Warner Instant Archive (1920's Movies on Streaming!)

Good morning!

I hope you had a good weekend! I'm here today to spread the good word about Warner Instant Archive. Brother, have you heard the news?

I was looking over some Clark Gable tribute page on Facebook (like you do) and ran across a posting that mentioned several CG movies were up on the Warner page. Nerts to that, I thought-- while Warner Archive has a slew of old movies that either never reached DVD or VHS and are made up on an on demand basis at their warehouse, at $24.99 a pop, the prices are a little too high to indulge my curiosity in career highlights and footnotes of stars I've read about. Even if it makes my little heart sad. HOWEVER! Warner now has a streaming service that allows you, for $9.99 a month, to watch hundreds of old movies under two kingpin classic Hollywood studios, as Warner acquired the MGM back catalog along with their own motion picture releases. WHAT. WHAT. I signed up immediately and can't keep my eyes off the screen in my idle moments. What have I been watching? WHAT HAVEN'T I BEEN WATCHING. I started with the twenties', and have been working my way through. Here are some highlights from my jolly spree:

1) Untamed (1929), starring Joan Crawford and Robert Montgomery

In Untamed, Joan Crawford's talking picture debut (!!), she plays "Bingo", a wildcat of a girl brought up in the jungles of South America alongside her oilman father. When the pater familias passes in the first reel, Joan is left in the hands of one of her dad's old pals, who is determined to turn the now very rich Bingo into the kind of lady her station in life behooves her to be. They set sail for America, but unfortunately, run into the very young, very louche Robert Montgomery (popular costar of many early thirties' "women" pictures, usually with Norma Shearer, and later father of Elizabeth Montgomery, tv's Samantha from Bewitched) on the boat over. She arrives in the States and makes an overnight transformation into a lady of great taste and elegant restraint, but the one thing she can't change is her feelings for Robert Montgomery... various squabbles about fidelity, money, and matrimony ensue, but Bingo gets her guy by the last title card.

What's interesting to see in this movie is Joan at the very, very beginning of her forty year career. She'd notched something like twenty-five movies in the silent era, but this is really the make-or-break moment for whether or not the popular, saucer-eyed dancer would make it in the new era of the movie industry. And does she even look like herself, yet? No! The picture opens with Joan playing a song on the ukuele, as if the producers are saying "Look! We have sound, people!", and a wild flapper dance in what is essentially a tropical mini-dress that gives her plenty of free reign to show off the moves that won her a closetful of Charleston trophies in her teens (you can see the whole scene here). Still, the lithe-bodied, harsh mouthed girl on the screen is still somehow a light year away from the shopgirl's idol she would become in just two or three years later. She's not "there" yet, but she's on her way. And isn't that exciting to watch? YES. YES IT IS. Thank you, Warner Archives!!

2) Show People (1928), starring Marion Davies and William Haines

Show People is a FAN.TASTIC. silent movie about the motion picture industry...if you ever wanted a backstage pass to MGM circa 1928 (me, sir! Please, sir, me sir!), here's your ticket. King Vidor (the filmmaker behind The Crowd, which was also released that year) helms a light comedy about Miss Peggy Pepper of Georgia (Marion Davies), who arrives in Hollywood in an open touring car with her father, the Colonel, and the intention of breaking into the movie business. At the studio commissary, Billy (William Haines) barges in and makes a seat at the Peppers table, all gangly good looks and likeability. A Keystone-cop-style comedian himself, he offers Peggy a leg up in the business by promising to get her on set in a slapstick one-reeler being made the very next day. After some pretty hilarious hiccoughs (Peggy thinks she's going into a drama, so her reaction when she is hit in the face with a pie, sprayed with seltzer, etc, is completely real rather than the inspired comedic acting the director thinks he's seeing), Peggy's star begins to rise, and you have to watch to see if she goes all A Star is Born on poor Billy (spoiler alert: she does, then she doesn't)...there are some really sweet moments in between the slapstick.

Marion Davies, if you weren't familiar with the name, was a Ziegfield Follies girl who became the longtime mistress of newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst. She moved to Hollywood with him in 1919 to build one of America's own "castles", San Simeon, as a west coast love nest, and make a break for herself in movies. Hearst bankrolled a number of historical romances starring Davies and gave them the FULL publicity treatment in his many newspapers-- some film critics say that she might have done all right for herself just on the strength of her acting, but having that "someone else's money" pall cast across her career made her talent seem a lot weaker than her lover's belief in it. Citizen Kane (you might have heard of it) was biographically based on WRH, and having the nightclub singer turned would be opera star character of Susan Alexander Kane parallel Davies's role in Hearst's life might have been the last word in the "was she or wasn't she talented" argument-- yet Show People is directly refutes Davies detractors. You're wrong, boys! Marion Davies is adorable as Peggy Pepper, and is a real canny comedienne-- she makes faces and mimics stars of the day (an imitation of Mae Murray's bee-stung lips slash overbite is the focus in a particularly hilarious scene) and generally endears herself to the viewer from the first scene.

