Junk Love: Uhhh...Have We Met?

So, this week we were straightening up the house for visitors--not uncommon, right? But then reality came knocking at the door, and we realized just how massive the junk addiction has become. If you do a little soul-searching, you would have to admit that at least once in your life you have opened a drawer, noticed an object, and thought Where did that come from?

Imagine this happening over and over again for an entire afternoon.

It started with a flat, rectangular object wrapped in newspaper. I broke the tape with my fingernail and allowed the paper to fall away, and in my hands was a vintage 1940s pinup in a beautiful frame. a year ago, in an antique shop in Raleigh. It was love at first sight, and when I brought it home, I couldn't find the hammer to hang it. So I put it in a safe place, and then I forgot about it entirely. [*Cue music...Reunited, and it feels so good....]

After a moment of reflection, I remembered buying it--last summer, at a shop in Raleigh.

With my pinup placed in her proper home, I continued to clean. The next thing I found, also wrapped in newspaper, was a vintage Georges Briard tidbit dish. I collect vintage Briard, and I had a vague memory of picking this one up in a shop last summer. Again, I wanted to hang it with a wire plate hanger, but the hammer was missing, so....

I put the dish in the kitchen and resumed my original task. My house is the Land of Dust Bunnies, so it's a constant battle to keep those fluffy boogers in check. And since I have so much stuff in my house, there are things that don't get moved very often, and I imagine that little Utopian colonies of dust bunnies are living in harmony behind stacked suitcases or underneath the piano. I decided to sweep the No Man's Land beneath a corner display, and in addition to the softness of dust bunnies, my fingers encountered stiff paper. It was a brown shopping bag, and in it were four things--you guessed it: wrapped in newspaper. And this is where I lost my mind just a little bit.

Two mid-century cast iron and chrome candlesticks, one tall and one short. One set of pristine turquoise and white printed linen napkins. A white 1940s pottery planter. And I would swear that I have never seen any of it before in my life. The smudged receipt in the bottom of the bag was no help--a yellow carbon copy that showed only one-word descriptions of the items. No city or state or shop name. My only other clue was a small quantity of mail stuffed between the candlesticks, dated July of 2013.

Well, I remember going to Ohio in July two years ago. It was a big Blackbird trip, during which the car was packed to the headliner. But is that where these things came from? I definitely felt love for these items that tumbled out of newspaper onto my white bedspread. But I have no memory whatsoever of buying them. And neither does the other Blackbird girl.

It was a moment that held the joy of Christmas morning, with a dash of embarrassment. (Are we officially hoarders now????) But we finally brushed it off, found places for the items, and continued with our cleaning spree. We don't have a problem here, officer.

Until two hours later, when I found not one, but four bowling balls stashed in the living room. We stood over them with our hands on our hips, blinking in confusion. How did we end up with four giant balls? We don't even bowl. And how did two of them come to live in the wicker basket beneath our knitting yarn? How did one end up under a chair, behind a box of records? And where in the world did the one behind the sofa come from?

We looked at one another and shrugged. Bowling balls are cool. And if they look like they're supposed to be a part of the scenery, then no one will be the wiser. So we dusted them off and tucked them in, and now they're here to stay. And when one of our guests exclaimed, "That is so neat! I'd never think to collect old bowling balls," we just smiled and poured the lemonade.

The moral of this story is: If you clean your house, you get presents!

Junk Love: Aviatrix

When I was in the second grade, my teacher read us a story about Amelia Earhart. I was instantly hooked. In my mind, no person was as cool as Amelia, and I tried my best to get other people on board with the idea. One of my parents worked at a small airport at the time, so I probably made a nuisance of myself asking the pilots questions or rattling off Earhart facts in the break room. My first time in a plane, I was utterly distraught that no one thought to bring a leather cap and goggles for me to wear. In the third grade, we had to do a biographical presentation about a famous person. I chose Amelia Earhart. In the fourth grade, my entry for the Young Writers contest was a fictional short story about Amelia and her navigator on an island in the South Pacific. Even by the time I was in high school, when I had to write a paper about a famous figure, I went back to my girl. So it's no surprise that I am attracted to the general idea of the aviatrix. I just love chicks with planes--what can I say? (*Side note: I also love dudes with planes, and collect vintage flight-related books for boys.)

So, when I read today's headline that someone has footage of Amelia just before her final flight, I admit that I was thrilled. And I figured that today is the perfect day to pay tribute to girls with planes in a variety of collectible formats: pinup, photography, and advertising.Enjoy!

Junk Love: Meet Me Under the Mistletoe

The countdown has begun. Only hours remain until Santa lands on your house, and then you'll wake up to a snowy (or, in our case, rainy) Christmas morning! Unless you live in the desert, in which case it'll be a sandy Christmas morning, and good for you! Anyway, after a delicious breakfast, a second cup of coffee, and a quick kiss under the mistletoe, you'll get down to the business of opening presents and celebrating the holiday while looking utterly innocent and cute. Right?

Well, these ladies make it look easy. You might want to take notes.

 

And once the living room is covered with crumpled paper, shredded tissue, and wrinkled bows (which someone else should have to clean up), you might want to get a little fresh air. Apparently, this is a pants-optional thing.

And when you return to the house with flushed cheeks, tingling hands, and a bright red nose, the best way to warm up is to make use of that mistletoe one more time....

Merry Christmas!

