Tuesday, September 24, 2013

the Tuesday Song of the Week

This is one of those pieces of music I could put on a tape reel and listen to over and over and over and over and over and over and over...


'Because They're Young' - Duane Eddy

poppies

Poppies will not only make you sleep, as we learned in The Wizard of Oz,

Poppies also make for nice prints on tablecloths and such.

Amazingly, the original owner of this never used it.  (Alas, I'm responsible for the wrinkles.)

He ain't nothin' but a

springer spaniel, or maybe brittany spaniel.

Pixie May and Lucinda

I got these two adorable little green-eyed kittens last week at Columbus Flea Market, after I'd packed up.


The guy who was selling them told me he'd just gotten them (that morning, I assume) and people were telling them that they were from Japan.  I disagreed most vociferously.  He sorta kinda agreed with me, sorta.  I KNEW what these were, but I couldn't remember the maker. 

I kept sputtering -- 'I KNOW whose these are, I just can't...'

Then he said, 'I think maybe it's one of the Royals.  Royal something.'

Then I burst 'ROYAL COPLEY.  That's IT!!'

And so it is.  I christened them Pixie May and Lucinda.  I don't know what, if anything, Copley called them. 

There are a few Royal Copley cats that are very easy to find.  But these two are not.  In fact in my 21-year career, that was the first time I'd seen them. 

Mid-Century Modern

at its Mid-Century Modern-est!

 Ferris wheel bowl thingie by Georges Briard
Most often one finds tumblers and trays designed by Mr. Briard (nee Jascha Brojdo).  His other output, while sizeable, is much harder to find.

I got this on Friday, where I was set up at Collingswood Flea Market, which - at least that day -- was the site of more trash, junk and garbage than I've ever seen in one place, and that includes Perkie*, which is saying something.  I had the good fortune to be set up next to a really nice guy who was one of the few whose table offered only the good, the interesting and the valuable.  I bought this from him.
*i.e. Perkiomenville Flea Market and Auction.  Acres of junk and trash, under which is even MORE junk and trash, but under that tier of junk and trash now and then you can find something you can make big money on.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

the Tuesday Song of the Week

You may have noticed that there was no Tuesday Song of the Week last week.  That was due a) I was on vacation in Cape May and b) even though I have a laptop computer, c) I don't have wireless internet.

So today you're getting TWO Tuesday songs of the week, the exceedingly awesome 'Valerie' by the greatest adorablest singing star of the greatest decade of music in history, i.e. Steve Winwood in the 1980s:


AND 'Valleri' by the Monkees, history's greatest fake rock group:


I remember when I was in kindergarten a nice lady coming up to me and asking my name.  I told her, and she said 'Valerie??'

And I said 'No, (my name*).  

Again, she asked 'Valerie???'

And again, I patiently said, 'No, (my name).'  

I may not have been a sample size Dame Judy Helen, but I was not a mushmouth either.  I could speak very clearly at that age.  

But we went back and forth and back and forth.  She never got it. 

Here's the reason she didn't get it: My name is a boy's name 99.9% of the time, but was also the name of a glamorous dancing female celeb around the time I arrived, so hoping I guess that I would turn out to be glamorous and light on my feet, that's the name my mother chose for me.  It's not spelled like the boy's name, but is spelled like the last name of a famous Scottish author. 

Mid-Century Modern

artsy fartsy TOY!!

aka Mid Century Modern toy, for those who are searching this topic through the 'net, from whence most of the attention to this blog originates.

From the 1960s, when fat fleshy ladies were both funny, and also favorites of artsy types because they were just so outrĂ©, plus they were useful as representations for our materialistic shallow blah blah blah.  


However, considering that a big percentage of people now look more or less like this, the joke's on (your intellectual observation here).



antique English china

Another Quaker City flea find, a whole box full of...
:
 Pitcairns Limited dishes, Viola pattern.

 Pitcairns Ltd was in business from 1895 until 1901.  

