I spent all yesterday's holiday running around to the four corners of the earth to hit thrift stores I don't usually get a chance to peruse on a weekday, and what did I find in my first two or three stops? Bupkis. Or practically bupkis. It was like I was being rewarded for my diligence by the vintage gods with a great big "Yeah, right, about that-- you probably should've slept late instead". A Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass sheet music book (for piano, with guitar chords), a little Greek woven mini-purse... many things were seen, but I just wasn't feeling the impulse to actually sally forth to the cash register with anything. Which put me starkly in the minority-- it was half off the entire store at Thrift Smart and people were acting accordingly, running around the store with oversized picture frames and armsful of children's clothes like they were giving them away.
Lights on, Lights OFF. See my new coat? Goodwill in Rivergate, $14.99!
I was wondering if I should have bought this one late seventies', faux leather and chrome modular chair in spite of the rust spots on its tube-shaped single leg as I made a stop in Cool Springs to drop by Matthew's work to bring him lunch (I ain't all bad!). He: "You gonna go to the one on Hillsboro Rd?" Me: "I forgot they even had one out here!" In the interest of due diligence, I dropped by-- not only did I pick up a sixties' black velvet evening shift with a rhinestone buckle the size of your palm (incroyable) in the regular, $7.99 dress section, but back in the children's section (which features a conspicuously more originally-expensive crop of second hand toys than the ones on my side of town, ahem)-- this moon! In the box! For $1.99!
This kickball-sized version of the real deal features a remote, which you can use to click through the different phases of the moon and turn the moon off and on. I can not only hang the moon for Matthew, but I can also click it on and off at will! Could you actually die? I was worried that owing to a completely unstable flap I had dropped it too many times in the store (including memorably in the very crowded women's shoes aisle), but when I got it home, as you see in the first picture, it worked just fine! And is strangely impressive, if you ask me, for just being a slightly lit hunk of plastic. It's the moon, guys! The moon!
Which got me thinking about those space crazed youth of the fifties' and sixties'. Remember when kids used to go through a "science" phase, where everything was "I wanna know how to mix baking soda and make a volcano!" and "I made a battery out of this potato!"? Do kids still do that? Naturally, I then took to ebay to see what kind of vintage space knicks and/or knacks I could dig up for you fine people, and BOY, were there some humdingers! Wanna see?
How could you NOT be the envy of your 1930's or 1940's classmates with this set of mint writing pads with pictures of spacemen on the cover? All of them were good; this one is my favorite. "ALL RIGHT, Major Spaceman, ya got me!" says the poor android with a ray gun to his throat and Polly Pocket jewels for eyes. Secretly, I feel bad for him. Can you believe the color scheme on this? All bright and cheery! I wish space really looked like that.
"This may be my first Lunar Landing, but it will not be my last!" I always tend to like the box art better for model sets than I like the actual model inside. I know, I know, you have to paint the thing up and make it look good, but I am too lazy for all of this. Please ship me a painting-size print of the cover art sans logos and we'll call it even.
OH. MY. GOODNESS. WHAT. A. LUNCHBOX. This is $82, and honestly, if I saw this at an estate sale or the flea market, I would try to dicker them down and buy the dumb thing. Because it is GLORIOUS. There are spacemen on the sides, people. Every side of it is like a mural I want in my house. Siiiiiiigh.
This isn't a very good picture of one, but moon globes are amazing. I came to the realization the other day, when confronted with a particular good deal on a sixties' globe, and being possessed of a really great fifties' globe (see this post), that unless you're going full "theme" on a room, there really isn't place for more than one globe in an average house. You may disagree, but for me: one. ONE. And done. I fell into a pit with vintage cameras and radios, and now have so many it's not fun to display them because you feel like "Ugh, why are there so many? Which do I store? WHY DID I BUY ALL OF THESE?!"( #vintagehoarderproblems, I know). I would definitely break this rule for a moon globe, though-- HOW COOL ARE THEY. And it might look nice next to aforementioned globe (#notevenclosetoaddressingvintagehoaderproblems)....
This lunchbox is RED. HOT. It looks like some kind of outdoor grill accessory is rocketing through a foreign moon's atmosphere. Five'll get you ten there's a Twilight Zone episode waiting to happen on that planet's surface.
Even though I get really frustrated with this hand held pinball doohickeys from back in the sixties', I like the background art enough on this one to say, "You got me". Plus, how good would this look displayed as a wall hanging? A: Very good, thanks, someone please buy me one.
