Hard to resist a sale that’s nearby – this one was in the hills of Silver Lake off Griffith Park Blvd., north of Hyperion. The house was a 40s or 50s 2-story cottage, in a neighborhood full of happy and young yuppie families (we were heckled by a child living across the street as we waited in line). It’s always interesting to gauge the reactions of neighbors as they realize someone has passed away and left their home open to weirdo vulture types.

Anyhow, it’s always a little game to learn something about the occupants. This home used to contain a magic-fan – there were plenty of magic VHS tapes, magic kits, and magic books cluttering the shelves. There was even a beard containing fake vomit (no I did not buy it, sorry). Someone was also probably a recovering alcoholic, lots of tomes about acceptance and moving on tucked away between card trick tips.

The haul: we ended up buying the nearly the entire Dean Martin Roasts DVDs, more than what’s pictured here. A fellow estate sale junkie implored us not to leave the Don Rickles episode behind. I also needed a deeper pie dish. And. A Christmas ornament of a mouse wearing a suit. Is it weird to buy a dead lady’s Chanel lotion? You might think so, but it was barely used and this lady kept her beauty supplies in impeccable order. Doesn’t matter anyhow, this button removed any feelings of estate sale weirdness:

I showed it to a woman in line, who responded, “Only an impudent snob would have a button about being an impudent snob.” (She had snatched up a bunch of their vintage Christmas decorations. Jealous.)

I have a problem with books. I’ve always wanted tons of them. I want one of those stuffy Englishy libraries you see in movies with the spiral staircase that takes you up to the second floor of books.  I think that library needs a huge globe too.  Anyhow, my house doesn’t have a nice Englishy library, nor does it have an infinite amount of space, but that doesn’t hinder me (us, counting the BF who also has OCD-ish thrifting/collecting habits).

Here are some recent buys from the PCC swap meet, which happens the first Sunday of every month. It’s  less attended and therefore more manageable than the Rose Bowl swap meet, which is the weekend right after.  A lot of the same vendors appear at both swap meets too.  Besides, you have to pay to get into Rose Bowl, and on a hot summer day, the Rose Bowl and its miles of asphalt JUST SUCKS.  PCC swap is FREE, and is half outdoors, half inside a large parking structure, so you can escape the relentless sun while digging through boxes of records.

I’ve discovered now on the last few PCC runs that there is a rather handsome young bookseller who doesn’t have a booth. He just puts his books out on a huge blanket – and the books seem rather curated too, mostly history, art/photography, cookbooks, everything in good condition and not ridiculously priced either.  The last time I visited to this fine fellow I picked up a nice copy of Martha Stewart’s hors d’oeuvres book for $4.

Look for him next month!  He’s inside the parking structure.  Here are my last book grabs:

Buster photobombed this set up.

AND this one.

This book was a gift for the BF, who this year joined the Los Angeles Mycological Society.

Purchased almost completely because I’ve been playing waaaaay too much Assassin’s Creed 2 on the PS3, which is set in Renaissance Italy.  (Ending another blog post with an admission of dorkiness.)

If you like to “dig” and you live in a city, chances are your thrift stores are picked over. I feel that way in LA. There’s simply too many shoppers, too many eyes, too many hands, too many hipsters, trendoids, collectors & fashionistas working their way through the racks at Out of the Closets and Goodwills (although the one in Arcadia is pretty damn good).  In reaction to the dwindling pickings, BF and I have become estate sale people, or more simply put, weirdos who willingly go through the items of the extremely recently deceased seeking an insane bargain.  The world of the estate sale was recently profiled in Los Angeles Magazine, specifically, the estate sales of one rather persnickety lady named Cynthia Abernathy. We try to be on our best behavior at her sales, so as not to get banned or thrown out. We hit one of her sales recently in Altadena and I got some decent stuff I think. For just $9!

