I must be a really weird shopper. Here's what I picked up on my rounds today:
- A 1957 edition of Willy Ley's "Rockets, Missiles & Space Travel"
- A 1973 Random House Book Club first edition of Buzz Aldrin's "Return To Earth"
- "Complete Guitar Course: The Definitive, Full-Color Picture Guide To Playing Guitar"
- Two used tuxedo shirts
- A 1963 King-Seeley Thermos Brand "Orbit" lunchbox (I've had this on layaway for several months; I bought the matching thermos bottle on E-Bay a couple of months ago).
From Our "You Know The Times Have Really Changed When..." Dept.:
This morning, as I was doing a bit of pre-work grocery shopping at the Wallingford QFC, a very familiar song came over the speakers: The Ramones' 1976 punk anthem "Blitzkrieg Bop". And it wasn't some mixed down Muzak version either, but the actual song, playing at about two-thirds volume over the loudspeakers in a mainstream urban neighborhood grocery store at 8:30 a.m. on a Tuesday morning.
I smiled at first, because it just seemed like such an odd, goofy choice for shopping music, and for a moment I wondered if some store employee had put it on as a joke, it being April 1st and all. But, looking around, nobody else seemed to particularly notice. Well, except for one of the guys stocking in the produce section, whom I overheard asking one of his buddies, "Is this ZZ Top?"
Ouch!
Later however, I came to a rather sobering realization: my generation has now apparently officially supplanted my parent's as "the middle-aged people whose Favorite Music Of Their Youth now gets played in grocery stores". I was even more taken aback by the realization that "Blitzkrieg Bop" is more than 30 years old, and that in fact I know and regularly work with people who weren't even born when the song first came out.
So, I guess I should expect to regularly hear other music from my formative years being pumped under-volume through shopping malls and retail stores for the next decade or two. Yeah, shopping to The Sex Pistols or Romeo Void or The Stranglers (or to go to the other generational musical extreme: Donna Summer, Sister Sledge, and The Village People), knowing the marketers are specifically targeting Yours Truly is going to make the experience soooooo much more pleasant from here on out.
Although, on the other hand, Talking Heads as shopping music does sort of seem like a natural, no matter what age you are.
*Sigh!* I just hope they don't add any sappy violins...
Everything Will Always Be Alright When We Go Shopping
After helping strike "Blind Spot" last night, I cut out early from the aprez closing party, because I had to be back at the theatre bright and early to facilitate the moving of a large platform we're loaning to a neighboring company.
Unfortunately, I woke up about two hours before I needed to, and despite an hours worth of tossing and turning couldn't fall back asleep, so got a very early start to the day.
After the platform transfer was completed, I headed up to Fremont for some breakfast and a visit to the Fremont Sunday Market, a combination of urban farmers' market, flea market, craft fare, and art walk all rolled into one.
While I was wandering around, I ran into a local filmmaker acquaintance who was sitting behind a table upon which were approximately 50 old-fashioned seltzer bottles; so old-fashioned they didn't even have the contemporary Nitrous injector nozzle. He explained he'd recently "cornered the market on all the seltzer bottles in Texas" (which didn't seem like an exaggeration), and was selling them off for $15 or $20 apiece. "I've got a guy who's fixing me up with a bottle charger", he explained, "and I'm hoping to eventually be able to start a seltzer-delivery service! If that doesn't work out, well, I'm going to have one heck of a cool kitchen appliance!"
Now, anyone who knows Web, or has seen any of his work, knows he has a fascination with mechanical objects, and a decidedly steampunk aesthetic (this is, after all, a guy who created his own army of civic-minded rocketmen), so it really doesn't surprise me in the least that he'd want to own his own water carbonizing machine.
After the market, I think I hit just about every thrift store in town; not really looking for anything in particular, just checking things out, which is an activity I like to indulge in every once in awhile. I did pick up a couple of things, and strangely most of today's purchases fell into the jewelry category; strange, because I usually don't much go in much for that kind of thing. I've always worn a watch of some sort - nothing special there - and of course, my comedy & tragedy mask ear piercing has been pretty much a permanent fixture for about nine years now (although the ear itself has had a hole in it for roughly 20), and the past couple of years I've sported a silver "Celtic braid" ring, replacing a gold signet ring I lost at a theatre retreat about five years ago. And that's it. I have some tie clips and bars, a few sets of cuff links which see occasional use, and a bracelet or two which I never wear; the sparkly-sparkly has just never really been my "thing". But today, I ended up purchasing a silver comedy-tragedy money clip, as well as a set of silver cuff links with matching tie bar in the same motif (what can I say, it's a theatre theme, how could I resist?) But, then I topped even these with the purchase of a Titanium ring - yeah, kind of like the one Bruce Willis (excuse me, Ed Harris - what WAS I thinking?) wore in "The Abyss".
I mean, I'm not expecting to get my hand stuck in a malfunctioning pressure-door any time soon, so I can only chalk it up to a whim - and maybe a bit of latent post-Valentine's Day doldrums? - because it definitely doesn't fit into my normal shopping pattern.
The area rug I bought for my kitchen, and the replacement lights for The Theatre's "Exit" signs - that was more like normal shopping...