Junk Love: Drumroll, Please

We've been doing this blog for a year, and we always face a dilemma when it comes to choosing which of our own collections is ready to be debuted on Junk Love. Sometimes, it's because we don't think our collection is big enough yet. Sometimes, we have a crossover crisis (should the tray collection be its own post, or should it be a part of a cocktail post, or should that one tray be in an Asian post, and that Peter Max tray be in the Peter Max post????). Sometimes, a collection is just really, really big. The cocktail collection is one of the biggies, and we've started breaking it down to manageable little posts. The other biggie: pinups.

I honestly have no idea how many pinups I have. I have struggled for a year with how exactly to break this collection down. Girls with dogs? Girls with skirts blowing up? Blondes vs. brunettes vs. gingers? Airport girls? Military girls? Girls in lingerie?

After lengthy discussion, we're still not sure about it. But, because sometimes it's fun to take the easy way out first, and worry about the hard stuff later, we decided that the first batch of pinups in this blog feature will all be advertising blotters. Enjoy (and I dare you to not love them)!

I specialize in Elvgren, so 98% of the collection is a great big party of Elvgren girls. Naturally, my blotters fall into this category, although there is one delightful exception: the Zoe Mozert parachutist on top.

The Skinny: Margaret Brundage

A Chicago native, Margaret Johnson attended high school and art school as a classmate of Walt Disney. He went on to make the most famous mouse in history; she married Myron Brundage, an alcoholic (and former hobo), and sold magazine cover art for $90 a piece in order to take care of her family. She did divorce the husband, but spent the rest of her life in relative poverty.

She did have a heyday, though. From 1933-1938, she was a highly popular cover artist for two publications: Weird Tales, home to H.P. Lovecraft and Seabury Quinn, and Oriental Stories (later changed to The Magic Carpet). She also did fashion illustration work, although it is difficult to find.

Brundage created 66 covers for Weird Tales during her time with the magazine. From 1933-1936, she did 39 consecutive issues. Her specialty was beautiful women, usually mostly naked, in some sort of dangerous situation--surrounded by cobras, being whipped by a masked man, being stalked by the devil.

This art was dangerous, erotic, and highly popular, so much so that some of the magazine's contributing authors began writing certain scenes into their stories because they would make great Margaret Brundage cover art. There was some controversy eventually, because the women of Chicago and surrounding areas objected to such chauvinistic (and a little bit S&M) subject matter. But, as soon as the editor revealed that the artist behind these dramatic scenes was a woman, everybody was okay with it.

Then, the worst happened: Chicago tried to get morals. The mayor put certain "decency standards" into place, which meant that nude pulp fiction covers were no longer appropriate for newsstands and bookstores.  

Weird Tales relocated to New York City (just try to clean up those morals!), and Brundage was unable to move with them. Since she worked solely with pastels on illustration board, which couldn't survive being shipped from Chicago to New York, she and the magazine had to part ways. They found local New York illustrators, and she was pretty much out of a job. She did sporadic freelance work, and a few sci-fi conventions and art shows (where several of her originals were stolen), but in the world of illustration, she was expendable.

*All information from Wikipedia

The Skinny: That Thing Is Worth How Much?

Betty Grable was famous for being The Girl With the Million Dollar Legs (20th Century Fox bought the insurance policy from Lloyds of London). The hosiery industry advertised that Grable's legs had the perfect proportions ( 18.5" thigh, 12" calf, 7.5" ankle). In fact, it was an attempt to show off Betty's best features that gave us one of the most iconic pinup photos of all time, and certainly the most popular pinup image of the WWII era. The image, shot by photographer Frank Powolny, was owned by as many as one in five American soldiers during the war. One of those doughboys was Hugh Hefner, who later stated that it was that particular Betty Grable image that inspired him to create Playboy. LIFE magazine included the image on their 100 Photos That Changed the World list. By today's standards, Grable's legs would be worth over 14 million dollars.

The infamous Ms. Grable

So, that got me thinking. What are other famous body parts worth? It turns out that Hollywood has a history of high-dollar anatomy.

1. Jimmy Durante: His nose was his trademark, and he had it insured for $50,000 in the 1940s. Adjusted for inflation, that's a $442,000 nose.

Ha chachacha

2. Bette Davis: Her eyes? Nope. She had her waist insured in the 1930s for $28,000--roughly $357,000 of anti-doughnut protection in today's money.

Bette Davis

3. Ben Turpin: A cross-eyed comic actor of the silent film era, he insured his eyes (again, with Lloyds of London), payable if they ever became uncrossed. Stories vary as to the amount, but most stick to it being a $25,000 policy ($500,000 peepers by today's standards).

Keep 'em crossed!

4. Marlene Dietrich: Insured her trademark husky voice for $1million. (She also demanded that a half ounce of gold dust be sprinkled on her hair during filming, to make it look shiny on the big screen. It's not an insurance policy, but it still makes for some expensive hair.)

Ms. Dietrich

5. Fred Astaire: Legs, of course--but only $75K each. Not so good as Betty's, but I suppose they didn't look nearly as nice in pantyhose....

Fred's $150K

6. Angie Dickinson: Universal bought a $1million policy for her legs (you guess it--Lloyds of London strikes again!), which she displayed beautifully in Rio Bravo. No wonder Sinatra kept coming back....

Courtesy of drmacro.com

*Information obtained from: imdb.com, gawno.com, time.com, iconicphotos.wordpress.com