What’s in this little basket?
- a  potato ricer, with which to make awesome mashed potatoes ($2)
- garlic press
- 2 boxes of Dutch pancake mix (PANNEN KOEKEN!)
- 3 German beer glasses
- a glass doo-dad to put on top of a wine bottle so you can use the bottle as a candle holder! (BF was skeptical about the general usefulness of this item)
- 2 decorative tiles. The back of the floral one says it is from Greece. The little blue & white one is from Holland.
- Fannie Farmer cookbook, 1965 edition
- 2-CD set of Chopin nocturnes

A new potato ricer costs about $15 so I’m pretty happy about this little haul. Was it stuff I needed? Not terribly. But it’s not about the stuff. It’s a little bit about the voyeurism of the estate sale.  When I first started playing video games on my PC (games like Kings Quest), I used to hate how limited the game world felt — I suppose it was anticipatory longing for the open sandbox world of the GTA franchise.  I wanted to play a game where you could walk around inside of houses and just open the drawers and poke around, making assumptions about what kind of lives the occupants lived.  Guess what?!  That’s exactly what you feel when you hit these sales.  You might start to feel a little ghoulish peering into bathrooms and opening desk drawers…but I swear. It reminds me of what I wanted in a video game all those years ago.

And there you have it, the nerdiest justification you will ever hear for going to an estate sale.

(Try to get on Cynthia’s email list here)

I am a child, I have fallen, and I can’t get up…and I’m at Michael Jackson’s  ranch. This is probably the most  frightening statue we saw during this entire exhibit and we spent a lot of time grouped around it, staring at that intense cry on his face.  Why would someone buy this? – a question asked over and over again as we trolled through the Beverly Hills Hilton display of Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch collection.

This was spotted inside MJ’s tour bus, parked outside the exhibition.  We were all allowed to take a quick walk through.  Inside were two resting fire fighters (why, do they believe people will want to set fire to these precious items?), and…a stack of magazines about child-rearing.  Not child’s rears, you idiots. Child-rearing.  Is this a joke?

This is a painting completed my Macaulay Culkin. It needs to be sent to an analyst right away.  In those vicious strokes and tenative paint drippings, was Mac calling for help?  

Wow. This is just plain sad. When did Michael Jackson ever think of himself as a black man?  Did he need the book for reference?

I have no idea what this is about but I’m sure there’s a story behind it – seems like it would be for a music video. It just seems intensely creepy, especially the expression of him making faces like a child.

This exhibit was full of plenty of these life size statues.  Imagine that big house in Santa Barbara, full of these old English-seeming white people.  They brought him solace, made him feel like people were home.  But how did he not startle himself each time coming into a room?  They are literally life size and fairly real looking when you spot one out of the corner of your eye.

Of COURSE Reagan loved him.  OF COURSE.  The phrase “young people searching for something to believe in” gives me the shudders.

This photo needs to be viewed in a larger size to get the full THRUST of it. It is Michael Jackson, leading all the children of the world, down verdant hillsides.  Orthodox Jewish kids, Tibetan kids, Guatemalan kids, all of them.

Okay, maybe this isn’t very disturbing. I just looked at it and automatically saw “the family jewels”.  MJ had a LOT of kids sized furniture, tiny tricycles, rocking chairs, etc.  He seemed hell bent on buying things for the world’s largest nursery room.

And this for some reason, is one of the saddest and most disturbing images from this show – but it’s a little personal for me.  When I was in grade school, I had a birthday party during which we gave away little bags full of Michael Jackson trading cards and party favors. This was the image most used on those items and it represents for me an era of childlike worship and pop frenzy.  Whenever MJ was on TV, I knew it.  I was barely 8 years old and I owned his records.  And now, it’s all gone – or up for auction.See the entire set here

As many of you out in cube land must know, you’ve got your work computer (always clean out those cookies) and probably one at home (why hello illegally downloaded music and strangely suspect websites in history folder probably due to a BF). I just happened to notice today that my one of my Firefoxes has way too many bookmarks but HEY, some of them are kind of neat. And mostly involve shopping. Because I am a girl. I must adhere to the gender roles assigned to me.


Anyhow – what’s in this horribly unorganized bookmarks folder?



Super 8 Movie Spool Clock by IMOTIME
I was probably among the last kids in a particular generation of film school students to actually use a Super-8 camera to learn how to edit and shoot my very first short films. Clearly I want this out of pure nostalgia. Kids today! They don’t know shit! With their Canon DV this and thats and their YourToobs and such. Pfft.



