In the spirit of poodles this week, I may as well throw in this fantastically 50′s mother of pearl, sparkle bumped, handpainted poodle compact. I’ve never had powder packed in it but I tote around a variety of small items in the mirror lined case.
Those are original Brown Derby portraits reflected in the top half.
They won’t fit inside the case as it’s a petite 3″ x 4″. Maybe that’s why the little 3-dimensional glitter tufts of poodle fur look and feel so good, making up in beauty and depth what they lack in stature.
This poodle is happy about her look, painted much more distinctively than most poodles of her decade. I like that her bottom lip looks like a clock hand.
If ever there was an animal created to look at its reflection in a mirror it’s this most distinctive of canines.
I’m actually thinking a lot about distinctive animals today as I’m writing a fairly twisted kids song with Bleu McCauley and Jasmine Ash for a tv idea we have. We play a porcupine, skunk and platypus. Not that any of them are as attractive as poodles but our animals are very proud that they don’t blend into the kingdom as just another animal. Just like us.
Although some poodles don’t just “blend in”:
Here’s to people, animals and artifacts that hover above the crowd, embracing their uniqueness, with no desire to head towards the over-trodden intersection of Boring and Blending In.
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Categories:
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Kitsch O' The Day
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As I said yesterday, I’m not one to randomly collect poodles just because they’re an endearing and iconic symbol of the first totally modern decade to which I am ever beholden, the 1950′s. But it dawned on me as I adopted Fifi the wastebasket that she was a perfect mate for this Kleenex holder that’s been riding around in the back seat of my car forever, always there in my time of nasal need for at least the last decade.
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Kitsch O' The Day
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This past weekend LA was in bloom with garage sales. I’ve tried resisting these for years, especially since opening The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch at AWMOK.com, as not only do I have the thousands of items in my own kitsch collection to store but these days I’m the happy recipient of at least a few boxes a month that arrive stashed full of other peoples’ kitsch. But I was tooling down Fountain Ave. and there she was staring at me, the classic bathroom or teenagers room accessory icon of the 1950s, lovely Fifi.
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Burk’s Igloo in Hamtramck, the once Polish center of Detroit, not only has KILLER ice cream but is famous now for being in the opening titles of HBO’s Hung.
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Rarely do I celebrate someone getting their head blow on off but the jubilant mood around the world heralding the demise of the long skinny one with the poisonous manners is begging to be celebrated with the best patriotic crafts that kitsch has to offer. Here’s a small sampling of what’s available for sale as we speak on places like Ebay and Etsy. In most cases I’ve used the exact names the artists have given their work.
The Liberty Bell:
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These are without question the mangiest chicks ever, that is if these feathery creatures are, in fact, “chicks”. Hard to tell in this little display diorama, whose elegant mirrored-inside swoop made the original owner kitschingly ecstatic when they bought this, most likely in the 1970′s or 80′s. Except people who buy things like this have no idea that something is so tragically off. They view it, instead, as a thing of beauty. The “chicks’” owner probably didn’t even wait for Easter to display them but, rather, kept them out all year, they were THAT beautiful to them.
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We – Mark Blackwell, my ready steady videographer and “Allee Marches On Detroit!” planning partner – landed back in LA at 1 AM Sunday night after taking two planes from Detroit, the second of which was over an hour late getting out of Chicago. My body feels like it’s broken into 12,000 pieces – at least it’s down by a thousand from yesterday – because of the pace we raced at over the prior 168 hours of giving speeches, conducting marching bands and Broadway musicals, visiting family, school friends and meeting a whole load of soulful folks on the street who take great pride in the city they live in. But it’s one of those great broken feelings where you know you had a once-in-a-lifetime experience and are so grateful for fate tossing that your way, no matter how much you feel like a convoy of Mack trucks have run over you, every single ounce of oomph exerted is worth the present inertia. I feel like I have to stew in a hot bath for a week and then be pickled in a jar of lavender oil for a couple of days to feel like everything in my body is glued back together again. But the Dee-troit spirit running through me is so high I could walk on air without legs. Which is good given that my knees performed way beyond the call of duty given their relatively recent medical fate.
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Detroit,
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Kitsch O' The Day,
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I have quite a collection of large framed vintage mosaic pieces and this massive 19″ x 33″ poodle is unquestionably one of the best in breed. First of all, with all of his gaps and glue blobs he’s obviously someone’s crafts project:
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At that point in history, the 1960s, no more swag had ever been created for an American Presidency than for the first couple of Camelot, John and Jackie Kennedy. I have much of it, including busts, porcelain plates, copper plates, ashtrays, keychains and the like. But most of that is buried away and I’m too lazy to dig it out on a holiday. Here’s one that’s handy of a porcelain plate using the exact same image as on the creamer but for a new chair:
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When I grew up in Detroit I went to the zoo on 10 Mile and Woodward at least a couple times a year. Although I got this particular chapeau on Ebay, I’m certain I had one exactly like it as I never went there without something separating me from the sun. I was quite fond of theme hats as a kid.
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