Fawlty Stories

I was really anticipating reading the now in paperback version of the autobiography of splendid comedian John Cleese entitled So, Anyway.

Cleese you may remember is part of some comedy that is firmly in the fabric of  the life of baby boomers worldwide--Fawlty Towers, Monty Python and A Fish Called Wanda to name a few iconic favorites.  I still howl with laughter thinking about sketches and scenes from these shows and films.

As can be the case however,  the personal stories and "real life" of a comedy star or personality may not measure up in interest to their body of work on the big and small screen.  I think it was Rita Heyworth who said, "Every man went to bed with Gilda and woke up with me."  So, Anyway did not deliver.

If the reader is expecting a book full of great stories surrounding the making of these iconic films and television shows, you will be disappointed.  The book reads more like the notes of a lifetime of psychiatric visits of a man trying to get to the bottom of why he is who he is and how he could pin blame on people who messed him up.  I really don't mean multiple people--as the focus of his angst is his mother.  A more accurate book title would be "Let's Beat Up on Mummy."  Mummy was emotionally distant.  Mummy was a dimwit.  Mummy made me have fractured relationships with women, etc. etc.  Particularly disturbing  to me was a lengthy story in which he verbally baited his mother and answered her questions with responses he must have thought Oh So  Clever.  These jokes at his mother's expense were made in the company of friends and made her look uneducated and stupid. How nice.

The book is practically at the conclusion before he sort of mentions Fawlty Towers and Monte Python and practically nothing on A Fish Called Wanda.  The only wife he mentions is the fabulous Connie Booth--and nothing about their professional collaboration.  The majority of the book concerns memories of his while still in a pram,  English boy's school stories, and the fits and starts of his work at the BBC under the guidance of David Frost.  The book races along at break neck speed--sort of like a Basil Fawlty comedy routine--and the multiple tangent trains of thought are brought back on point with the phrase,  So Anyway.

If you are interested in Cleese's frenetic writing style and information about his life before the iconic creativity, this one is for you.   If you want to read a book penned by a man in his mid 70s who is still blaming is mother for his troubles--grab yourself a copy.  If you want to see this fabulous comedian in some timeless comedy--you might be better served by viewing some DVD's.
I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

When Messy Is Good

I do believe that sometimes messy is a very good thing.  Especially when it comes to resetting (reorganizing) an antique dealer's selling space.

Dear One and I know that in 2016 we need to make many more frequent trips to our selling space at Odana Antiques in Madison Wisconsin.  Sales have been great--and when that happens--we know we will find the booth in a shambles.  We love shambles.

Shoppers can be careless.  Our booth is large--and we try not to cram it full of inventory--we want our customers to be able to walk around and look at items more closely.  But the nature of that means the both gets very messy.  Messy can signal to  customers that the dealer is not attentive, or that the items left in the disarray are stale or overpriced.

We choose to believe that messy means people like our inventory and shoppers are paying attention and pouring over it.  Thank you customers for the extra work!!

Tired of New Year's Resolutions Yet??

Everyplace you look, read, watch or listen there are stories about new year resolutions of one kind or another.  I just got an email from a blog I read--and in ONE MONTH they will help me get my house in order and clutter free and full of good vibes and it will become an oasis of calm living.  The first assignment?  Vacuum, mop or sweep all floors in your house.  Seriously?  Around the piles of clutter?

Chill out!! Post holiday entertaining and commotion means that the house is not neat, no longer clean and needs some work.  But there is something about this time of year that I get "antsie" to purge and clean.  And after this weekend--the Christmas holidays are over. (Epiphany is January 6 so one COULD stretch the mess out a bit!)

Readers of this blog will remember a couple of years ago I recommended and followed the "get rid of five things a day" plan.  I followed it then--and it has modified to five items a week in this house.  Remember--old magazines do not count--nor do catalogues.  But all other stuff is fair game.  Even small things--hangers? deli plastic containers? No item is too small.