The dishes and cups are in thoroughly MAHVELOUS condition, which is pretty amazing considering that they're at least 112 years old. 

1945 Trifari !!!

From the same place that the wire chicken came from, i.e. Quaker City Flea Market, here we have a Trifari bracelet with a patent number.  


According to http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/issuyear.htm - which is a super-helpful site for us antiques-dealing persons - the number on the bracelet was issued in 1945.


chicken. wire.

From the late and lamented 1960s, a chicken (or other bird, but I think it's a chicken) brooch made from goldtone wire!

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

the Tuesday Song of the Week

This week we have Al Bano Carrisi singing the sooo romantic 'Buona Notte Amore Mio,' which is set to the tune of the barcarolle from Tales of Hoffman.

On our first date (which I didn't know was a date.  Long story.), my hubs first heard this on my car CD player.  Over time this sorta kinda became our song.

Mush alert: on our way home from our first overnight trip together, a weekend in Cape May, we were driving in the middle of wooded nowhere when we came upon a real estate office which had a little parking lot.  It was Sunday, so the place was closed, and my hubs (who at that point was a mere fiance) had the following bo romantic inspiration:

He had me pull into the parking lot, cue up and crank up this song on my CD thingey, then we got out of the car and danced to it.

We're off to the forest

Framed enamel on copper, with a much MUCH more intriguing design than the usual abstract squiggles one generally sees.

 For those of you to whom 'We're off to the forest...' stirs up memories of an old PBS show, here's 9 minutes of Hodge Podge Lodge :

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Whatshisname and Whatshername

Actually, our friends below, courtesy of the Ceramic Arts Studio, have names: Harlequin and Columbine.
 When I've found this pair elsewhere on the 'net, their ensemble was green and white and black.  So these are, I'm guessing, pretty rare.  Plus the color combination is much more buyer-friendly.

Direct to you from the 1920s

meet Perturbed Penelope!
 "So now I have the vote.  Big deal.  The vote and a nickle will get me a cup of coffee.

"Bathtub gin?  Who do you think I am, Helen 'Glug Glug' Morgan??" *

"Like it's my dream to stand here wigless while you go about your business."

*Helen Morgan was a beautiful torch singer from the 1920s and early '30, who pioneered the practice of singing while draped provocatively on a piano.  She was a little too fond of booze, and her pickled liver gave out in 1941.

You've heard it here first!

'It' meaning the awesome true fact that my beautiful and exceptionally floofy cat, Shlamoo, is gonna appear on Cute Overload for Halloween!!!

Why?

How?

Dig the following:
 Note that the above is not touched up or photo-whatchamacallited or anything.  

She has very large eyes, in relation to her thoroughly adorable face, and plenty of times, when there's not much light in the room, you get to see the green flash thereof.

I got her and her sister Tippy from Northeast Animal Rescue back in 2005.  
  If you've been to my Etsy store, you've already seen Tippy.  She's my avatar. 

Their original parents were an elderly couple.  The wife was in very poor health, and more than once the rescue squad had to come out for her.  The problem was that when the rescue squad comes, they fling open the door, and if your dog/cat/turtle wants to take the opportunity to run out, there's nothing stopping them.  So their four cats went into foster care.  

 Shlamoo's original name was Ashlee, but she would never answer to me when I called her by that name.  Over time, I began calling her Ashalee, then Ashalamoo, which finally became Shlamoo, which she answers to.

This is fortunate, because when I'm idly singing, the name fits into all kinds of songs, including, 'Life Could be a Dream (Shaboom)

'Life could be a dream, Shlamoo Shlamoo...'

and Cole Porter's 'I Get a Kick Out of You'

'I get no kick from champagne,

Mere alcohol,

Doesn't thrill me at all,

So tell me, why should it be true,
That I got a cat called Shlamoo.'

And 'I Love a Parade.'  Probably the tune I sing most often.

'IIIII love a Shlamoo,

I totally do,

love a Shlamoo...'  and so on.