Recent Estate Sale Finds

I mentioned a few posts back that I purchased books from the estate of a champion cat fancier/fashion plate and her husband an award-winning toast master.

I finally made it through the boxes and I thought I’d hi-light some of my best finds:


What Shall I Wear?: The What, Where, When and How Much of Fashion
by Claire McCardell
Simon & Shuster 1956

A difficult book to find in any condition but here’s one in the jacket and autographed.

Excerpted from Wikipedia:

Claire McCardell (1905-1958) was an American Fashion designer. Her clothes were functional with clean lines and an American look. She is known for her wrap-around sashes, monastic dresses, harem pajamas, and large pockets with top stitching. She launched her career as a designer under the supervision of Robert Turk. When he died in an accident in the early 1930s, Claire was made head designer. She found success in the fall season of 1938 with her monastic dress, one that had no back, front, or zipper, but was tied to fit the wearer. She kept designing for Robert Turk’s, Townley, until her death in 1958. Her clothing is still recognized as timeless American sportswear.

The book is beautifully designed with McCardell’s elongated, cartoon figures in the margins of nearly every page and a fold-out glossary of “McCardellisms”.


Boy Scout Handbook
(Revised Handbook, First Edition, 3rd Printing)

Classic Americana with the Norman Rockwell cover. Not super-rare but the first one I’ve turned up and it’s good to know what it looks like.

The Dog Cantbark
by Marjorie Fischer
Random House, 1940 First Edition

A charming children’s book about a dog raised by musicians who isn’t allowed to bark lest he disturb their practice. In dust jacket with no crayon marks (a rare occurrence with vintage kids’ books).


Playboy’s Book of Forbidden Words
Edited by Robert Anton Wilson
Playboy Press, 1974

A handy book to have if you want to know when a woman is “flying bravo” or if you’re in the market for a “merkin“. I was mystified about the relatively high demand for it though, until I focused on the editor and noticed it was Robert Anton Wilson, author of the cult conspiracy epic the Illuminatus Trilogy.

And lastly:

A box-full of vintage Air France silverware from the mid-60s. I love the mod design, especially the tiny paddle-shaped knife (and yes that’s me looking even more pear-shaped than usual in the unfortunate spoon reflection…but fully clothed you reflectoporn pervs).

I love finding a few odd items to keep as mementos once the books (hopefully) fly off to new homes. Can’t wait to picnic with these.

Also I’m currently running several auctions from this estate, including one for antique German lace craft books and patterns, and one for cat show souvenir booklets and ephemera. Check them out if interested.

Hard-Boiled Papercraft

Photographer Thomas Allen has a new book of pop-up art created from vintage pulp covers called Uncovered.


I have mixed feeling about his methods (especially since Chip Kidd is attached to the project who–though an enthusiast of comic and pulp art–has presided over some extremely butchered presentations of said art) but Allen’s images are beautiful.

I hope he doesn’t inspire any copycat killings though.

Link via BoingBoing.

Movie Break: I’m Not There

I just saw Todd Haynes’ experimental Bob Dylan movie I’m Not There. It’s a psychological exploration of Dylan through the musical personas he’s created and inhabited. To make the transformations more dramatic, Haynes cast six different actors as Dylan (including an African-American teenager and Cate Blanchett).

I avoided reading the reviews because I generally love Haynes’ movies and I wanted to approach it fresh. It wasn’t a disappointment (though it had numerous flaws, embarrassing moments and went on for about 10-20 minutes too long).

Basically if you enjoyed Haynes’ Velvet Goldmine (which was about Bowie, Eno, Roxy Music, etc), this is the precise same formula applied to Dylan. The films are so similar in structure (down to the dramatic revealing of the artist’s true name–as if they were some kind of black magician who’s power was bound to the concealing of identity) that Haynes frequently crosses from self-referential to lazy.

I’m a moderate Dylan fan–I love Blonde on Blonde, the classic 60s live recordings, and Don’t Look Back. A friend has been supplying me some of the more kabbalistic items, like the 5-disk Basement tapes and Eat the Document. Even with that comparatively small cache of Dylan knowledge, it’s clear that this film is incredibly dense. It walks into record covers, nails all of the interview footage I’ve seen, and will send you racing for your dusty vinyl and youtube to see where Haynes was coming from.

