i get the feeling this owl knows. from trusty old thrift town on winchester ave, 4/12.
Showing posts with label thrift town. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thrift town. Show all posts
4/20/09
how does one spoon "for" someone, exactly?
i get the feeling this owl knows. from trusty old thrift town on winchester ave, 4/12.
1/5/09
the book, the monkey, and the golf clubs
that sounds like a children's classic just waiting to be written. anyway here are some things i've seen lately.
don't ask. really, you don't want to know. i'm not kidding.
i didn't run across enough interesting books this week for a sunday literary suppository, but i had so much fun writing the last one i'll definitely be keeping my eyes peeled...i may be scaring up a LOT of books in the not too distant future, so we might be dealing with a rather large suppository in a little while here, but you know the drill, dear readers, just close your eyes and think of england
i can't put my finger on what it is i found so disturbing about this. it was a little rubber monkey in a wooden box with a sheet of plastic across the front of it, that kind of bounced and wiggled around when you moved the box - i suspect someone just put it in there of their own volition, as i couldn't fathom any reason for it to be manufactured that way, but... nonetheless. maybe it's the color scheme, sort of "twin peaks" or something, but whatever it is, it freaked me right the fuck out. damn monkeys
and this week i finally put my golf clubs where my mouth is and decided to pick up a few from thrift town, considering they were two bucks a piece, and the bag was only five. so for (or should i say fore?) the total investment of like fifteen bucks i'm now a golfer! now i just have to figure out how to golf. oh well, whenever the weather warms up anyone's welcome to join me at overton park and see how long it takes us to get thrown off the course. i've been talking about doing this for such a long time that it was kind of surreal to actually bring all the shit up front to buy it, but it felt pretty cool at the same time. there is a smell, i should mention that, emanating from the bag, kind of an "old man's garage" smell crossed with the usual thrift store melange that everything usually has, but what the hell, we'll be outside (and inebriated), i don't think it'll be that bad. i wonder how fast those golf carts go? i bet they go pretty fast.
until next time
love
d
don't ask. really, you don't want to know. i'm not kidding.
i didn't run across enough interesting books this week for a sunday literary suppository, but i had so much fun writing the last one i'll definitely be keeping my eyes peeled...i may be scaring up a LOT of books in the not too distant future, so we might be dealing with a rather large suppository in a little while here, but you know the drill, dear readers, just close your eyes and think of england
i can't put my finger on what it is i found so disturbing about this. it was a little rubber monkey in a wooden box with a sheet of plastic across the front of it, that kind of bounced and wiggled around when you moved the box - i suspect someone just put it in there of their own volition, as i couldn't fathom any reason for it to be manufactured that way, but... nonetheless. maybe it's the color scheme, sort of "twin peaks" or something, but whatever it is, it freaked me right the fuck out. damn monkeys
and this week i finally put my golf clubs where my mouth is and decided to pick up a few from thrift town, considering they were two bucks a piece, and the bag was only five. so for (or should i say fore?) the total investment of like fifteen bucks i'm now a golfer! now i just have to figure out how to golf. oh well, whenever the weather warms up anyone's welcome to join me at overton park and see how long it takes us to get thrown off the course. i've been talking about doing this for such a long time that it was kind of surreal to actually bring all the shit up front to buy it, but it felt pretty cool at the same time. there is a smell, i should mention that, emanating from the bag, kind of an "old man's garage" smell crossed with the usual thrift store melange that everything usually has, but what the hell, we'll be outside (and inebriated), i don't think it'll be that bad. i wonder how fast those golf carts go? i bet they go pretty fast.
until next time
love
d
12/9/08
umpty millionth nautical clock picture
i've heard of people collecting black velvet paintings - in fact once you start looking around there's a frightening amount of stuff out there about it:
WFMU Hallway Gallery Flickr
Indignico Inc
The Velveteria
Paintings of Snoopy on Black Velvet
jesus. anyway, point is there doesn't seem to be the same wealth of resources pertaining to something that's equally as ubiquitous (and for my money, every bit as funny): nautical painting clocks. oh, sure, you can buy a few here and there on ebay but come on! where's their web site? where's their museum? maybe it's because no one's really agreed on nomenclature just yet. nautical picture clock? boat painting with clock? nautical picture clock painting picture? i myself do not know, i just know someone needs to get on the ball about this stuff. dammit
d
12/4/08
lesotho coffee cup
taken at thrift town on winchester ave, my personal favorite thrift store in town. never slouches when it comes to coffee cups and silly kitchen equipment (this is the place that gave us the ROTATO! after all) they once again failed to disappoint with this BAD ASS piece of african folk sentiment. i guess when you live in lesotho you had better be pretty damn quick on the uptake or you are going to get left in the copious quantities of dust they have just lying around all over the place over there.