I really like that this moon puzzle is based on an actual map! Again, educational toys that are as dry and stuffy as these just make my heart pine for less multicolored, less "make it fun!" days of combining learning and play. Isn't the fact that it's the moon enough for you, kid?
Speaking of multicolored, though, I love the neon on the background of this flight game board that comes with your Avon lunar landing commemorative perfume bottle. Oh, Avon. Your vintage perfume and lotion bottles are NEVER a disappointment to me.
So! Do you have moon fever yet? Did you have any hilariously cut-and-dry educational toys as a child? Which of these moon items would you most like to take back through the airlock? Lemme know!
The den is finished! I need to take some photos of its first draft ASAP, but while you're waiting, how about a 1930's MGM movie recommendation?
I was thinking about Jean Harlow the other day after Lauren Hairston (have you seen her fabulous blog The Past on a Plate? If not, RUN, do not walk, to that hyperlink. It's Fun with a capital F.) mentioned on something about Red Dust on Facebook and my little heart fluttered a bit at hearing it said. Now, know that invoking the name of that movie takes me back to an early college, 2003-ish moment in my life where I was sincerely considering being a film studies professor upon graduation, specializing in 1930's Warner Brothers and MGM productions. Oh! If I could honestly place myself in one discrete spot in American history, it would be 1930 on the MGM back lot, craning my neck to see if that was really Wallace Beery's dressing room or if I need my eyeglasses prescription updated. Bid time return!
Jean Harlow is one of my top, top, TOP favorites, and when I was treating myself to something nice on Amazon a couple months ago, I picked up a seven disc Harlow box set from Warner Archives (which, for some convoluted reason, also sells some MGM releases through its online site) and hadn't quite made it through all the titles. Reckless, produced in 1936, has the added drawing power of coupling Harlow with real-life love interest William Powell and Joan Crawford's at the time spouse Franchot Tone in the leading roles. Thank you, Lauren, for reminding me that I needed a little bias-cut evening gown day dreaming to get me through a dull Saturday afternoon...!! This was just the trick.
With director Victor Fleming, who worked on EVERYTHING back then (source)
While the movie's a little disjointed in terms of whether it wants to a musical, a melodrama, or a romantic comedy, that mash-up of genres is kind of what you learn to expect from a lot of seat-filling Depression-era star vehicles like Reckless. That does not mean it is not crazy enjoyable. Jean Harlow plays Mona Leslie, a Broadway star, who at the beginning of the picture is getting sprung from a jail cell after a misunderstanding about "reckless" driving (Get it?! Get it!?) by friendly, secretly-in-love-with-her sports promoter Ned Riley (William Powell) and her grandmother (the ALWAYS tack-sharp May Robson, who steals almost every scene she's in). Leslie rushes to the theater, which has been booked for a charity benefit, changes into her scant costume, hurries onstage with dozens of costumed, dancing extras, only to see a lone figure seated in a cavernously empty house, dressed in tails and over-imbibing of champagne. Turns out, the "SAML" organization that had bought out the entire performance for the evening stands for the "Society for the Admiration of Mona Leslie", and counts only one member in its group roster, millionaire playboy Bob Harrison (Franchot Tone). Gotcha!
Then comes the weird part as far as the pacing of the movie. That's a cute set up for the plot, and very much apropos of the period, when millionaires were squandering impossible sums of money on courting chorines on movie screens across the country and the "real" romantic lead (poor William Powell, who is yesterday's chopped liver and pining like the great Northwest for most of the picture) was always waiting in the wings for the girl to get tired of yachts and caviar and fur trimmed capelets. Naturally. So why do they "go on with the show" and feature a ten minute song and dance sequence, replete with a lavishly produced Spanish flamenco dancing, right after this?! The scene is beautifully executed, but it's so jarringly misplaced that you think maybe it would have been a better idea to imply that the show was taking place rather than to awkwardly stuff this musical piece into the otherwise straight-forward-narrative-movie's fifteen minutes. This is Hollywood, after all. Let's just say we did it with creative editing or dialogue, rather than run a completely nonsensical, mismatched sequence right in the first barely-even-started part of the movie. Ay yi yi. Again, at least Harlow looks GREAT.