William Haines, Davies's Show People costar, was a popular leading man of the silent era, always the cheery collegiate or nattily dressed gadabout quick with a boyish smile or a good natured hi-jink. Haines's refusal, in the 1930's, to enter into a "sham" marriage with an actress on the lot to camouflage his homosexuality led to his being ousted from the motion picture community. However, he and his partner Jimmie Shields, with the help of old friend and co-star (you guessed it!) Joan Crawford, launched his second and just as successful career as an interior designer to-the-stars. He's GREAT as Billy as in the movie, 110% charm. I hope they add some more of his movies to the streaming service (West Point was up long enough for me to see it, but has been removed now-- fickle, fickle Warners!).

Something to watch for? The twenty-or-so-strong cameos in the movie! At one point, this tiny guy (below) comes up to ask Marion Davies for her autograph after her first successful preview screening, and she shoos him away. Billy, recognizing the bantam movieman, signs his signature book and waves as the stranger gets into a very, very expensive town car. "Who was that little man?" she asks in a title card. "Charlie Chaplin!" replies Billy in the next card. Marion, relatably, falls out. And it is! Real life friend (possible paramour?) of Marion Davies and the Little Tramp himself...I've seen plenty of pictures of him out of makeup and with various Hollywood stars, but I will say it was jarring to see how actually tiny he is when in civilian clothes rather than his trademark, ill-fitting tramp clothes.

At a dinner with other Hollywood types, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., John Gilbert and wife Leatrice Joy, Anita Page, and  Karl Dane all make uncredited guest appearances (cue me shrieking, "Look! Look, it's John Gilbert! That's his wife!" with unchecked glee), and at one point, Peggy Pepper runs into Marion Davies on her way to a tennis match! Talk about meta, people. Here's the dolled up, feminine Peggy watching the much more casual, boyishly blonde bobbed Davies take off across the studio lot.

A first rate flicker, folks! Go check it out!

3) The Show (1927), John Gilbert and Renée Adorée

The Show is a horror (ish?) movie by Freaks director Tod Browning, and knowing his reputation for making movies that are a little sinister, a little "off", I was super excited when this was added to the streaming site just this weekend. Dreamy John Gilbert is the carny barker in a Bavarian traveling show, Renée Adorée plays the title role in the skit production of Salome which features as the main attraction in their set-up. The sketch follows the story of dancing girl Salome demanding the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter when she is offered "anything she desires" by King Herod...there's a thrilling part where a bearded, be-wigged Gilbert is involved in a fool-the-eye trick where he is apparently "beheaded" on stage. Lionel Barrymore (great-uncle of Drew, brother of John and Ethel, you might remember him as the heartless bank owner Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life) plays a gangster type who might be part of a triangle between Gilbert and Adorée. Barrymore make good use of the theatrical "trick" in the Salome sketch to try and economically dispatch his rival. That doesn't work, so the plot plods on with Gilbert having stolen some money from an overly trusting orphaned shepherdess and hiding out in Adorée's attic.

Do you blame her for being a sap? Look at this man:

John Gilbert and Clara Bow share those same exclamation point eyes, particularly suited to the silents. I can't get over how vivid and alive he looks onscreen. I might not have done a good job grabbing stills, but trust me, this is no "ironically handsome" crush, he's really the real-deal heartbreaker when you see him in action. Usually, John Gilbert plays, at worst, a somewhat debauched or less than angelic bachelor, an irresponsible but irrepressible romantic interest...but almost never someone with an actual current of negative energy running through him. This role is that, kids! Cock Robin (seriously, that is the dude's name in the movie) enjoys a pitch black characterization by Gilbert, redeemed only in the last twenty minutes or so by his softening at Adorée's continual "goodness". And when he melts, people, he melts! It really just feeds my sentimental heart to see these bold-print emotions play across the screen.

Here's Adorée, fragile and wet-eyed throughout. She also starred with John Gilbert in The Big Parade (a WWI movie with real punch, even almost a hundred years later) and La Bohème (with Lillian Gish). Isn't she darling?

Last but not least the iguana below serves as the bad guy in the picture-- really, he gets bad rap, as iguanas aren't poisonous, and that's the whole point on which the plot is predicated, but suspension of disbelief is kind of a given in these scenarios. Look how sinister he looks crawling out of Barrymore's suitcase!

Anyway, I've gone on WAY TOO LONG FOR TODAY, but I was just that excited about getting to see these early motion picture gems! Check them out if you get a chance- Warners' offers a two week trial period risk free! Think of how many movies like this you could watch in two weeks!

How about you? Seen any good old movies lately? Have any favorites of the silent screen? Which of these would you most want to see or what are some things you've always heard about but never gotten a chance to watch? Let's talk! 

That's all for today, but I'll see you back here tomorrow. Have a great Monday! Til then.

