A Letter to America

Dear America,

I love your "service with a smile". I love your twang... most of the time. I love your artists, your bluster, your swagger, your grand buildings with the names of philanthropists on the front. Your optimism, even when your economy sucks.

I love your absurd portion sizes, your ridiculous menu creations (donut french toast? whipped cream on everything?), your retro diners, your retro grocery packaging, the way you say "uh-huh" instead of "you're welcome". I love your opinionated self. I love your free refills, and the fact that you still have dollar bills, so that holding three of them feels like money and not change.

I (have grown to) love (even though it drives me CRAZY) the perverse dedicated way that ALL the gardeners in LA absolutely refuse to dead-head their roses, leaving overblown, blousy roses outside all the buildings, like aging starlets in faded summer dresses (scheming to hide the new blooms).

I love Broadway, and paying the U.S. price on things, even though there's the exchange rate to factor in. I love that I can justify this blog entry by pretending that it's an assignment for "The List as Post-Narrative Structure". I love that your sale prices are actually a bargain and not just marked-down mark-ups.

I know we don't agree on everything, and that I could make a list just as long with negative things, but I won't, 'cause that's not what love is about.

Low Tech Home Ec

If you liked the Mabel Hyde Kittredge blog post
from March 10th, you will love this online library from Cornell University called HEARTH! It stands for Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition, History.

These amazing home economics texts from 1800 to 1999 can teach your children to sew or help you discover if your cocoa contains arsenic. They might also remind you how good you have it.

(Or when it comes to adulterated food, maybe not.)



Image from The home and its management: a handbook in homemaking, with three hundred inexpensive cooking receipts by Mabel Hyde Kittredge

Keeping Calm

So back here, I bemoaned the discovery of a print I really liked, followed quickly by my discovery that it seemed to be ubiquitous.

With so many "Keep Calm and Keep Going" posters out there, I did not expect to receive a reply from the artist currently creating some of the prints. But I did get a reply - and I got schooled! The artist informed me that he hand-lettered his reproduction (as the original was hand-done) and then cleaned things up on the computer. He also refined the art in his own unique way, so that there is something of himself in it (and so he can bust anyone who copies him - clever). Mr. Papermoth was also kind enough to send me a link to a telegraph article which provides more info on the original bookseller/poster-finder, Barter Books.

The conversation restored my "consumer confidence" (and taught me to be a little more patient), and now I can happily order myself a print, feeling satisfied that the artist selling it has integrity and approaches his work with care.

Message, Medium, Musing on Originality

I saw this print on Etsy. Someone had taken a vintage WWII poster and printed it on archival paper in modern colours. I thought it was amazing. I instantly wanted it on yellow. I even emailed the artist (who I thought must be brilliant) to ask if I could please feature a photo on my blog. (I got no reply.)Then I realized I was late to the party. The BBC had already written a story about this poster. Apparently it was printed up on the eve of WWII, but never distributed (why not?). A bookstore owner found one in a book, showed it to his wife and they framed it for their shop. They were inundated with requests for copies. They made a few. One was featured in a holiday gift guide and according to the article, "all hell broke loose". The print I find now on Etsy (from Lisbon), beside being different than the one I originally found on Etsy (from Kentucky), is not only not original, but is riding a wave that has only just reached my shore. BoingBoing blogged it in 2007! There are not only prints available, but now also keychains and pendants and t-shirts. (The t-shirt seller has a photo of a ragged allegedly original poster. You have to scroll down.)

Naturally, the abundance of copies has spawned alternate versions and parodies, like Keep Calm and Carry Guns.

If you're interested in the typeface, consensus seems to be that it was hand-lettered, possibly Johnson or Gill.

Now that I've seen so many version I can't even read it properly anymore - I'm seeing "Kelp Balm" etc. And in the fashion of an indie music snob, who must leap off the "bandwagon" once others are on, I don't want one so badly anymore. I want this this one instead:

There are other incredible posters from WWII (and WWI and others) at the Imperial War Museum in England.

Some more treasures from the IWM are Eat Greens For Health, 6 Reasons Why YOU Should Save and Bad Form in Dress. Can you tell I picked the ones that most apply to me?!

FYI - proceeds from the IWM shop go to support the museum's charitable works, so buy your kids this and teach them a thing or two. (Now, now, I know your children are very smart, keep calm).

That Book from your Childhood

Loganberry Books is a bookstore in Ohio that also sells books online.
Even better, proprietess Harriett offers an amazing service called Stump the Bookseller.

So you know that book you loved as a child, but all you can remember was that it had a girl and a white pony, and the pony's name was snowball or snowdrop or something - and oh yeah, there was a really wicked witch in it?*

Well, you send Harriet $2 via Paypal and a description of the book. She, and various readers who are librarians or teachers, or just book-lovers like me, search and write in with info to help you out. If Harriet finds the book for you she'll get it and you can buy it.

What is most amazing about this site is not the joy when the book is found, but the sheer number of stories people remember from their childhoods. I love that a book can be out of print since 1923 and yet, someone was so touched by an element of the story that they will remember it (and look for it) 50 years later. It is a beautiful testament to the power of stories and how they continue to move and inspire, delight (or creep out) years after you first read or hear them.

* Reading descriptions of books with the keyword "witch" reminded me of the title for the out-of-print (and now quite pricey) The Wickedest Witch in the World which I thought had been lost in my subconscious forever! Author Beverly Nichols was apparently a gentleman.

Books: Waterproof and Travelling in Time

Ambling around the nearest chain bookstore today, I picked up a fabulous story anthology called Poolside for under $5 (that's CAD!). Hemingway, Oates, and Cheever inclus.

