a dictionary of spectral curiosities
Posts about vintage memorabilia from my ever-growing collection.
Ah, here it comes then, finally, a proper blog post. Many of you will probably recognise that title quotation as lifted whole out of one of the most famous books in the world, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. That's when Alice, frustrated and confused by so many (rather brusque) changes in height, and puzzled by the anthropomorphic White …
Continue reading "“But if I’m not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I?”"
Just about time I shared my new haul of vintage photographs with the world, isn't it? I bought these in Bucharest, at a Christmas/ winter holidays fair, after some negotiations with the vendor. To be fair, though, he didn't seem to mind my haggling. Actually, he looked quite happy to finally find someone who was …
Continue reading "Added more ghosts to my ever-expanding collection…"
This will be more of a memento than a regular blog post, I suppose. Last week I got a chance to see the art collection at the Nottingham Castle Museum. It was only a brief visit, yet I made a point of jotting down the titles of all the paintings that caught my fancy for …
I was unlucky in my quest for vintage photographs for a while - the local market has been yielding nothing but black and white photographs of cats and dogs and some tacky birthday cards. But my luck turned just as soon as I paid a visit to Camden Market, London. Have I ever mentioned how …
Continue reading "From Camden Town to Istanbul in a Single Stride: Vintage Memorabilia"
[D]ead bodies can talk if you know how to listen to them, and they want to talk, and they want us to sit down beside them and hear their sad stories. [...] They don't want to be voiceless; they don't want to be pushed aside, obliterated. ~ Margaret Atwood, Negotiating with the Dead This is …
So. I promised some comments on the recently posted photo-postcards. I've chosen to have a closer look at some that particularly picked my curiosity. The first would be the photograph showing the phantomatic silhouette of a woman, pasted onto a black carton "frame" with a postcard-style verso: The look of it - the silhouette fading …
After complaining about LiveJournal's incompetency for about half a year, I've finally decided to switch to a more - hopefully - professional blogging website. I was getting too tired of all the spam comments, the compulsory flashing ads and, most of all, the all-powerful ddos attacks under which it regularly succumbed. I have successfully managed …
Having decided to get over the various generous offers of intimate and intensely satisfying (guaranteed!) services that are the only comments I get these days, here I am sharing yet another one of my finds with the universe. I do love flea markets, and I usually end up leaving with at least one abandoned memory …
My long-standing hobby of rescuing/collecting other people's memories has resurfaced again. It would have resurfaced before, only, to my shame, I was unable to find the usual place in our local market selling vintage photos&postcards. It's like the magic little shop that Terry Pratchett pokes so much fun at in his Discworld novels: it would …
Continue reading "I don’t steal memories. I buy them 30p apiece."
First, I'll give myself and my bibliophile readers a treat by posting some photos of a book I purchased back in autumn. I'm talking about a 1941 edition of one of my favourite childhood books, Travels and Adventures of Baron Munchausen. I found it - as I find most of the delightful things I purchase …
Encyclopaedia Vanitatum 