This is where being an antique dealer becomes so practical.  My pile of "must go" has just become a pile a "must sell."  I have listed a couple of items on ebay.  Must sell does not necessarily mean that I  personally must sell it.  I work at Twice Is Nice resale in Wheaton Illinois--and some of my treasure is becoming things THEY must sell.

The decluttering process feels so fabulous!  Don't stress out over it.  Start in one little spot.  A drawer.  A shelf.  A closet if you have more time.  One thing is for sure--you don't start--it won't get done.

Trip Back to the Old Neighborhood

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I wonder if this is just a Chicago area thing.

Melting pot of the world as Chicago is, one of the pots is the area west of the city that provided homes for Bohemian and Slovakian immigrants throughout the 20th century,  a heritage that Dear One claims as his own.  Cicero and Berwyn were enclaves of Czech and Slovak speaking people--and for some it is still called "The Old Neighborhood".

Each December for most of our marriage, we venture back to the old neighborhood for the express purpose of purchasing foods that Czech families like to eat at Christmas time.  Those special foods usually mean meat and bakery.

In the early years of our marriage--there were a couple of bakeries to which we made rounds.  Now there is just one.  Vsecky's on Cermak Road.  I remember when we would arrive and the shop had people spilling out on the street and pushing to take numbers from one of those red machines that always seems to be jammed.  Now you can usually walk right to the counter--but all the bohemian treats are still there-- kolache large and small (fruit filled dough thingies), hoska bread (kind of like panettone) rye bread in rounds the size of hub caps (with caraway seeds of course) and long rolls called rohlik, stuffed with sausage that look odd but are mighty tasty.

Sadly, the meat markets are gone these days.  I will not even try to spell the different types of sausages and sliced meats they used to sell.  They also sold homemade kraut and dumplings and gravy and of course pork roasts the size of a park bench.

But all is not lost.  The trip to the Old Neighborhood would not be complete with a lunch at The Bohemian Crystal of Westmont Illinois.   We arrived early--the place is huge and always jammed.  The menu would make any Czech grandma proud.  Pork, duck, dumplings of all kinds, VATS of gravy. stews. goulash--comfort food on steroids.  Eat lunch and maybe have a nap kind of food.  The owners are from Prague and all the servers are Czech is  Their First Language women. When we left an hour later, they were lined up out the door waiting for seats.  Without exaggeration--100 people waiting--for a Thursday lunch.

The old neighborhood still has its draw--thank heavens.

When Lions Roar

It is always a treat when I come across a book that I can easily recommend--and When Lions Roar by Thomas Maier is just such a book.  It hits on all cylinders-- compelling biography about dysfunctional families, espionage real and imagined,  intimate affairs, troubled marriages, fortunes made and lost, careers with meteoric rise and fall  and solid easy to read history.  This book--in spite of being 600 pages plus--is quite a page turner.

When Lions Roar weaves two iconic historical families together through much of the 20th century--that of Winston Churchill and Joseph Kennedy.  It  was news to me how often these families intersected on so many fronts--politically, financially  and in the bedroom.  In their worlds, Winston and Joseph and several of their respective children, were ruthless in getting what they wanted in business and politics--and the collateral damage for all was difficulty in parenting and understanding their children,  fractured marriages, money troubles,  and for Joseph, serial and flagrant affairs and questionable business dealings.  For Winston, stress and ambition contributed to "the black dog" as he described his lifelong struggle with depression.

Author Maier has a most enjoyable writing style--developing  20th century history without ever bogging down in overly long paragraphs that you have to read several times to make them stick in your head.  Maier pulls no punches in describing each families shortcomings and laudatory as well as reprehensible behaviors.  Members of the Churchill and Kennedy families met and associated with FDR, Charles Lindberg, Marilyn Monroe,  Hitler and others--and Maier's research and footnoting are beyond thorough.

