Record Cover of the Week

John Barry: Petulia

Soundtrack from the 1968 Richard Lester directed film starring George C. Scott and Julie Christie. Not the most exciting record cover, but the winner by default as this was the only record I bought this week. The illustration is signed but I can’t make out the artists name. The style is very familiar – I think this artist did a lot of paperback covers in the 1960s.

Thrift Item of the Moment

Little buildings and monuments

Made of metal, sometimes with marble or granite bases (in the olden times – nowadays everything’s made of plastic).

Today I found these two at a thrift store:

Arc de Triomphe, Paris

Sacré Coeur de Montmartre, Paris

These two are quite flat and use forced perspective to give the illusion of dimensionality, as seen in this top view of the Arc de Triomphe.

You might call it “Triomphe-l’oeil” (ha ha).

Empire State Building, New York

Tour Eiffel, Paris

Statue of Liberty, New York

Notre Dame de Paris

Another Arc de Triomphe

This Empire State Building is a coin bank

Still another Arc de Triomphe

Capitol Building, Washington DC

And another Tour Eiffel

This one has a thermometer (Celsius only)

Yet another Empire State Building

Manneken Pis, Brussels

I almost forgot I had these because they’ve been stored in a box in a closet for many years.

Free Box

Brandon finds a bunch of “Whizzle Sticks” in the free box.

Matching bikes in the free box!

The Culling IX

Now playing: The Ventures: Walk, Don’t Run

Keepers: 815
Weepers: 262
Total: 1077

Summer Holiday

I got back from vacation a few days ago. Me and my buddy Gary made a quick trip down to Seattle to celebrate International Tiki Day with friends. I’ve documented the tiki aspects of this trip elsewhere on the internets – I’m only going to blog about other stuff here.

We really liked this moose sculpture made from horseshoes. In northern Idaho somewhere – I forget where exactly.

At Mary Lou’s Milk Bottle in Spokane they make insanely fabulous milkshakes.

I really need to add this to my Big World website.

More Spokane funkiness. The Garland Theatre – “Tops in Shows”

Thunderbird Motel in Ellensburg WA.

Americans like biscuits and “gravy” for breakfast.

Booze is cheap in the States. Air? Not so much.

Returning through Spokane: Downtown has many beautiful historic buildings and a lot of them are being refurbished.

The newly restored Fox Theatre, a former Art Deco movie palace, is impressive. Too bad the box office person wouldn’t let us poke around inside.

Spokane again. Frank’s Diner in a beautifully restored presidential rail car.

This was creepy.

The food was nothing special – canned corn, chicken fried chicken, more of that pasty white gravy.

My favorite roadside building on this trip was this “barber ship” in Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho.

Darling, isn’t it?

Some of the thrift stores I stopped at along the way.

My favorite thrift find, in Cranbrook BC: A Trader Vic’s of Hawaii seahorse mug for a buck (been looking for one of these babies for awhile).

Record Cover of the Week

Ethel Smith: Make Mine Hawaiian

Hammond organ Hawaiian style. I love Eth’s saucy wink.

The Culling VIII: M

That’s M as in the Roman numeral for 1,000 because I’ve just listened to my 1,000th record since starting this little project around the middle of May. Record no. 1,000, you ask?

Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass: Going Places

One of two copies I have, both of them in Stereo, so I’m going to have to figure out which one is in better condition so I can cull the duplicate. I finally reached the end of the big band instrumentals (with seven Si Zentner records) and I’ve just started on the next section which is instrumentals by small groups, such as the TJB, Baja Marimba Band, Martin Denny, etc. I’m also nearing the end of the second row from the top, so lots of milestones coming together at once.

The numbers:
Considered: 1,000
Coveted: 754
Culled:246

Record Cover of the Week

Porter Wagoner: The Bottom of the Bottle

Mad scientist Porter Wagoner has created a shabbily dressed homunculus that he’s keeping bottled up for now, awaiting the day he unleashes its evil on an unsuspecting world.

click on the image above to read the liner notes by “Skid-Row Joe”