Grey Gardens Costumed Viewing Party (Blogger Meetup Success!)

Good morning!

Whew, what a weekend it was, this weekend past! What did you get into? I spent mine in a flurry of activity as I hosted my second blogger meetup on Saturday night. Watch out, Elsa Maxwell, I'm still vying for the title "hostess with the mostess." Themed parties are even more fun than regular wingdings, so I made good on a promise elicited several months ago between Kimmie, Rae, Eartha and myself to have everyone over for a showing of Grey Gardens. I am always down to watch this movie for the 1,000,001 time, and wouldn't it be fun to see all the girls for a good reason?

If you haven't seen the Maysles's seminal documentary of East Hampton eccentricity (or the HBO tv movie based on the real life characters, which is ok/not too bad), I strongly urge you to get to the library and grab a copy. Or if you have Hulu, both the original Grey Gardens and its semi-sequel The Beales of Grey Gardens are available through their Criterion collection. The movie is a must-see! It presents an indelible portrait of Big Edie and Little Edie Bouvier Beale, Jackie Kennedy's aunt and first cousin, respectively, who live in relative isolation in a falling-down New England mansion filled with cats, raccoons, and memorabilia from their halcyon days as members of high society. The real star of the show is Little Edie, whose eye-grabbing improvised wardrobe choices are truly some of the strangest/most inspired things you'll see this side of a fashion runway or mental hospital. Edie wears a series of scarves/bathtowels as headwraps and combines swimsuits, upside-down-pinned-together-skirts, turtlenecks, and an iconic brooch into what she deems "the best costume for the day". 

I knew if I was going to do a viewing party, a big part of the hype should be the "come in costume" portion of the invitation. And yours truly did spend the better part of a whole evening a week or two ago throwing together tights with headwraps in an attempt to get as close to Edie as I could. Was my room ever a mess! My first attempt, which involved an actual-sweater-as-headgear in a gesture of true fidelity to the original, ended with me looking like some kind of hijab-wearing chorus girl. Fail. I eventually settled on this much less severe, hugely oversized kerchief, and finally figured out how 1970s girls tie those dadblasted things to look like Rhoda (tie two ends tightly at the back, shift gently to side, keep in place with a bobby pin or two). See below: muuuuch better on the second try.

From Sharif he don't like it  to a staunch character S-T-A-U-N-C-H

With the headwrap locked down, I added my Esther-Williams style actual main bathing suit, a wrap around skirt I purposefully gathered the bottom of and tied at the hip, a black turtleneck, black tights, and, for the kicker, white sandals for about as-close a Grey Gardens look as I could pull together from my own closet:

Cheesecake shot of me which only serves to remind me to eat less cheesecake :p

Next, I sent out invitations via email with this image:

My favorite Windows-paint created format: ransom note chic.

And started thinking of how I wanted to do the table. The most important party planning to me involves what the table will look like and what we'll actually do at the party. I get excited to try and pull in creative ideas that will make it memorable (and give me a challenge in the meantime of how to pull it off). In this case, I knew I wanted stacks of newspaper, empty cat food cans, and a raccoon of some kind, along with a portrait of Edie and maybe some tiny American flags in homage to her third-act Fourth of July dance. I put in a call to my cat-owner friend Kelsey to save clean cat food cans she would otherwise recycle and put on my thinking cap for what else I could do.

Voilà the finished product! I made a sign like the one of the two Edie had made for herself and her mother (her mom's says "The Great Singer Big Edie Bouvier Beale" and hers, as you see below, omits the "r" on "dancer" but touts her prowess at an old soft shoe or waltz), spread a parcel of ads I got in the mail earlier that week all across the table, printed off a life size raccoon on cardstock at Office Depot, and arranged the cans into a little pyramid about the faux critter's feet.

As for activities, I was stumped. I knew we were going to watch the movie, but in googling "Grey Gardens party", I couldn't find any suggested activities other than dressing up and watching the movie (both of which I had covered). So I went back to my teaching resource days and found a Bingo generator. The OTHER best part of the movie, besides Edie's clothes, is definitely how memorable a lot of the dialogue is. So I went through and copied down some of my favorite lines in the movie and made them into a series of unique bingo cards-- if you use a site like this, you can scramble the order of the spaces so each card is individual. Also, imagine if you haven't seen the movie before and you're reading through this card like, "Uh...is this what I'm in for?" I was really happy with the finished result!