When Lion's Roar is interesting enough to be a good winter's read by the fire-- and is compelling and juicy enough to be a good beach read as well.

"I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review."

No More Dirty Paintings

I realize with the title of this posting--I may get some disappointed readers expecting a different topic.  This is about cleaning oil paintings--of G-rated subject matter.

For years, our bread and butter in the antique selling business has been selling oil paintings.  We comb over auction catalogues and estate sales and we buy oil paintings.  Many of the paintings have years of grime and soot and maybe  even smoke on them.  If they have been varnished then the varnish has turned brown and then grime gets impeded inside it.  Buying a reasonably priced painting at auction can then lead to a large bill to pay someone who has the knack to clean the gook off the painting.  Cleaning a painting  carefully can cost hundreds of dollars.

The local man we used to hire did fine work and was very reasonable.  But he has retired.  So for awhile now--Dear One and I have been limited in the types of paintings we have bought--focusing on already clean ones as we did not have anyone to do the work.  I called a Chicago area conservator for a painting we bought recently and was quoted 500-800 dollars for cleaning  a 16 by 20 painting.  Crazy.  More than crazy.

So what to do?

Clean our own paintings of course.   Why did I not think of this before?  After a little research and also talking to my antique dealer Dad, I have found out how to do it.  I am doing the
Antique Dealer Happy Dance.

The trick is in the solvent.  My Super Secret Find dissolves the grime, but does not harm the oil below.  Light agitation with small paint brush, dabbing up the schmootz with cotton pads--and decades of grime and smoke just wipe up.  There are different kinds of old varnish--and the removing of that takes Another Mystery Goop.  Now it can be a bit painstaking--but I have already cleaned three paintings--two for resale and one for keeps.  We are thrilled!  No painting is off limits now--and we can often "bottom fish" at auctions and find some gems that just need a cleaning.

We will steer clear of any paintings that are damaged--or have crackled painting.  A really thick impasto palette might prove difficult too--to get in the nooks and crannies.

This old antique dog has learned a new trick!

Five Reflections from an Antique Dealer on a Snowy Saturday

Inches and inches and inches of snow have fallen Way Too Soon here in Northern Illinois.  Plans to work on some inventory clean up in the garage have given way to making chilli, digging through the Christmas closet and cleaning the burner drip pans on The Old Girl (1951 stainless steel Chambers stove in our kitchen)

This past week we headed to our shop space at Odana Antiques in Madison WI.  It was a day trip to slot in some fresh inventory following a really good selling period.  A few observations.

1.  Dealers in group shops tend to stuff their booths with waaaayyyy too much inventory.  Tables covered.  Walls covered.  Pathways blocked by too much stuff.  Less is more.  It has taken lots of harping from Dear One and I am finally listening.  Like packing a suitcase for a trip.  Lay everything out on the bed. Then pack half of it.

2.  Victorian Furniture.  Forget it.  No one wants it.  Many of us own it and love it.  But none of us will live long enough to have it come back into fashion.  Hard reality but reality.

3.  Mass produced stuff is selling for a song.  Wait--maybe dealers should be paying the customers to take it away.  Unless it is funky and from the 40s-50s-60s.  Our experience is that an item will sell if it has "the look" even if it is mass produced.  But to define "the look" is quite elusive and hard to explain.

4.  Condition is everything.  Everything.  Amazing to see dealers still trying to sell chipped, cracked and dinged stuff.  NO ONE WANTS IT.

5.  Pop up shops and shows  of one day duration is where it's at.  Following facebook and a few antique websites--the expensive to set up  multiple day shows may work for a few, but it is no longer the most successful venue for selling vintage and antiques. Average age of attenders at static multiple day shows?  Old.

6.  The antiques business is still enjoyable.  We often say "money does not just jump in your lap."  We work hard at it.  We are always refocusing what we are selling.  Part of the thrill is that you never figure it all out.

7.  What do the Paris photos have to do with this post?  Absolutely nothing. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox