SCARVES: a blog post.

Sorry to consistently pad my blog posts with nostalgia from my childhood (just clawing at my eyeballs for that emmy nod, dudes) but I kind of don't know how else to write a blog post. My life is kind of like a psychadelic drudgery, if you can imagine that. I work a lot, it's wet and grey out, and nothing makes sense. Emotions and urges kind of float around in the ether and I pluck at them at random. I bought a pair of earrings today because they matched my outfit. Like that's a thing I can afford? Nope. Wrong. I ate popcorn for dinner last night. I basically just arrange greeting cards and watch the clock run out on the grace period on my student loans, cultivating unrequited longings and pointedly not going to the gym.

Oh my god I'm so sorry, am I OVERWHELMING YOU WITH A NAMELESS DREAD?! Sorry sorry sorry. That happens sometimes. Moving on.

WHEN I WAS A KID I didn't really adhere to a collecting mentality. The idea of collecting things just for the hell or it wasn't something that interested me, possibly due to a complete aversion to anything remotely competitive that I honed early on in life. Beany babies, trading cards, GI Joes, countless childhood fads passed me by and while I participated, I didn't really feel the same wild fervor that a few choice other kids did. Unknowingly, I just let the tide of all these one hit wonders collect and abate on my tiny, undeveloped brain.

Despite all that, a collection snuck up on me when I wasn't paying attention, and it's one I can't really quantify or explain. I think it probably has something to do with my maternal grandmother. I have two grandmothers, as one must, at least on paper anyway, and while they are not entirely unalike they don't share many similarities, in appearance especially. My father's mother enjoys a style that has a purpose; a lot of sweaters, slacks, a lot of black and khaki. Fancy shoes abandoned long ago for an all-purpose, all-black men's sneaker (genius, in my opinion, and I can't wait till they call my number on that matter) which cushions and supports just right.

My Mom's Mom, however, is a much fancier lady. If anybody can be described as "swanning" about, it's my maternal grandmother. She tends to swan about wearing billowing, sheer floral blouses, tens of gold bangles on her thin wrists that glitter and clack as she gesticulates or opens a tin of cat food. She has forever wound her grey hair into a foot-high bouffant on top of her head, and we spot her that way, in supermarkets and malls, a soft grey thumb bobbing away from us in the distance.

It's those blouses that caught my attention; like paper, water; I'm finding it hard to explain them without using the word "silky", which is odd, using a word to describe itself, since some of them where at least part silk or meant to look like it, at any rate. Fabric that floated, made itself seem precious or important in some way, probably just in its utter uselessness. Scarves have a very small section of use, and even then, purpose is relegated to warmth, which completely negates the existence of the sheer. Light summer scarves, sheer scarves; there's no place for them in reason, they hover just outside of utility but are firmly grounded in the decorative.



The lovely and fragrant Helena

I took to collecting scarves without realizing I was doing it, I just started wanting them. I kept them in a hinged basket and then later, an additional faux suitcase and then later, an additional plastic bin. I never wore them, I would play with some of them but for the most part they where just there to be had, and touched and appreciated, but never used for anything. Occasionally, on Halloween especially, they would come in spectacularly handy, and I would think yes, why doesn't everyone have a scarf collection, it makes total sense. When I grew up, the scarves went away for a little while, but once I began to create a style for myself I brought them out again. I wear scarves I've had for decades, holding on to them for a reason I was never quite sure of. I am somewhat known around the store for buying scarves before they even hit the floor and have a chance to be sold organically.



Cheeseball's Anonymous



Sometimes we all have to step into the decorative circle, or else we go banana pants and start stockpiling for the apocalypse. So I will see you there, Brookline. Come check out our newest scarf shipment in the card and gift room. I've already bought three. I'm not even joking. You have to get here before I buy all the good ones. As this autumn creeps into our beds and our lungs and our hearts, so much becomes about necessity. Boots for the rain and snow, heavy coats, thick scarves, hats, gloves. No more bicycles or straw summer hats, just fleece and four wheel drive and Halls mentholated. If you need to stop in and get yourself something a little precious, a little floaty, and a little sheer? I promise not to tell. Oh my god just kidding, you know I'll tell everyone, but who cares?