i've never met anyone from lesotho (lesothans? lesothians? lesothoites? a whale's vagina?) but i guess they must be pretty sharp to have survived for so long while being completely surrounded by south africa. anyone who's played risk for thirty seconds can tell you that's a pretty untenable position to be in, but i guess that's why you learn the damn game before the players have dispersed, huh? that particular proverb is gonna be kind of a bitch to try and work into casual conversation but i'll do my best, dear readers, rest assured.
catch you next time
d
7/13/08
7/13/2008 - Thrift Town, Winchester Rd
okay kids, we're back in the saddle again, taking a short detour from the summer of summer project (for the sake of my sanity) to an old favorite of ours here at bitter books, LLC - thrift town on winchester rd.
see here, the spousal unit, looking...well, looking fairly perturbed, actually. this is how she shows excitement, i promise. i show it by projectile vomiting, but i didn't think that would make for much of a picture. incidentally that's also how i show sadness, regret, ennui, and confusion.
i've extolled the virtues of thrift town at length before, but if you happened to miss our first pass, allow me to reiterate: this place rocks. big, roomy, fairly clean, with rack after rack of great clothes, tons of fun books, appliances, furniture, and it's all fairly cheap, with salvation army-style color tag sales and a 99 cent sale every monday, although i'm not ENTIRELY sure what sells for 99 cents, but it's definitely worth a trip down to find out. i've yet to have a bad trip here, and i always end up leaving with tons of stuff that i had no idea i was going to find. i don't know if it's the "best" store in town, i'm not sure there's any way you can just pick one, but it's definitely right near the top of the pile. the big, dirty, musty, disorganized pile.
i didn't look at a TON of electronics this trip, but i did spot this gem - a rechargeable battery pack from the original game boy c. 1991 or thereabouts, really only notable for the fact that the rechargeable battery from the original game boy is actually bigger than the entire system is now. heavier, too. oh well, it still beat having to spend $100 a month on AA batteries.
further proof that you never know what to expect on a trip to a real quality store, they happened to have an ENORMOUS collection of just hands down, the ugliest lamps i have ever seen in my life. there's always one or two sitting at the back of some shelf somewhere, in pretty much every secondhand store i've ever been to in my life, but this was just everywhere you turned. it was like they were closing in on me
is this really just a jar full of potpourri (my favorite jeopardy category, btw) with a cord stuck into it, or am i straight trippin? i've been saying it for years, people - just because you CAN turn anything into a lamp, doesn't mean you necessarily SHOULD.
i wasn't quite sure about this one, sometimes it's a fine line between painfully ugly and hideously brilliant
know what i mean
i'm sorry, by the way, if you like these lamps - not sorry if i've offended you, just sorry for you in a general sense, for having such godawful taste.
this one actually looks better in the picture than it did in real life - that doesn't happen very often
this looks like some gnome vomit
moving on...there were a buttload of excellent children's books, including this basic color/animal association thing that had a pull out card on every page - sort of a nice twist on the pop-up book concept.
children's books are not really something that i focus on all that much usually, considering it's not really a HUGE chunk of my theoretical business model - it probably won't surprise any regular readers to find out that i'm not so much of a fan of kid's books, or of kids in general. all the "start your own book store for fun and profit!" manuals i've read talk about setting aside a "KIDZ KORNER" or whatever with bright, primary-colored shelves and little chairs and interactive fun little learning things for the little weasels to play with, and try as i might i just cannot mentally picture that happening in my store, for a lot of reasons. partially it's because most kid's books suck so prodigiously. i may have mentioned this before, considering it's been such a long standing peeve of mine, but i'll trot it out again here just in case i haven't -
so often i find myself looking at children's books as an excuse for authors to be lazy. i think the prevailing mindset is that "hey, it's just for kids, how hard can it be?" and that leads to a lot of half-baked ideas, half-finished illustrations, and lazily thrown together excuses for stories when if anything, "kid lit" should be better crafted, more thought out and more carefully constructed than the stuff we sell to adults. i realize that's kind of unrealistic and if anything, the general dearth of quality material for kids should make the standout pieces stand out even more, but it just gets tiring wading through the ocean of pandering stories and ugly illustrations. the classics (dr. seuss, shel silverstein and the like) will always stand as unimpeachable to me and always find a space on my shelves, but i'm probably never going to go out of my way to make sure and provide all the endless variations on "mr. tiddly winkle goes to happy town" that are slowly choking the children's publishing industry to death.
