Pleasant Hours of Amusement and Entertainment (1902)

I lo-o-o-ove Open Library. Know what I love to learn about on the online free ebook provider of my starry little dreams? Parties. PARTIES. And what I learned today? Victorian age people lo-o-o-ve to party. With almost as much occasion-specific, costume-dress gusto as yours truly.

  While searching under the word "entertainment", I found this book by Nelle Mustain. From THE TITLE PAGE, things are getting real: "Pleasant Hours of Amusement-- Embracing Nine Books in One Volume-- the whole comprising a charming collection of games, sports for health and beauty, instructive amusements and miscellaneous for both young and old, for the home, the church, and the school" Authoress Mustain (above), who is not to be flexed with in matters of entertainment or the perfect Gibson girl roll (could there be some ever popular 'rats' involved in this particular instance of hairdressing? I do believe there could), provides you and me with about a million suggestions for themed parties and what do when you throw one. Let's look at some of the highlights from her detailed accounts of successful parties and party tricks: 1) "Hunt the Whistle"

  This reminds me of the old Boy Scouts trick about "snipe hunting", as it depends on the object of the trick being unfamiliar with the trick itself. You KNOW this would be me at a party. And let's just hope the gentleman in the long coat is as good a sport as I would try to be when the whistle is discovered attached to his tails! How do you like the be-knickerbockered youth's expression of "Thiiiiis is going to be a good one...."? 2) "A Northland Social" 

 I really like the decorative suggestion to freeze grasses and leaves in alum and water, but had no idea what alum was until I googled it and found this question-and-answer, "What is alum and will it make someone's mouth shrink, like in the cartoons?". Good question! Good answer! I was afraid you'd have to cannibalize an old chemistry kit to get the desired results, but it's apparently available in the spice aisle of your local grocers. Go fig! Go freeze! 3) "A Kodak Meet"

 Wouldn't this be a fun event for the amateur photographers in your life? It would be neat to have a digital photo printer on hand, in this our modern age, for instant gratification as to the latter portion of the evening's events. I'm craaazy about the idea of photobooths at events, and this would be like having dozens of hired photographing hands ON hand as both talent and guest! 4) "A Japanese Social" 

 Did you know top-spinning was the principal game of the Japanese? I don't know if it's all that serious, but I'll tell you, I was more convinced when I found out that there's a Spinning Top Museum dedicated to the traditional spinning top toy, called a koma, in central Japan. Do you have a kimono or two, hanging all on its lonesome as a special occasion dressing gown, à la Tallulah Bankhead?

 (I couldn't find a photo of her in a kimono, weirdly enough, because doesn't she sound like the perfect example? I did, however find this photo of Bankhead in a headdress, via this very interesting website on Native American fashion. Enjoyyyy....)

5) "A Broken Heart Social" 

I am occasionally frustrated with the post-middle-school insistence of most people that Valentine's Day is a "couples only" or "single people who hate Valentine's Day only" event. Do you remember how much fun early Valentine's Day dances were at school, whether or not you had a date? This year, Matthew's band played an "Anti-Valentine's Day" showcase at Mercy Lounge, which captured a lot of the fun of old time Valentine's Day dances, but without the paper hearts and doilies and bright red Hi-C punch for which my heart pines (remind me to tell you sometime about Bab's insanely idiosyncratic, and very, very wonderful V-Day presents to me this year). Maybe next year! I'm so inspired by the hilariously sweet fortunes you fish for in the above described "Broken Hearts" social...the best is probably still the first one though. "You'll marry a girl whose hair is red/ And often and often you'll wish you were dead". Turn of the century and Edwardian humor is so dark and dry! Fits me like a glove. Some other assorted images I kind of loved from the book:

Can the one of the "wandering musicians" be my album cover? If you're interested, you can read the WHOLE BOOK (all nine volumes, in one volume!) at my beloved Open Library, or even download the book in pdf form, for future reference! Which of the above parties would you most like to be invited to? Any tips and tricks from the most tops themed parties you've ever pulled off? Tell! Til next time.

