Modern Woman Monday: More Vintage Cookbooks

Serving Up Vintage Recipes: Collecting Cook Books, by Val Ubell.

Modern Woman Monday: 1000 Ways To Make Yourself Beautiful

This book jacket proclaiming, "A Thousand Ways to Make Yourself Beautiful!" is from the 1940 Hollywood Glamour Cook Book, by Mariposa.

This book will disclose to you the Beauty Secrets of the Movie Stars. You, too, can be "most divinely fair," as irresistible as your favorite Glamour Queen. Imagine the thrill of hearing someone say about you, "Isn't she Glamorous, isn't she lovely!"

You can find out more about my obsession with Mariposa in my article at Collectors' Quest. (And I welcome any knowledge you have about her!)

What Sci-Fi Folks Were Up To In 1959

From SaFari, issue #2, a sci-fi fanzine by Earl Kemp, part of a series of fanzines Kemp published for the Spectator Amateur Press Society, or SAPS (SAPS # 48). Follow the links and you'll see the accompanying photos.



Included are Harlan Ellison, Wilson Tucker and Robert Bloch.

Bedtime with Blackout and Jocko

I go to sleep.
Blackout and Jocko go to sleep with me.

If you removed just a few words, it would tell a very different story.

From a vintage children's book; via Flickr.

"You're not beautiful, you're not bright, but you're as much wife as a man could want."

From the back cover of Claudia, by Rose Franken; cover painting by Bob Abbett. Via Flickr.



Interesting note: No matter what this book suggests, Pyramid Books did not get their name from piles of poo (as in 'the puppy left a pyramid in the corner').

I Spend My Saturday Nights Reading Old Magazines

Yes, I do read the old magazines, not just mock the pictures. It's a grand way to relax after a frantic day at the auctions.

Lurking within the pages of the November 1957 issue of Good Housekeeping was this snippet on Foible Spotters:


Reading it -- and then again, out loud, to hubby -- I couldn't stop giggling; especially at this:

Two foible spotters extraordinary (they spot their own as well as other people's) have new books out this fall that deserve your attention. Sylvia Wright's Get Away from Me with Those Christmas Gifts and Jean Kerr's Please Don't Pick the Daisies...

Now the title of Wright's book had me rolling. It struck me as funny, this fear of Christmas gifts, but also it was odd as I'd never previously heard of Wright's books yet Kerr's book can literally be purchased by the pound (and for a dime, at that).

When curious, turn to the Internets.

A quick search and I discovered that Wright's book is a collection of essays, including the titular work which appeared in Harper's, December, 1952. From this work Wright is heralded by some as the 'foible spotter' to credit with the anti-commercialization of Christmas.

Only they don't say it so nicely.

Like Stephen Bayley who wrote that Wright was also:

a connoisseur of Yuletide horror. Her splendid 1957 collection of essays, Get away from me with those Christmas gifts!, has an urgent title which nicely captures the damaging psychoses stimulated in the pious and puritanical during this time of brainless excess and bogus ritualised jollity. What can be more depressing than an electric pepper mill? Christmas gifts are, by definition, things we do not need.

Sheesh. I'll get back to that another time -- and no, I'm not avoiding it because as Bayley would accuse, I'm suffering from a "clear correlation between a taste for decoration and poor education." I'm just not in the mood to get side-tracked at the moment.

Back to Wright.

Also in her book, Wright apparently coined the term Mondegreen, which is basically the explanation behind why some folks sing Scuse me, while I kiss this guy while listening to Hendrix. (Though this is one of the more noted examples of such misheard phrases or mondegreens, there is evidence to support your friend's claim that he's singing what Jimi did.)

And I would have known none of this if I didn't waste spend my Saturday nights reading old magazines.

