This is from June 2007 and I just transferred it over from my myspace blog, but I thought I’d give it a bump since I recall it so fondly.

Cliff is on tour this weekend, Rigby is staying with Uncle Roger and I’ve got the hacienda to myself. While I totally dig the routine I have normally- coming home after work, walking the dog, working in the yard etc, it was kind of nice today to cut loose from the leash and not have to be home at any particular time.

So after I got out of work today I was lucky enough to find a thrift store that I had not been to before and spent a good long while there. The place was vast and the prices were right- unlike the Liberty Thrift in Collegeville- who had the nerve to be asking $3 apiece for salad plates the other day. Outrageous! I know they didn’t know they were Homer Laughlin Riviera, as they had everything in the place priced waaay too high (Harrumph.)

I had the most wonderful time going over this place with a fine tooth comb, and would not have left had they not closed early and literally shut the lights out on all of us. There was a bonus though as everything was an additional 25% off today- so my entire box of books and etcetera came to a whopping $16 and change. Take THAT LibThrift!

Anyhoo, since Cliff is not here for the show and tell I thought I would share with everyone the stuff I picked up.I scanned a bunch of it, as the visuals are just as important as the content- sometimes even moreso.

To get the full effect check them out on my flickr page in the Thrift Finds collection

BOOKS

What a Young Wife Ought to Know 1908- If the title weren’t enough to grab you, the cover indicates that this is part of the “Self and Sex Series” – things were obviously a bit more HELLO than we thought 99 years ago! Don’t forget the “Purity and Truth” on the cover to balance the S-E crossed toothpicks word right below it. This is just a killer, I don’t even know where to begin! Hows about we go right to the nuts and bolts of it chapter VII The Marital Relations excepted directly from the Contents page):

Chapter VII The Marital Relations.
The Subject Approached With Reluctance. The Marital State Should be the Most Sacred of Sanctuaries. Wrongly Interpreted it is the Abode of Darkness and Sin. Its Influence for Good or Evil Upon Character. Responsibility of Mothers for the Unhappy Lives of their Daughters (I am SO NOT MAKING THIS UP!) Commercial Marriages. Marriage as it Should be. The Husband’s Danger from “Aggressiveness” (??) The Wife Should not Provoke the Wrongs She Suffers (!!) Marital Modesty. Parenthood the Justification of the Marital Act. Reproduction the Primal Purpose. The Value of Continence (those of us who have had bouts of Incontinence know the value of this already!) The Right and Wrong of Marriage. The Relation During Gestation Illustrated (hey there were no illustrations! I looked)….

OK well you get the idea. This one will be a field day!

Creating a Sense of Place- Joel Meyerowitz 1990. This appears to have been from the Central Lending Library, but a find nevertheless. Right up my alley.

The New Arithmetic 1963- I don’t know if I learned the new math or the old math or the whatever math (and what the hell was chisenbop anyways?) but since Alan Sherman sang about it, it’s good enough for me. Great line art too.

What Fresh Hell is This? Dorothy Parker Biography 1989. I heart Dot as I’ve said before, so this should be an interesting read. And the title will always remind me of Edda at work, who reminded me of the Edward Hopper exhibit at the MFA this summer- better put that on my Boston list now while I think of it.

Television Simplified 1948- You just have to love that the simplified version of TV in 1948 still required a hardbound 453 page book to explain it. I’d hate to see the detailed version!

Better Homes and Gardens Stitchery and Crafts 1966- Well you can tell that this is an old book because the word stitchery gets flagged by the spell check police in Word! Where the Young Wife book is a treasure trove of historical content, this oversized craft book is a wealth of fabulous color images, it was hard to pick just 1 to represent. Gotta love pages titled Bazaar Best Sellers (Bizarre?) and (tee hee) Men Who Create With Wood. This book deserves it’s own place on my flickr page, perhaps on a rainy day I will share some of it with you all.

A Trip Through Space for Boys and Girls age 8-13 1960. I thought that this was an unused coloring book at first glance, but it is actually a kids booklet by the Associate Curator of the Hayden Planetarium. I love the cover and it’s in really nice shape- unlike the next book…

Art in America- Vol 52 #2 April 1964 The New York Issue. Someone must’ve thought this was a kids book, as the cover and many of the pages have been scribbled on with black “ink pen”. I actually thought it was a kid, but there is some illegible graffiti on a couple of pages, something about Picasso and Warhol, maybe it was just a jealous artiste! There are still some great images in here of Warhols, Lichtensteins Jasper Johns, Pollock, Rothko, the whole gang. Some very nice “folklore of the banal” by Ann Parker and Avon Neal- in color no less. Another real find, “IMHO”

Designing Brand Identity 2006- you tend to see an awful lot of used text books in thrift shops so the fact that this is less than a year old is pretty great. Funny to think that the logos that are in there now (Amazon, Tazo tea, Bahamas) that look so “fresh” now will be looked at as dated and old-fashioned in the not too distant future. Just like granite countertops and brushed stainless appliances? Oh but I digress…

Better Homes and Gardens Landscape Planning 1963- I am pretty much a garden and landscape minimalist, as our busy schedules don’t always have us at home long enough to properly nurture tender blossoms (as my front planters will so clearing illustrate when we return from our extended stay at the beach next week) but I do love the landscape books for the photos of the wonderful outdoor furniture and ideas we could use at our time warp patio. Why we’ve got one of the basket chairs pictured on our front porch already!

RECORDS

You will see by the photos that the Abie record was bought solely to be submitted to the “worlds worst album covers” website, and who could leave Don Elliott and his tricked out Vespa just sitting there? Check out the trumpet exhaust pipes! I can’t wait to hear the FUTURAMIC “Music for the Sensational Sixties” either.

I did buy a couple of records solely for their audio content, don’t worry.

I’m a sucker for the random versions of Beatles songs you will hear on many a 60′s compilation, so Magnavox’s Let Us Entertain You with Marty Gold’s version of A Hard Day’s Night and Si Zetner’s And I Love Her will nestle in nicely with my collection.

Not pictured but a treasure in my book is Robert Goulet’s My Love Forgive Me. This is for 2 reasons. One is that I can’t help pronouncing Robert Goulet like the old woman on the bus in the movie Static (Robert Goo-Lay?) one of my fave movies of all time even though I was only able to see it twice (once on film in a college film class and then I tracked it down at the Blockbuster in Dedham of all places but now it seems to have disappeared but again I digress) (wait Mark Romanek, didn’t he do those NIN videos?)(Wait, aren’t I supposed to be talking about Robert Goulet?) Back to Bob!
The other reason is that Goulet has one of the few English language versions of one of my all time fave songs Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars (Corcovado)- that has the original lyrics, not the sweetened up version that Doris Day and others covered.

I also got a Kenco All Metal Slide Sorter so I can look through the old negs that I rescued from the trash (another story) with ease, a small yellow Homer Laughlin Rhythm bowl (50 cents thank you) and two other similar bowls that appear to be “Cielo Heavenly Pottery Made in California” so those are keepers too.

A quick flip in the CDs while waiting in line revealed a copy of the “This is Art Deco” compilation CD from the Art Deco series, of which I already have a number (The Crooners, Boswell Sisters and Fred Astaire) so this was just the piece de resistance to close out my treasure hunting!

So there you have it folks, it may seem like nothing to you, but as those of us who love to thrift know, a lot of times you look and look and find absolutely nothing. I feel like I just hit the jackpot and it only cost me $16- life is grand!