Photo Friday: Canoodling Teenagers Edition (1960's)

Good morning!

Well, here we are again, kids. FRI-DAY. Got any sizzling plans for the weekend? I am staying indoors as much as possible! There's a cold front/ ice storm warning running for Davidson County, and I know when to quit (and by quit I mean try out new soup recipes, play Metroid, and watch Joan Crawford live the life I would choose for myself). Though I may have to brave my way across the frozen tundra on Sunday for my afternoon shift at the library, ain't nothin' doin' before that. As a born and raised Nashvillian, I both have no idea how to drive in the mildest of icy conditions and fear said conditions with the vehemence and strength of a long-held cultural superstition.  But enough about me.

Today's Photo Friday comes to you via this flickr user's account. Bird readers, meet Margaret and Dave, English teenagers in year of our Lord 1964. Aren't they cute?!

What drew me to these photos in the first place were two things-- one, the incredible youth of both of these skinny kids-- it practically hovers over their heads like a halo; two, their extremely grown up clothes. I know the whole concept of the store Forever 21 is to dress 13 year olds like 21 year olds and to dress 41 year olds like 21 year olds, but just think of a time when your average teenager went out on a Saturday night in pointed dress flats and crinoline circle skirt (girl) or sharp collared button up shirt and blazer (boy). Don't they both look sharp as tacks? I wish I looked half so soigneé NOW at my own advanced age as these spiffed up teens looked then, probably just going to the movies or a social.

Margaret's clothes in particular, I covet. Look at this silk flower-print wiggle dress and those chic, pencil-heeled white pumps she wearing with it! As we always do in these old sepia, black and white tone photos, I do wonder what color the dress was. Do you see the detail of the swimming pool and the palm trees planted along its perimeter?

This I would wear exactly as she is wearing it. White cardigan over a white dress with black dots the size of quarters, single seed pearl necklace, ladylike watch and charm bracelet. So fresh faced! I want to know how to style one's short hair like this-- doesn't she make it look cute instead of matronly?

Here's Margaret again cutting loose at the forementioned social. I like her monochromatic twinset and skirt, standing out easily from the gingham check and floral print of her contemporaries on the dance floor. Why are she and her friend dancing alone? Where's Dave to act as a dancing partner?

There he is, playing the romantic swain, carrying his girlfriend. I love how red-headed people will show up in old photographs-- he's so ghostly! We will see a variety of photos, in the rest of this post, of Margaret and Dave canoodling or posing in various couple shots. There's something about them, I don't know if it's their style or expression or the fact that I already know the photos were taken in England in the mid nineteen sixties', that looks so English. Reminds me of The Knack and How to Get It, just these black and white snaps of British youth-on-the-go. I spent a serious chunk of my preteen days poring over Beatle biographies (John Lennon in particular), so I feel like this time, and just a little bit before it, is so indelibly ingrained into my imagination that I might as well have been dating a wannabe Teddy Boy and going to see tapings of Hullabaloo in my high school years.

Besides the fact that this is an adorable photo, someone give me that swimsuit! And that tartan blanket!

Here they are in winter wear-- I love that Margaret is wearing little white ankle boots and capris to show them off-- isn't she cold? But doesn't she look cool?

Aaaah, here they are at somebody's house! Look at the forties' deco arm of the chair they're sitting on, and Margaret's continued fashion allegiance to cardigans, this one knitted. I don't know what kind of pull-over Dave is wearing, but wonder if it has to do with his military service (it looks uniform-esque, doesn't it?).

Surprise! The two of them in color at the same house. Would you have thought the chairs were that color? Dave's hair? That pink, pink dress? Again, it's astonishing all the details we'd miss in black and white.

Last but not least, these crazy canoodling teenagers got married shortly after these photos were taken. HOW CUTE ARE THEY IN THEIR WEDDING CLOTHES:

Wonder if it lasted? You don't have to! The account to which the photos were posted is maintained by, you guessed it "Dave", whose profile photo includes his lovely wife of almost fifty years, Margaret. You can read/see more about them at their flickr page. Ain't love grand! It's so sweet to think of these people staying together all these years and having these photos where they were just young pups to remember the time by!

How about you? Have any photos of yourself, your parents, your grandparents snuggled up and unbelievably young in your photo albums? What fashions do you covet from old family photos? Have any tips on how to style a cardigan sweater? Let's talk!

That's all for today, but I'll see you right back here next week for more vintage tips and quips. Have a great (and hopefully non-icy) weekend, and I'll see you on the other side! Til then.

Gifts from the Sea (Vintage Shell Displays)

Good morning!

