ((which, to be fair, only changed names once)) ). Let me tell you, those hearings are deadly boring reading, no matter how many dramatic clips you've seen of an actor playing McCarthy thundering "ARE YOU NOW, OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN, A COMMUNIST?" This one looks really good, though, and there's an unapologetic political message that comes through even in the trailer, so it's sure to get bashed by assorted right-wing loonies as an attempt by Hollywood Liberals like George Clooney to make them look bad--as if they weren't doing just fine all by themselves on that score.
Okay, okay, I promise I won't go all Lileks and use my retro blog as a venue for amateur political analysis, the title of this post notwithstanding (and frankly, I'd feel even LESS justified in doing that if my retro and pop culture writing came anywhere near the exceptional quality of his). Instead, I'll just say that I think the black and white cinematography on this one looks awesome--I like black and white anyway, but even judging from my tiny little laptop screen it looks like they've done an outstanding job with light and shadow here. I can hardly wait to see it... although I know that when Mr. Vintage Reader gets back in town, the first movies on our list will be Serenity and Mirrormask.
I want one!
Okay, here's the perfect accessory for my orange sectional sofa (currently residing in the attic, waiting for the perfect basement rec room): the Predicta TV. Based on Philco's Predicta line, these beautiful televisions work with today's technology. They've even got remotes!
(via metafilter)
(via metafilter)
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