Todd Rundgren (1973)

((in a televangelist's voice:)) "Have you heard the Good News about Todd Rundgren?"

The sixty-three year old musician and producer started a tour last month, under the pique-raising event name "An Unpredictable Evening with Todd Rundgren". No big stretch. Reading a friendly blurb about Rundgren in last week's New Yorker reminded me of one summer in college when I became absolutely obsessed by his song "Hello, It's Me". Now, you can say it's cheeseball all you want, because I understand that hearing it for the umpteenth time in the dentist's chair on the lite rock station, or on the programmed in-store Walgreen's sound system, is enough to deaden even finely attuned ears to the solid musicianship and songwriting that particular ditty has to offer. HOWEVER. Get yourself a "best of", or hie yourself to the record store for his double album "Something/Anything?", and you'll be doing yourself a BIG favor.

A brief list of reasons you should do what I just told you to do:



1) THE BALM TO YOUR ACHING HEART: Best breakup song possibly of all time (at least the one that can offer the best "pick yourself up" attitude)? "It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference". The lyrics take you through a few scenes of ugliness with tears, and apologies, and accusations, the very same as I'm sure almost all of us have been through at the end of a relationship. Sitting at his piano and looking over the facts, poor Todd comes to the conclusion that, in the end:

It wouldn't have made any difference/If you really loved me/You just didn't love me/Enough to believe me/Enough not to leave me/Enough not to look for a reason to be unhappy with me/And make me regret ever wanting you/But those days are through..."

Which, for some reason, touches my simple little Holly Hobby feltcloth heart. You're going, "Anybody could have written that! There's nothing TO that!" Well, listen to him sing it, and you tell me:



I feel like he means it. And I can't think of any other song that quite expresses the post-breakup "WHAT WAS I THINKING? Of COURSE it wasn't my fault! Why was [factor x in causing the breakup] even that big of a deal? Ohhh right...they didn't care enough about me". So. Breakup or no breakup, great, GREAT song.

2) THE SIGHT FOR YOUR SORE EYES:

Look. At. This. Man's. Stage. Costume.



Somehow, in spite of being as long faced as the Sons of Lee Marvin, Rundgren went after a Bowie-like, glamorous succession of stage costumes in the early to mid 1970's. My favorite is the feather ensemble, which included iridescent and spotted pieces attached to his eyebrows, a warrior like bandeau, and whimsical little epaulet flourishes at the shoulders. Oh, and the blue hair. Do you remember when blue hair was like a BIG thing? Not just something you saw on high school kids and cos play aficionados, but a serious "is that guy's hair really blue?!" thing, around the year 2000? Ok, now imagine someone doing that TWENTY-FIVE YEARS EARLIER. People must have been flipping their ever loving wigs. Can you see that square in the middle of his bandeau is a photo of, oh, HIM?


Wanna see the feather costume in a most incongruous display of image versus sound? Let's take a look:



((has to actually bite lower lip to keep from singing along at top volume)) What did I tell you?

3) THE GOSSIP THAT WILL SURPRISE YOU:



Todd Rundgren dated Patti Smith, producing her album "Wave" in 1979, which yielded the Springsteen penned hit single "Because the Night". She also did prose reviews of two of his albums in the early 70's, which you can read here and here. Todd Rundgren also dated Bebe Buell for a large portion of the mid 70's, during which she cheated on him/broke up with him/ got back together with him a number of times. During one hiatus, she fell pregnant, came back, and told Rundgren the baby was his, which was how they raised the resultant daughter. Who turned out to be Liv Tyler. I think you probably know who Liv's real father is. SHOCKING! You can read more about it in Buell's (pretty excellent, for a rock girlfriend memoir) Rebel Heart.

4) THE RESUME THAT'S BETTER THAN YOURS:

Producer credits for Todd Rundgren:

And there are more. The man is SICKENING.

Now, go listen to these albums and see what I'm talking about! Then report back here about what you've heard.

Todd Rundgren's (seemingly circa 1998) official website

Wikipedia article on him (note his part in the psychedelic band The Nazz before embarking on a solo career!)

