Welcome to Goodwill--looking for anything in particular?

"Let me know if I can help you find anything!"
This is a Goodwill store--how would I know what I'm looking for until I find it? But I couldn't resist. "Yes. I'm looking for a round pool table, about one foot high." leopard skin pool table Andy Griffith Pool Table But all I got was the odd look of someone about to call CFS. That's the trouble with having an omniverous appreciation for novelty songs.
But it was May.
May is to Florida Goodwill shoppers as December is to Arctic Santarian Elves as October is to saffron crocus harvesters in La Mancha. The snowbirds have flown back North, after shedding the evidence of their obsessive shopping habits, the surviving children have culled through their dead parents' golf clubs, Spode china and Farragamo shoes, doing drive-by dumps on their way to the beach. The gleaners go into the field and make hay while the sun doth shine.
I swore each time that I wouldn't buy something unless it was an absolute "WOW"--Chanel, Prada, LaBoutin, etc. And still, by the time I left the store, my arms were aching from the piles of stuff. So, I've been doing inventory control. Lots of time listing stuff on eBay.
No time to blog.

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The Lost Designer of the 80's

Claude Barthelemy seems to have been one of those if-you-needed-to-ask-you-didn't-need-to-know designers. In the '80's, he was listed as a young, hot couturier alongside go-the-distance blue chips like Karl Lagerfeld and Lanvin with his oversized sweaters, minis, leggings and fur-trimmed stoles. Exclusive stores carried his soft-edged jackets to shoppers in the know. And then what happened? His pleated skirts, intarsia sweaters, and naughty, zippered wool catsuits still fetch high prices in vintage world and any dealer with his elegantly simple, Gallic tag on her racks raises a flutter in second-hand seekers. He designed for Barbie, for heaven's sake! But the designer himself, who seems to have cut a meteoric swath across the runways and then...? So what's the story with this wasp-waisted pleated skirt? I wondered what else this woman could have dropped off on her Goodwill drive-by--a Chanel original? A couture Pucci? Surely someone this linked in wouldn't just ...

Change Your Tone!!

I know I have a "unique voice." But I can count on one hand how many people I know who can stand listening to their own voice. (That is not saying there aren't those guys who seem to love talking just to hear the sound of their own voice; but if you literally played it back to them --they'd cringe and crawl under the sofa.) When I was in the 3rd grade, I was chosen to be in some experimental speech/voice therapy at our school. They tried for many weeks to raise the pitch of my voice by having me go up and down the do-re-mi scales until I hit one that they thought sounded pleasing. I had a deep, true contralto voice somewhere a few notes below "do." With the sort of rasping, old-chain-smoker undertones of a freckled Billie Holiday. The experimenters settled on "fa." For 20 minutes three times a week, I got to leave Ms. Foster's third grade classroom and go to the convent living room where I would sing "do-re-mi-fa" and say ...

On Making Things, Photographing Things, or Blogging about Making and Photographing Things.

There are people who can do all those things. I don't know how, but they seem to be able to-- Beautifully executed projects that they have artfully photographed throughout the entire process, each step gorgeously and clearly lit, and techniques are illustrated with the addition of the artisan's hands--healthy cuticles and all. Sometimes they mention a family. I can only assume that their clean, cheerful children happily play under the table, on the un-filthy floor of the studio, making adorable age-appropriate crafts with the scrap material. Sometimes there are photographs--wispy-haired, sweet creatures blowing dandelion seeds or with their little garnet-lips parted in awe over an exquisite bird's nest. There are no armless Transformer toys or spontaneously shed clothes anywhere! sidesaddle habit by Sarah Cannibal for Hippik. Vintage fabric and salvaged suede; altered Donna Karan coat dress pattern and side saddle apron I keep thinking when I get really good at s...

Second Hand, Second Thoughts

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