One of my son's friends popped in to my studio this afternoon to pick up a mic on loan. Great kid, former tagger now putting his creativity on sneakers, bombin' Nikes and selling them. He told me about a yard sale a few blocks away where he had scored some vinyl to cut up. That's all I need to hear so out the door and down the street I flew. The yard sale was a familiar one, a dealer who every few months unloads stock. That's not usually my type of sale, everything previously perused, fondled and considered. Like produce at a grocery store, shipped, stacked, stickered, never as good as fruit freed from the plant by your two hands. But hell the sun was shining,(finally),it was Friday, and I had a few dollars in my pocket so I couldn't help but look. The box of records was OK, obviously picked over but still a few possibilities stood out. A belly dancing record was kind of cool. I dug it for the cover, which was just kitschy enough to send off to the
Cover Lover website, but I decided to leave it behind, sorry guys, you probably had it in your massive collection anyways. I did pick out a
Jeanne Moreau record to keep, 12 chansons de Cyrus Bassiak, with an original store label;
Raul Vidal disquaire Place St Germain Des Pres (Paris VI). Apparently this record store was a well loved Paris haunt now defunct and only found in the memories of octogenarians and websites who care. The romantic image of this little store tag and its original owner carrying it home, baguette in hand, to play in some Paris garret room 50 years ago was to much to resist. I also couldn't help thinking of the great movie
Rushmore where the student protagonist Max tries wooing the older teacher with some late night chansons francais. Utterly dreamy just need the right mood.
Moving from the vinyl I looked through the rest of the stuff. Most items were more than I wanted to spend. Some old aluminum letters, four to be exact, probably worth the $5 per price tag, but the only word I could come up with was the meditation chant OM. I continued to shop until I came across the five eggheads, obviously vintage Japanese creations, and priced beautifully at $1.00 for the lot. It was instant they were just too kooky to leave behind. I don't know why but I think of them as bizarre club kids, rocking there own fashion, and in search of a DJ. They look playfully ready for a night out and if I had more time they would be fun to use in some kind of stop motion project, a dance party set to some
Major Lazer. A club scene sure to set them to a boil, then as the night winds down chilling out to some Jeanne Moreau. Until then I serve them up uncooked and frozen in time.