okay, rant over. all that being said, there were a number of eye-catching kid's books at thrift town on this visit, like i mentioned earlier, which was a nice surprise. i've often wondered to myself why my body needs sleep as well. i guess i probably should have taken the time to page through this slim volume and learn a little. oh well
what always stands out to me when i think back on the books i had as a kid are the really terrifying illustrations - good kid's books seem to tread a really fine line between captivating and hallucinatory when it comes to the illustrations, particularly on the covers. this variation on the tortoise and the hare is simultaneously a master class in perspective, a great evocation of the dramatic hook of the time-tested kid's story, and also one of the most frightening things i've ever fucking seen in my life. i hope it goes without saying that i would give this to a kid in a heartbeat, and although they'd probably piss themselves a little at first, i think they'd love it.
case in point. anyone who just shivered a little when they saw this picture knows what i mean.
okay. i finally had enough of glossing over the vhs tapes and cds on this trip. i've been just as guilty as anyone else of neglecting these little treasure troves, but friends, did you know that for less than it costs to feed sally struthers for a day, you too could be the proud sponsor of one of these forgotten little classics, like, for example, this hilarious piece of movie megacheese?
ask yourself, really, what ARE you afraid of? i could not answer this challenge and so i had to buy it. as one of my longtime readers was kind enough to remind me of the other day, this is a perfect example of:
WOULD
YOU
BUYIT?!?!?!??!?!?
vcrs are cheap and plentiful. stuff like this will probably never make it to dvd and if it did would you really pay ten bucks for it? it's hilarious and it stars "skippy" from family ties and i want everyone to watch it and write me a two page report, single spaced, one inch margins.
same goes here, and while cds are not necessarily such an outmoded medium as vhs, they're certainly headed there. i was pretty shocked to find this, still in the original plastic wrap with that shiny little dog-bone shaped seal thing on it that was always such a pain in the ass to take off...remember that? and while it's not the president and rakim's finest effort it's still a stone classic and i was proud to pop this in my stereo and blast it all the way back home.
okay, last one, and then i'll stop beating this idea into the ground, i promise...but jesus i mean look at this. maybe the best spaghetti western of all time and it's a dollar. these tapes and cds need love too, people. take one home today...you'll be glad you did.
i finally had enough of whining about how poor i am and broke down and actually bought some books. i'm american too and occasionally i just need to buy something in a store to validate my own existence, and so i bought these.
and these
and these. some highlights include:
-a really nice hardback edition of jonathan strange and mr. norrell, one of the better "fantasy" books to come out in the past few years, which i would highly recommend everyone read before they fuck it up with a movie
-introducing the freud wars, by stephen wilson and someone named oscar zarate which has got to be the second coolest last name ever
-the whiskies of scotland (this is basically porn for people like me)
-errol flynn: the untold story, by charles higham - kind of infamous biography in which it's alleged that everyone's favorite swashbuckling black and white movie hero was a "bisexual fascist sympathizer who spied for the nazis before and during world war two" - awesome!
it was really nice to get down and get literary for a little while, considering it's been at least a month or so since i even bought a book i think - i could get into some of my other selections but god dammit i just can't wait any longer here it IS -
ROTATO!!!!!!
i did not buy the rotato. i felt that would have spoiled it, somehow. what i mean to say is, the rotato is still there. if you want it.
ROTATO!!!!!!
i did, however, buy the "incredible ice cream machine" and i have to say, for a chintzy looking plastic ice cream cone that you put in the freezer, it is pretty incredible. you actually get a decent quantity of pretty good tasting ice cream with just a little bit of work. this is definitely joining our arsenal of "fun stuff we can make at home and not pay through the nose for at the grocery store." we've kind of gotten into a nice little sunday ritual of making a couple loaves of bread with that bread maker (we only use it for the dough) we got at the amvets on elvis presley boulevard, a jar of peanut butter (peanuts in a cuisinart - what could be simpler?) and a gallon of this really intense fruit and vegetable juice using our high-octane juicer...check this shit out:
that'll put hair on your eyeballs. anyway now i guess we can add tasty home made ice cream to that list. who ever knew relentless, soul-crushing poverty could be so much fun?
okay well that's about it for this week - sorry it took me such a long time to finish this but i've been IN A GLASS CASE OF EMOTION all week and it's been tough to find the time or attention to spare. what, you didn't think these little witticisms just cranked themselves out, did you? this is hard work, people! just kidding, it's still pretty fun, and seeing as i still don't have much of what you'd call a "social life" to distract me it remains the main focus of my time in memphis, currently. that being said this weekend might get thrown off a little, for various reasons, but rest assured citizens, your vigilant thrift patrol will be back in action before you know it, digging around in piles of other people's discarded undergarments so you don't have to.