While walking around pulling books this morning in the nonfiction stacks, I was thinking today about an estate sale I went to last week in West Meade. Do you ever check out preview photos of an estate sale or a listing on Craigslist and have one those pulse-quickening moments of "oooh, what IS that? Do I need that?! I need that, right?!". The Estatesales.net photos for the Thanksgiving weekend sale had two things going for them-- first, this was one of only two sales running that holiday weekend; second, there were four plus photos of shells interestingly arrayed in decorative groupings. The picture format was teeny-tiny, but I snagged them from the listing anyway so you could get a gander at what I'm talking about:

Yeeks, right?! Careful, you could get your eye knocked out and your socks blown right off your body by the sheer visual intensity of these displays. Don't they look like something a Victorian teenager would spend hours meticulously handcrafting, from a "nature walk" at a pristine, turn of the century shoreline? Leilani, from Thriftaholic, had mentioned on her website's Facebook page the other day that she'd taken an interest in 1890's pressed seaweed albums, via this link on CollectorsWeekly, and didn't that have my little feelers buzzing for nautical arts and crafts of a certain, centenarian vintage? I like anything that looks like it might have hung in a middle school classroom or a gilded age front parlor, and doesn't this fit both bills with room to spare?!

Unfortunately, I got there, and the boards weren't what you'd think they would be. Most of the better ones seemed to have drifted out the door on the first day of the sale, and what was left would have left you underwhelmed-- cracked or loose shells, cheap velvet boards, no case to protect them, and just....bleh. However! The IDEA of them still resonates with the vibration of my tiny heart strings, and I went to the internet to find (much more expensive, but much more appealing) versions of this antique handicraft. 

Let's take a look!

Victorian Shell Art, Shadowbox, Beautiful

Thinking of shadow boxes actually puts me in mind of a similar problem I've had with collecting butterfly displays. Again, I will buy anything that would ook out the average thrift shopper, and was excited to see a shadow box of an amateur lepidopterist's trappings in the wall hangings section of the Hendersonville Goodwill. This is the part of the joke where you go, "Well, that's good!" and I say, "No, that's bad", because the jostling from either the donation bin to the shelf, or maybe some transit of boxes in someone's attic, had dislodged the long-gone-on-to-their-greater-reward insect's bodies from their scientific moorings. Some lay, legs skyward, at the bottom of the glass case, intact; others presented in iridescent shards as their brittle wings disintegrated from the impact. This was, like in the several times I've tried on a mink stole and realized I'm holding an expired cousin-to-a-weasel's paw in my own hand as I try to the fasten the clasp, a major gross out to the queen of not being grossed out by vintage collectibles. EUUUGH! Why! Similarly, if I was going to buy one of these, I would want one with no half-broken pieces, reminding me that the materials making up my decorative display were once however transient, corporeal beings. Plus, yuck, who wants starfish legs broken off and floating loose at the bottom of a picture frame?

Vintage specimen sea shell coral shadow box divers box nautical decor

This seashell and coral shadow box may be my favorite-- how effective is the placement and the velvet backing? I think one of the mistakes the estate sale person's handcrafter made was putting the shells naked on this weird, stiff, cheap velvet board that had a kind of stand to it, rather than attaching them to a flat board covered in matte velvet and placing that in a frame. The glass would have protected the shells from the damage that shied me away from buying even a single tableau, plus, anything in a frame looks better than anything out of a frame. I love how the tiny clam-shells look like butterflies in the box above, and the pink of the coral contrasted with the yellow of the shells. Sign me up for one!

Vintage 1930's Shell Basket Display - Large

Etsy boasted a pair of shell basket displays made by either a seaside vendor or a tourist to Daytona Beach, Florida in 1939-- we can tell because whomever the artisan was, they helpfully added the date and place on one of the shells before enclosing the entire scene in its glass case. This display replaces the stark black velvet with sand, and isn't it cute! I might prefer the other for the more vivid contrast, but this medium gets points for relevancy to the subject. Plus, basket-- good idea for a decorative item when wall space is at a premium (pretend I wouldn't just hang this basket on the wall).

Vintage 1930's Shell Basket Display

Here's an interesting piece. A shop called Paulstaberminerals (say that three times fast) has a ton of split fossilized shells that are aching to be displayed in my home, en masse. Now, these shells might outdate the ones we're looking at by a cool couple million years, but what they lack in freshness, they make up for in a quality of serious psychedelia. See more here and here. Did you know shells look like that on the inside? I think I've only seen broken, non-fossilized ones, not carefully bisected fossil versions, and my, aren't they yar.

Cut Split Pair RARE ANAPUZOSIA Ammonite wide body D-shape Crystal Cavity MEDIUM

Last but not least, while trying out the search terms "shell display" and "shadow boxes", I came across a whole subset of collectibles called "sailor's valentines." While that might sound like a euphemism for some kind of social disease, they are in fact hand crafted, incredibly detailed shell art, primarily dating between 1830-1890 (though they're still made by craftspeople today). According to Wikipedia, these were souvenirs made up originally by women in Barbados, to sell to sailors visiting ports of call, who would then in turn take them home to their sweethearts. I had a vision when I first heard the term of a sweet, galunk-y forties' sailor stationed on some South Seas island, carefully collecting shells with his big, capable hands, and then trying like the devil to arrange them in these dainty, geometrical patterns for his "girl back home". The Barbados souvenir theory holds more water than my original idea, but it's still funny to think about.

