It's Fall, It's Hot Potato Time

Another Saturday, another antique show.

This time it was up and at 'em early for the dawn opening of the Flamboro Antique Show held at the Aberfoyle Antique Market field.

A lovely day, with just a hint of autumn in the air, the dealers were set up and ready to sell, ready to deal, but I sensed that, like many of us, they were also there to move their dogs: things they'd been carting around a while. Sure it's the end of the season, but perhaps the end of an era as well. It's hot potato time, flip that piece as soon as possible; no more sitting on an item to try to get the best possible price.

Many long time dealers have a new perspective: fast turnover. So if you're shopping folks, now's the time to strike that deal.

Hard core collectors were out filling in gaps in their collections, and others were just picking up the odd knick knack or piece of furniture, making a day of it.

But there were also faces I didn't see: people that used to show up regularly at every single show, rain or shine.

Sad to say, but this show seems to be getting smaller every time, with quite a few empty dealer spots. The public turnout seemed to be strong enough, cars were still steadily arriving when we left around 10:30, but I couldn't get a sense of what, if anything, was selling. A big change from what it once was, perhaps reflective of the overall state of the industry.

The only thing I bought was another suitcase; I don't sell them, but they do get rented out to photographers and the movies. This one was well be-stickered, and it'll earn its keep.

Good thing I'm out of the potato business.

Toronto Vintage Clothing and Textile Show

A while back I mentioned the new date and location for the Toronto Vintage Clothing Show. Well things didn't quite work out with the date: it's still early March. In fact, can't get any earlier in March.


Date is: Saturday, March 1^st, 2008.

Location is: the Conference Ballroom at the CNIB Centre on Bayview. Lots of parking and the bus stops right there.

More info as it becomes available.

The Hundred Dollar Hamburger.

We're going to have to rethink this whole Odessa thing. The Odessa Antique Show opens for early admission at 2:00pm Saturday. That means we pay $20.00 each, rather than seven bucks a day later, so we can get in there and scoop all the good stuff. With gas and food and admission for two people we're looking at about $100 in the hole before we've spent penny one on antiques.

The show itself was okay but nothing outstanding, nothing worth driving and $100 for, other than a day in the country. That hundred bucks would have made the difference in a number of ebay purchases, so again I'm thinkin' why bother?

Then there's the attitude. Since many dealers were running around trying to shop at the other dealers, they didn't get their own set-ups open for the early admission shoppers. If you asked them when they were going to be open, the response was mañana, they'll be ready for Sunday's opening.

So why am I paying early admission?

A little background here. When we first started doing this about thirty years ago, there was no real early admission. A few collectors caught on to the notion that they could rent a space at a show, not bother putting anything in it, and then spend the whole time shopping before the general admission gates opened. Four people in one car could split the cost. It might even work out to be cheaper than general admission.

The show managers twigged to this and started selling early admission tickets for about the same price as a booth rental. This appealed to both collectors who were willing to pay the premium to get first pick, and to promoters willing to take in the extra money without booking potential no-shows: a lot of empty dealer spaces on the field look bad for everybody.

Dealers gained by having motivated shoppers in right off the top, but lost the early picking edge for themselves. It's always been a delicate balance this buying/selling thing: most dealers start as collectors.

Nobody at age six said: I wanna be a dealer when I grow up. Okay, maybe the Keno Brothers did. But somewhere along the line the little cartoon light bulb went off over her head and the collector said: hey, I've got two of these apple peelers, I'll sell the yucky one at twice what I paid for it and that'll pay for the good one I'm keeping.

Thus is born the dealer.

But where do you serve your customers in all this? Are you keeping the best stuff for yourself? Are you doing all this running around for them or for you?

Again, I'm thinkin' why pay early admission if a third of the dealers aren't there to sell?

As for the stuff that was there, not great. Many dealers though seem to be living in the mid 1990s when pricing was top dollar. Let's just say that the pricing on the field was, at best, optimistic. Maybe they are getting that kind of money for the merch, I don't know, but a couple of American shoppers visitors were overheard on a cell phone telling friends not to bother coming: too high prices, too low value.

I know I didn't buy anything except a hamburger, and not a particularly good burger at that.

But the sun was out and it was a lovely day in the country.

Welcome To The Monkey House

There's just something about a small town all coming together in the late summer, other than for a lynching, I mean.

