More collecting

Ahh...the lost art of Penmanship! In this Collier's Encyclopedia from 1882 there are several chapters on writing and penmanship. They even have illustrations showing the correct way to sit and hold one's pen, as I guess now there are manuals on the proper way to sit at a keyboard. Posture perfect! But look at how beautiful the writing was...it was truly an art form. All the flourishes and swirls, and even the difference between a "Ladies hand", and a "Standard" one. And this book was 50 cents at a barn sale! More reasons to head out on a chilly & rainy saturday morning in April. David's cousin Bobby Cramer & his talented wife Holly have a wonderful old house and a barn they painted blue...and it's full of great stuff. Bobby does restorations and has a magnificent garden, and Holly makes all kinds of quilts, creatures, painted boxes, and jewelry. It's always inspiring to see them and their talented daughter Leigh, who writes stories and paints. Family fun!

We Love Old Books!

And, we love bookstores. In our family, they've always been a major destination for us. Our boys grew up going to author's signings, and in Los Angeles, we would hang out at our friend Julie Von Zerneck's Portrait of a Bookstore for hours. My husband David has always bought books on the street in NYC, and has a pretty amazing collection. He has an early paperback copy of the Sun Also Rises, called Fiesta. I've been collecting vintage children's books. Yesterday we were at a local used bookstore where we always find a treat. I got the Burgess Bird Book For Children, which is in perfect condition, and it was published in 1927. At this shop, the older the book, the cheaper it is. This beauty was only $7.50. Of course, you can get any book on ebay, but there's something special about picking through the stacks at an old bookstore, a library sale, or a flea market.  At one time I worked at a middle school, and the librarian had carts full of young adult books that she was "deleting". Some of them were incredibly collectible, with stunning artwork on the covers. One was an edition of Black Beauty, my favorite childhood book, that must have been from the turn of the century....it doesn't even have a date on it. Another was a Robert Heinlein book from 1951, called The Rolling Stones, in fabulous, mid century condition. There's something so innocent about the way these old children's books are written, and of course, the illustrations and design are just to die for. We have one room in our house that's a library, but it seems like every other room has shelves or just plain piles of books. Can you have too many? We're debating that question constantly. I think my favorite things are old comfortable chairs, books, flea market treasures, and of course, a great cup of coffee. Put all those things together, and you have a perfect environment, don't you think? Our friend Julie in LA has just that. Portrait of a Bookstore on Tujunga in North Hollywood is connected to the Aroma Cafe, and she has great books, fabulous antique finds, and even a terrace outside to enjoy it all. It's a winning combination!

January

Do people watch more TV in January? It must be the #1 month for cocooning. It's BITTER cold, we've had snowstorm after snowstorm, no one has any extra money or energy, and we're all in that post holiday funk. It must be why American Idol premieres with those two 2 hour episodes a week. Right now it's Sunday night, and my husband David is watching the Jets game and America's Funniest Home Videos. And Jim Gaffigan is on one of the comedy channels doing his hilarious bit about bacon, so David's watching him too.

I grew up in a TV family. My brother & sister & I watched it CONSTANTLY. We would get up at 6 on Saturday mornings and watch it till noon, and every day after school. We would watch it at night after homework till our bedtime. Our dad had a store that sold all kinds of electronic equipment, so we had one of the first color TVs, and everyone came over to our house to watch it. I read books and comics all the time, but I watched a lot of TV.

We have two flat screens in our house. One's in the basement, and the boys can play games on it, and our big one's in the TV room right off the kitchen. It seems like if we're home, it's always on. The HD quality is amazing. This afternoon I curled up in my corner of the couch and watched Hannah and Her Sisters on TCM. It was such a relaxing thing to do on a freezing cold Sunday...watch one of my favorite movies under a quilt. I guess there are people who still claim not to watch any TV, but everyone I know, especially family members, watch a ton of it. And plenty of junk, like The Jersey Shore (which I do watch) and Biggest Losers (which I don't). Mad Men is top tier TV, as is Curb Your Enthusiasm, and documentaries like American Masters, and I guess Million Dollar Money Drop is pretty close to the bottom. But right now it's too cold and snowy to do much else....( there are under 60 days till the

First Day of Spring)....so I'll probably be under my quilt in my corner of the couch watching something or other.