Sailors Valentine, Cameo Seashell Shadow Box

How about you? Do you have any natural history like decor in your home, from sea or land? What kinds of science related tchotchkes do you collect, if any? Which of these forms of shell displays would you be most likely to snatch up for your very own? If you remember from an earlier post, I have this great shell lamp I still don't have any place to put, so I'm full up on seashell-related collectibles, but if one of these came my way in a more appealing version than the ones I saw at that estate sale...well, I might have to lift the ban for just a moment. :)

That's all for today, but I'll see you back here tomorrow for Photo Friday! Til then.

Dream House (1956 Time Capsule Ranch)

Good morning!

We start out today's post with a second-long French lesson. Class, repeat after me....Je rêve d'immobliers...phonetically, juh REHVV dihmohbliyAY. That's French for "I am dreaming of real estate". And isn't it the honest truth this morning! My friend Kelsey is thinking about moving back to town when her husband returns from deployment in 2014, and I am thinking that the best course of action is for me to play Barbie Dream House on Zillow in my off desk hours as if it were, in and of itself, a paying job. I've learned how to set the search functions on Zillow to show me houses built from 1800-1970, in Nashville, Tennessee, and under $250,000 (ideally WAAAY under $250,000, but there's no fun in only looking at moderately priced houses!). While I love the house I'm in to death, I'm going to have to homestead some day, and haven't I been having a ball looking under the guise of helping out a friend.

Well, it's all fun and games until someone gets someone gets their heart broken. Folks, check it out. It's my house.

This ranch-style, 1956 house sits on a hill so high up and close to Nashville that you can see the Batman building from the backyard. YOU CAN SEE THE SKYLINE FROM YOUR BACKYARD. This first picture might not knock your socks off, but let's keep looking, it gets even better. All one floor, eighteen hundred square feet, on two acres and some change, and decked out with all the finest bells and whistles 1956 could afford you.

Here's your entryway, brick wall and tiled floor and all the wood paneling you could shake a stick at:

Can you imagine a 1956 hostess, dressed to the nines in sharp heels and a sharper brocade wrap dress, answering the door for her first housewarming party? "Oh, hiiiii, Margie! Tom! I'm so glad you could make it out, come in, come in!" Highballs on a bar cart and jazz blaring from the hi-fi, that planter on the right would be filled in with a luscious, tropical looking silk plant, grazing the ceiling with its artificial foilage. The space under it acts as storage for firewood. Why would you need firewood? For your indoor fireplace, naturally:

The hearth that serves as the center of the home! Check out the light fixtures attached to the wall above it and the built in shelves (is there still a reel-to-reel sitting on one of them?). The ghostly dark rectangles mark out where art used to hang-- can you imagine a family portrait here, or an abstract of a city scape? I would hang one of the oversized pictures from my den here. Because act like I have not seen myself in every room of this house in every possible domestic situation, and where I would put what! Somebody give me the keys to this place!

The other side of the room is almost as impressive as the fireplace wall side. Look at those enormous windows! Do they even qualify as windows when they're that big? And the light that the room gets. Imagine an ultra long, low, all clean lines sofa here-- a conversation pit built on a sectional and a love seat and one of those modern brass arc floor lamps. I know, from moving into my own house, that a room that looks this big can look much smaller when you start putting in furniture, but I'm having trouble imagining that the furniture I have would take up more than a quarter of the space. Maybe you could carve out a formal dining space out of the remaining room?

Kitchen:

Nothing ultra fancy, but a major upgrade from what I currently have. You could put a more retro/new stove under that stove hood there. I feel like the stove that matched the hood must have put in some time in the seventies'. I am so in love with the late sixties'/early seventies' linoleum (put in the same time as the stove, I bet!) that I wouldn't even bother updating it. See the eat-in kitchen, and think about a pair of kids eating cereal while mom packs lunches at that long formica counter. A cheery pair of avocado green café curtains over the sink there and you're ready to go.

Bedroom one:

Sliding wood door closet! Walk-out-to-the-patio access! I would add a mile of pinch pleat curtains to the track-hardware already in place.

Bedroom two:

Look. At. Those. Windows.

Bedroom three:

Bedroom four:

Built in desk! Built in desk! Put a mirror and a line of lights up on that wall and it makes a vanity for morning makeup application! Pair of closets! Be still my beating heart! I spent just this morning wrestling hangers trying to pull a specific dress out of the closet, but not before the plastic had snapped on the one I was trying to free. The solution is not to thin out my inventory of dresses, but to HAVE ANOTHER CLOSET.

Den/office space:

More built in bookshelves, more long, huge windows. Knotty pine paneling!

