Being a hermit by nature, antisocial by design and iconoclastic by birth, I’m usually entirely repulsed by the merest shade of ‘cute’, unless, of course, ‘cute’ involves a low-cut dress and an unquenchable lust for males who work in libraries. No, I’m talking about that Hello Kitty brand of cuteness - big heads, simple design… those things which wrench the unholy syllable ‘AWWWWWW!’ from the very coldest, deepest part of your lungs, against your greatest efforts.

If you mix that particular brand of cuteness in with superheroes and Japanese toy artistry, it’ll probably infiltrate my better defenses on short measure, and that is why I have a computer desk full of 3” Marvel Comics superheroes that are ridiculously cute.

It’s not always easy to get toy news from Asian companies, and more often than not, I’m only alerted to something awesome while casually browsing eBay for a completely unrelated item. Many great toys are actually marked ‘for sale in Japan only’, though that doesn’t legally bar individual sellers from importing them - they just can’t be carried by larger retailers due to licensing agreements. While a few great sources for these products exist, like Action-HQ and J-List, we’ll probably still always be a little late for the game, and things will fly under the radar entirely. And let me tell you - my toy radar actually is actually intense enough to give people cancer if they stand too close to me for too long. The intense isolation and celibacy is worth it though, to find that last Moon Knight figure on the peg.

Okay, it totally isn’t.

The Marvel 3age figures are beautifully made little iconic pieces. While each figure has an identically pear-shaped body, all decorated differently, all have individually sculpted heads to reflect their characters. They’re predominantly painted in pastel colors, furthering the while cute factor thing. ‘Cute’ increases exponentially when you take away something’s nose, so none of these guys have noses (except for Ghost Rider, whose head is a skull and bears the nasal cavity where his non-nose might have been had he any skin). These guys are just a hair’s breadth away from being squishy and strawberry-scented bathtime buddies, but thankfully, they don’t smell like anything and are constructed of hard, unyielding plastic. Each comes with a little black base with pegs to stick into their feetholes. With something as topheavy as these hydrocephalic characters, they certainly need some help keeping vertical. Unfortunately, none of the figures come with their iconic weapons - Thor lacks his hammer, Captain America lacks his shield, and Ghost Rider doesn’t have a chain-whip to take vengeance upon the cuties around him - even though the box art suggests that they SHOULD be there. Silver Surfer is the only exception, having his titular surfboard as a base. These run about 7 or 8 bucks each.

The reversion of comic characters to their imagined younger states is fairly, and unusually, conventional in comics and cartoons - for better or worse. In 1986, Uncanny X-Men Annual #10 held the first appearance of the X-Babies, which were the X-Men reverse-aged by the villain Mojo. They’ve continued to make appearances (in various forms and continuities) as recently as 2005, and were even going to be made into action figures before ToyBiz scrapped the idea near the end of their reign. As widely ridiculous as this gimmick is, it was also done to the Avengers - or as they became, ‘The Mitey Vengers’. Thor became Thunderson, Wasp became Wisp, and Hawkeye became Hawkey. It’s enough to kill you a little inside. Still, the device was effectively and intelligently used in the Justice League Unlimited episode ‘Kid Stuff’ and again in a particularly great episode of Futurama. So if these 3age figures need a justification, let’s just say that it’s all a clever reference to said gimmick, and not just an unhealthy obsession with the ‘kawaii’.

If you can’t make it out to the far East (I had to import my figures from Hawaii and the UK), Hasbro’s got something for you right here by the name of Superhero Squad. About 2”-3” tall, these little PVC figures aren’t quite as brainsplodingly adorable as 3age, but are adorable nonetheless and can be found at your local mass market toyshop, ranging across a very similar cast of characters also. They’re usually posable at a couple of varying points through their bodies. A two-pack is only about 6 bucks, and the line promises to expand exponentially in the hands of Hasbro. It’s the perfect cross-generational item to absorb unsuspecting children, and even girls, into that inexorable web of comic books and lifelong ostracism.

The language of ‘cute’ is nigh universal.

And speaking of toys, the annual Toy Fair is next month. Comment below if there’s anything you want to see, and I’ll see if I can get to it!

I was immediately drawn to the book “Outwitting History” by its cover. Since I am an avid reader and book lover, the ceiling high stack of books pictured on front indicated this might be my kind of book. The subtitle “The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books” further piqued my interest.

The book tells the story of Aaron Lansky, a man who at 23 years old made it his mission to save Yiddish books from being lost forever. Now I didn’t know much about the topic going in - I had no idea that Yiddish was a dialect spoken by Jewish Eastern Europeans for centuries, for example, and that it has largely died out in the 20th century. As a Yiddish student in the seventies, Lansky had a hard time getting his hands on Yiddish books and realized that old volumes were being tossed out and not being replaced. Most of the great Yiddish writers had passed on and new books weren’t being printed. Whole personal libraries of Yiddish books collected over decades were being thrown out when the reader died and passed the books on to non-Yiddish speaking grandchildren.