Spoiler alert: wild, wild plot turns ensue-- Leslie and Bob get married when they're both drunk! Bob had a high class childhood sweetheart (a pre-His Girl Friday Rosalind Russell, looking and sounding a lot like Myrna Loy) he was enfianced to at the time of his marriage to Leslie! The rich folks back home don't exactly look smilingly upon their actress-playboy union! Ned is a lachrymose mess thinking they'll never get together! Something that actually made me shout outloud "WHAT?! NO WAY! NO *WAY*!" happens to Bob in the third act that has a startling parallel to one of poor, sweet Jean Harlow's real-life tragedies! No, seriously. How did they even get away with that in one of her movies? I was shocked.
It's not a perfect movie, but it really was a fun ride to check this out-- and it reminded me but good what I liked so much about Harlow in the first place. Yes, she has a figure like an art deco hood ornament, and a face underneath that halo of cotton candy hair that is as pretty and petulant as a child's-- and yet it's her squeaky, breathless, down to earth vitality that really sells her as a top notch movie star. There were far better actresses, sure, in that era, but in terms of sheer, onscreen like-ability, you can't beat Jean Harlow. It's such a shame she died so young for a lot of reason, but wouldn't we have loved to see what kind of character actress she would have made in her late forties'...cut short too soon.
Did you see any good old time movies lately? Do you have a classic Hollywood movie star you just really connect with and would watch in a cereal commercial, as long as they're in it? I feel like I need to make a priority to watch more things on my "to do" movie list, because doesn't my brain just light up like a pinball machine every time I actually settle down and watch one of these black and white gems from start to finish!
In final celebration of what has unintentionally become "animal print week" at She Was a Bird, I thought I would round Photo Friday with a stunning, I MEAN STUNNING, set of newlywed photos from this Flickr feed. Guys, meet "Mrs. Congeniality 1947":
Ok, now her hair is GORGEOUS, but are you seeing the coat?
AAAAAH! LEOPARD PRINT SWAGGER COAT, GREAT HAIR, *AND* WAYFARERS (cheat sheet on the difference between cheetah, leopard, and jaguar print, for the curious)! Could this woman look more like a movie star if she tried? I think I actually like this one better, with its long, black fur pocket and full length black fur lining than my previous favorite 1940's leopard print coat, screenworn by Jane Wyman in The Lost Weekend (1945). What a coat! Note how the shoulder pads are Joan Crawford grade, the bell sleeves drape out elegantly from said shoulderpads, and she's added some kind of white silk scarf at her neck and a brooch on her lapel. I am speechless. Perfect "10".
Here, you can see her shoes, her triangle shaped handbag (!!), and a peek of the striped dress underneath, as well as the neighborhood from the vantage of a...footbridge? The roof of a building across the street? Somewhere up high. We were discussing awhile back what to do in the winter months about we vintage ladies wearing skirts and not freezing our legs off at the knees, but here you see a forties' woman in full winter attire, and I guess the answer is she just went for heavy nylon stockings and kept thinking warm thoughts! I know there are those clear or black overshoe booties you could wear over your pretty pumps, but do take notice-- there is snow on the ground and she's still proudly showing off those pins with nothing more than a little nylon to keep her from the cold! I take comfort in this observation that I'm not crazy.
So, if she's on a honeymoon, who's Mr. Congeniality, you may ask? Oh, just this guy:
Talk about swagger! How cute is he?!! The pictures are mainly labelled "Dad" by the account user (um, duh, because this is his dad), but one pen-scrawled notation also gives the name "Shorty", which I think makes him even cuter somehow. Great suit, great hair, great car, and THOSE SUNGLASSES. Can you imagine how adorable they must have looked together? Spoiler alert, you don't have to, check out these next shots:
I just noticed in looking over this picture that a) the car has an antennae out to the left of the driver's side door (I don't know why I was so surprised, but it seems weird to see an antennae on this old of a car!) and b) the way the handles are situated, wouldn't the back passenger door be a suicide door (where the hinge is in the back and the door opens where the hinge would usually be)? See how the door handles are on this 1947 Buick by comparison? Am I just looking at it wrong? At any rate, look at their little pressed together faces. The woman's wide, high cheekbones reminds me of my great grandmother, who had the same heart-shaped face and pretty permanent in her hair.