As before any social event held at my house, the biggest nail-biting part of the party-throwing is not making the devilled eggs and the cake and cleaning the house (which are practically rote at this point for me), but worrying about whether or not anyone will show up! Real talk: about an hour before any party, I'm always stricken with a pang of self-doubt and an internal monologue of "Oh, God, why did I plan a party, what if like two people show up, I should never do anything" before Matthew eventually talks me down from the ledge (or I get cheered up by my outfit, lol). A few people sent their regrets, and 14 people RSVP'd over the mass email chain I'd sent out to lady bloggers of Nashville. "Hm," says I, "I figure that means I should plan for 10 and actually expect about 8." Well, color me surprised/shame on me for being pessimistic, but each and every of those fourteen people showed up! I should have known with the caliber of kiddies I was talking about that they would come out in force!

Group shot minus Sarah and Rory and Quincy

I stole an idea from a friend of mine's Halloween party (shout-out, Kate McC!) and passed around a selfie-stick with Matthew's phone on it to ensure lots of (albeit blurry) photos! Cast of characters included:

Eartha from Ranch Dressing With Eartha Kitsch and Rae from Say It Ain't So... Eartha knocked it out of the park in her movie-quality Big Edie costume and Rae was part of the pantsless swimsuit and tights club with yours truly:

Jamie and Kimmie from That Girl in the Wheelchair, showing off some patriotic pride with a tiny flag-- Kimmie also wins the prize for "most brooches":

1) Aubrey from Adventures in Aubreyland, Amanda from Junebugs and Georgia Peaches, Jenna from Kitty Cat Stevens, and another appearance from Jamie and Kimmie; 2) the aforementioned minus Jenna, Jamie, and Kimmie but PLUS Quincy from Qsdayream (you can't see her polkadot skirt but it was super cute). Check out Aubrey's spot on headwrap and Amanda's magnifying glass (nice touch!). Jenna came from another event, so we can't hold it against her she didn't want to show up to a non-Edie-Beale-themed-party in Edie Beale attire, lol.

Lauren from Lladybird.com and Devon from Miss Make, lookin' fabulous:

Rory and Sarah from sarahcomo.com (they should get a shout out for being so color coordinated/ adroit at taking selfie stick selfies):

And last but not least, Quincy gave Matthew her phone to take a few group shots, and ended up with Bub taking like 10 selfies after he took the desired group photo. He cracks me up.

Most everyone brought something to eat or drink, but a special shout out to Eartha, who brought this cake with a message. I about died. The quote is (duh) from the movie and perfect:

Verdict? We had a ball! At one point, I think every chair in the house was in the living room for the actual screening, but every one of the guests were real troupers and put up with the sea-of-people squeezed into my front room! The first three winners of Grey Gardens Bingo were Kimmie, Sarah, and Amanda, respectively, and there were some honorable mentions passed around along with certificates of achievement (who doesn't like to win?). We finished the movie and watched clips from Documentary Now!, where Fred Armisen and Bill Heder do a pretty accurate spoof of the Beale ladies (minus the New England accents! I don't know why they decided not to do them when they're such a big part of the movie!), and then just sat around and caught up. The cheerful, high decibel din of people having a good time is about the best you can ask for from a party, and overall, I thought it was a success! I'm so glad to know so many fun and interesting gals in the Nashville area and happy we could all get together even during this busy holiday season!

I bid my last guests good night around 11:30 and promptly went to bed, lol. But I still had cake and hummus to eat Sunday, and a clean house to enjoy, which is the SECOND best part about throwing a party. :)

The lady of the hour, Miss Beale

Thanks to everyone who came out to celebrate! And we need to do it again soon! (hint hint, nudge, cough, *karaoke party Rae* cough).

How about you? Are you a Grey Gardens fan? What would you wear for an Edie inspired costume? Had any great themed parties to attend lately? Let's talk!

That's all for today... but shame on me, I'm going to try to be better about updating this space! Have a fantastic week and I'll talk to you soon. Til then!

Mrs. Mia Wallace (Pulp Fiction Makeup series from Urban Decay)

Good afternoon!