Onion's A/V Club interview with Rundgren

Til next time!

The Clothes Off My Back (11)

Clothes! You know, those things you wear. I've been wearin' 'em, and by golly, it's time to be sharin' 'em.



I have yet to master the art of having my photo taken on the fly. You would not BE-LIEVE the shade of pea green I turn in envy everytime I see someone with a fabulous clothing post on their blog in which they look like a) a perfect 1940's magazine ad of a Vargas girl or at least b) a sunlit nymph frolicking through an Abercrombie and Fitch ad of a field. How do you do it, people-who-can-do-it? I usually stand in the driveway six minutes before I ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY have to leave for work or I am certainly going to be late, muttering "Take the picture! Take the picture! Do I look fat in that one? Make sure it looks halfway decent!" at Bab and his iPhone through the teeth of a winsome smile. Still! I'm glad there's photographic evidence of the pains I take with regard to my wardrobe every day. A fun dress sure does brighten up the rest of my day!

Above, the dress on the left is a white-with-green-print number I'm actually wearing as I type this! The photo there and below were taken this morning under exactly the circumstances I described in the last paragraph. In the middle, a zig-zagging, air stewardess-y dress if ever one existed... I found this in the back of my closet the other day, from some long forgotten estate sale, and was pleased as punch that it fits as well as it does. I find fewer and fewer of these all-over-polyester-knit dresses, it seems like the thrift store racks were busting with them when I was in high school.

At right, a dress a woman actually came up to me and touched, while it was on me (?!), to marvel at the zipper being on the wrong side. "It's not inside out is it?" I said, checking my seams. "No, it looks right side out, it's just a waist zipper should be on the other side," she said, still frowning at the placement. "Maybe the woman who made it was left handed?" I offered. The mystery remains. I bought that dress and its twin, a same-exact-shape dress in a similar pale green color, only solid cloth and no (wrongly placed) side zipper, at another estate sale for a dollar apiece.



That bow I was telling you about, and at right, a photo of me taking the Revlon Fire and Ice vintage reproduction case lipstick I won from Miss Emmi's giveaway at They'd Have Called Me the Bar Nothing (thanks, thanks, thanks again!!) out for a spin. It came in a gorgeous case and I think the color and finish are just right. I'm an amateur lipstick wearer, but shades like this make me want to go pro! Take a look at the packaging it came in (so great) here.

Can you tell how much I'm enjoying my Loretta Lynn, with-just-a-little-help hair? So much so that I've indulged in a little "ranch dressing" with the embroidered chambray shirt to the left, and the rockabilly-ified knit sweater set on the right. The coat in the middle was one of my first vintage purchases in Knoxville, way back in the year of our Lord 2003, at a church-run thrift store in Powell, TN. I remember being bowled over by the gold buttons and "Nutrana Fur System" label (it's not fur, but it is to be cleaned "via the Fur Method", according to the label), not to mention the six dollar price tag. I used to have a matching, Dr. Zhivago black fur hat that looked like it was made to go with the coat, but actually came from Target, until I left it in some guy's car the same year. Never to be seen again, sadly. I wore this to a bonfire in honor of our friend Louis's birthday, and kept sensibly chic AND warm. How often do I plan an outfit for utility as well as style? Infrequently, to say the least. But this was a good choice. Plus you can see night #2 for the Fire and Ice lipstick. Instant glamour!

Do you have any outfits that are your absolutely favorites of late? How often, if ever, do you put on a little fire red lipstick for the extra vintage touch? AND WHAT ARE YOUR OUTFIT POST PHOTOGRAPHY SECRETS? Inquiring minds want to know.

Til next time!

Three Women (1977)

After literally YEARS of somehow missing opportunities to see it, I've finally managed to sneak in a viewing of Robert Altman's Three Women and OH. MY. GOODNESS. What I was missing!


The mural on the sides of an empty swimming pool. I mean, what do you have painted on the sides of your swimming pool?