Aw, cut out the mush, you guys! Nah, just kidding, go ahead kissing. You've been doing it for sixty five years, you might as well keep doing it:
As I actually have a pang of sentiment over how sweet this set is. Undone! By Flickr! ((sniffles))
Anyway, have you EVER in all your days seen so great a coat? So nice a couple? So great a pair of honeymoon going-away clothes? Do you have anything so loud and so glorious in your vintage wardrobe? When and with what do you wear it?
That's all for this week-- more couch news after the weekend (please don't get sick of my interior decorating updates, haha!). See you Monday!
Work has been working my dang nerves all morning, sorry for the late post-- here's a lightning quick thought or two about my latest musical obsession for the week. Spoiler alert, though, it's a sad story!
Have you heard the good word about Judee Sill? I think I'm kind of obsessed right now:
It's not just that I have similarly long hair and want an angel sleeved seventies' dress exactly like this. I keep listening and listening to this one song, and it just won't stay out of my head.
One time I trusted a stranger Cuz I heard his sweet song And it was gently enticin' me Tho there was somethin' wrong But when I turned he was gone Blindin' me, his song remains remindin' me He's a bandit and a heartbreaker. Oh, but Jesus was a cross maker
Last.fm introduced me to Judee Sills's "Jesus Was a Crossmaker" (quoted above, listenable here) a couple months ago, probably based on my professed late sixties' off the beaten path folk addiction. I'm really into Loudon Wainwright III, Karen Dalton, early Marianne Faithful (and late Marianne Faithfull, for that matter), Tim Hardin and Tim Buckley, so it would make sense that this unusual songstress would pop up in the same genre, yet in all my musical meanderings I had never even heard her name. Something about the sweet, piping, almost squeaky sound of her voice and the intricate lyrical and musical composition of her songs drew me to her work like a magnet. The vocal eighth note runs of the line "Blindin' me, his song remains remindin' me" just KILLS ME. Every time. So of course, I was curious to know more about the lady behind the song.
Whoooooooooa, people. A glimpse at her Wikipedia biography spells out a series of sad circumstances, best summed up by this Goofus and Gallant style compare and contrast of California contemporary (and near and dear to my heart songwriter) Joni Mitchell from a 2009 article on JS in The Guardian:
Joni Mitchell and her willowy sisters worked their way round the folk circuits of Greenwich Village, Judee was in reform school in Ventura, California. While Joni was warbling of Chelsea mornings in Manhattan, Judee was being arrested for stick-up jobs in the corner stores of LA's San Fernando Valley, driven to such desperate measures by a $150-a-day heroin habit.
Told you, it's pretty harsh stuff. In spite of her rough and tumble beginning, including jail time for forged checks and continual drug problems, there was a period there from about 1971-1973 when it all might have come together for Judee. Sill's debut was produced by David Crosby, she was photographed for Rolling Stone by Annie Leibovitzin 1971, received good critical notices for her two Asylum label recordings, her eponymous debut and its 1973 follow-up Heart Food, opened for Crosby and collaborator Stephen Nash on tour,and had her songs recorded by the Turtles, the Hollies, and Mama Cass. Nonetheless, the lack of widespread commercial popularity for either release discouraged Sill, who gradually moved away from music and died of a drug overdose in obscurity in 1979. The waste of it all-- that gorgeous, singular sound she made...it's really sad. French movie, pointlessly sad. But what remains, of course, are the recordings.
Live in London: BBC Recordings 1972-1973is a great starter, as it includes whole chunks of JS describing the circumstances that led to the writing of the song, and a pared down, perfect set of her best songs with no ornamentation outside of her clear voice and her own accompaniment. Staggering! Critics in the last ten years, faced with a resurgence in interest over the tragic musician's original recordings with the release of a cover album of her music, are bowled over anew by the religious overtones, baroque arrangements, and singularity of the compositions...I'm not even going to try and analyze it, I just love it. How these were not more popular when they were released, I don't know.
Listen to this-- the first is a live performance from the British showcase program, Old Grey Whistle Test, and the second is one is one of my favorites from her debut:
Are you a fan yet? You should be! If you like these, try the two albums she released during her lifetime or the anthology of unreleased material for what would have been her follow up, Dreams Come True.
Have you heard any musicians lately you'd never heard of that just really got into your bones? Do you have any favorite sixties' folk artists with possibly less super sad back stories? Let a girl know!
That's all for today...I'll see you guys tomorrow for Photo Friday!
Guys, thank you and THANK YOU for all your kind comments about my new couch set yesterday-- do you know you just made my day?
My new position on any and all leopard print, in photo montage form.
