A Wonderful Time

Today for a change we just drove around looking for signs, as nothing stood out in the newspaper listings, and it seemed pointless trying to decide which ad had the most promising version of "something for everyone". Turns out we drove luckily, as the first was really good- a moving sale of a former ad man, and we picked up some old Art Directors Annuals and some other cool odds and ends. The middle was a few hours of driving around from toys to Nascars to baskets and the usual nothingness, but it was sunny and fun. However from that we came to a really great moving sale in Cape Elizabeth. This was our last stop of the day, at around 1 o'clock. Why these fantastic books were still there is a mystery. Being an easy mark for any old Tolkien, I got all punchy when I saw these -geek alert- pirated LOTR Ace paperbacks and the rare "lion" cover of The Hobbit, along with old hardcovers of Smith of Wootton Major, Farmer Giles of Ham, and Tom Bombadil- Nice! Also a ton of James Thurber, which is always fun to paw through, some old Wyeth family books and catalogs, and some 60's and 70's bohemian stuff, among which was this Ecology/Earth Day silkscreen from 1970. Balancing all this was the rare find of a nice first edition of Slim Aarons' 1974 book 'A Wonderful Time', his photographic journey through the backyards and playgrounds of the rich, jet-set, and favored few. We grew up with this book, a gift from Commander Whitehead to my grandfather Meyers, but I haven't seen it in years.

Definitely a wonderful time, Saturday.

(Commander Whitehead)

Action Jackson

I've had a thing for paint splatters ever since I went to NYC in the 1980's to visit my older sister who was making fluorescent action-drip t-shirts and selling them on the street. Today we found 5 yards (for 2 dollars!) of this beautiful Pollack-y silk fabric, which I think we'll put on a stretcher as a wall hanging above the couch, and make sure there's some left for a few pillows. 

M'Orange

We bought this old faux fireplace at an estate sale last week. Made by Sears in 1974, it's designed to go against a wall, and comes with rolling, crackling, lighted logs and a fan/heater with dial control. The estate also had a matching one in avocado green, but someone had already taken it away. For ten dollars, I don't know why they wouldn't have bought this one as well- imagine them back-to-back in the center of a room... Nonetheless, our plan is to paint it white (aged white, the same as its wall) and replace the chrome with wood (patinated and slightly charred), or the same white and built out a little for a mantle, and put it in a future living room, 

as here, in Halldor Laxness' home in Reykjavik Iceland. (thanks F.A.B.)

Genevieve Claisse lithograph

 in an old Kulicke frame. 

Here's another one for sale in France- >cliquez-ici

Welcome to the Dollhouse

Sunday Linda and I went to a yard sale which was pretty much a small collection of things we didn't have much interest in. However, plunked in the middle of the driveway was a ramshackle wood paneling dollhouse that at least looked older than everything else. Upon closer inspection it turned out to be a groovy little oddity completely out of place and literally out of time. The woman told us her father made it for her back in the 70's, and now her own kids are grown and nobody wants it.  She said her daughter was going to use it in her police work to recreate crime scenes, but then changed her mind. We also passed on it, although we did appreciate the use of surplus materials, the Deborah Bowness-esque taped-on-the-wall furnishings, the inside-out paneling, and the upstairs-downstairs country kitsch theme. But its main appeal was its madcap curtains soul.

I felt a kindred spirit in the father, as I made pretty much the same

 thing (although just a studio apt.) for Linda a few years ago:

Happy Memorial Day

Indeed!

Raymond Loewy

Vertical Type

These were collected more for their type treatments than anything practical, although you never know when we'll need to map out a family cross-country ski trip.

Tabletop

Dansk: small wooden sculptures posing as salt and pepper shakers.

background: rolls of patent leather for a future project, Luxo task lamp, Robert Welch candlestick, another Luxo, Gerald Thurston lamp, Royal Copenhagen vase.

Table by Wary Meyers.

2 for Tuesday

His n' Hers Robert Indiana

Linda's ring

John's paperweight

Good Friday

From an awesome hospital benefit yard sale on Friday:

Andy Warhol 1971 Tate Gallery exhibition lithograph. A woman we were talking to told us, "I remember the old Tate and even if you were 100 years old and on your death bed they wouldn't give you the pensioners discount. But that's a great poster."