Beware The Reader

Bookplate Junkie shows us how the educated, intelligent reader handles the problem of a bad moving company:

Flashback: Thirteen Retro Teen Girly Things

Thirteen Retro Girly Things If you were a teen-age girl in the late 60's or early 70's you likely recognize these beauties... Prissy the plush orange piggy bank was more than a piggy bank, he was a dust magnet. Dudley Donkey sat on your bed -- tucked inside were your pajamas. He may have been a little juvenile in your teen years, but keeping him on your bed made your parents still think you were a little kid and so trusted you to have boys in your room. (When boys were in your room, Dudley was quickly tossed under the bed.) When you weren't sobbing into your donkey pj holder that your boobs still hadn't come in, you consoled yourself crafting positive self-image dolls, like Uncommonly Easy Skinny Minnie. OK, so her real name is "Skinny Minnie" and the directions were "uncommonly easy", but your eyes were still filled with tears and you read it wrong, thus leading you into a confusing period of sexual promiscuity once your breasts did bud. Ha Ha, grandma made you this crochet tic-tac-toe top! Before the rick-rack shortage of '78 (also know as solid-hem Wednesday), you made snakes and dolls using nothing more than needle, thread, rick-rack, felt, and your imagination. Actually, little imagination was involved; there were patterns. Sleepy Sally held your curlers. And scared your little brother. (A good place to keep your diary, no?) Mod Maud was another curler holder, purchased to replace Sleepy Sally who was destroyed in that lighter fight with your brother that first night mom and dad left you in charge while they went to couples bowling. (Can't they trust you for a few hours? They almost had to drop out of the league because of you!) Knot Freddie The Hung up Owl "added to your hangups", consequently you hated that your mother made him. (In her defense, Knot Freddie was therapy recommended by her counselor as mom got off the anti-depressants, let her arm-pit hair grow, and adjusted to dad's new pants-wearing secretary.) A Logan's Run paperback -- because that Michael York's sooooo dreamy! Kookie Komber was another pj bag. He was given to you by your BFF, Lisa, who thought Kookie looked like a pubic hair patch while you were out shopping at Spencer's Gifts. More than an inside joke, Kookie also held your reefer. (Making Kookie, what? An inside toke?) Greta the autograph cat was a gift from Grandma. You screamed, "I love it!" when you opened the gift because anything other than a tic-tac-toe top was an improvement. A copy of Gods, Demons and Space Chariots by Eric Norman. The man wasn't gonna keep the truth from you! BFF Jill's mom was cool enough to order the Secret of the Sea beauty boutique by Dorothy Gray for you (a whopping $6, then a membership, but Jill's mom did use a lot of makeup anyway). Plus the DG eau de toilet spray covered-up the pot smell... Was mom getting suspicious, or was the pot making you paranoid? Ooooh, who's got a groovy auntie who crochets hot-pants? At first you thought you were cool because your mom actually let you wear them (the therapy was working, even if you had owls all over the house). But the joke was on you because you had knots where knots should never, ever be.

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Susy (Is) Wong

From a 1962 Today's Woman Christmas Ideas magazine (page 142) comes this Susy Wong Doll pattern:



'Cuz nothin' says, "Merry Christmas, female children!" like your very own handmade brothel doll.

The World of Suzie Wong, by Richard Mason, was published in 1957 and the Paramount film (starring William Holden & Nancy Kwan) was released in 1960. (My copy of the book, shown here, is a 1960 paperback printing whoring the movie.)


Hard to even imagine that Fawcett Publications could be ignorant to the connection...

Going from Suzie to Susy won't make a Wong right.

Happiness Is A Mean Charles Schultz Mash-Up

Ever since I wrote about my dislike of Peanuts, I've been thinking of -- and searching for -- Happiness Is A Warm Puppy.

My sister had this book when we were young girls. At one point, likely during a family car trip when we were suffering from some sibling-induced variant of road-rage, a page was ripped. Not out of the book, but clean in half -- horizontally, so that the page remained securely bound. Soon we discovered that with the way the book was designed, we could do this with all the pages, therefore mix & matching characters' bodies -- and the text on the pages. It was like a very primitive mash-up.

That was the one true joy Charles Schultz brought me.

Like Schultz said, "Happiness is one thing to one person and another thing to another person."


I've had no luck finding the book, and given my uncanny ability to visualize the last place I've seen something, I fear it was pitched long ago.

But right now, I'm craving that book.

Perhaps I'll need to buy a copy, tear the pages, and present it to my sister at one of the many family holiday gatherings. We'll share a memory. And more than one giggle.