EXCELSIOR!!!!!!!!11111111UNO
love
d
see here, the spousal unit, looking...well, looking fairly perturbed, actually. this is how she shows excitement, i promise. i show it by projectile vomiting, but i didn't think that would make for much of a picture. incidentally that's also how i show sadness, regret, ennui, and confusion.
i've extolled the virtues of thrift town at length before, but if you happened to miss our first pass, allow me to reiterate: this place rocks. big, roomy, fairly clean, with rack after rack of great clothes, tons of fun books, appliances, furniture, and it's all fairly cheap, with salvation army-style color tag sales and a 99 cent sale every monday, although i'm not ENTIRELY sure what sells for 99 cents, but it's definitely worth a trip down to find out. i've yet to have a bad trip here, and i always end up leaving with tons of stuff that i had no idea i was going to find. i don't know if it's the "best" store in town, i'm not sure there's any way you can just pick one, but it's definitely right near the top of the pile. the big, dirty, musty, disorganized pile.
i didn't look at a TON of electronics this trip, but i did spot this gem - a rechargeable battery pack from the original game boy c. 1991 or thereabouts, really only notable for the fact that the rechargeable battery from the original game boy is actually bigger than the entire system is now. heavier, too. oh well, it still beat having to spend $100 a month on AA batteries.
further proof that you never know what to expect on a trip to a real quality store, they happened to have an ENORMOUS collection of just hands down, the ugliest lamps i have ever seen in my life. there's always one or two sitting at the back of some shelf somewhere, in pretty much every secondhand store i've ever been to in my life, but this was just everywhere you turned. it was like they were closing in on me
is this really just a jar full of potpourri (my favorite jeopardy category, btw) with a cord stuck into it, or am i straight trippin? i've been saying it for years, people - just because you CAN turn anything into a lamp, doesn't mean you necessarily SHOULD.
i wasn't quite sure about this one, sometimes it's a fine line between painfully ugly and hideously brilliant
know what i mean
i'm sorry, by the way, if you like these lamps - not sorry if i've offended you, just sorry for you in a general sense, for having such godawful taste.
this one actually looks better in the picture than it did in real life - that doesn't happen very often
this looks like some gnome vomit
moving on...there were a buttload of excellent children's books, including this basic color/animal association thing that had a pull out card on every page - sort of a nice twist on the pop-up book concept.
children's books are not really something that i focus on all that much usually, considering it's not really a HUGE chunk of my theoretical business model - it probably won't surprise any regular readers to find out that i'm not so much of a fan of kid's books, or of kids in general. all the "start your own book store for fun and profit!" manuals i've read talk about setting aside a "KIDZ KORNER" or whatever with bright, primary-colored shelves and little chairs and interactive fun little learning things for the little weasels to play with, and try as i might i just cannot mentally picture that happening in my store, for a lot of reasons. partially it's because most kid's books suck so prodigiously. i may have mentioned this before, considering it's been such a long standing peeve of mine, but i'll trot it out again here just in case i haven't -
so often i find myself looking at children's books as an excuse for authors to be lazy. i think the prevailing mindset is that "hey, it's just for kids, how hard can it be?" and that leads to a lot of half-baked ideas, half-finished illustrations, and lazily thrown together excuses for stories when if anything, "kid lit" should be better crafted, more thought out and more carefully constructed than the stuff we sell to adults. i realize that's kind of unrealistic and if anything, the general dearth of quality material for kids should make the standout pieces stand out even more, but it just gets tiring wading through the ocean of pandering stories and ugly illustrations. the classics (dr. seuss, shel silverstein and the like) will always stand as unimpeachable to me and always find a space on my shelves, but i'm probably never going to go out of my way to make sure and provide all the endless variations on "mr. tiddly winkle goes to happy town" that are slowly choking the children's publishing industry to death.
okay, rant over. all that being said, there were a number of eye-catching kid's books at thrift town on this visit, like i mentioned earlier, which was a nice surprise. i've often wondered to myself why my body needs sleep as well. i guess i probably should have taken the time to page through this slim volume and learn a little. oh well
what always stands out to me when i think back on the books i had as a kid are the really terrifying illustrations - good kid's books seem to tread a really fine line between captivating and hallucinatory when it comes to the illustrations, particularly on the covers. this variation on the tortoise and the hare is simultaneously a master class in perspective, a great evocation of the dramatic hook of the time-tested kid's story, and also one of the most frightening things i've ever fucking seen in my life. i hope it goes without saying that i would give this to a kid in a heartbeat, and although they'd probably piss themselves a little at first, i think they'd love it.
case in point. anyone who just shivered a little when they saw this picture knows what i mean.
okay. i finally had enough of glossing over the vhs tapes and cds on this trip. i've been just as guilty as anyone else of neglecting these little treasure troves, but friends, did you know that for less than it costs to feed sally struthers for a day, you too could be the proud sponsor of one of these forgotten little classics, like, for example, this hilarious piece of movie megacheese?