He started out his non-profit operation - the National Yiddish Book Center - with a few friends and a warehouse that he couldn’t afford. He tells about the early days, when he went to pick up books from an elderly gentleman in a retirement building who spent hours feeding him and regaling him with tales about each book, only to find when he was ready to leave for his next appointment that the man had told the entire building about him, and most of them had books to give him along with their own stories and gallons of tea and sweet rolls. He gives some of the background of Yiddish and its origins along with the development of Yiddish literature in the 19th century, which is interesting if you’re a history buff like I am. He tells about the day he and his friends spent the day in a dumpster during a rainstorm, trying to rescue thousands of books that had been dumped there by workers who had found them in a building they were renovating. Then there’s the enthusiasm and gratitude he encountered as people realized that someone still cared about the “old friends” that they had cherished for so long.

When Lansky set out on his quest experts estimated that there were maybe 70,000 Yiddish books in existence - to date he has found over 1.5 million.

Last weekend, I found myself on my knees, crouched over a row of repurposed cardboard liquor-boxes, flipping through pawned LPs. I was actually surprised to see record albums in a pawn shop, but these were good — no Ferrante and Teicher, no 101 Strings, no Sing Along With Mitch. Many of the records were in remarkable shape for used albums, but most were common popular musicians of the sixties and seventies. I picked out a little stack of the rarer albums, along with the obligatory Whipped Cream & Other Delights that I buy any time I find it (I own fourteen).

Much like the classic Herb Alpert, one other album was chosen purely for the cover art. I’d never seen the album before, do not recognize the band’s name, but the art itself is immediately familiar. The artist, known for his stylish caricatures that teeter on the edge between realistic and fanciful, is Jack Davis.

I, of course, remember Jack Davis from his early years at MAD Magazine. Starting in commercial art and comic books in the 1950s, Davis applied his tremendous skill for everything from horror to humor, along with more than a few things in between. Many of his works have reached iconic status, such as the “life-sized” Frankenstein poster that was sold in the back of comics throughout the sixties and the two-legged bug constantly fogged by RAID during 1980s commercial breaks. Known for producing quality work in little time, Davis has been a mainstay in advertising for decades. And, as I’ve found many times, he was particularly skilled at producing record album covers.

Jack Davis’ poster for It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World makes for an obvious transition to the soundtrack album cover, but Davis’ record albums aren’t just a creative reuse of an already paid-for painting. Davis produced unique, custom artwork for numerous recordings, from comedy to rock-and-roll. Davis often returned to his roots as a horror-comic artist, producing album covers for Halloween records.

For a comic art collector, a Jack Davis record album provides a piece of art worthy of hanging on a wall. Record sleeves measure approximately 13″ on a side, and numerous places manufacture frames designed for displaying record jackets. Even larger are his fold-out or wrap-around covers that double the width, like the Sailcat cover I got this weekend. While much of Davis’ art is smaller than the page in a magazine and was often black-and-white, his album covers show off the detail and color of his work.

Record collectors no doubt have their own quirky tastes in collection (as my Herb Alpert collection attests), but when a collector begins to find themselves seeing the same albums over and over, it takes a new perspective to give the act of digging through boxes at a thrift shop a new life. Davis illustrated numerous albums — so many that it’s difficult to find a complete list, despite several online archives devoted to just his album art — that simply hunting for Jack Davis art will open up new directions in a record collection. Imus in the Morning, The Cowsills, Homer and Jethro: you don’t even have to like to listen to the albums, if the art is the key. Trying to find every Jack Davis illustrated album jacket could become a full-time obsession. Look through your existing collection first, of course — you may not have noticed that the Kelly’s Heroes soundtrack and The Greatest of the Guess Who both feature Jack Davis illustrations. For the rest, give the record bins at your usual haunts a second look — you might have missed out on a work of art.

As it turns out, January 8th was probably one of the High Holy Music Holidays, if you’re the sacrilegious type. Such a day would likely be celebrated by mildly obscene gyrations and a liberal application of glittery eye makeup. Why? Because it’s the shared birth date of two of music’s greatest revolutionaries - Elvis Presley and David Bowie. Sure, Stephen Hawking shares the same birth date, but I’ve never seen HIM strum a quantum singularity and make the ladies weep. Elvis would be 72.

Elvis, as Deanna has mentioned once before, is probably one of the most collected human beings in history (or else why would they make this Elvis Collecting Software?), with many rooms across the US (often owned by eclectic older ladies wearing airbrushed Elvis sweatshirts, making sporadic appearances on morning shows on slow days) festooned with photographs, rare signatures, framed LPs and sheets of stamps displayed on walls, and perhaps a shred of precious Elvis-DNA dusted fabric in a glass case. He’s one of the closest things that us mortals has to a deity - a horde of people utterly in his sway, and apparently living long beyond his natural life. You know, if you’re to believe the off-kilter propaganda and the grassy-knoll-style hunt for clues to contradict that Elvis Presley was, in fact, made of skin and bones and methamphetamines.