I'm feeling a little under the weather today-- haven't stopped sneezing since what seems like yesterday afternoon and don't seem to have much hope of stopping before night fall today! I took the day off work and have just recently ingested some antihistamines which will hopefully knock me out until such time as my nasal passages decide to cease and desist, so keep a  good thought for me that they do! However, I wanted to check in on you and show you this little blast from the past: here I am in 2004, in the apartment dorm I shared with my friends Ryan (pictured, as gogo dancer) and Torey (not pictured, but probably equally awesome in costume), in all my sophomore year of at UT glory. Because of my goggle eyes, above average height, and long nose, I used to get a lot of comparisons in college to Uma Thurman (believe me, I'll take it!), so the year after Kill Bill's I and II came out, I decided to embrace Tarantino's muse in one of my all time favorite movies, Pulp Fiction, for Halloween*. You can't see, but I'm wearing black cigarette pants and silver flats, the latter of which MW took off for her iconic dance with Vincent Vega:

Why this trip through time? To show you I don't think I ever even tried to smile in photos until at least 2007? To reminisce on how I had to hack the wig I'm wearing down to a shorter length with bangs, which I overshot by a tad? To highlight the assortment of weird things taped to our kitchen wall (including a TV guide cover of Will Ferrell that is cracking me up a little now just to see it?). No! To commemorate the good news that Urban Decay has just released a line of makeup products, twenty years after the release of the movie, that bear homage to what is arguably one of the best written movies of the nineties'. Folks, check it out! Pulp Fiction makeup!

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Yes, that is misquoted bible verse Ezekiel 25:17 on the back; yes, I used to be able to recite not just that passage, but the entire scene from the car ride to Brett's house to Brett and friends' demise in a cloud of "great vengeance and furious anger" as a party trick. In high school (have I told you this story before?), I hooked my dad's cassette deck and tuner up to the VHS player, and recorded two 90 minute cassettes of the audio of Pulp Fiction, and while I may have only physically seen the movie ten or fifteen times, I've listened to it something like 500 times. In my defense, it was before the internet! We had so much time on our hands back then, people. Also, how else was I going to internalize lines like "My name's Paul, and this is between y'all" or "Ha ha ha, m'f--ker, they're you're clothes", which still bring me joy to this day? I digress. Are you seeing the packaging? Wait til you check out the eyeshadow inside:

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Yep, each are also from the speech. Urban Decay even includes a tutorial on how to get the Wallace look from the movie (in case you haven't studied that scene from Jack Rabbit Slim's nearly as much as you should have):

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How do you think that stacks up to the real deal?

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Though the lipstick and lipliner looks a lot more red than what they went for in 1994, I'm still drawn like a moth to this red, red, RED lipstick. I only wonder if in real life it wouldn't be too dark for my complexion. The Revlon "Fire and Ice" that I favor has like no dark undertones to it, which makes it so wearable for me and my fair-ish coloring. Isn't it super late forties' looking to you though? I might have to treat myself to this $22 lipstick..Fire and Ice is like $5 a tube, so that's a heck of a splurge, but maybe it'll be worth it to live out my dreams!

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And last but not least, glitter eyeliner and rust red nailpolish. I'm less excited about these, because the eyeliner seems more Lou Reed's Transformer than Pulp Fiction, and I'm just not brave enough to do nail polish that isn't Revlon Red, but I still think they'd be neat on someone else. Is that someone else you?

When in doubt, What Would Lou Do?

Update: My friend Kelsey, who clued me in on this whole amazingness to begin with, has ordered us both some of the lipstick, so I'll have to let you know how it turns out when it gets here. Also, THANK YOU KELSEY!!!! How about you? Are you a huge Pulp Fiction or makeup fan? Which of these are you probably going to break down and buy? And what movie do you think would be a fun one to do a beauty-along with? I'm thinking of all the vintage color movies I would like to emulate, and am drafting a letter to Urban Decay in my head as it happens. This is only the beginning, haha!

PS, I now want to watch Pulp Fiction again. Did you know we almost used this as our first dance at my wedding? I finally decided you wouldn't be able to see my feet under my bell-shaped gown, and that Matthew's superior dance skills would shame my own, but it would have been neat to do anyway!

I have to go lay down my weary head, but have a fabulous Tuesday! Godwilling, I'll talk to you tomorrow! Til then.

* Just wanted to mention that on the way out of Andy Holt Apartments, the night this photo was taken, I was in an elevator with a Kill Bill Uma in the yellow track suit, a katana bearing O-ren Ishii, and another Mia Wallace, this one post-heroin-O.D. with a syringe sticking out of her chest. Isn't that wild? "Calling all Tarantino characters, please board the elevator at the same time". I still think mine was the most convincing, but I'm biased. :)

Straight Jacket on Youtube (1964)

Good afternoon!