ask yourself, really, what ARE you afraid of? i could not answer this challenge and so i had to buy it. as one of my longtime readers was kind enough to remind me of the other day, this is a perfect example of:
WOULD
YOU
BUYIT?!?!?!??!?!?
vcrs are cheap and plentiful. stuff like this will probably never make it to dvd and if it did would you really pay ten bucks for it? it's hilarious and it stars "skippy" from family ties and i want everyone to watch it and write me a two page report, single spaced, one inch margins.
same goes here, and while cds are not necessarily such an outmoded medium as vhs, they're certainly headed there. i was pretty shocked to find this, still in the original plastic wrap with that shiny little dog-bone shaped seal thing on it that was always such a pain in the ass to take off...remember that? and while it's not the president and rakim's finest effort it's still a stone classic and i was proud to pop this in my stereo and blast it all the way back home.
okay, last one, and then i'll stop beating this idea into the ground, i promise...but jesus i mean look at this. maybe the best spaghetti western of all time and it's a dollar. these tapes and cds need love too, people. take one home today...you'll be glad you did.
i finally had enough of whining about how poor i am and broke down and actually bought some books. i'm american too and occasionally i just need to buy something in a store to validate my own existence, and so i bought these.
and these
and these. some highlights include:
-a really nice hardback edition of jonathan strange and mr. norrell, one of the better "fantasy" books to come out in the past few years, which i would highly recommend everyone read before they fuck it up with a movie
-introducing the freud wars, by stephen wilson and someone named oscar zarate which has got to be the second coolest last name ever
-the whiskies of scotland (this is basically porn for people like me)
-errol flynn: the untold story, by charles higham - kind of infamous biography in which it's alleged that everyone's favorite swashbuckling black and white movie hero was a "bisexual fascist sympathizer who spied for the nazis before and during world war two" - awesome!
it was really nice to get down and get literary for a little while, considering it's been at least a month or so since i even bought a book i think - i could get into some of my other selections but god dammit i just can't wait any longer here it IS -
ROTATO!!!!!!
i did not buy the rotato. i felt that would have spoiled it, somehow. what i mean to say is, the rotato is still there. if you want it.
ROTATO!!!!!!
i did, however, buy the "incredible ice cream machine" and i have to say, for a chintzy looking plastic ice cream cone that you put in the freezer, it is pretty incredible. you actually get a decent quantity of pretty good tasting ice cream with just a little bit of work. this is definitely joining our arsenal of "fun stuff we can make at home and not pay through the nose for at the grocery store." we've kind of gotten into a nice little sunday ritual of making a couple loaves of bread with that bread maker (we only use it for the dough) we got at the amvets on elvis presley boulevard, a jar of peanut butter (peanuts in a cuisinart - what could be simpler?) and a gallon of this really intense fruit and vegetable juice using our high-octane juicer...check this shit out:
that'll put hair on your eyeballs. anyway now i guess we can add tasty home made ice cream to that list. who ever knew relentless, soul-crushing poverty could be so much fun?
okay well that's about it for this week - sorry it took me such a long time to finish this but i've been IN A GLASS CASE OF EMOTION all week and it's been tough to find the time or attention to spare. what, you didn't think these little witticisms just cranked themselves out, did you? this is hard work, people! just kidding, it's still pretty fun, and seeing as i still don't have much of what you'd call a "social life" to distract me it remains the main focus of my time in memphis, currently. that being said this weekend might get thrown off a little, for various reasons, but rest assured citizens, your vigilant thrift patrol will be back in action before you know it, digging around in piles of other people's discarded undergarments so you don't have to.
EXCELSIOR!!!!!!!!11111111UNO
love
d
3/11/08
3/10/2008 - Thrift Town Winchester Rd
[edit: pictures still jacked. working on it. click for full image. i am a jackass who knows nothing about basic html so blogger and photobucket have joined forces to defeat me. hey, it could be worse. you could be reading myspace.]
ON TO THRIFT TOWN but before we get there one little aside about my favorite citrus flavored, marginally alcoholic beverage, sparks plus. can i just say for the record that the black top for the can was a brilliant idea, just to let everyone who sees you drinking it (which preferably should only be close friends and family) know that you're not f-ing around, that you're out for action and adventure with your additional 1% of alcohol per can? is that really worthy of the word "plus?" i was expecting, i don't know, like potato flavor or additional caffeine (which i also had an idea about, forthcoming) or something, not just a measly one percent beef up on the proof end of things. anyway here's my idea for the next-gen superbeverage. so you've got your sparks, conveniently available from any gas station, pretty much anywhere in the continental united states by this point. now, i've also noticed in my recent travels, the emergence of a wonderful little invention called a STOK™ caffeinated coffee shot. if you've not seen them yet, they're basically like little plastic creamer containers, but instead of cream they hold more or less the chemical equivalent of a shot of espresso. no refrigeration required, just a straight shot of caffeine, made to go directly into your shitty gas station coffee to beef up your morning routine a bit, i imagine.
