Archive for February, 2011

happy VD!

Monday, February 14th, 2011

Exactly 14 years ago today, the huz and I shared our first smooch in the parking lot of the long-gone Silver Top Diner. One year later, in January of ’98, I convinced my good friend Jennifer Uhrhane to commemorate the spot in a photo. I have vivid memories of holding the tripod steady in a wicked Arctic wind. It was just after midnight and 10 degrees. Jen was a trooper…

silvertop diner photo by Jen Uhrhane

The photo turned out great (considerably better than my craptastic photo of it, reflecting everything in the room). It was my Valentine’s Day gift to David to mark our one year anniversary.

After the Silver Top was forced out in March 2002, David and our friend John nabbed several signs for my birthday. Such nice boys…

silvertop diner sign

Too bad about the diner. It was crowded on a regular basis. According to the Providence Preservation Society

The Silver Top Diner was built by Kullman Diner Company of Harrison, New Jersy in 1937. At the height of its activity, the Silver Top was one of several small restaurants and one of only two dining cars flourishing amidst the then vibrant industry of Harris Avenue and the surrounding downtown. Open 24 hours a day, the diner catered to local factory workers who frequented its counter on their way home from the exhausting third shift.

Thanks for the awesome memories, Jen! btw, you should see Jen’s photography. Beautiful, beautiful stuff. Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

you game? Starsky & Hutch

Friday, February 11th, 2011

Hello, Friday! Hello, nuther ’70s TV show board game! This time, it’s badass left coast detectives in a testosterone-fueled Ford Gran Torino. Yes, my friend, the original Starsky & Hutch…

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The car, aka The Striped Tomato, was a star in its own right.

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Object: Be the first to stop the mad bomber by collecting all four matching cards.

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Did I mention I haven’t even ripped the cellophane open yet? I just can’t bring myself to do it! This game is mint with a capital PEPPA.

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Leather jackets. Double denim. Macrame plant hangers. A streetwise informant named Huggy Bear. What didn’t this show have? Other than a short man in a white jacket yelling “De plane! De plane!”, I mean.

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Watch the first episode. Sing along to David Soul’s big hit from 1976. Geek out in an S&H car of your own. That’s right, live the dream. Why not? It’s Friday.

the best surprise

Thursday, February 10th, 2011

More proof that you just never know what a new day will bring you… So this morning the doorbell rings. And who’s on our doorstep? Two happy, shiny offsproing of Irving B. Haynes, the original architect of the house we love so much. What the?

Seth and Libby stopped by to say that until they happened across mymodremod, they’d had no idea that this house was their father’s creation — even after passing by it for so many years. We had a lovely chat and stumbled them through our embarrassingly fakakta interior.

And then they asked if we’d like this (click to biggify)…

irving b haynes collage

It’s a collage of ski passes made by their father in 1971 — the year construction began on our house. Hailing from Maine, Irving liked to take the family skiing around New England. Nice bit ’o regional history there…

irving b haynes collage, detail 1

irving b haynes collage, detail 2

irving b haynes collage, detail 3

How sweet is it of Seth and Libby to share a little bit of Irving with us? That’s so nice! We’ll most definitely be in touch. I’d love to prove to them that we’re really not slobs. Well, mostly not slobs anyway.

Thanks, you two! And I promise we’ll figure out the glitch in posting comments so that you can chime in every now and then.

wackier than you think

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

I feel like I should apologize for a string of entries about things, but they’re the easiest to post about when there’s a sumo wrestler sitting on your sinuses.

So check out what I just pulled out of the closet that hasn’t seen the light of day for three years: our framed, uncut sheet of Wacky Packages stickers (1st Series 1979 Rerun Sheet)…

wacky packages uncut sheet, framed

You’ve seen Wacky Packs, right? Made by Topps, they included six stickers and a pack of gum. The stickers spoofed the products of the day and were illustrated by cartoonists like Art Spiegelman. Pretty silly stuff…

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We thought the back was pretty awesome, too, so we had the sheet framed in glass so we could flip it over and look at it…

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Now that you’re saying to yourself, “that’s so cool!”, let me tell you the backstory behind this particular sheet.

Picked this up at a Manhattan flea market 11 or 12 years ago for $30. Curiously cheap. We figured it was cool enough to hang up whether it was legit or not. Wackypackages.org claims it’s not counterfeit, however…

This is the infamous 1979 rerun sheet. Tens of thousands of these suddenly showed up in 1999, before that they would sell for around $150 each, now they can be obtained for about $20 (at one point you could get them for under $10), certainly the cheapest sheet at this time. There has been a lot of speculation as to why so many showed up.

It came out that these sheets were part of a planned promotion for Bond Bread around 1985. Bond Bread was apparently going to use them like Wonder Bread had. They were printed in the same factory in Philadelphia that the rest of the wackys were printed at. This was around 1985… They were printed and die-cut, and yet they were never shipped, due to some sort of cease and desist or perhaps due to a change of plans on the corporate level, we are not sure. So there they sat on a pallet for 15 years, with the “stop shipment order” stuck on top. Eventually the factory went out of business and went abandoned… There the sheets sat, until they were found sometime in 1999.

… It appears there were on the order of 100,000 of these sheets.

So there ya go. Our sheet will likely never be worth anything but that’s not really why we bought it. Wacky Packs rule.

one fish two fish red fish beer tray

Tuesday, February 8th, 2011

Sorry I missed yesterday’s post. Battling a germ of some sort and germ is winning. Stupid germ.