While the possible ice storm last night kept me from being able to do much in terms of moving furniture (the behemoth of an antique sofa really has to go before anything else is accomplished), Matthew and I sat on the couches last night and he very patiently listened to me wax on poetic, wax off poetic about all the things I was going to accomplish with that room before the weekend was out. My big thing now is SPACE, SPACE, SPACE-- but I think some well-thought-out editing in the furniture department and, uh, lamp distribution equation (maybe....now I'm just saying MAYBE... four base lamps and a floor lamp is a *little much* for one room...I told you the den was a catchall!) will make a crazy big difference in the room. Did you ever see what it looked like before the first big change or two? (That couch, if you're wondering, has been gone with the wind after a series of tragic accidents...RIP blue sixties' couch of my former dreams...RIP). We need some kind of new floor covering, be it tile or carpet (the old still has two weird iron-shaped burn marks from the previous tenants ironing on the floor...I think they're hilarious, but maybe it's time we upgraded) and to rethink the lamp situation, but the leopard print center piece of the room has got me so charged up on the future of that room that I'm not even discouraged by these future hurdles. We'll clear 'em with room to spare!
Anyway, enough about couches-- on to today's post! Which is only semi-sorta couch related! :)
While looking through Google books for mentions of animal prints, I came across this 1959 Life magazine spread about animal inspired high fashion ensembles, and it was just too cute to resist. Having once drawn stripes in Bic pen all over my teeny face and limbs as a pre-schooler in the vain attempt to look more like a zebra (I expressed this desire to my mother at the time, who was less than impressed with her ink stained BUT CREATIVE four year old's zoological, pen-based ministrations), I was charmed at first sight by this stripe coat and red (!!adorable!!) toque hat. It icked me out a little to learn that this is a real, made from the hide of a zebra, zebra fur coat, but in less enlightened times, I guess any four legged creature with a pretty pelt was kind of fair game. At least the $1,500 price tag ($11,413.44 in 2011 dollars) probably kept more than a few buyers from pulling the trigger on it. Can you see that poor zebra in the background going "Zeke? Is that you, Zeke? Hey, don't those markings look kind of like Zeke to you?" :(
Now! Camel hair, unlike a pelt, "comes only from two hump camels, which never have to be shorn because their hair falls out naturally," consoles the text accompanying the above picture. Phew! Thank goodness. The camel in the background has nothing to fear here. I used to have a great coat very similar to this with a label that featured a large, embroidered camel, and the wavy exultation "100% CAMEL HAIR" in all caps just above him. Now I feel my conscience is less heavy for having had that coat. I almost bought an imitation camel hair coat this weekend at a Goodwill in Murfreesboro, but unlike the one shown above, many of them have no buttons and a large, tie belt for closure-- unless you're Faye Dunaway, this always looks too much like a bathrobe to me! So I let it lay.
If I saw a reasonable facsimile of any of the three dresses above and below, however, you bet your Bocephus I would have had to take it home with me. Yeeks! How chic! I particularly like the Diana Vreeland like bubble cut and smoky eye on the peacock model, widow's peakless. At first I thought it was a hat, but I'm pretty sure it's her hair! Do you see the confection of a skirt in the ostrich panel below? That skirt is entirely made of ostrich feathers! Talk about making an impression.
This coat is not actually made of bear, but of "Orlon". Which is not the name of a character in a Boris Karloff movie, but rather, a synthetic material of the late fifties'. I don't much like the buttons on this, but to each their own. That polar bear in the background is AWESOME.
One of the most modern looking ensembles is this matching coat and umbrella in giraffe print. If I saw this at the thrift store (please let me see this at the thrift store in my near future), I don't know that I would immediately spot it as vintage! The material is "waterproofed pure silk" (be still my beating heart).
Cheetah print is different than leopard print! Did you know? A cheetah has solid spots, where a leopard has kind of perforated spots. There's an adorable people-on-the-street clip from a Kenyan news channel about whether or not the average Kenyan citizen can identify a leopard from a cheetah (Kenyan news, in general, trumps our news by virtue of beautiful, beautiful accents and WEIRD, WEIRD human interest stories), and this is the principle difference! Still, I want that cheetah print jacket, in a bad way. I have a weakness for spots!! Also, is that angry little cheetah at bottom not the real star of this photo? Look at his eyes!