BUT OKAY SO here's where we think outside the box, or at least outside the gas station coffee dispensing box area. take the sparks (or sparks plus if you're really feeling sinister). crack open the sparks. take your STOK™ caffeinated coffee shot (also available in sweetened version). POUR your STOK™ caffeinated coffee shot into your sparks (or sparks plus if you prefer).
bam. you've just made yourself a STarK (or spOkes, i don't know). SUPER caffeine, with the gentle relaxing hint of booze to keep you from straight up flying off the handle and murdering someone. i just thought it up tonight but i promise, gentle reader, i will try it out tomorrow, if not first thing then at least like second thing. soon, anyway. just please no one do this until i try it out on myself, i can't afford a "wrongful death through bad blog advice" lawsuit. is that a thing that can happen?
okay moving on, thrift town on winchester is kind of out in the middle of nowhere, from where i live anyway, but it's so cool and weird and vibrant and unique that it's definitely indispensable in the memphis thrift store hierarchy...according to me, anyway
BIG big store, tons of clothes, really just a huge huge place, lots of mens and women's clothes at reasonable prices, along with the usual assortment of silly housewares and furniture
this was the first thing i really stopped and looked at. the perfect gift for the female taurus in your life who loves EXTREMELY tacky plastic purses
twinge of regret that i didn't pick this up. i think this is so brilliant, and indicative of what's fun and great about haunting thrift stores - obviously homemade and home assembled, but so lovingly done and seriously crafted and HUGE (had to be 20 x 30 at least) that it just...you can't help but be impressed. my wife talked me out of it and she might be right, it might not have a place on our living room wall, but god damn if it's not a steal for seven bucks. if it's there the next time i come through i might just have to buy the damn thing on principle
on the shelf underneath the aforementioned picture, a one two punch of kid cuteness...i also had the thought that it's kind of a shame that they don't make footwear like this for adults - goofy galoshes with weird ass cartoon faces on them, or rather that it's not socially acceptable to wear that kind of crap around, even if it is being produced currently. made me jealous of your average little snotnosed brat in a way that i am not, usually
want this too. want this so badly. have no good reason to want it, but want it anyway. working on opening up my own business has given me this strange license to desire stupid objects (e.g. partially broken coin operated peanut dispensers) for no reason really, but try to justify it by saying "we could use it in the shop somewhere" which although technically true, is still extremely, extremely stupid. $13
as long as we're talking about broken shit that i want anyway, there are a plethora of these all-in-one, record/8 track/radio receiver/speaker units from all sorts of time periods (50s/60s/70s/80s) that just look like they would REALLY, REALLY, tie the room together, if you get my meaning. they are all universally crappy and busted up and outdated and more or less not worth the money, but if you've got the right eye, and any kind of imagination, they are ALWAYS tempting. always
before i get into the books, a couple of other observations, hopefully short. i've never seen a whole rack of just busted up, used curtains/blinds/whatever before. this is a great example of my biggest beef with most secondhand/resale stores - i understand you need to fill the shelves, and people come through (myself included) and buy the strangest shit from time to time, and it would be a shame to have to throw it away anyway, but for god's sake, when the answering machine has literally been split in half by a masterful strike from a japanese katana, why do you need to even mark it down to a quarter? no one wants it! sorry if this seems a little overly hostile but i've been looking at too many shelves full of obviously broken electronics (like the components are not even salvageable type broken) for too long, and seen too too many dumpsters full of perfectly serviceable books (PLEASE do not even get me started on that) to be able to keep my mouth shut any more. anyway moving on
i also saw this, which i don't get either. HUGE magazine racks, full of magazines, from like several years ago or more, that no matter how much i wrack my brain i can't imagine anyone wanting to buy, yet many, many thrift stores dutifully stock them. really though honestly i mean unless you knew someone who had been in a coma since like september 2004 and had just come out of it and you wanted to slowly acclimate them back into society and popular culture, is there any conceivable reason to buy an issue of US weekly from that particular point in history
okay on to the books. mostly too expensive and not any kind of organization or selection, but some funny stuff popped up, like this one: BEER: THE BOOK
a word about this. if you go to any thrift type store that sells books and look around for long enough, you will find a book by jane roberts, or rather by "seth," the being she claimed to have channelled for well over a decade. "seth" holds forth on all sorts of metaphysical issues (i'm actually reading the damn book right now, it's in my bathroom) at length, and i mean LENGTH, and although i can't really disagree with a lot of the points that she/he/it/whatever makes, i can at least vouch for the fact that it's hella boring to read, which probably explains why infinity copies of what should be a really soul-stirring book keep turning up in every thrift store on the planet. "it's not what you say, but how you say it" i guess. what a pain in the ass
a shot of cognac to go with your beer
i actually ended up accidentally swiping this, i just put it in my pocket because i find billy jack so freaking hilarious. always makes me think of the poochy rap from the simpsons- "i'm a kung fu hippie from gangster city" = billy jack
one last thing before we go. i can't figure this f*cking thing out. it's a stool, presumably a footstool (about a foot and a half long), but it's made (and clearly resurfaced, reupholstered at home) from the part of the jeans that goes over the ass. so my question is this: would you feel comfortable resting your feet (or god forbid, your ass) on a stool that was made from what is basically an ass itself? i said hell no, but my wife thinks it's cute, likes the aesthetic, etc. a rare point of total disagreement between us two, anyone else feel free to chime in.