Colors Outta Space

Two neat-o books in the UBC of note this week:

S. Petersen's Field Guide to Creatures of the Dreamlands is a natural field guide to the supernatural creatures of H. P. Lovecraft's stories. Finally, you'll know what to do when you see a Basilisk wandering around a river bank (hint: RUN). $8.50.

Cut and Fold Paper Spaceships That Fly is a compendium of 16 full-color models of spaceships FROM THE FUTURE that you can cut out, fold up (as directed) and send into orbit! Just $2.50!

Also, a regular of ours unloaded piles of Modern Libraries, many with stunning dust jackets. Come in and fill the holes in your collection before staffer and Modern Library collector Erik does!

Sole Collector

Used bookshops are the coolest places on the planet. Where else can you find:

• $20 in a Dean Koontz book
• Photos of dog psychologists inside books
• A past-edition of Perfume by Patrick Süskind that doesn't have a chick-lit cover
• The lone, rare copy of Cubisme to complete your Les Maitres set of French art books?

Only in used book shops! Where people bring their rare, cool, out-of-print books and we sell them to you dirt cheap.

It's a cool place to start up collections, too, of things you didn't know you needed. I personally am a Penguin fangirl, and this job keeps me stocked in all kinds of great volumes. I like the old ones with the orange and white horizontal belts, but maybe you should start up a collection of the Penguin Modern Classics mass markets  printed in the 60s in the UK. Observe yesterday's acquisition:

 And we usually get a couple every other week or so. Steady supply for a collector's demand.

Or how about the rough and edgy illustrated Vintage mass markets designed by Edward Gorey? There are a ton and even a few imitators, this would be a great collection to start up, and would really impress both friends and professors when you host brunches in your spare Allston digs.

Or how about another personal favorite of mine, that we seem to get in pretty regularly: 1960s-ish Signet Classic mass markets, with the coolest illustrated covers on the planet:

Any of these individual volumes will run you $2.50-4 a pop, not a bad amount to drop every once in a while, and definitely worth it to feed the thrill of the hunt!

We even have things to satisfy the collector who likes to collect in huge swaths. Just yesterday we acquired 10 volumes of the tiny 1950 French art books Les Maitres, as well as a cool non-fiction series of middle school social studies books printed in the 70s.

Stop on in and see what collection awaits you!

The Thrill of The Hunt

I used to be a collector. Be it baseball cards, jazz LPs, matchboxes, comic books, rare books, oil cans, I, at one time or another, had a collection. College and two cross-country moves obliterated my somewhat prized possessions. The purge felt great. It was a weight lifted off my checklist notebooks.

Lately i've been feeling the urge to collect again. Or pick up an old collection. More specifically, i've been looking around for old City Light Pocket Series books. Right now I have about 1/3rd of the entire catalog. Quite impressive, to me at least. It's taken me close to 10 years to find what I have. When i tell people this, they say "Why don't you just buy 'em online?".

Fair enough. I could do that. But where's the fun in that? Buying stuff online isn't collecting, its hoarding. It too easy. No getting dirty or going on road trips or seeking out used book stores or antique shops or flea markets. When I look at my collection, there's a story behind how I found each title. One I found in a dollar bin somewhere in West Virginia. One I found in Gloucester buried in a box of newspapers. It was my birthday. It was a cold early winter afternoon. I was hungry. It was either the book or food (Ended up with both, but for dramatic effect...). For me, its the thrill of the hunt, the chase. Its bartering with dealers and working my mojo. Walking the line between fairness and being ripped off. In most cases, the cost is merely an after-thought (I'm married without children. I can do this).

I suppose the gist of this post is to encourage folks to not be lazy. Don't simply cop out and scour ebay on your off-nights looking for that Frenchman's poetry book. You'll probably end up finding it under a heap of dirty linen in some old grand-ma-ma's basement shop or next to a box of spark plugs at a flea market in west central Ohio.

If you care to, leave a list of what you collect in the comments field! If its book related i'll check our shelves. here be mine:

City Light Pocket Books
Rubber Stamps
Dell Comic Digests from 60's and 70's
Old comics (western themed or involving radioactive insects)
Type (both metal and wood)