Last but not least, this coat is gorgeous, but I love how the panther on the left snuck up on me. I went "Where is the corresponding animal in this-- OH LORD." Good thing I wasn't there in real life, I would have jumped out of my own skin.
Which one of these outfits do you covet the most? Do you have a particular animal print that you secretly can't get enough of? If you had to draw fashion inspiration from one animal, what would it be?
I was going to wait and tell you all my good news once I get the den's floorplan settled, but people-- get ready. Something very exciting has happened!
Almost every single working day of my life, at least once, since around 2008, I check the furniture section of Craigslist for the keywords "vintage" and "retro". That category, especially with those search terms, can be cruel, cruel, cruel for the always-a-bridesmaid-never-a-bride Craigslist window shopper. "Midcentury" might be the worst thing to type in, because by virtue of the owner even knowing what era the piece fits in, it means they have also probably seen some of the Candyland, wacko, way out there prices on ebay or vintage reseller sites or, worst of all, one of the collectors/junkers/pickers shows on cable. "This dresser is over sixty years old! Do not low ball me, I've seen these for $4000 on ebay, $1000 is a steal! Must sacrifice!!!!!!" is pretty much a median price and aggressive description example for something that someone's grandmother bought in a department store in 1965, has had steady use since its purchase, has visible wear and tear on the veneer, and probably smells bad. I ain't payin' more than a hunnert bucks fer NUTHIN, is also the hillbilly, cheap as dirt part of my hard little heart talking back to self same ads... as always, I gently remind our readers that however vintage, retro, or antique something is, it's also used. And until I start making that fat cash, I'm going to pay used prices for things that catch my eye, or do without.
The ad at the top of this post was listed at 4:24 PM yesterday-- around 4:40 PM, trying to kill some time before I was to leave and brave the semi-sleet and frost of yesterday's inexplicable temperature drop (from 65 this weekend to 32 last night! What the heck?!), I did my usual search and my jaw. DROPPED. Now, let's look at what's going on in this picture. Sectional couch? Check. Long, low, super Danish modern lines? Check. FREAKIN' LEOPARD PRINT CUSHIONS? Cheeeeeeeck. My heart started racing and I called Matthew with a probably-startled-the-poor-man:
So he emailed, and he got a call back about five minutes later from a guy who said he would hold the couch this evening if we wanted to come by and see it after we both got off work. We drove out to East Nashville near Shelby Park and to a relatively large sized fifties' ranch house, where a sixteen year old who was brokering the deal for his mother met us out in the driveway. There, sitting in the living room like a page out of one of those seventies' what-you-can-find-in-junk-stores books I've been eating my heart out over this winter, was the second couch of my dreams! Don't get me wrong, I still love the turquoise brocade Broyhill in the living room that makes watching tv feel like you're at the bottom of the ocean, but this now-for-the-den furniture is BLOWING. my. MIND. Did I mention the teen delivered the furniture for no extra charge? It was a truly awesome, awesome experience to buy this couch from him.
Somebody up there likes me!
What really impressed me was the CONDITION of the furniture. While, owing to the single slim arm on the set, I can conjecture that there was probably a third piece to the sectional at one point, I think it works great as just the two together. And OH MY GOD the bones of this. Can you see the slat back and the spring base? Even without my beloved leopard print couch cushions, the frame of the couch alone is bonkers. All slim, sleek lines and light colored wood. I DIE. A THOUSAND DEATHS. This is the kind of stuff I always see at high end consignment vintage retro places and have a sticker shock coronary over before making the long walk, internally weeping, to my car. $100! CRAZY! Patience, and a hawk-like craigslist reaction time, has paid off. Even in my consistently bad-lighting photos, look how neat this is:
So, anyway, I'm way too excited to even speak. You'll have to indulge me later in the week or this weekend when I finally get a chance to put everything to rights and start blathering all over again about how happy I am over this furniture. I think what's going to happen is the yellow arm chair in the far background, and the corner knickknack shelf, and one set of side tables (with the ones that came with the sectional, I now have THREE sets, and can only use two) are going to Goodwill, the large 1920's couch is going back to my grandma's (it was on loan in the first place), and eventually peace should be restored to this room. The kind of peace in which Dean Martin would have a martini. AAAAAH! I'm too excited!
How about you? Any crazy great deals find out in the wild lately? Do you have any strong held opinions about decorating with wild prints like this?
If I live through slinging furniture tonight, I'll be back tomorrow with more vintage goodness. Til then!