Every year at this time we take a trip through what is amusingly referred to as "the country" by us city folk. We make our destination the Annual Odessa Antique Show. It's normally a two hour highway drive from the city but we leave Toronto six hours early so that we can hit all the small town yard sales especially the annual town sale at Cramagh.


It's not that there are any great treasures to be found here. Now that everyone's a dealer, those finds are few and far between; but you can find some useful second-hand stuff, which you can later sell at your own yard sale after you discover that it's not really as useful as you'd hoped it might be.

It's just seems reassuring somehow to see townsfolk join in a greater community effort and it pays homage to the city held belief that small communities are the heart of this country; all coming together to help Jimmy Stewart in his hour of need.

I pause to wipe the tear from my cheek.

As I said, it's a common myth; country folk are just as human and miserable as the rest of us, but with better air and more grass to cut.





Aside from the large town sale in the park, there are many many others all along the highway: the legion hall; the library selling its discards; the big sale at the funeral home...hmm; the guy that lives in a church who has to move (the guy, not the church.)

I think that most small towns across North America have this kind of sale at this time of year, along with the Firehall BBQs, and Fall Fairs and all manner of harvest festivals.

I enjoy going, eating local foods, like Maple Leaf brand hot dogs and Maple Leaf brand bacon-on-a-bun and funnel cakes and Nanaimo bars.

I think a lot of city people go, some to dream of retiring to a small close knit community, others to remind themselves why they escaped rural life in the first place and that they're absolutely city folk.

I'm not sure what brings us, what draws us to these green acres and the life bucolic, but here we are just the same; on the outside looking in.

My best find was not something that's not terribly valuable, but there's a very important Fall Harvest Festival just around the corner. I'm sure I'll find a use for it.

Welcome to the monkey house.

Mock Turtle

And speaking of rummage sales...

There's a news story out of Elmira New York:

It seems that Anita Lewis had a large rummage sale and some of the items were mostly the turtle collection of her husband's previous (late) wife.

Well, one of the turtles held the late wife's ashes.

Oops.

A woman comes along and buys a large ceramic turtle from Lewis; what a lovely cookie jar this'll make, she thinks to herself, and pays the fifty cents.

Hubby Lewis wakes up, sees what's happened and all turtle-hell breaks loose.

They contact the local newspaper, the Star-Gazette of Elmira who then receives an anonymous tip and all's well that ends well at the Salvation Army Thrift Shop in the town of Horseheads, N.Y.

I can imagine the conversation that led up to that anonymous call:

Honeybunny, look what I bought at the rummage sale for fifty cents; ewww there's ashes in it! The lady said it came from a smoke free home, now I can't put it on ebay.

I don't think those are cigarette ashes, pumpkin.

Huh? OMG what do I do now?

Get rid of it.

But, I paid fifty cents for it.

Well lemme put the ol' thinking cap on. Okay, here's what we do. Donate it to the Sally Ann, take the tax write off, and call the paper anonymously to let them know where it is.

Are you sure?

Actually the seal was never broken so they didn't know what was inside, they just heard what happened and left a voice mail with the reporter.

You can get the whole story, with pix, straight from the turtle's mouth at Star-Gazette of Elmira.

I know Elmira, it's a lovely little town and we haven't been there in a while so maybe, we should take little trip. Who knows what might be found; gotta love those rummage sales.

Slowly, I Turned

It's Saturday, so naturally we were out a-sale-ing. It's also a holiday weekend with not a whole lot going on, so...slim pickings.

But one of the things we did find was a little Niagara Falls souvenir ashtray. Okay, but not great. But there are plenty of NF collectors around. Tourists have been gawking at the Falls since forever; and dealers have been hawking the Falls for just as long.

When PZ and I got married in 1969 we couldn't make it to Woodstock, so naturally we did the next best thing: we waited 'til the middle of November and went to Niagara Falls. It was beautiful; the ho'frost was all frozen in the trees looking very winter wonderland and all, and oh yeah, the Falls was shut off. Did I mention that?

I know you saw that 1950s film about the kid who accidentally shuts off the Falls, (SPOILER: IT WAS A DREAM!) but this is the emmis.

To retard erosion, the US Corps of Engineers stopped the flow over American Falls for a little behind the scenes work and they remained dry until November 25, 1969.

Kew-el.

(But this happens to us a lot: we go places, oh let's say... the Trevi Fountain, and... closed for maintenance.) Okay, back the blog...

Anyway, this ashtray is pretty early, late 19th century, I'm thinkin'.

How do I know?