“No One Wants to Play Sega with Harrison Ford” by Brandon Bird
I have no idea where I may have stumbled upon Brandon Bird’s art but you must visit his site to see more of his work. His paintings have this strange affect on you: first you are comforted by a recognizable pop culture reference, and then you are disoriented when it’s turned on its head, usually in a joyous and surreal twist. You might see Christopher Walken working on a robot or Noam Chomsky walking in a parking lot towards his sweet, sweet ride. Buy something too, contribute to the arts, you person that is probably super excited watching American Gladiators. (Insta-Disclaimer: I have been watching American Gladiators.)



Bertman’s Ball Park Mustard
Recommended to me by my boss after I had described to him how I wanted to steal the mustard from Phillipe’s by simply pouring it into my pockets.

Guys With Guns – a Flickr photoset by peter-noster
Yeah, I was probably looking for pictures of Simon Pegg in Hot Fuzz to set as my desktop background and I came across all kinds of actors brandishing firearms in this excellent little collection. Click further. You’ve got to see Sean Connery in Zardoz.



Polish Movie Poster for Mulholland Drive by Swava Harasymowicz
This is just plain old sweet.

I Got Wood – Ed’s t-shirt from Shaun of the Dead
Well, come on. Every slacker male on the planet should have this to go along with his unique odor of video game sweat, oily foods, and the musky touch of bong smoke.

Ahhhhh, I am so nostalgic at times for my days workin’ at the vidyo sto’. Every Tuesday, we’d stock up the new release rack to the edges, and then, if we were lucky, we’d get a Matt Groening sighting – he used to come in and just cruise that rack and leave, because I bet that guy can actually make it rain free DVDs over his house.

Anyhow, since those days my DVD consumption has gone radically down to purchasing only must-haves and special Criterion puppies, but this Tuesday, I will peel open my sad little wallet and drop some Hamiltons for these two guys -

and

Jeeze, how many more freaking times am I going to have to buy Hot Fuzz? I bought it at the Virgin Megastore so I could get it signed and now I have two copies just like I have two copies of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (copy one signed by B. Del Toro!) and I think I even have two copies of some Godard movie and uh, neither of those are signed. Resigned sigh.

Bonus Futurama Link

I love Movies. I love T-shirts. When I wear a movie-themed t-shirt to work I score extra points. Here are a few I have either bought or salivated over for your xmas shopping needs.

Sadly if you don’t want to buy this online, you will have to go into a Hot Topic for this one. Don’t let a goth girl sit on you.

Threadless is T-shirt crack for hipsters. Ever try to go to a show at the El Rey wearing a Threadless shirt? Might as well go make friends with the 8 other kids wearing the Communist Party tee. Anyhow, right now, this puppy is $10 (as is this OTHER movie themed shirt, and this one). Act now!

Well I believe in God, and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Soze.

I am actually kind of convinced nobody loves me because I don’t own this shirt yet. That includes me lovin’ myself.

Now we are in nerdy town. Nerdy girl town too because it’s pink and it’s from Fred Flare. You know you have a hecka nerdy girlfriend if she can both translate the shirt and discuss whether Han shot first.

Why the bloody fuck is this $30? Oh well. We all want it.

There are limits to everything though. I am fricken tired of people shouting “SWEEP THE LEG JOHNNY“, we’re all sick to death of this one (methinks it’s shorthand for GIANT DOUCHE now), and please just stop it with the Anchorman quotes.

This needed 150% more Laura Dern or Kyle MacLachlan.

And is it just me, or it is SCARY how pointy the joints/elbows/collarbones are on these models? I’m sure the boys will come in here and tell me there is no such thing as a girl that’s too skinny. Anyhow, enjoy.

Hey Amy, Lindsay, Brit, Nicole, whoever, whatever – blah blah blah. Can’t even bother to finish. Something about hoggin’ up everyone’s attenshuns while our country falls to shit.

(Found at the Mitsuwa in Little Toyko, clearly not a steady haunt of beloved Angeleno celebutardos. It cost me $1.99 and not like…$30,000. Photo by optionthis.)

((Also, it appears to be completely made of sugar and various acids. It hurts my teeth to drink it.))

Just a few of the best photos from Gary and I:

Photo by Madmojo

Photo by Optionthis

Photo by Madmojo

Photo by Madmojo

Photo by Optionthis

Photo by Madmojo

See Gary’s photos from the ‘Con
See Sherrie’s photos from the ‘Con