It was on the bargain table 'cause the season for poolside reads (in Toronto) is long gone, but what's cool is how much research the publisher put into this niche waterbaby market. The whole book is waterproof . While I do not intend to submerge it, it's great to know that I could read it in the tub with wet thumbs and not warp the pages. The publisher has some tub-specific books out too. Held dry, the pages feel super-smooth, but not laminated or glossy - more like extra-thick prayerbook pages. This is not your toddler's bath book.

The other cool thing I saw - which I could not help but peruse for 20 minutes despite the teeny-tiny print and my burgeoning headache - was the new and huge coffee table book, The New York Times: The Complete Front Pages (1851-2008).

As someone who would spend hours scrolling through (aka procrastinating) on the microfilm of 19th century Toronto newspapers at the Reference Library, the NYT collection (complete with 3 DVD-ROMS) is right up my alley. I say that as a fan of history and ephemera, not necessarily of the NYT (though I will take the Sunday edition if someone buys it and then leaves it at the coffee shop).

The NYT book comes with a moderately useful magnifying thingy too. I read about the shirtwaist factory fire in New York's lower east side, various struggles in the British colonies, the Munich Beer Hall Putsch. The articles on the Stock Market crash of '29 are particularly unnerving in their resonance, as various leaders/experts attempted to reassure the general public that things were not as bad as they seemed.

I find it so difficult to read the news that I often wait a day or three before I can "fill up" on current events. Reading (or watching) the news daily can leave me in a depressive funk or an existential crisis, and neither state is really useful. But reading the news of the past is informative in a different way, and much more "digestible". We already know what happened (and either arrived later or survived it already). We can evaluate ourselves as reporters, readers, skeptics or believers, as we respond to the way the events were reported. In 1941, American Jews were already organizing to call attention (peacefully) to the concentration camps in Germany. A futile effort, but one that stands in contrast to the post-war European mutterings of "we didn't know what was happening".

It would be fun to flip through the book with a better magnifying glass and someone from an older generation and record their memories and impressions.

I didn't look at the NYT's September 11th coverage, but it is included. It would be so fascinating to know how those pages hold up in a hundred years' time.

*
NPR's audio feature on the NYT Front Pages book here.

Back When Toronto Inspired Illustrations

So the other day I went to my depilatrix and as always, while she yanks out my hair, we chat. She has terrific stories and this time she told me all about her husband's dream, which was truly fantastic. I won't re-tell it here. There was nothing naughty about it, but it's not my story to tell. Anyhow, the dream-story reminded me of Robert Munsch's story, Jonathan Cleaned Up - Then He Heard a Sound or Blackberry Subway Jam.

I re-read my little Annikins version today. (Annikins are and were mini-books "small enough to fit into tiny hands and pockets".)

The story remains terrific and the illustrations by Michael Martchenko are as light and charming as ever.

What surprised me, though, is the amount of nostalgia packed into the book that has nothing to do with the story. It is a fourth edition, printed in 1982. Annick Press, the publisher, was based in Toronto. They were distributed by Firefly Press (still are) - but it was a different time when the distributor's phone number was printed on the back inside cover.

The subway on the front of the book is the old red TTC train that was just being phased out when my family moved to Canada. The streetcar outside City Hall is also an old red car and City Hall itself (in the book) is the one at Bay and Queen - now known as Old City Hall. I would link to photos of old streetcars, but I can't find any. If you're not from Toronto and don't recognize the transit system or the City Hall, it won't matter. The only thing that may date the book for you is the "big shining computer machine" that Jonathan discovers at City Hall. Martchenko's illustration of it with rows and rows of reel-to-reel tape decks is a little quaint.

None of this, however, affects the story. It's still a funny story where moms want living rooms to stay neat, and bureaucrats spend $10 million on things that don't work. The story, 27 years old, remains delightful.

I have also discovered that you can download audio files of Robert Munsch telling stories for free from his website. So you can hear the whole story right now! But you may as well order the Annikin book too. It's only $1.50, and the illustrations are well worth it. Buy a whole bunch and distribute them to children - all those Christmas toy drives are coming up soon!

Stairway to the Moon post - Part Deux

From the Plastics Historical Society, here is a little more on Melaware :

The Gaydon and the Melaware two-colour sets probably represent the pinnacle of British melamine tableware. The technical skills required particularly for the twocolour cups were exceptional. The different approaches towards creating a comfortable and stylish cup or jug handle are especially impressive. Gaydon cups were made in a split mould giving a comfortable contoured handle whereas Melaware cups and jugs were made in a solid mould with angled moving cores to achieve the distinctive but less comfortable handle. In both cases the two-colour effect was produced in two stages and the items required individual hand finishing. The Gaydon set was the most comprehensive with over fifty different items. Perhaps the white lining of MF cups was eventually the cause of their downfall. A white inside looked more like china and it made the tea look `right'. But the white liner also showed up all the staining and scratches for which melamine ware became infamous.

Stairway to the Moon

I would like a Thrilling Adventure in Drinks.

Also, I just discovered a Prefab-ulous blog while googling Melaware. She blogs mostly about vintage design - with great finds from the UK and (currently, it seems) Canada.

I was googling Melaware, because last time I was at the Bayview Village Antique Fair I bought these exact Melaware melamine cups and saucers for 5 bucks. But now I learn that tea and coffee stain white melamine (which is part of the reason for its decline in popularity), so I am reluctant to actually use them. Hmph.

While looking for photos of Melaware, I found another awesome vintage design blog, What's Blogging My View.

And a question for bloggers - how do you go about showing photos without stealing bandwidth or infringing upon copyright? I mean, when you're using photos that aren't yours, like an eBay find - do you just use them and not worry about it or is there a way to do it that abides by bloggerly etiquette?