A Dansk teak ice bucket and pepper mill, both designed by Jens Quistgaard, a 70's California polished wood box, and 5 teak trays made in Sweden. 

Three old unsigned geometric/color studies. They might be Josef Albers, they might be a 7th graders, but they're cool and they're old and they were $5 each.

International School

This worn old Le Corbusier Basculant chair was at a middle school's sale on Saturday amidst piles of shin guards and Harry Potter books. 

Sometimes the greatest things show up in the most unlikely places.

Waffles grabbed a bee

2 for Tuesday

From Massimo Vignelli, designer fantastico Italiano:

Stacking plastic tableware, 1967-72

New York City subway map, 1970

A la Recherche du Cardin Perdu

A few months ago John and I went down to New York for a friend's wedding party. I had just bought this fantastic vintage Pierre Cardin cross pendant specifically for the party. It was in a case of old jewelry at a flea market, yet completely on its own in terms of coolness- the Avon baubles around it certainly didn't have secret disco cocaine compartments, accessible by a simple tug. This was an anomoly, and I can't even imagine how it ended up here in Maine, but I was so happy it did.

Everybody at the party (who noticed it) loved it, and I loved that, and it was a great party and a great evening. Until the next morning when we woke up and I could only find half my necklace. Uggh! The secret bottom stash was missing! Nowhere in my bag, nowhere in John's pockets, nowhere in the hotel room. We'd shared a car back from Brooklyn to Manhattan, and didn't know the car service, let alone even really who we shared it with. This was all bad. I called every car service in Dumbo and then every Gypsy cab driver but it just seemed in vain. Resigned to disappointment we went to get breakfast (first asking the front desk if anyone had dropped a piece of metal off for me (no), and walking around in Chinatown we thought we should probably look on the sidewalk, or the gutter, around where we were let off, or the general area, since we couldn't remember exactly- it was raining the night before and we had the car stop mistakenly 6 diagonal blocks away from our hotel. I think what compounded my awful feeling of sadness was that I felt responsible- like I had taken this poor pendant from its content life with its Avon friends and brought it back to the dark nightlife of New York (and I didn't even know if it was from here in the first place). But just when I thought blocks and blocks of mucky fishy Chinatown gutters were going to be angrily ingrained in my memories, there were the two little missing pieces. Run over by delivery trucks, torqued, bent, and wet, they were a vision of happiness- I couldn't believe it- at this point I felt like I had found a long lost kitty cat. Crazy. It's never going anywhere again.

Two for the road

In need of some attention this spring are my dad's old Vespa, which he brought back from Rome in 1967 and I commandeered from my parents' barn 2 years ago to bring up here. It hasn't been ridden much since 1983, and thus is in serious need of a tune-up. But the priority is definitely our scraggly yard, which seems to be filled with bittersweet, mandrake, and hemlock popping up in all the wrong places. So the long hours of grease-monkeying and green-thumbing begin, but you couldn't ask for two more enjoyable projects for spring.

vintage fish pillow

with convenient built-in handle

Giorgetto Giugiaro Logica

A find from last year is this Necchi Logica sewing machine. It's not often great designers take on sewing machines, but when they do the results usually go straight to museums' permanent collections. The Logica was designed for Necchi by Giorgetto Giugiaro, the great Italian automobile designer and leading proponent of the awesome "folded paper" school of design. Besides Linda's sewing machine, his most angular and notable designs are the Volkswagen Rabbit, the Nikon F4, the Delorean, a slew of Italian Supercars, but most fun- and most like the Logica- is his Lotus Esprit, a car I used to build out of Lego tirelessly after seeing James Bond submarining around in his.

one of Linda's Logica-assisted coats

Orangerie

orange things from our apartment:

Above: 1970's L.L. Bean Mountain Parka, from a yard sale.

Cast-iron and enamel sink, from a salvage yard, now in our basement, waiting for us to buy a house

vintage Space Hopper made in Great Britain, from a flea market in Buffalo. Designed by an Italian buoy maker.

Monsieur Meuble ashtray, from France. Great old logo.