Genuine artifacts from within his lifetime, which are rare or in well-guarded private collections, can fetch ridiculous amounts of money and publicity. In March 2005, eBay saw a copy of Elvis’ ‘Milk Cow Blues Boogie’ 78 sell for about $2400, and a single 1956 trading card from Topps sold for about $1500. Items that were actually in contact with Elvis can apparently deflect bullets and give the possessor the ability to conjure obedient dinosaurs from beneath the Earth’s crust. I mean, they’re not usually obedient, but as soon as they see that you’ve got a swatch of Elvis’ outfit from Jailhouse Rock, they’re gonna listen. Such is the power of Elvis.

A worn belt? $66,000. A chest x-ray? $2500. It’s the divide between appreciating a celebrity for their talent and wanting to posses an actual piece of the being that was the holder of that talent.

Those things which were produced after his death still seem to be quite collectible, with every scrap of Elvis-related memorabilia adding to the collected energy of that not-so-secret shrine you’ve been building in the upstairs guest bedroom. McFarlane Toys produced a whole series of Elvis mini-statues, detailing his appearances in various stages of his life and in films. Also, of course, was the senses-shattering fat Elvis vs. skinny Elvis stamp debate of 1992.

It’s kind of difficult to determine where to begin and where to end when collecting celebrity paraphernalia. Does it theoretically start with magazine clippings and end with toenail clippings? CQ bloggers have mentioned this before, but man, does it get creepier than that.

Does one need a genuine artifact from Cynthia Plaster Caster? You can look that up yourself. I’m not touching it. Literally. It was Piero Manzoni who actually canned his own… leavings…. and sold them to art buyers at the same cost as the value of gold. He’s quoted as saying, “If collectors really want something intimate, really personal to the artist, there’s the artist’s own s***”, and he’s not entirely incorrect. And yes, people have installed devices in celebrity hotel bathrooms to capture such artifacts.

Nevertheless, Elvis festoons everything, everywhere, for all time. I’m barely aware of Elvis in my daily life, and yet, in a casual perusal of my hideously overcluttered and potentially dangerous room, I’ve come across two Elvis items that I don’t even remember collecting… like some unseen force in the Elvis Conspiracy is slipping these things into everyday situations to preserve the presence and mystery of The Sacred Elvis. Of course, I have the Jailhouse Rock action statue (5th in an ongoing series that has 6, so far), and the Gail Brewer-Giorgio book, ‘Is Elvis Alive?’, which presents an Elvis-is-alive theory based on a certain audiotape confession made in 1981. This theory seems far more rational than the alternative ones that involve time travel, alien interventions and subterranean kingdoms, but still - very difficult to take seriously. I think if you looked hard enough, you might find very palpable proof that I’m the Indefatigable Queen of Venus (the least of which is my old screen name, VenusQueen4EVA).

If I came across Elvis inspecting a pineapple at the grocery store? If he said hello to me while I stared curiously at him? Yeah, I’d probably go weak-kneed and rush off to the cereal aisle to gather myself, stumbling over the Count Chocula display on the way - and I’m not even an Elvis fan. I tried to be, but probably not hard enough. Secretly, you’d think it was awesome too.

On Friday I gave some background on purses in general, and today I’m going to discuss different types of purses.

So around the beginning of the 20th century dress styles became slim and close to the body once again, making purses more practical than pockets for carrying the things a lady couldn’t do without when she left the house. Makeup still wasn’t widely used at this time so purses were small, however by the 1930s they had grown to accomodate the various powders and potions that had become more common.

Beaded evening bags
Purse collectors love vintage beaded evening bags, and who could blame them? They’re just so feminine and pretty. The beads were sewn onto a pouch that hung from a frame that was usually metal but sometimes bakelite or celluloid. The frame had a clasp for closing the purse and a chain or strap for carrying it, and the inside of the purse was usually lined. The frame was often engraved and decorated with stones or faux gems. Sometimes a drawstring was used rather than a frame and clasp. Look for solid clasps that work and make sure beads aren’t loose. Store beaded purses carefully to keep beads from coming loose.

Mesh
Along with beaded evening bags, mesh bags were popular in the early decades of the 20th century. While the frame and chain of mesh bags are similar to beaded evening bags, mesh bags are made from a decorative metal mesh.

Tapestry bags
Needlepoint and tapestry bags were popular until the middle decades of the 20th century. Here’s a great article about collecting and caring for these kinds of purses.

Designer bags
Today we associate names like Prada, Coach and Louis Vuitton with designer purses, but in decades past it was Halston and Pucci. There are tons of online sources for vintage Designer purses - eBay is a great place to start.

Related links:

Here are some online sources for vintage purses

Beaded Purses

Designer Purses

More Purses

Estatements