Sorry, how do I think I know. I get asked this a lot during my lectures, so here's THE PROCESS:

Look at it.

What do we see?

If we look closely we can see that the image is transferware: this is a process out of mid 19th century England. A copper plate is engraved with the scene then used to print said scene on a piece of tissue which transfers the wet ink to your piece of china. Pop 'er into the kiln and you're done.

Okay so now we know it's no earlier than mid 19th century.

Next we look at the illustration again and in the corner, I spy with my little eye, a little boat.

And, Indiana Jones like, I make a leap of faith and guess that it's the Maid of the Mist which has, in all its various incarnations, been getting tourists all wet down there since as early as 1846, but due to money troubles and the War of Northern Aggression, really did not get going until around 1893.

And that's when tourism is really getting off the ground, and into the water, so to speak. What a coincidence.

Next, flip the thing over.
What do we see?
A whole lot of nothing; at least no trade or maker's marks or country of origin. Why is this important?

Because in 1890-'91 the McKinley Tariff Act required goods coming into the US to be marked with their country of origin.

(On Sept. 5, 1901, President McKinley addressed the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, N.Y., advocating commercial reciprocity among nations. The next day he was shot down by an anarchist and died. This is in Buffalo, just steps from Niagara Falls....Coincidence, I think not.)


Okay but what if it was made in USA? would it still need a mark? Nope.

So what do we know?

We know, maybe, it's pre 1891. Maybe not.

But probably somewhere in the 1890s. Maybe.

That's a whole lotta maybe's. Nothin' for sure, just a lot of educated guessing. And that's the process, kids, that's how we do it.

Do not look behind the screen.

Oh, as for today's blog title, there was once an old vaudeville routine which involved the trigger phrase "NIAGARA FALLS."



Niagara Falls? Slowly I turned...

Hannibal and Honey

After watching Hannibal about sixty two times -- I didn't like it at first, but it's, ahh, grown on me, and really liking Mason Verger's little pied à terre, we decided to take a small detour off the interstate and head for Asheville NC and the film's location site: the Biltmore Estate. And I don't know why, but watching Hannibal always makes me hungry. Curious.

But the house! It's big. Really, really, BIG! Picture the biggest house you would build if you won the $500,000,000 Powerball lottery. Okay, got that image in your mind? It's bigger!

I'd be happy with the driver's apartment over the garage.

And still in Vanderbilt Family private hands. In fact, I believe it's the largest house still in private hands in America. There's a hefty admission price (from about $30-60 depending on day & season), even with my senior's discount. I love America: in Canada, I have to wait years before claiming any sort of senior's discount; In America, I just flash that AARP card (which you can get at fifty) and away we go. But it is magnificent.

And there's a shuttle bus that takes you from the various parking lots up to the house. I love saying that: there's a shuttle bus that takes you up to the house.

Anyway, after the tour, we drove into Asheville for breakfast.

Now, I'd read Holley Bishop's book Robbing the Bees about the art of well, robbing the bees. A biography of honey, she says. This book was right up my alley, and believe you me, it's a very tight alley (I have issues). I love social histories. I've read the various histories of Cod, Salt and Sushi. What fun. Much of Bishop's research was spent at the Smiley Apiaries in Northern Florida and they have a specialty: Tupelo Honey.

Smiley's is also the setting for Peter Fonda's film Ulee's Gold. He got an Oscar® nod for that one and Van Morrison sings "Tupelo Honey" over the closing credits.

But Smiley's in the Florida panhandle is just a wee bit out of our way, but right here, in downtown Asheville, is our destination: (insert fanfare here)The Tupelo Honey Cafe, where they serve (and sell) Smiley's Tupelo Honey.

Go figure. What a coincidence.

So we had brunch: Petunia's Pain Perdu, a chalah french toast with almonds and edible flowers; and the sweet potato pancakes.

In France (and Asheville) they don't call it French toast, they call it a Burger Royale pain perdu.

And naturally we drizzled Tupelo honey over everything.

And so I bought a case of the stuff.

Not just for us you understand, but we have poor, sickly, needy friends who are diabetic and are forbidden honey; but now some doctors for some patients will allow them to have Tupelo Honey because of its low sucrose levels.

What lucky friends!

It also doesn't solidify, so you never have to do the whole double boiler thing. And oh joy of joys, you can order this stuff by mail from Smiley's or try Amazon.com for another brand: Savannah Bee Company's Tupelo Honey.

But that was all a while ago, and now we're down to the last half bottle. Hmm...