Bathroom one:

Bathroom two:

And last but not least, the back yard:

So you're probably thinking now-- why don't you have a real estate agent on the phone?! GET ON THE PHONE. Is it expensive? Friends, it is under $150,000. Which is insane. There's a house two streets down from me with missing window shutters and a half falling down back deck that is $129,000. It's not the price, and it's not the house. As I clicked the "map" option on the site and zoomed out of the street to see what neighborhood the house was in, my heart did an elevator drop. Once a mid century community of educated, professional African Americans-- doctors, lawyers, teachers-- this suburb has gone drastically downhill in the last thirty years. In the sixties', this house would have been in a much nicer neighborhood, income-wise, than either of my grandparents' houses. In 2013, it's one of the highest crime areas on those maps of crime areas that make me not want to look up my address for fear of what my neighbors are up to. Why! WHYYYYY. So sad. I guess I'll have to keep on the hunt for....Kelsey! I'm definitely not looking for myself! Haha.

How about you? Do you have a crazy story about hunting for real estate? How did you find the house you're in? What scotches a deal for you as far as buying somewhere you'd want to live in for the next thirty years, or so? Which part of the house makes you pine the worst for this property? Let's talk!

That's all for today, but I'll be back tomorrow with more vintage things to drool over! Take care, and I'll see you Thursday. Til then!

(Crazy about) Crazy Quilts (Antiques Roadshow)

Good morning!

I've been catching up with Antiques Roadshow in my idle moments while repairing books at work-- have you seen the newest season of that PBS ratings' juggernaut? Far more often than I'll sit and studiously observe an episode of this series, I tend to watch it while I'm doing other things. It's easy to prick one's ears up, as if hearing the call of a distant predator, when key exchanges like "How much did you pay for it?" and "Oh, I think a couple bucks?" are bandied about, so this crazy quilt a woman in Seattle, Washington score at an estate sale (gasp!) for three dollars (gasp!) definitely had my head turned at the very beginning of the episode. Look upon it, fellow vintage junkhounds, and tell me it's not as magnificent a quilt as ever you have seen! 

Crazy Quilt Seattle (2013)

I did some reading up on the history of the crazy quilt and found that its popularity dates to the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, where the asymmetrical beauty of Japanese ceramics and textiles on display inspired the creativity of needlewomen across the country! The  term "crazy quilt" owes less to the lunacy of the person making the quilt than possibly the term "crazed" or "crazing", which refers to tiny cracks in the glaze of pottery that gives it a shard-like look (I'm sure you've seen this on old plates before if you're a picker, see an example here). Apparently, everyone and their great aunt was making these quilts in the late nineteenth century. And can you blame them! You don't have to embrace the classical tenet of "symmetry" and "form", just go to town with whatever tiny scraps of silk strike your fancy!

Growing up in the late eighties' and early nineties', I have to say, this form of folk art is something that I haven't been able to understand until lately. Something about Victorian dolls and 1880's buggy wheels, crazy quilts and bold print feed sacks, primitive art in general just stinks to me of rich, suburban hausfraus slash amateur interior designers trying to "vintage up" their otherwise unremarkable households. Not everyone who collects in any of those categories is necessarily guilty of this trespass against good taste-- but I feel like nineties' subscribers of Country Living and design dilettantes have ruined that rustic aesthetic for me for practically all time. Hoosier cabinets have no business in your brand-new, Berber carpeted McMansion! Why do you collect milk glass? Seriously, why?! When I was kid tagging along to antique stores and junk shops with my dad, in between the legitimate stalls of stuff-we-like (creepy cabinet cards, old canteens, paperback etiquette books, mannequin heads, you get the gist) were "Gammy's Quilted Angels!" or "Country Times" booths. One, they had "shop names", boldly displayed on a hand lettered placard, usually hung with christmas lights and craft store twigs. And you know what was in the booth-- ducks in bonnets. Yarn-haired seraphim holding handpainted signs reading "Welcome to Our Mess!". "Aged" whitewashed wooden school chairs that were $100 a piece. Etc., etc. It sounds like I'm just being mean, but thinking about how there were probably a handful of truly invested, interested pickers who saw the beauty in a faded quilt or a repurposed sewing machine table, were followed by a water buffalo stampede of people without taste, ruining it for the rest of us, just gripes me in a way that's new every time I think about it. 

So to see a quilt like this! Intricate! Marvelous! I'd seen the country-chic copies of these in TJ Maxx type stores, where panne velvet was pieced awkwardly by machine with brocade with tassel fringe, all of it looked like a pelted animal that wheezed its last dying breaths in the gravel parking lot of a Renaissance Festival...my IDEA of what a crazy quilt should look like is changed now. Look at all the stitchwork, the wild embroidery. Going through the sixteen year archive of the show, I was able to find two other quilts of similar knock-your-eye-out quality. Take a look!

