It's been a few weeks since I last posted about a market outing, so I'm catching up. On the 15th of last month, I headed up to Cedarburg to Maxwell Street Days, which is put on by the Cedarburg Fire Department 4 times a year. Nice setting and a good variety of vendors from the antique and secondhand junk merchants to the more flea market-y bins of socks and gadgets folks. There's also a few beer booths onsite...did I mention that? If I didn't, you'll not forget it anyway, since the loudspeaker announces their presence repeatedly. Very repeatedly. It's 10 a.m., do you know where you can get a pint?
On to the market!
Collect and discard to assemble the best xenophobic rant! The "Bronx Cheer" cards are wild and can be used to add any epithet to your hand! Fun for the whole family!
Vintage Baume Bengue mentholated rub (pre-cursor of Ben-Gay) and a bottle of Atropine Sulphate
When mashed peas were sweet-sweet respite from the other horrors of dinnertime.
Bourbonzilla! (Hard to tell scale in the photo, but this thing was almost 3 feet tall)
In the days before every cover promised "50 Awkward Ways of Pleasing Your Man (For The Desperate and Lonely Girl With Poor Self Image)"
What a perfectly gloomy stroller for your little monster.
Wow. That's somewhat ominous and unsettling. If you're curious as to what exactly is going on in the scene depicted on the cover (Fraternity hazing? Satanic ritual? Amway sales recruitment?), the book is available in electronic format for free.
Kind of epically want this for work-in-progress storage
More awesome patent medicine. GOMOZO!
A model plaster crypt from a mortuary showroom
Relax...just a sign for sale at one of the booths. Keep on swilling that plastic tumbler of Milwaukee's nectar and standing in the hot sun. It'll just add to the flea market experience.
...but don't drink this. It looks a bit past prime (though it was reportedly a big hit with the Empress of Germany circa 1902)
An early motorized exercycle (with a vibrating belt slimmer in the backdrop)
Speaking of weight loss myths, I remember the New Era potato chip brand from growing up in Detroit. I believe they were still trying to push the "healthy snack" angle up into the 1970s.
She's not sleeping.
Is that a euphemism?
I really should have bought this (Not a reprint, see the embossing at the bottom)
Another item that I would love to have in my studio (you know...if I had a real studio). It's a good height and size for a worktable.
I know that these are supposed to be country primitive lawn ornaments, but I see something far less sweetly kitschy when I look at these two. I see a lonely-lonely soul who has painted faces on his tools...his only friends. Sometimes...very late at night sometimes...they even talk to him. Mr. Digs and Shovely are bored. They want to dig holes. Deep holes. Holes to put things in. Pretty stranded travelers on lonely country roads are things...
Nope. These are not lawn ornaments. They are sentries, just waiting for a task. (Wisconsin: Beer, Cheese, and Ed Gein.)
An early incarnation of Mr. Microphone.
I swear this is the way that I found these two pieces displayed. The following week, I saw the same vendor at a different market and...yep...sleepy doll head in a mossy boot.
Alas, I lack a turntable.
Racist? Check! Sexist? Check! Ageist? But of course! Bonus points for the first depiction being of a "15 year" old. Classy!
And last...but certainly not least...I present Walter White Decaying Zombie Rooster! (which I think is a much better interpretation of this statuary than the reality)
In case you were wondering what actually DID come home with me from the market, here are a bunch of the little bits and bobs (art supplies).
That Archie Bunker card game strikes me as a protoype for Cards Against Humanity, decades prior. I wouldn't have been able to resist buying it!
ReplyDeleteThese are all hilarious and I might have to port them to Pinterest to share.