Something about the pacing of Altman movies make them very unfriendly to the casual viewer... I enjoy challenging narrative choices, but the first fifteen minutes or so of Altman movies always puts me into a lethargic mood. From minute sixteen on, I'm totally signed up; however, with distractions, it's easy for me not to make it to that touchstone. In this case, after having checked it out from the library at least three times, I found 3 Women on Netflix and hunkered down for the duration. "Watch! This! Film! Lisa!" I said to myself, and was I glad I did. Beautiful, hypnotic movie. Dealing with the same "what's real, what's imagined" themes that run through another terrifying/captivating selection from the director's catalog, 1972's Images with Susannah York, Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek circle around each other in an Ouroboros identity crisis that reeeeeallllllly doesn't resolve itself, down to the last, supremely off-kilter reel.



The synopsis, from Criterion:

In a dusty, underpopulated California resort town, a naive southern waif, Pinky Rose (Sissy Spacek), idolizes and befriends her fellow nurse, the would-be sophisticate and “thoroughly modern” Millie Lammoreaux (Shelley Duvall). When Millie takes Pinky in as her roommate, Pinky’s hero worship evolves into something far stranger and more sinister than either could have anticipated. Featuring brilliant performances from Spacek and Duvall, this dreamlike masterpiece from Robert Altman careens from the humorous to the chilling to the surreal, resulting in one of the most unusual and compelling films of the 1970s.




"Careens" is, I think, the perfect verb to describe the motion of the narrative in this movie. The dull, confused, creeping uneasiness of a dream sets the mood for most of the action. Pinky, assigned to Millie as a trainee in the nursing facility at which they both work, begins the first half of the film with a lower-lip trembling, worshipful admiration of her coworker and later roommate. While other screen characters obviously take Millie's trying-too-hard attempts at a cosmopolitan attitude as a weak joke, Pinky, coming from an even smaller town in Texas than Millie, sees Millie's efforts as the height of chic. Pinky breathes and gawks and, more than anything, watches Millie, wondering with total hero worship at the tuna melt recipes and matching middie blouse and slacks that make Millie a pathetic figure to others in her singles' apartment complex. Because it's so easily given, Pinky's adulation is just as easily rejected, though with puppy-like consistency, she's totally oblivious to her hero's lack of interest in her.


That bob, corsage, and halter maxi dress is calling my name.

When a tragic accident takes place in the square center of the run time, things begin to take a very drastic and unforeseen change. And when the ball starts rolling downhill, it really does pick up a nightmarish speed. As much as I was disinterested in the first few minutes of the movie, I was ho-o-o-oked on the last hour.


I go on dates the the shooting range with guys who unironically wear this combination of sideburns, cowboy hat, Elvis sunglasses, and print polyester silk shirts all the time. Don't you?

While Sissy Spacek is quite good as Pinky, demonstrating the same watchful, childlike innocence that won her critical acclaim for movies like Carrie and Coal Miner's Daughter, Shelley Duvall really, really SHINES in this movie. If you haven't seen her in much other than her second fiddle (one fiddle above Scatman Crothers, but one fiddle below "that naked, dead woman in room 237") role to Jack Nicholson's tour-de-force Jack Torrence in Kubrick's The Shining, this is your opportunity to see what she can do with the right direction and part. Her breathy voice, willowy figure, and doe-eyed, expressive, just-missed-being-beautiful face are suited to her deeply empathetic, center stage role in the picture. Something about her abortive, slavishly elaborate attempts at "fitting in" with other people, and her sunny, desperate exterior moved me more than any movie character I've seen in a long time.

But, as they say in Reading Rainbow, don't take my word for it! You can watch it yourself, guiltlessly, on the gorgeous Criterion release of 3 Women, or you can sneakily watch the self same on youtube:



Either way you go, you're in for a treat.

PS: I bought the poster! This poster:



Which is now hanging over my kitchen table in the dining nook to remind me of disassociative identity disorder as I enjoy a morning's waffle. Do you love the hand-tinted look of the stills from the movie or do you LOVE the hand-tinted look of the stills from the movie...?