Crazy Quilt Pittsburgh (2012)

Only the year previous, this "animals" themed crazy quilt was brought in from a home in Pittsburgh. Do you ever notice at estate sales, flea markets, etc-- crazy quilt or not, any hand-pieced textile is going to be CRAZY. EXPENSIVE. compared to anything else at the sale? I don't know if its the fact that so much work goes into the quilt, or the idea that's it's "heirloom" material, or that the aforementioned suburban moms have driven the prices on these things sky high. I was at a sale last weekend where I saw a quilt on half off day and let out a little yell-- "Oh, awesome! Who would have thought this would be here today? I wonder how much they--" and lapsed in a stunned silence as I flipped over the price tag. $275! That's still almost a hundred and forty bucks on half off day. Unlike the steal of a deal story of the first woman's amazing crazy quilt find, this quilt was handed down over the years in the same family. Check out the gothic Victorian quality of this backstory:

GUEST: This was my grandfather's aunt's, who lived in Mercer County, Kentucky, on a farm just outside of Harrodsburg. She was born in 1870, and we think she died in her 20s, so the quilt was probably made in the 1890s.

APPRAISER: Well, it's the ultimate Victorian crazy quilt, and it's called a crazy quilt because each one of these patches of wool and velvet, in this case, are odd shaped, and so they have a crazy, unpredictable kind of pattern to them. And I think every Victorian lady either made one or received one-- there are zillions of them-- but this is far and away the best example I've ever seen. This calla lily is tufted, like a piece of English needlework in the 17th century. And this bird and the swans are three-dimensional. Normally they are flat and sell for about $300. We think this one could be worth between $3,000 and $5,000.

GUEST: Oh, great, wow. My father said, if he ever went on the Antiques Roadshow, that he would bring this quilt.

How nice of her to make this fever dream of a quilt before she passed away at a tragically young age! In stories like these, I don't know whether to be jealous someone has such a macabre handicraft in their family, glad someone along the bloodline still valued the piece, or grousing because someone should let me have this for like 30 bucks at an estate sale. Conflicting emotions! Look at these swans and cobwebs from the closeup:

Last but not least, a crazy quilt in Seattle ten years ago, which reminds me of an illustration in my high school text book that accompanied the story "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker (which, uncoincidentally, uses folk art quilts as a symbol of the different ways two daughters relate to their shared heritage). So crazy, people:

 Crazy Quilt Seattle (2003)

Here's the backstory on this one:

GUEST: Well, it was my grandmother's. She had received this quilt from her mother, and the back of it was actually a contribution made by some Chinese immigrants who had been burned out of their homes at the time of the Seattle Great Fire which was... 

APPRAISER: Which was like the Chicago Fire in terms of devastating... 

GUEST: Oh, it was terrible. My grandmother watched it from her bedroom window. 

APPRAISER: So this actually was made by her mother. 

GUEST: Yes, by her mother, yes. 

APPRAISER: Right, and the date was about? 1889 was the fire. 

GUEST: 1889, yeah. And then she backed it with these Chinese silk handkerchiefs that they gave to her in appreciation for letting them sleep and cook in her home. 

Talk about a piece of honest-to-goodness history-- included are a regional ribbons and other pieces of Seattle history.

Advice from the website on quilts:

Virtually every family has a quilt made by grandma or great-grandma. Unfortunately most of these quilts were used, washed, or repaired. Quilts in worn and frayed condition are rarely salable and usually cannot be restored. Collectors want quilts in perfect condition with no worn edges or faded colors. Machine washing causes the filling in the quilts to bunch up, causing the surface to crinkle in ways collectors run from. Crazy quilts in silk that date from the last quarter of the 19th century very often have torn or worn silk strips, which also renders them unsalable.

I love that instead of reading this like "avoid old worn out quilts at any cost!" I'm thinking...now...if I could only get my hands on some nasty, torn and worn quilt, it MIGHT be in my price range! And I could still use it as a wall hanging. I am so bad. I have one 1930's mint-condition quilt top (just the top, no batting or backing) that I got at a sale for $10. I'm still trying to figure out how I can attach this to said backing and batting without ruining the whole thing with my ineptitude at handicraft. And I have one complete 1930's quilt, which is 3'' x 3'' squares of black-and-white-polka-dots alternating with same size squares of a violet flower print, which I haggled a third day estate sale woman down from $50 to $20. She was almost not having it, too, but I really wanted the quilt almost as much as I really didn't want to pay $50 for it. I'll take a picture some time and show you guys. Both are humdingers!

What do you think? Are you a crazy quilt or a quilt fan? Have any of these in your own collection? Do you have a type of antique or vintage item that some people are nuts about, and has been completely ruined for you by other people? Do you have a reasonably priced vintage quilt you'd like to sell me? I'm in the market, let's talk! PS click on any of the links to see the original appraisals of these quilts, I love how tickled people are at the "market value" of some of these quilts, my own envy aside!

That's all for today, but I'm sure I will have found something else to either gush or gripe about tomorrow, haha! Have a great Tuesday, and I'll see you tomorrow.