total spending:
ladies $2.48
mens $6.98 (FINALLY found a black sport coat)
total w/tax: $10.34
plus $12.02 in previous purchases equals
$22.36 so far
Thrift Town
6646 Winchester Rd Memphis TN
370-6797
hours: (could be inaccurate)
8-9 mon-sat
12-7 sun
GOOD FRIDAY SALE 3/21
1/2 OFF EVERYTHING 9AM-9PM
music: easy listening, lite rock
michael buble "home" (or some such)
tim mcgraw (i think) "when the stars go blue" written by ryan adams, always leaves a bad taste in my mouth
p.s. i don't even know if this is worth mentioning or not but the people at thrift town see fit to bring it up so i will too: thrift town is a "for-profit" thrift store, meaning essentially that their earnings don't go to benefit any sort of charitable organization. if you look into it there's a lot of grey area between what exactly a "charity" is and what a profitable organization is, and i'm not even throwing myself in the middle of that debate, suffice to say that they saw fit to mention it so i'll pass it along.
anyway vaya con huevos and i'll catch you at the next stop
d
ON TO THRIFT TOWN but before we get there one little aside about my favorite citrus flavored, marginally alcoholic beverage, sparks plus. can i just say for the record that the black top for the can was a brilliant idea, just to let everyone who sees you drinking it (which preferably should only be close friends and family) know that you're not f-ing around, that you're out for action and adventure with your additional 1% of alcohol per can? is that really worthy of the word "plus?" i was expecting, i don't know, like potato flavor or additional caffeine (which i also had an idea about, forthcoming) or something, not just a measly one percent beef up on the proof end of things. anyway here's my idea for the next-gen superbeverage. so you've got your sparks, conveniently available from any gas station, pretty much anywhere in the continental united states by this point. now, i've also noticed in my recent travels, the emergence of a wonderful little invention called a STOK™ caffeinated coffee shot. if you've not seen them yet, they're basically like little plastic creamer containers, but instead of cream they hold more or less the chemical equivalent of a shot of espresso. no refrigeration required, just a straight shot of caffeine, made to go directly into your shitty gas station coffee to beef up your morning routine a bit, i imagine.
BUT OKAY SO here's where we think outside the box, or at least outside the gas station coffee dispensing box area. take the sparks (or sparks plus if you're really feeling sinister). crack open the sparks. take your STOK™ caffeinated coffee shot (also available in sweetened version). POUR your STOK™ caffeinated coffee shot into your sparks (or sparks plus if you prefer).
bam. you've just made yourself a STarK (or spOkes, i don't know). SUPER caffeine, with the gentle relaxing hint of booze to keep you from straight up flying off the handle and murdering someone. i just thought it up tonight but i promise, gentle reader, i will try it out tomorrow, if not first thing then at least like second thing. soon, anyway. just please no one do this until i try it out on myself, i can't afford a "wrongful death through bad blog advice" lawsuit. is that a thing that can happen?
okay moving on, thrift town on winchester is kind of out in the middle of nowhere, from where i live anyway, but it's so cool and weird and vibrant and unique that it's definitely indispensable in the memphis thrift store hierarchy...according to me, anyway
BIG big store, tons of clothes, really just a huge huge place, lots of mens and women's clothes at reasonable prices, along with the usual assortment of silly housewares and furniture
this was the first thing i really stopped and looked at. the perfect gift for the female taurus in your life who loves EXTREMELY tacky plastic purses
twinge of regret that i didn't pick this up. i think this is so brilliant, and indicative of what's fun and great about haunting thrift stores - obviously homemade and home assembled, but so lovingly done and seriously crafted and HUGE (had to be 20 x 30 at least) that it just...you can't help but be impressed. my wife talked me out of it and she might be right, it might not have a place on our living room wall, but god damn if it's not a steal for seven bucks. if it's there the next time i come through i might just have to buy the damn thing on principle
on the shelf underneath the aforementioned picture, a one two punch of kid cuteness...i also had the thought that it's kind of a shame that they don't make footwear like this for adults - goofy galoshes with weird ass cartoon faces on them, or rather that it's not socially acceptable to wear that kind of crap around, even if it is being produced currently. made me jealous of your average little snotnosed brat in a way that i am not, usually
want this too. want this so badly. have no good reason to want it, but want it anyway. working on opening up my own business has given me this strange license to desire stupid objects (e.g. partially broken coin operated peanut dispensers) for no reason really, but try to justify it by saying "we could use it in the shop somewhere" which although technically true, is still extremely, extremely stupid. $13
as long as we're talking about broken shit that i want anyway, there are a plethora of these all-in-one, record/8 track/radio receiver/speaker units from all sorts of time periods (50s/60s/70s/80s) that just look like they would REALLY, REALLY, tie the room together, if you get my meaning. they are all universally crappy and busted up and outdated and more or less not worth the money, but if you've got the right eye, and any kind of imagination, they are ALWAYS tempting. always
before i get into the books, a couple of other observations, hopefully short. i've never seen a whole rack of just busted up, used curtains/blinds/whatever before. this is a great example of my biggest beef with most secondhand/resale stores - i understand you need to fill the shelves, and people come through (myself included) and buy the strangest shit from time to time, and it would be a shame to have to throw it away anyway, but for god's sake, when the answering machine has literally been split in half by a masterful strike from a japanese katana, why do you need to even mark it down to a quarter? no one wants it! sorry if this seems a little overly hostile but i've been looking at too many shelves full of obviously broken electronics (like the components are not even salvageable type broken) for too long, and seen too too many dumpsters full of perfectly serviceable books (PLEASE do not even get me started on that) to be able to keep my mouth shut any more. anyway moving on
i also saw this, which i don't get either. HUGE magazine racks, full of magazines, from like several years ago or more, that no matter how much i wrack my brain i can't imagine anyone wanting to buy, yet many, many thrift stores dutifully stock them. really though honestly i mean unless you knew someone who had been in a coma since like september 2004 and had just come out of it and you wanted to slowly acclimate them back into society and popular culture, is there any conceivable reason to buy an issue of US weekly from that particular point in history
okay on to the books. mostly too expensive and not any kind of organization or selection, but some funny stuff popped up, like this one: BEER: THE BOOK
a word about this. if you go to any thrift type store that sells books and look around for long enough, you will find a book by jane roberts, or rather by "seth," the being she claimed to have channelled for well over a decade. "seth" holds forth on all sorts of metaphysical issues (i'm actually reading the damn book right now, it's in my bathroom) at length, and i mean LENGTH, and although i can't really disagree with a lot of the points that she/he/it/whatever makes, i can at least vouch for the fact that it's hella boring to read, which probably explains why infinity copies of what should be a really soul-stirring book keep turning up in every thrift store on the planet. "it's not what you say, but how you say it" i guess. what a pain in the ass
a shot of cognac to go with your beer
i actually ended up accidentally swiping this, i just put it in my pocket because i find billy jack so freaking hilarious. always makes me think of the poochy rap from the simpsons- "i'm a kung fu hippie from gangster city" = billy jack
one last thing before we go. i can't figure this f*cking thing out. it's a stool, presumably a footstool (about a foot and a half long), but it's made (and clearly resurfaced, reupholstered at home) from the part of the jeans that goes over the ass. so my question is this: would you feel comfortable resting your feet (or god forbid, your ass) on a stool that was made from what is basically an ass itself? i said hell no, but my wife thinks it's cute, likes the aesthetic, etc. a rare point of total disagreement between us two, anyone else feel free to chime in.
total spending:
ladies $2.48
mens $6.98 (FINALLY found a black sport coat)
total w/tax: $10.34
plus $12.02 in previous purchases equals
$22.36 so far
Thrift Town
6646 Winchester Rd Memphis TN
370-6797
hours: (could be inaccurate)
8-9 mon-sat
12-7 sun
GOOD FRIDAY SALE 3/21
1/2 OFF EVERYTHING 9AM-9PM
music: easy listening, lite rock
michael buble "home" (or some such)
tim mcgraw (i think) "when the stars go blue" written by ryan adams, always leaves a bad taste in my mouth
p.s. i don't even know if this is worth mentioning or not but the people at thrift town see fit to bring it up so i will too: thrift town is a "for-profit" thrift store, meaning essentially that their earnings don't go to benefit any sort of charitable organization. if you look into it there's a lot of grey area between what exactly a "charity" is and what a profitable organization is, and i'm not even throwing myself in the middle of that debate, suffice to say that they saw fit to mention it so i'll pass it along.
anyway vaya con huevos and i'll catch you at the next stop
d
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