Road trip!

Honk If You Love Cheeses

Ya, so it's a bumper sticker title, so what.

I was never much of a cheese eater until I had kidney stones and strangely enough my urologist said "more dairy".

I'm also not much of a Canadian, more of a fair weather Canadian, so as soon as the weather turns "brisk" I pack up my troubles in my old kit bag and head south, specifically, Miami Beach. And in beautiful scenic downtown South Beach I found Epicure. It just called out my name as I walked by.

Oh yum.

And in Epicure, a swell shop with groceries and prepared foods (insert a to die for here), a cheese sample lady forced a slice on me and hey...not bad.

What I tasted was perla grigia al tartufo.

I found this description on the net: "Made just outside of Venice, this cow's milk cheese is aged for just one month. This young, fresh tasting cheese contains flakes of the prized black truffle. After being carefully washed, Sottocenere is rubbed with extra virgin olive oil infused with natural truffle flavor. Sottocenere literally means "under ash," so this semi-soft cheese is covered in ash to preserve the flavors."

Oh yum.


When I returned to Toronto I couldn't find it at any of my trusted locals, those being: Global Cheese in Kensington Market; the Cheese Boutique in the High Park area; or Whole Paycheck, (I mean Whole Foods) in uber trendy Yorkville. But the fine folks at said Cheese Boutique let me taste a generous sliver of sheep's milk Boschetto (which is Italian for looks just so precious in a little basket).

Oh yum again.

Both the Perla Grigia and the Boschetto can be ordered from Amazon.com. And they get delivered right to your door and everything...

And while I was there, at Whole Paycheck, I sampled a Canadian from Bothwell Dairy (in New Bothwell, just outside of Winterpeg, Manitoba) and hey, guess what...

Double oh yum.

Now, it's lunch and I'm peckish (I love that word: peckish, peckish, peckish -- I think I went to chayder with Joey Peckish, now doing 14 months for insider trading) and I'm wondering what a grilled cheese sammy made with this truffle cheese instead of Kraft Singles would taste like.

Nah, why screw around with perfection.

What's There Is Cherce

"Not much meat on her, but what's there is cherce" That was Spencer Tracy speaking of Katherine Hepburn in Pat and Mike (1952). He was speaking of quality, back in the day when it was not only acceptable to think of your honey-bunny as choice meat, but it was also a compliment.

It may still be.

Everything is a matter of choice, and sometimes the choices are tough. Yesterday when I spoke of the casting choices that are made during the process of hiring talent for a project, I was reminded of something writer slash producer Jim Henshaw said in his excellent, thoughtful and thought provoking blog (Legion of Decency) on the casting choices directors and producers must make. Sometimes it's not always the best actor for the job, that gets the job.

Old Joke: how many actors does it take to change a light bulb? Ten. One to change the bulb, and the other nine to stand around saying "I could have done that. Better!"

At a certain level in the profession, once a casting director has brought us in to audition, we're all pretty much capable of doing the job, of remembering our lines and not bumping into the furniture. Sometimes the reasons for not hiring are pretty mundane: he's taller than the star; we already have a bald guy with a mustache; her coloring's too close to the star; we worked with her once in 1977 and she's difficult. And the reasons for getting the job, much the same: they make a nice couple; she made me laugh during the audition, she'll brighten the mood on set. I was listening to director John McTiernan's comments on the The Thomas Crowne Affair DVD and he states that he hired one actor because: "I liked his eyes".

In the collecting world it's also about choice. Why do we collect what we do?

Once a year or so, I give a talk at the Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD) in my friend anthropologist Lynne Milgram's class on Material Culture. It's an informal kind of talk and one of the topics o' the day is consumer choices. And semiotics. Why do we choose the objects and clothing we choose and what message are we conveying by our choices.

Collecting to me implies a goal, as in: "I'm trying to collect all of the Rolling Stones memoribilia including the 1969 commercial they did for Rice Krispies.It's very hard to find."

It also assumes either scholarship or other arcane knowledge: "If you're buying the Oscar Goldman figure make sure that his exploding briefcase isn't missing. It's the first thing that gets lost."

As I said, scholarship.






I don't see myself as a collector, I'm more of an accumulator. I see things as sculptural, their appeal visual as well as historic.

Poet Irving Layton once told me that poetry is words talking to one another. I pretty much think of antiques and art on a shelf as visual poetry, juxtaposed and just sittin' around talkin' to one another (and sometimes arguing bitterly).

It's all cherce.