Unearthing all sorts of things I’d completely forgotten about while they were stashed away for the last several years. Here’s one of them: an awesomely mint Narragansett Lager & Ale drink tray designed by Dr. Seuss, belying his advertising roots (click to biggify)…

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The Christies auction site and the Narragansett site say it was made in the early 1940s right here in Rhody where Narragansett was (and is again) brewed.

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Love that. Okay, now to make a safe place for it amidst the chaos.

you game? The Partridge Family

Friday, February 4th, 2011

I’m really digging this Friday ’70s TV show board games theme. So fun to peek at them again after having them packed away for the last three years. Dial your Way Back Machine to 1971, kids! How ridic is this Partridge Family game?

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The flouncy shirts. The flare-leg pants. The shag haircuts. Ah the life of a show-biz family on tour is so exciting! But wait… where’s mom’s tambourine?

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Object: The Partridge Family has finished playing at a local arena and must hurry to their bus. The winner is the first member of the family to reach the bus.

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Oh, David Cassidy, you’re soooo dreamy. I Think I Love You.

off my rocker?

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

As we finish moving things upstairs in prep for the downstairs remodel, we’re forced to edit our belongings to fit the space. We’re in full-on purge mode and have already sold a ton via Craigslist. But some things I’m just loathe to part with, no matter how much the huz insists they gots to go.

Like the Dondolo rocker I picked up via DWR in anticipation of Bix’s birth. For someone who rarely buys new furniture, this was a real treat…

dondolo rocker in front of lamps in waiting

God I can’t wait to get rid of that nasty carpet. Ugh. So anyway… Not giving this up, sorry. I used to rock the baby to sleep in this!

Originally designed by Luigi Crassevig, Design Within Reach sold this Dondolo Rocker for a short time. No longer available from DWR, I picked up mine more than six years ago. The info I can dig up online about the DWR version claims the design dates to the ’50s:

Behold one of the most fetching of a new (old) wave of reissued rockers, an authorized reproduction of a 1950s Italian stunner. Using original molds, Design Within Reach — noted purveyor of pop-art furnishings — bends hardy beechwood into zoomy curves and laces it with thick saddle leather or heavy cotton canvas. The result? The DONDOLO ROCKER, named as it was back in ’50 when it was penned by designer Luigi Crassevig.

But it’s such a ’70s look, isn’t it? I mean look at that crazy shape…

definitely a 70s shape

So I did a little more research and found on Architonic that the original Dondolo actually dates to 1970, not the ’50s. Told ya. In fact, Crassevig itself gives a date of 1970 on its own site and lists the chair among its many current products.

legacy.dondolo.avanti | via crassevig.it

legacy.dondolo.avanti | via crassevig.it

Which obviously means the chair is still in production. So if the Dondolo is still in production and the leather is stamped Made in Italy on the back, does that mean my chair isn’t a reproduction but an actual Crassevig? There’s no Crassevig label on it. Hmmm. Maybe I should ask DWR just to satisfy my curiosity.

Back to my case. What better place for a ’70s rocker than our ’70s house? I should keep it, right? Here, have a seat…

the dondolo’s woven leather straps

Now that you’re comfortable, I’ll just assume you agree with me. It stays.

del sol

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

Hey, guess what? It’s snowing again! So tired of grey skies. I could use a little something to brighten my day, how about you?

Digging through my snaps for inspiration I came across last fall’s trip to Mass Moca to see the Sol Lewitt retrospective. Was a downpour day so the light was low. Even so, the strong colors and graphics in his conceptual art are really  a pow in the eye socket…

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massmoca_wall drawing retrospective

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Thanks, Sharon, for the profile view! Love that shot. All those graphics make me want to take to our walls with a paintbrush.

More info on the Sol Lewitt show and his work…

time to rock

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

After less than two days, the city of Providence has given us the thumbs up!

building permit!

Got the building permit this morning. Remodel officially begins NOW!

I just realized that my very first post on mymodremod was February 1 — exactly one year ago today. What are the odds?!

one perfect thing

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

my leonard chair

What is it? It’s a modernist’s vision of the ideal child’s chair, that much is obvious. What’s not obvious is who made it. There’s no maker’s mark. Figures. It took a surprising amount of sleuthing to discover this chair’s pedigree, but I did it.

Turns out this chair is the work of  James W. Leonard for the Education Supply Association (Esavian Ltd) in the UK. The cast-aluminum alloy frame and bent beech-plywood child’s school chair made by Esavian was designed to be stackable. So this is no frou-frou object. It’s a utilitarian piece of furniture designed to stand up to rigorous use — and yet it’s a thing of beauty.

Where did it come from? I happened across it on eBay a few years back via a seller in upstate New York, not the UK. Once I spotted that slung-back aluminum leg, I was hooked. These chairs are tough to find in the states — believe me, I’ve tried since lucking across this one. They do, however, turn up upon occasion on ebay.co.uk.

Circa? Post-war. The design dates to 1948.

Interesting tidbit:

There were also adult-sized chairs, some in molded ply and others vinyl covered…

james w leonard chair for adults | salvonews.com/uk

james w leonard chair for adults | salvonews.com/uk

and a gorgeous stacking table that’s to die for…

james w leonard table for esavian | referencelibrary.blogspot.com

james w leonard table for esavian | referencelibrary.blogspot.com

Much to-do has been made about whether Leonard or Jean Prouvé first designed what’s come to be termed as the “compass leg.” As I understand it — from what I’ve read — Leonard’s design predates Prouvé’s by a few years. But what do I know anyway?

Want to see a few other perfect things I’ve dug up while sifting through our premodel mess? I can show you a vintage aluminum clock we hope to have a place to hang someday and a vintage steel sculpture David’s grandfather made that deserves an eventual special spot.