Sorry to only pop in for a moment again! This blog has been getting later and later, and isn't it a shame! So much drama in the LBC again...but not nearly as much as JC has to put up with in her late career schlock masterwork, Straight Jacket (1964). Did you know it was on Youtube? Did you know it was just what the doctor ordered this afternoon? Take me away, crazy early sixties' horror movie...take me away!

Poor unhinged Joanie is honestly still pretty wonderful as convicted ax murderess Lucy Harbin, trying to put together the pieces of her life after twenty years in an institution for a crime she...possibly didn't commit? I need to change my ringtone to Crawford just screaming "Noooooo" for thirty seconds in the opening scene. It ain't no Mildred Pierce, but you have to admire the picture for a) its full commitment to camp and b) Joan's consummate professionalism even as she's hacking up her adulterous husband in the opening scene, charm bracelet jangling as she delivers the "forty whacks" of the later children's rhyme made up about her (just....directly...lifted from Lizzie Borden's similar tune?). Also, while the wig is bad (though NOT Beyond the Forest Bette Davis bad, to her credit!), the sixties' dresses are on point!

The stills don't really do Joan justice-- in the movie, in spite of the wacky hair and eyebrows, her "movie star" quality still shines blindingly through every scene she appears in. When she's in the frame, you can't look at anybody else!

Some stills from the picture:

After her makeover, wig application, and about ten rounds with the eyebrow pencil...#luhyoujoanie

Did you know this bust was originally presented to JC on the set of A Woman's Face (1941), sculpted by Yugoslavian artist Yucca Salamunich? You can see her in 1941 with the bust here.

Two severed heads in the bed-- about two more than you want to wake up to.

Who makes Joan Crawford ride in the backseat?! Uncomfortable!

But as ye olde Levar Burton used to say, don't take my word for it! The whole film (and a bonus documentary about making the film) is available on Youtube. Watch the first, then watch the second, and see if the afternoon doesn't just fly by.

How I'm cutting my cake this year. Also, dang JC, nice arm muscle!

So! How about you? What kind of mindless entertainment gets you through a wild work week? Do you have a favorite camp horror movie or good-star-in-a-bad-movie that you would recommend? Have you seen Straight Jacket? Let's discuss!

That's all for today, but hopefully I'll be back a little earlier tomorrow for Photo Friday. Have a great Thursday! We'll talk then!

Vintage Horror T Shirts (Ebay's Got 'Em, We Want 'Em)

Good morning!

What's the T, people? I am bleary eyed at the non fiction service desk, I will tell you what. We went over to some friends' house to play Mario Kart and talk trash last night, and while we had a whale of a time, 11:45-bedtime-me is way more irresponsible than 9:45-bedtime-me, vis-à-vis the fact that when I woke up, cartoon like, to strains of one of those classical morning songs and rays of sunlight streaming through one window, it was EIGHT THIRTY. Had I set my alarm? Who can say. Had I woken up a full hour and a half later than I usually do on a work day? Absolutely. Was I supposed to actually be at work at 8:30? Uh, yeah. I parked in the $10 a day lot (instead of my usual shuttle spot) and managed to get in the door by about 9:05, but daddurn it, that is the first time I have been significantly I think ever in my four years here at the biblioteca. Ah, well.

Speaking of pulse-racing drama, however, how about vintage horror/sci-fi t-shirts? I am loving some of these vintage graphic designs almost as much as I love the movies they represent!!

VTG 1991 ALIENS movie t-shirt, horror science fiction cult classic 1980's film

As usual, I was looking for something T-O-T-A-L-L-Y different (to the point that I'm not quite sure what it was) yesterday when I fell into a veritable wormhole of these seventies', eighties', and nineties' movie tie-in t shirts. It's interesting to me that there's an even split here between the kinds of items we're looking at-- half are in the "sold to people who love the movie" category (in the back of Rolling Stone by mail, in your local record store, etc), and another good half I think are promotional items from the movie's release. I love the idea of these new-old t-shirts being in a box somewhere in someone-who-used-to-work-for-the-movie's attic like "Oh, those?". Perfect example: Matthew's dad, who was a musician in LA in the 80's, was going through some stuff in closet storage when I noticed some t-shirts that were being used almost-as-packing for some items in a carboard box-- what where they? A promotional t-shirt from the LA premiere of Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein and another from a Boz Skaggs concert in the mid-seventies'. To someone who worked in that industry, I guess it's like "Oh, yeah! I remember that. Cool, huh? Wow, that was a long time ago", whereas to the rest of us star-struck plebians, it's like "OH MY GOD. IS THIS REAL LIFE." (he let me have both of them, because he is a good father-in-law).