Les Lalanne Designs (1967)

Good morning!

I hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving-- I ate way too much of the rabbit food I told you we brought over to my parents' holiday celebration! This week I'm gonna have to be on diet lock down, lest all those teeny waisted dresses get beyond my reach (a tragedy no gal should have to bear). I spent most of my time off trying to excavate my closet, taking things to Goodwill, cooking (I learned how to make seitan from vital wheat gluten, which is a major coup), playing Super Metroid (I am not as good at this game as I would like to be, but that does not stop me from trying), and listening to Guns n Roses on Spotify (judge not! That post last week has had me thinking about Slash and Axl Rose nonstop in my idle moments). But enough about me! We've got vintage home decor to talk about today, circa year of our Lord 1967. And if you don't like unconventional, figural, way on out there furniture, this is not the post for you! (Ah, c'mon, give it a try)

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I came across the following panels of photographs in a February 1967 issue of Life magazine with a little thrill of recognition. Weren't these the same living room chairs shaped as sheep I had seen in a magazine profile of Andy Warhol's home in the seventies'? I had definitely drawn a primitive picture of a sheep in my little "don't forget" notebook, with the cryptic message "SHEEP AS CHAIR", but It hadn't occurred to me to source the whimsical weirdies until happenstance brought me to the article. And when it did, boy! Am I interested! I was able to find some examples of the pieces without that "it's 1967", Doctor Zhivago color saturation Life and other magazines favored in the late sixties', and don't these pieces look even more impressive all on their lonesome. 

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Les Lalanne was a design team comprised of François-Xavier Lalanne and Claude Lalanne, a (demonstrably) French husband and wife duo who spent 1967 selling animal shaped furniture to the masses! Well, not the masses, but to people in the market for fine, upscale furnishings with a little edge of "what the heck is that". Bank president's young wife who wants to shock the bourgeois? Well paid Broadway producer who wouldn't dream of just having any old four poster in his kid's room? Les Lalanne was your best bet. Can you imagine the frisson of sheer eccentric joy that would play upon the first impression of your late sixties' house guest when you reveal your living room is a little more, say, pastoral than one would immediately think possible? These weren't for the faint-of-pocketbook, but I'm amazed, the same as when I see a Milo Baumann chair or some Eero Saarinen masterpiece on Antiques Roadshow, that someone's wealthy grandparents could buy these for what would have been a fortune back in the day, but good gracious, it's a museum piece now! You couldn't buy it even if you wanted to!

This, my very favorite piece, is called a Rhinocrétaire--a combination of the words "rhinoceros" and "secrétaire", a kind of writing desk. Does this portmanteau word not just crack you up? I also love that the child has pulled up one of the sheep as a chair for his rhino desk. Retail on this all-brass piece which also features a piggy bank in the creature's ear that rolls down into its snout? $24,000....which is approximately $162,800 in 2013 money. Still! See the desk below without the glaringly sixties' filter. I think you owe to yourself to be even more impressed now.

Don't these designs look so fresh and contemporary it's hard to believe they're almost fifty years old? The chairs in Andy Warhol's townhouse and these Life magazine pictures didn't take my breath nearly as much away as when the individual furniture pieces were divorced of that setting and just allowed to speak for themselves against a white background. They look avant-garde NOW, which is crazy. Also, someone please lend me several hundred thousand dollars so I can secure one of my own. Or someone get crackin' on some knockoffs. That is all.

I nosed around on the internet a little longer to see what else this fabulously inventive duo came up with during their illustrious shared design career, and the only thing I found that I loved more than the rhino (I know!) was a set of pieces made with crocodiles. UGH. THIS IS MY PERFECT EVERYTHING.

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Do you see the little reptilian "legs" on each leg of the coffee table? How about the way the crocodile is moving through the murky underwater plant life? Can't stand it. I would remove every stick of furniture in my house just to showcase a piece like this. Why bother with a couch! Just sit on one of these cushions and behold the greatest acquisition of my life!

I'm going to try to find out more about Les Lalannes, but wasn't my discovery timely-- there was just a Soethby's selling exhibition of some of their major works last month ("Les Lalanne: The Poetry of Sculpture" featured a "Crococonsole", which is almost as great as the coffee table above) and the Paul Kasmin gallery in New York City is doing an installation/exhibition of pieces that ends today. Quick! Book a plane, folks! Kidding. Though I can't wait to vicariously travel through these exhibits via the wonder of the internet.

What do you think? Which of these pieces is your favorite? Could you live with a giant hen as a bed, or are your tastes a little more traditional and subdued than ginormous bronze figures could account for? Am I going to have to learn the art of metallurgy so that I can have that crocodile coffee table in my life? Any crazy design finds lately that have the pinwheels of your imagination spinning? Let's talk! 

That's all for today, but I'll see you back here tomorrow. Have a great Monday! Til then.