PPS: Does this guy, who has a role as the physician at the nursing home where the girls work, not look EXACTLY like Matthew? I mean, down to the silver in his hair:



EXCELLENT top 5 list of Shelley Duvall movies (for further viewing)
NY Times review of the movie from 1977

What's on your to-do movie list? Are you a Shelley Duvall fan or one of her detractors? This movie won me over definitively into the "pro" camp, but it takes all kind.

Til next time!

Photo Friday (1)

In the midst of severe spring cleaning, I've moved my lovable, huggable, 1950's gunmetal grey Royal typewriter (just like this one, sans case) into the flux area of "things I haven't decided where to put yet but are definitely not going to Goodwill" and away from its longtime home, the desk that holds my home computer. It was a rough and tough decision, but one that had to be made in the interest of practicality. The Royal WILL find a new placement somewhere in my house, I just found myself having to have a space to work on... somewhere that I convert my vast library of paper ephemera into a digital library, somewhere that my USB turntable might actually be able to function as means of conversion, rather than a large paperweight. Still, the heartache of disrupting my nest. I am seeking solace in the functionality of being able to use my scanner to once again share things with you good people.

What things? Pictures, namely. LOTS of pictures. You have no idea how many flippin' pictures I have floating around in my house of people that are not related to me. Many more than of people who ARE related to me (sorry, family)! I thought I would try and scan some of them in every week so the pictures don't just collect dust in little folios around my house.

You wanna see? Of course you do! :)

Above, two women from what looks like to me the late twenties'. I don't know why the back fo the photo is labelled twice, but we'll go with the second labeling at the bottom. What struck me about this photo was principally the SWAGGER of these Rubenesque women and their style of dress. Leona (right) wears a white sack dress and a loosely tied bolero-ish ribbon, plus a full length black cloth coat, plus a really super cloche hat. What's sticking out of her coat pocket? What colors do you think the hat would have been? Aunt May (left) wears a drop waisted print dress, with what looks an overgrown handkerchief to me but what is probably a weird linen hat. I like the piping details at the waist and collar. Can you see the high fence and clapboard house behind them? The body language seems so loose and comfortable between the two women.

Here's a Little Miss Personality if ever I saw one! One sock up, one sock down; black bob, black patent leather shoes; a pinafore and shorts ensemble, and a water tower looming over all. I think you can tell by her sweet smile and the way she's standing it was all she could do to stand still for the photograph...she'd rather be skipping down the sidewalk. The out of focus houses in the background and the hints of people's shadows in the foreground make this picture so dreamy. As for dating the picture, I've been having the best luck with that kind of information being plain as day lately, for once or twice in my life:



This fox looks more like a rabbit to me (ah, the irony!) but it's still a great logo, stamped on the back of the photo when it was processed in probably 1927. The little socks and haircut from the photo make that a reasonable date to me. I accidentally cut off a little of the border in the scanning process, but rest assured, it's intact on the actual print. Because who would want to miss a GENUINE Fox Tone border picture?! Get hype, 1920's people.

Speaking of:



Meet "Rene A". I have a half dozen or so photos of him and a few girlfriends in front of what looks like some public buildings in a town square. I remember buying up a whole slew of photos for a dime apiece from this same lot. There were probably about hundred different photos, all different eras, all marked a dime, in an apple basket at this antique store booth in Lebanon, TN. While my dad was upstairs looking for WWII-era memorabilia and books, I was kneeling on the floor in the booth, dealing out stacks of old snapshots like hands of poker. This stack, "Definitely", this stack, "Maybe", this stack "Discards". At the tender age of thirteen, I'd never realized people would sell whole apple-baskets-full of family photos! The picture above has been separated from the other ones, which are somewhere in my drawersful of ephemera, but if I find them, I'll have to do a follow up. I seem to remember a shapely girl with a Zelda Fitzgerald curly bob, but that might just be my sentimental imagination talking.

I love the composition of this particular picture-- the building behind him, the half shadow, the window shutters' slats and the slightly lighter clapboards beneath them. How nattily dressed is Rene A.? Cap, that small, neat bowtie, the overcoat, the confident smile... he could easily be Sears model from the era.