Deadstock 1991 PREDATOR 80s horror movie

What might have started out as "Here, wear this shirt when you're working in the production office of this super low budget movie we're trying to put together with scotch tape and dreams" or "Hey, give these away at the movie opening, maybe we can create some buzz" turns into a rare, tangible object of movie history. Looking at these, I'm reminded of the behind the scenes featurette on the dvd of The Fog. Thing I have probably mentioned 1,000,000 x: I am a HUGE "John Carpenter in his prime" fan. HUUUUGE.  I think the handful of movies he made in the late seventies' and early eighties' have STILL set a cultural high water mark for horror movies in general (and are good enough to generally excuse his 1983-2010 output...Orson Welles didn't make Citizen Kane every time he got behind the lens, either). I could tell you about how much I love The Thing until I was actually blue in the face. My little movie loving brain was sent into overdrive listening to Carpenter and ex-wife/muse Adrienne Barbeau talk about how family-like the cast and crew of these iconic movies were. There was a lot of "Yeah, this guy was my roommate's boyfriend, and the sound guy was dating so-and-so's sister, and then we all went up to Santa Monica for Memorial Day" type stuff that I just cannot see "young Hollywood" doing today...all very "We're all trying to make it in the movies, let's help each other!" and things haphazardly falling into place, rather than the kind of impenetrable front and implacable sang froid it feels like you have to have to be in the business nowadays.

PHANTASM movie promo t shirt TALL MAN cult horror

At ANY RATE-- how about going to work every day in your "SEND MORE COPS" Return of the Living Dead t shirt? I want one that has the Tina quote "YOU'VE GOT TO LET ME EAT YOUR BRAAAINS." That whole movie is golden, really:

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD vintage 1985 t-shirt

I have always loved spooky scary stuff, but it wasn't until I was out of college and teaching high school that I got mondo into 70's and 80's horror movies. I was reading a book called, appropriately enough, Horror Films of the 1970's, by John Kenneth Muir...it is a FABULOUS reference guide/gateway drug to the genre. As I was taking down copious "what to watch" notes in my composition book, a fellow member of the English department who worked across the hall said, "Oh, are you into horror movies? Have you seen any Argento?" Having had a bad experience with Suspiria (which is, of course, a super-accomplished movie in the horror canon, but not one I particularly "liked"), I tossed my chesnut lack-of-curls and said, "Yeah, I didn't really like him as much as I thought I was supposed to." Undeterred, my colleague went, "Ok, but have you seen Deep Red? Opera? Tenebre?" These would all soon be titles I myself would be spouting to others when they asked me about my interest in horror movies, because the guy was SPOT ON, and I was a complete convert. He ended up lending me those, Phantasm and Phantasm II, Zombi, and a whole slew of movies that had otherwise flew under my radar. God bless him.

Vintage Hellraiser Pinhead t-shirt, medium

Without that book, its companion piece Horror Films of the 1980's, and my co-worker/cinephile's gentle nudge over the edge of a VHS horror treasure trove I never knew existed, I might not be overly familiar with the movie Monkey Shines, which is actually a VERY GOOD George A. Romero helmed horror movie about a paraplegic man and his overly-attached helper monkey. 

Vintage original 1980's Monkey Shines horror movie t-shirt, small

Or Maniac (1980), which was remade in 2012 with Elijah Wood as the titular maniac. I haven't seen the new version, but it would be hard to top the skin-crawlingly creepy and gory original.

VTG MANIAC 1980 ORIGINAL MOVIE PROMO T-SHIRT 80S CULT HORROR FILM TOM SAVINI

Well nigh perfect Night of the Living Dead shirt? Yes, please. Could watch this for days (and the 90's remake is just as good!)

Night of the Living Dead Zombie Hands T-Shirt Vintage 1980s S

Little Goldblum love up in this piece:

1986 THE FLY cult horror movie t-shirt vtg unworn 80s David Cronenberg

Can't help loving Norman Bates...while the original is a masterwork, I still think the franchise is solid in a drive-in movie kind of way. I used to watch the mess of out of them back-to-back when USA network would run them in block succession in the summer when I was a kid. "No-o-o-orman....?" Have you seen Psycho II, III, IV?

Original Psycho II Movie Shirt Horror 1983 Norman Bates Vintage Rare T Shirt m

WHY IS THIS IS $214.99? I love how the $14.99 is just more torment-- get your two hundred bucks for that shirt AND two free pizzas, why don't you.