Bob Dylan In America

I'm reading the new Sean Wilentz bio of Bob, a  Christmas present from my husband David. It starts out tracing the roots of the liberal-lefty-Commie elements of American folk music, and surprisingly, it goes back to Aaron Copland. (In 1934, he won the Communist Song Award!)
 It also turns out that Copland's young protege was Leonard Bernstein....and Clifford Odets and Elia Kazan were all part of this left wing group.
  Pete Seeger's father, Charles was a folk music collector, along with John Lomax and his son, Alan. Pete Seeger dropped out of Harvard, and worked with Alan at the Library of Congress, where the Lomaxes created the Archive of American Folk Song.  Alan discovered and recorded a young songwriter named Woody Guthrie, who then teamed up with Seeger and a group of folk artists to form the Almanac Singers. They promoted union organizing, racial justice, and other left wing causes. In the late 1940s, the Almanacs evolved into The Weavers, who had a number one hit with "Good Night Irene", which was a 1933 Leadbelly song discovered by the Lomaxes. The Weavers introduced the younger generation and Bob Dylan to the music of Woody Guthrie. Of course, Pete Seeger was named a "subversive", and the group was blacklisted. (The 1963 cover of Bob's album "Freewheelin" features him and his girlfriend Suze Rotolo, whose parents were New York City intellectuals and Communists, as well.)
This was all kind of news to me, the American Communist connection with folk music...though I knew about Pete Seeger & The Weavers being blacklisted. I wonder what it was about Communism that was so attractive during the 30s and 40s to all these artists, writers, and musicians. I guess it sounded good at the time...
Recently I was up late, and watched (for the 3rd or 4th time) the Martin Scorcese documentary "No Direction Home, which was divided in two parts so perfectly, and I was really primed to get this new biography. We just can't seem to get enough of Bob, from his folk period through his going-electric-mid-to-late 60s. It's all so brilliant, and he was just exploding with creativity. Was anyone ever as cool? No one could wear a checked suit & a top hat with more style. But then, I love his Rolling Thunder Review phase too, where he tours with Joan Baez, Roger McGuinn, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, and others. He was really our spokesperson, whether he liked it or not--we grew up with him, just like we did with The Beatles.

Collecting

 I love vintage cards! These are the latest score from a Poughkeepsie junk shop on Route 9, and I got an entire box for $1. For some reason, they're easy to find, and they're usually really cheap. These are from the bottom end of the Christmas card market, and are kind of cheesy, but who can resist them? The Santa ones are all covered with dusty red flocking, and the kitten on the sled is a little pathetic. I like the dry brush style ornaments, they look very late 50s to me. The cards are all done by Whitman. I have some vintage paper dolls, and the Whitman ones are all done using this technique. I guess it was the style of their in house illustrators. Another detail: all the vintage Christmas cards I have are done on paper, as opposed to card stock, so it's pretty amazing that they've lasted this long, especially the ones from the 40s. And the box that these came in was from an old massage vibrator. It was so awful looking, that I actually decoupaged over it!

But, I do like the Eloise Wilkins style children dancing around Santa and riding on his sled... they're really pretty sweet.

Collecting

This is our Wall of Icons. When we lived in Los Angeles, David and I started collecting them. We began going to the incredible flea markets around LA, and there was a different one every Sunday. Our first one was the Elk's Club, and in 1987, painted Monterey furniture was cheap, and just about knocked our socks off. We would go with our East Coast friends who were living in LA at the time, and we were all completely taken with Bauer pottery, vintage cowboy stuff & Western paintings, vintage fabrics, lamps from the 40s and 50s, and wonderful old, peeling furniture. It was a magical time, getting to Pasadena in the early morning when they were unloading trucks with primitive Mexican furniture that was painted in shades of green and turquoise. The winter sun was always shining and you were surrounded by mountains. Eventually, we started going to the Rose Bowl, Pasadena City College, and Long Beach...all filled with the stuff of Old California. We bought a big sturdy Mission armchair (now recovered using a Mexican blanket), dark green Adirondack chairs, vintage textiles and clothing, McCoy Pottery, sets of dishes, stunning oil paintings, and we hauled most of it back to the East Coast. Our house is filled with found objects have been refurbished, garage sale stuff, and lots of our old flea market purchases. Now of course, a painting that you bought in 1992 is worth ten times what you would have paid then. And the icons above are one of the things we went wild for in LA--where you would see a jeep with a Virgin of Guadelupe tire cover hanging off the back, driving around the Valley. I'm so nostalgic for our LA life lately...the boys were little, and we had a wonderful group of friends, many of them from New York, like us, who were there for a period of time. My sister Linda & her family lived around the corner, our wonderful friend Julie Von Zerneck had her lovely Portrait of a Bookstore (and still does), our dear pal Brett Brdas lived down the street, our neighbor Lilly Holden and her mom lived across from us. LA was an incredibly inspiring place for us---it's a city that has so much creative energy and such gorgeous terrain--mountains, desert, beach, and all that Old Hollywood history.
PS--the cool peace sign is made by David!

A Girl's Favorites

This is Ruby Ritz's new fabric design, with all the things she holds nearest and dearest to her heart. Shoes, lipstick, perfume, a ladylike handbag, her grandmother's pearls, and of course, a good strong cup of coffee and her cell phone---which she could never be without! And that hard-to-find perfect moisturizer. We thought a soothing pastel palette would become her and calm her nerves. She has so much on her mind these days, and is stressed to the max....but aren't we all? Money, money, money...that's all anyone can think about. And you're either working too hard, or hardly working. I guess we should have put a TV on this design too---a nice HD flatscreen--as it seems that's how Ruby's spending a lot of her time. Watching TCM & HBO. Wondering how she's going to make it through the winter without Mad Men....Betty's outfits, Joan's snappy career gal wisdom, Sally's directness, Roger's cool, Don's flaws, and Peggy's resilience. And the spot on, perfect art direction--how about poolside 60s LA in the final episode? They even got that slightly faded polaroid color just right.