Get ready for even more next week! Which one of these three is your favorite? What draws you, if it does, to buying vintage photographs? Do you have a particular found photo that makes your heart melt? Spill, spill!

Til next time.

Dakin Dream Dolls (1965)

Meet the ladies of your dreams, a pair of Dakin Dream Dolls (plus one Holiday Fair figure) !


They seem to be saying, "Oh hi! Fancy meeting you here!"

I cannot BELIEVE I almost left these at the Goodwill Outlet in St. Louis, MO. Bab and I spent the better part of twenty minutes trying to figure out how one would go about exiting the interstate (to which said Goodwill store ran parallel!) and getting to the location, which was apparently only accesible through a VERY counter-intuitive series of turns. I thought it was possibly a weekend without estate sales induced mirage. However! After turning around twice in weird, literally-next-to-the-tracks industrial area parking lots, we found our street (coincidentally, almost adjacent to the National Guard Armory Building, which is way more creepy, broken windowed, and Silent Hill esque than the photos on this site would intimate), and found these lovelies sticking out of one of the large Rubbermaid bins to which most Goodwill outlets seem heir.

I picked the one above out of the bin first, and a fellow shopper immediately fell upon me. "I remember those! I remember those kind of dolls from the sixties! I think I had one of those," she said, fondly touching the figure's greying head. I've seen dolls with faces like these before, but mostly on Asian souvenir figures and dressed in kimonos or other traditional garb. This gal was ready to go out on the town, Shindig style! I love the headband, the trim on her matching skirt/jacket ensemble, and her strange, Edie Sedgwick made-up eyes. Also, what's with the grey hair?

"Pinky" 's tag read "Holiday Fair, Made in Japan, Copyright 1965", which made dating the doll pretty easy, but I haven't come up with much on the Holiday Fair company through light Googling.

Pleased as I was with the first doll, I soon realized there were two more in the same bin! No grabbing, digging, or scouring required-- just sitting on top of the detritus, asking to go home with me.

The second doll has a "Dakin Dream Doll" tag, which, in spite of her resemblance to Pinky, probably makes her more related to the third doll (I'll get to that one). Dakin was a stuffed toys manufacturing company founded in 1966 that specialized in inexpensive novelty plush toys-- I promise you've seen some of these guys before, especially the Dakin Dream Pets. How spindly are their legs? How sweet are their expressions? I especially like the red head's (orange head's?) styled bangs and elfin hat. I think her outfit, if you replaced the white pom poms with white buttons, would be the most wearable. But you might also have to have fifty mile long, pin thin legs like our dolls to pull off the mini! (No knees here, folks. Keep moving)

Last, but not least, on my parade of Dakins, check out the Orange Head's sister, also known as "The Creepy One I Almost Didn't Buy":



Yet, like many an American underdog story, she's kind of becoming my favorite of the bunch. While she does boast the same albino hair, impish features, and terror-inducing stare as the subjects of the movie Children of the Damned, I can't say that the little sparkles surrounding her irises aren't kind of neat! "Beware the stare that will conquer the will of the world!"



You can tell by the wear on these dolls that the colors were initially a little more vibrant:



Pinky is probably supposed to be more of a "Scarlett", but I kind of like the shabbiness of the dolls better than if they were in mint condition. Knowing that during their past lives, they were probably on display somewhere, is a nice thought, right? Right.

Bottom line: THESE THINGS ARE GREAT. I have to resist upon resist Etsy or ebaying to find more of these girls' sisters.

Speaking of, I found this flickr account of one woman's Dakin Dream Doll collection. SHE IS KILLIN' IT, Y'ALL. SHE IS MAKIN' ALL THE REST OF LOOK LIKE SOME SUCKA COLLECTORS. Gosh!

Do you grab up vintage dolls when you see them at junk stores and estate sales, or are you one of those good pickers who only specialize in one kind of collectible (and thus does not live in what amounts to a giant kitsch museum, like myself)? Do you have any Dakins? Tell, tell!

Til next time.