Art Deco/Modern Posters

Above are the three posters I bought today. I'll add to my collection as the years go by. The German Federal Railway poster is from the 1940s, the Vacuum Tube poster is from circa 1930, and the John Bull Poster is Circa 1950. I don't know how I'll arrange them once I get them de and re mounted and framed. Am I nuts to have spent $1,500.00 on them? Yes. Nevertheless, they're art, and I like them, and two of them were my graduation present from Law School from my parents, and one of them is a present for me because I deserve it.

As Lauren said, they match my personality. I think When I hang them, I'll have all my cartoony Characters facing in to my Steel and Machine-Age poster.

Anyone want to contribute to my Framing Fund? This ain't gonna be cheap...

Idiots.

I read about the Deco Festival in the Herald today, and I was struck by this dumb comment:

"Others came for the architecture, including Sara Fish, who was visiting the festival for the first time from Palm Beach.

''I'm disappointed that the buildings are solid colors, white and beige,'' said Gloria Golden, Fish's cousin from New York. ''The buildings aren't original, really sticking with the Art Deco style and colors,'' she said, pointing at the Deco Walk Hotel in front of her. ``It's strange because its supposed to be original.''

Note to Ms. Golden:

The pastel color palette which you're so disappointed is fading from Miami Beach, is not original to the Deco Movement. The Deco hotels would have been mostly white or off-white in their time, as White and Off-White would have reflected our hot, hot tropical sun, during an era when there was no such thing as air conditioning. So, in essence, it is original, and you're wrong. Wrong and dumb. Maybe if we didn't complain so much...?

The palette of which you speak was introduced in the 1980s to bring out the lines of the buildings that people weren't used to looking at. The colors aren't so much original as they're accents from the 80s and early 90s, and they were heavily photographed and used as propaganda to lure people down here, and make them forget that our city was the city of coke smuggling and tourist carjacking and murders. Sorry that the hotels are moving away from the Disney Pastels used to lure tourists down here in the early days of Modern Miami Beach, but they're going back to how they originally were, now that Miami Beach has reinvented itself...again.

And what buildings weren't original? The Cavalier is original. The Breakwater is being refurbished. The Kenmore is original, Pelican, Betsy Ross, Winterhaven, Astor, Ritz Plaza, Congress, Colony, Davis... Shall I go on?

I can't wait till I move to the beach. I'm going to join the Architectual society and become a tourguide! I'd be awesome at that... and because I'm a know-it-all smartypants, I'll be able to answer people's questions!

Deco Weekend, Posters and Rupert Everett.

This weekend was Art Deco Weekend in Miami Beach. On Saturday, Farah and I took the Art Deco tour, which was pretty good, despite my basically knowing everything the Tour guides said.

Still, it's nice to look at your city and its neighborhoods (South Beach) thorugh someone else's eyes, and then, all the Deco that you march past every day and take for granted (at least when you have a boyfriend on South Beach and are always there...) really pops out at you, and you understand what a magical place Miami can be.

Today, Lauren and I took the "Underworld" tour of the beach.

We were underwhelmed is what we were.

The tourguide was battling such a massive hangover we split off from the tour, because he found it impossible to form coherent sentences because of his painful case of the Hangover Stupids. Lauren pointed out that from the back of the Tour Group, I was giving my own tour of the areas through which we were walking, that some of the people in the group found to be more informative and entertaining than poor hungover Matt who had a difficult time remembering Al Capone's name half the time. We tried to stick with the tour as long as we could, but we were growing antsy, and a crazy guy had glommed onto Lauren and Me, the Vocal Locals, and was drilling us with stupid questions. Lauren said she realized I was skeeved out by the guy when he mentioned he was from Wasau Wisconsin, and I said nothing about having gone to UW. Lauren really wanted to go to the Dynamo Giftshop at the Wolfsonian, but I wouldn't let us split off from the tour unless we had a really good reason... Which, thankfully, was sent by God, shortly thereafter.

The impetus for us abandoning the tour, was that Rupert Everett biked by, and we wanted to chase/casually stalk him. You know Rupert Everett - tall british Homo that's in all those chick flicks like my Best Friend's Wedding, blah blah blah. Very pretty on screen. Awkwardly proportioned off... VERY LONG ARMS and LOONG torso. Lauren said she thought he looked like a monkey. I thought he looked like a mid-stage HIV patient.

Well, Rupert looked like he'd had a ROUGH weekend. If I didn't know it was him from the Tourguide, I'd think he was just another cracked out Washington Ave. Bum. He parked his bike in front of Crunch, and presumably was going inside, wearing a wifebeater, and black parachute cargos. Salt and Pepper beardstubble and a Sunday-Morning face... We ambled past him, gawking at him through out sunglasses, but trying not to act starstruck. That said, it was the most underwhelming Celebrity sighting I've had, confirming that Celebrities, do, indeed, get massive cocaine hangovers also.

Along those same lines, Lauren pointed out the Irony that normally on Sundays, we're the ones hungover, eating at Jerry's Deli, and the one time we're fresh-faced and chipper on a Sunday, our tourguide is so shaky and nauseous that he can't even do his job. Of course, this affirms that this city is run on liquor and powder, and and any attempt to get away from spending late nights drinking until your liver's as engorged as Foie gras, will result in you noticing that no one else in this city is functional on a Sunday... when everyone has liquor fog going on, it's not quite so noticeable.

And then, you know, I spent $1,500.00 on Art Deco Posters.

Oops.

I'll post pictures of them.

Nevertheless, a GOOD WEEKEND! I like 2007, and I love "The Season." I'm having a great time keeping busy and not dwelling on the fact that I'm going to die alone!

Oh, and I've also lost 7 pounds! Hooray!