With 6 actors you’re bound to get uneven portrayals. The best are Marcus Carl Franklin–who’s hilarious representing Dylan’s down-trodden, hobo days as an oppressed Negro–and Cate Blanchett who captures Dylan at his most strung-out, obnoxious and perverse. Less interesting are Heath Ledger as a womanizing hunk of beefcake and Richard Gere (!) as Dylan in Billy the Kid exile.

I also appreciated that (unlike Bowie) Dylan allowed for the creative use and adaptation of his music to Haynes’ story ideas. The mixture of sharp covers (by Cat Power, Sonic Youth, Richie Havens, Calexico) and Dylan rarities make the soundtrack a worthy buy.

Recommended viewing for a more-than-casual Dylan fan, who has the patience for a biopic that’s as slippery and sarcastic as its subject.

Yellowed paperbacks, yellowed teeth

Last week’s NYT Book Review contained an interesting essay on the history of (mostly) cigarette advertising in pocket paperbacks of the 1950s-early 80s. The results of the campaign were mixed. The authors hated them (and weren’t cut in on the profits), they ended up in the hands of children when the affordable editions were picked for school reading lists and–it turns out–most Americans don’t read anyway.

Though ugly and annoying, these ads were at least less insidious than the rash of product placement in novels that started a few years back. Is this still happening? or did bad publicity trump greed?

French Legacy Porn

The French National Library is…mounting an exhibition of erotic texts and art from the forbidden archive of police-seized erotica. The collection dates back to the 1700s and became known as “L’Enfer” (Hell) when the works were isolated from the rest of the library in the 1830s. Hell ceased intake in 1969 but the works are now finally available for public view (well the 16-and-over public anyway).

The show will include manuscripts from the Marquis De Sade, filthy chapbooks, early erotic photography and numerous key items of historically important smut.

An unused metro station is being converted into an advertisement for the show and trains will slow to a playful tease so riders can glimpse a preview.

Article via The London Times, Link via Violet Blue.

Ditmas Exploration

Exploring the new neighborhood today with a couple of small quests to drive me.

First I needed to find a wizened hardware store proprietor who knows the quirks of the neighborhood buildings and has the bits to fix them. Side mission 1: complete! Faucet cartridge collected.

My main task was to try the new post office. This, unfortunately, was a rout. It’s a tiny satellite (no PO boxes, or package pickups) with only a couple of open windows. The line filled the place at 2PM on a Wednesday afternoon…not a good sign. And what a line! There was an aggressive cat lady who made the place smell like a stale litterbox, a Japanese woman in a SARS mask trying to ship a digital camera in a tissue box (via UPS mind you) and an elderly man, who–immediately after I tapped his arm to let him know he dropped his glove–shot an ENORMOUS snot rocket into the overflowing trash can next to my foot. I had to avert my eyes and keep the gag reflex in check the entire 28 minutes I stood in line. The staff was nice and helpful to a fault. If they snapped at a few Mo-mos the line might have moved faster.

Guess I’ll be bike-messengering it back to the old PO. They’re tough but fair and I’ve already won their respect.

I also discovered 2 new sit-down Mexican restaurants to sample, and a place for Jamaican patties. Still haven’t found a bar that suits…

So I don’t know what it says about me, but I kept hearing the Legend of Zelda village theme while urban exploring and thinking “What can this quaint shopkeeper offer me on my perilous journey?”

I think this completely un-Brooklyn archway of trees must have set it off


I’ll get a better picture during the daytime but it’s completely fairy tale.

Amazon Lover

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Amazon Lover (Novel Book 6003) 1961 AUTHOR: Conrad Dawn ARTIST: (unknown), originally uploaded by Hang Fire Books.

“She was over 6-Feet tall, but that was the smallest thing about her–and we mean EVERYTHING you’re thinking, mister!!!”

I’m not sure what I was thinking actually…mostly that with her bizarre coloration, she looks like potential Shatner-trim.

Curious Antique Newspaper Clippings

In the process of moving, I unearthed a c1900 scrapbook that I acquired several years ago. It’s a technical engineering text with miscellaneous clippings pasted over most of the pages. I had put it aside, intending to conduct “further research” but you know how those things work…

Turns out that it wasn’t very interesting, but I did find a handful of peculiar newspaper clippings that I thought I’d share.