Yard Sale Bloodbath

I can’t lie, this pamphlet on “25 decorating ideas for your second refrigerator” has been sitting in my house waiting to be blogged about for 4+ years.

I purchased this mostly based on the small post-it on the front.

Then once I finally scanned the photos and sent them to Jenny, we started talking about “fridge blog” and even using that as a verb. (“When are you gonna fridge blog?”)

Here is the intro:

Before you begin… You might find it helpful to decide who’s going to use your second refrigerator the most. Then decorate with that decision in mind.
If your husband is going to us use it to store beer, decorate to match his personality. Make it bright and bold.
If it’s to be used by the children for pop, popsicles, watermelon and such, decorate it for their taste.
And if you’re going to use it for pre-party storage, you’ll probably decorate it like… Well, women have a mind of their own. And now, let us show you what we have in mind.

Wow… I am not if that was intended to sound so um, sexist. It was 1969. What was National Steel thinking?!?!

And who knew that decorating your second fridge could be such a wild scene?!

How could a trying-to-be-tongue-in-cheek humor book making fun of ’80s L.L. Bean catalogs end up being so not funny?

And it’s supposed to be funny.

It definitely hits the style of the L.L. Bean catalogs, which do sometimes tend to go off on a tangent about special virtues of Chamois Cloth or something and get pretty silly.

I remember seeing so many of these types of parody books – has the internet really spoiled me that much, is just lost on me now? If I had a chance to re-read the Preppy Handbook today, would I think it’s just as dumb? (Does anyone remember “Save an alligator, kill a preppy”?)

I picked this up at a sale the last time we went out. It must have been some sort of hit, since this is the second one in the series. I might have loved this book in the ’80s and I can understand why it’s cherished by some people … but maybe humor doesn’t always stand the test of time.

It’s been a while since I have done a book review, but then I saw this at my local thrift store. Why, it looks like a great gag gift for Jenny!

It’s the Garage Sale Decorator’s Bible, by Shelley Kincaid. First, note her expression on the cover – is she afraid her cat is going to attack her? Or, as my thrifting partner suggested, worried that some of her “fabulous finds” are about to fall down and kill her?

The Amazon reviews aren’t as amazing as the ones for Microwave for One by Sonia Allison, but they really should be.

Most of the projects have a “crafty” feeling that even my grandma would be turned off by.

And the drawings are pretty low rent.

Here are some of her amazing “HOW TO’S”. There are many, many, MANY more …

“HOW TO” MAKE A WATERBED HUTCH
“HOW TO” REMOVE UPHOLSTERY FABRIC
“HOW TO” ATTACH VCR TO TV
“HOW TO” TUNE IN THE BUTTON STYLE VCR
“HOW TO” SHRINK WRAP
“HOW TO” STORE YOUR CHRISTMAS TREE

Some of the crap in here is useful, like if you wanted to learn how to re-wire a lamp, but most folks are going to either ask at the hardware store or watch a “how-to” video online. I guess it makes a little more sense since this came out before youtube.com. The book was written in 1997, but it feels more like around 1988. Except that it does explain the Internet.

There is also a basically useless price guide listing the “retail,” “garage sale,” and “Shelley’s Best” prices for 33 pages’ worth of items, from Acrylic Nail Set to Z Brick.

She does have one thing right — the title of Chapter 1: GARAGE SALE~ING WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!

No, really.

It’s from 1884. Perhaps there were different methods back then?

Eternal thanks to Karl for purchasing this at an estate sale last week.

When you are actually in Berkeley, it can be pretty darn Berkeley. Just check out these books …

This was at a block sale, not too far from my parents’ house, where it looked like someone was getting rid of their entire book collection, dating back to at least the early ’70s … leaning heavily towards the feminist, radical, and groovy.

I grew up here, so this was all pretty familiar territory. After all, it wasn’t until long after leaving the Berkeley Unified School District that I learned that most places didn’t get a day off on March 8th for International Women’s Day.

It was fun to dig through the books.

Sometimes even the back covers were good reading.

As easy as it is to poke fun at this stuff, I think it’s awesome that people were self-publishing their own freaky stuff back in the day — or even today! But that doesn’t mean that some of it isn’t kind of ridiculous.

Like this guide to communes. Can you spot the naked dudes? How about the guy rocking the turtleneck with no pants?

It’s not just a list of communes (including the Hog Farm: “about 75 people living on 14 acres of land in New Mexico, all taking care of each other and this one hog and her friend … and 15 chickens that lay ten eggs a day on methedrine”), it also has articles like “How to Make Group Marriage.”

This is the end of the article. Is that the answer?

Another magazine had some pretty great classified ads.

And of course, there were guidebooks on how to build your own geodesic dome.

Honestly, I was surprised that it hadn’t been cleaned out by book dealers, and I sort of hoped whatever was left over would get donated to a library, because a lot of that stuff was super obscure and interesting. We left a lot behind, but between me, my husband, and my dad, we ended up with a bit of a pile …

We hit a neighborhood sale last weekend. Meghan’ll be dishing up the full scoop soon, but first I wanted to take a moment to share a small portion of what has to be one of the strangest and most terrifying selections of books I have seen in some time.

The books spanned a range of genres and eras.

But most of them offered some sort of advice.

Many were charmingly dated.

Or even hilariously dated.

Some were direct and to the point (perhaps a bit threateningly so).

And then there was this. Sure, times have changed, but how was this title ever a good idea?

I guess if a pile of books is gonna be bad, at least it’s more fun to look through when they’re this bad.

Okay. Confession time. I still own clothing that I had in high school (although it’s all vintage finds from my teen thrifting days). I also have records and books from before high school. This might qualify me a little crazy. But as kooky as my collecting can be, I would never have held onto a pierced earrings catalog from Fall-Winter 1986.

Why would you keep this around for so long? Well, someone did … until last year, when I found it at a yard sale.

The Crown Collection by ADCO — Created by Rhonda Jennings. (I googled the crap out of that in many, many combinations.) In the opener Rhonda explains that this is the most dazzling collection she’s ever come up with. She also uses not just “P.S.,” but also “P.P.S.” Haven’t seen that one in a while.

The most amazing thing are the names of some of the collections …

For Happy Days. (Um, you mean when you come out to your parents?)

Plaid Pizzazz. (I would have loved these in 1983, but by 1986? No.)

Soap Opera Favorites. (Um. What?)

Your Favorite Symbols. (Class of ’90! WOOT!)

Some others (I shit you not) are Gleaming Glamor, Look of Success, Pastel Power, and my personal favorite: Bits of Whimsy.

The kicker? Rhonda also published two books in response to the many, many requests she received from customers (or so she claims): “Looking Good On The Job” and “What Color Can Do for You.” I wonder how many copies of those are still lurking around? Seems like something that will probably show up on Awful Library Books at some point.

“The Doberman Quarterly Magazine has been chronicling the purebred Doberman Pinscher fancy for years. Our subscribers are owners, breeders, exhibitors, trainers, judges, and others interested in showing, raising, and living with a Doberman. Elegant, Intelligent, Dependable … that’s the Doberman Pinscher.”

Oddly, the Doberman is the most normal thing about this magazine cover. How about the judge with the “Sun-In” orange hair and a dark brown mustache? Or the Miami Vice/Baywatch bimbos fawning over the dog?

The magazine is pretty boring if you don’t own a Doberman Pinscher, but the cover is amazing.