XS  vtg 70s 1978 DAWN OF THE DEAD george a romero ZOMBIE MOVIE t shirt

Gregory Peck/Lee Remick realness:

Vintage The Omen 1976 Donner Rare Horror Movie 666 Logo Promo T-Shirt Deadstock

The aforementioned Zombi was the first Lucio Fulci movie I saw-- while they're all gleefully over the top, this one, with Mia's sister Tisa Farrow in the lead, is still the most coherent and horribly enjoyable if you ask me.

RARE VINTAGE 80's LUCIO FULCI ZOMBIE HORROR CULT MOVIE ZOMBI T SHIRT

ALSO remade, ALSO a solid original to begin with. Two words: speedboat death.

RARE VINTAGE 80's I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE HORROR CULT MOVIE T-SHIRT

Anyway! I gotta head for the hills, but tell me what you think! Which of these shirts would you almost spend that much money on? Have any horror movie favorites? Do you know anyone who used to work in the movie or music industry and just got tons of free promotional shirts a gal like I would drool over (just making conversation here, no ulterior motive...)? Let's talk!

That's all for today, but I'll be back tomorrow with more vintage madness. Have a great Wednesday! See you then.

Photo Friday: Bob and Mom Edition

Good morning!

I was about to apologize for having every Photo Friday of late feature dazzling midcentury color...and then I was like, wait-- I'm not sorry! I am actually enchanted by the number of out-of-this-world color photos from the fifties' and sixties' I've been running across recently. And if ya don't like it, you can lump it! :)

This week's entry showcases two Kennedy-era characters with style to spare...folks, meet Lydia and her son Bob, from this Flickr stream.

From what I picked up from the photos and captions, it looks like Lydia's husband, Chuck, ran a camera shop in the sixties', and his interest in amateur photography wasn't just professional. There are gorgeous, crystal clear photos of his wife and son, starting in black and white around the time Bob was born, and continuing onto into the eighties' and nineties'. What really sweeps me off my feet about these photos are again, the color, composition, and their delightful subjects. How serious the mother and son's expressions are! How ON POINT their mid century fashion. I just can't stop looking at them.

Lots of the pictures are taken on vacation-- what better time to capture family memories? The photo below looks like a freakin' postcard, it's so pretty:

I wonder if they're swimming in the same lake they're standing over in the previous photo. I also love that Bob has brought Lydia something she's examining. A shell? A piece of pirate's gold? Who can say?

How about this sassy little stance? And the mom's perfect, PERFECT playsuit (which I think it just shorts and a shell top in the same pattern, but I might actually be going through death throes of envy).

THIS. COUCH. And Lydia's print pants. And the fact that they're actually playing one of those four in one board games I always see at estate sales but have never actually played. I spy Chinese Checkers, regular checkers, and Parcheesi...but what game-you-play-with-dice are they playing?

Hurtling through the frozen tundra on a sled. "Hop on, my boy!" and whooosh.

I love this shot because it includes the crazy, Googie looking hotel in the background. And how well does Lydia "work" these cats eye frames? I promise I would look like an actual Ringling Brothers clown in a similar pair, yet she makes hers look like the best part of any outfit! Also, the handtooled leather purse. Snaps to that.

Look. at. the little boy's. GAITERS. Buttoned up his tiny little pant legs! And of course the timeless looking VW Beetle they're standing in front of.

Finally, here are some shots of Lydia alone. I can't get over how crisp and cool she looks in all her outfits, staying slim and stylish throughout the fifties' and sixties', and beyond.

Does this not look right out of Mad Men? At the dad's camera shop.

And on the beach. I could see a hipster (or heck, me) wearing this exact outfit, right now, with no costume-yness to it.

Last but not least, this was a flub of a photograph, but it's one of my favorites in the bunch. See how Lydia in the foreground isn't focused, but the flowers in back of her are sharp and clear? I know that has something complicated about lenses and depth of field and camera settings to do with it, but this almost looks like an art print to me for how perfectly out of focus just the subject is. Like a painting, and kind of eerie! I love it.

So! What do you think? Which Bob and Lydia photo is your favorite? Which outfit would you like to copy? Do you have similar photos in your family's collection of true-blue photograph posing companions? These two look like they should start a band, they're so cool.

Anyway, I have to get going on this Friday afternoon...it's the weekend already! Praise be. Have a great Saturday and Sunday, and I'll catch you right back here Monday with more vintage goods and griefs. Take care! Til then.