Friday early afternoon, as promised, Matthew and I headed down to Chattanooga to see the Tennessee Aquarium for his belated birthday celebration. It was crazy fun! We drove down to grey, grey skies, hit up an incredible vegetarian restaurant called Sluggo's (Rae from Say It Ain't So suggested it, and when I say incredible, I mean i-n-c-r-e-d-i-b-l-e...), and proceeded to the aquarium. After shelling out $9 to park and an ungodly amount of money to the ticketing agent to admit both of us to the actual facility, I was starting to feel a penurious pang of regret. Should we have stayed home and just watched a ding dang screensaver, thus saving us from the exorbitant cost of seeing fish in real life?
Matthew with his real family
My mom, veteran of many, many family vacations to crawling-with-other-people's-kids historical and educational tourist attractions, kept saying in response to our planned trip, "Oh, I hope when you go there's hardly any people there" and "It's a Friday afternoon post-summer, so I bet there won't be any people there" and "Maybe if you drive down early there won't be so many people there". Me: "Enough with the 'hope there aren't any people there'! I'm sure there will be some people there! I'm sure it will be fine!" Little did I know, in my exasperation, that my mom's prayer did not go unheeded, and we saw maaaaybe four people who didn't work there the entire three hours we were there. Oh my goodness! It was one of the most amazing, amazing feelings to wander around the exhibits like you were in this enormous, silent, abandoned building with three stories worth of marine life in it! Spooky? Oh yes. AWESOME? Oh yes.
Speaking of screensavers, how unreal does our proximity to some of this wildlife seem?
Jellyfish!!!!!
(Ladies, hasn't he got the cutest profile?) We saw all kinds of jellyfish, from ones the size of a quarter to ones this big. It really makes you curious as to how things as disparate as humans and jellyfish can live on the same planet. Seriously! Think about how weird these things are!
Sharks!!!!!!!!
OH MY GOD, I AM SO CLOSE TO A SHARK RIGHT NOW. I looked right in its souless eye! I did! So did Matthew! We must have spent thirty minutes looking at this one enormous, three story saltwater tank. The guide said the sharks are kept well fed, and that's the reason they don't eat, uh, every other thing in the tank. I think it's out of the goodness of their hearts. J/k, they have no hearts, it's because they're full of shark pizza and shark beer. Otherwise, it would be sharkageddon up in this piece.
TOO CLOSE. WHAT DID I TELL YOU. TOO CLOSE!
(My best friend the) SEA TURTLE!!!!
The aquarium people lowered a weighted tray of broccoli down on a rope and this guy ate it-- definitely a highlight. I really loved how the animals would come right up to the glass.
TERRIFYING CRABS THE SIZE OF A TRUCK TIRE!
I'm acting like I'm really into this, but truth be told, I hated looking at the giant crabs mouths more than I think I have hated anything outside of a nightmare. Have you seen a giant crab's mouth? It's a bunch of wiggling, weird, things-like-fingers....I don't even want to talk about it! There is nothing as scary in space as things we already apparently have here on earth.
Matthew looks like a hologram in this picture, but it's just something to do with the lighting. Or his presence in outer space. DON'T LOOK AT ITS MOUTH, BABU! DO NOT!
An American Alligator!
The one thought running through my mind was "oh my God, if this thing so much as blinks at me, I am probably going to run screaming from this fine establishment." I was THAT close!
Some weird turtle!
Matthew loved how much these looked like dinosaurs or something out of one of his Japanese cartoons. Aren't they just little pals?
And Sting Rays!
I wasn't going to touch one of these, but one came right up to the surface, like a puppy wanting to get its head scratched! I couldn't believe it.
IT WAS THE NEATEST AND BEST TRIP OF ALL TIME. I can't wait to go back and check out everything else in Chattanooga! Happy birthday, Bab!
Seeing all these sea creatures in real life made me think about welcoming one into my home. Is that the dumbest? I was impressed by how many twenties' and thirties' people, from the pages of Popular Mechanics and Popular Science, shared my interest in fashioning a domestic marine habitat. Click on any of the links to go straight to the horse's mouth on how to build these dew-dads and gew-gaws.
Have you been to any museums or tourist attractions that just knocked your ever loving socks off lately? Taken any short or long trips worth gabbin' about? Which of these aquariums looks the most ambitious or most worth putting in your house? Do tell!
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