Weight Watchers recipe cards from 1974. (via bluejoh). Boynton has a good friend who is a third generation congregational member of the WW denomination, and thought she might like to see some early choral notes.
This link sent boynton on a happy hour of surfing the vintage link chain. Cate's garage sale finds is a find, "the sad truth is that I'm more drawn to the tacky and weird stuff",and this page on teenage grooming from the 50’s includes some wonderful spectacles.
More spectacle (shaded) writing here – curatorial notes on poplular culture. See for example cat woman, annie hall shades , rose coloured glasses and leopard heel shoes.
Op-shopping and web surfing share certain qualities. The thrill of the chase, the serendipitous, the odd found objet out of its original context now a cultural fragment full of other meanings. Perhaps the shopping trolleys are always clamouring round the edges of the web, the content sandwiched between the spam and the pop-ups, but the op-shop or flea philosophy can always deter or even subvert the corporate raiders. And like idle fossicking, there is always a sense that a lucky find is on offer. This morning following the trail, boynton found this fascinating essay on thrift or flea-philosophy from Vintage Voice.
Part one - However accidental or passionately desired, any made thing bears traces of intention, narrative, and desire. The worth of made things, from the Flea perspective, is in the amount and quality of such information they contain, whether that information takes the form of cultural history or craft or philosophy or pure aesthetics. Part two - how to - although to confess, boynton may well have "a high groove quotient", only she doesn't let on. Part three -Between the Flea expert and a mere hoarder, there is a universe of difference... (It's 'editorial ability', apparently)... In its pathological form (and there really is one), sufferers can lose sight of every inch of floor space, not to mention most of the bed, the kitchen sink and even, sometimes, the refrigerator.
Indeed - especially if the refrigerator itself is retro, and inevitably dying a slow retro (summer) death.

The serendipity files ctd. After yet another anthropomorphic canine post, boynton stumbled upon a blog through a path from (embarrassingly, idly) Blogger's “most recently published", The Talking Dog. Thought at first someone had gazumped bluejoh already, but see that it’s the blog’s canine conceit. A bonus is an extensive, detailed directory of the blogroll (the dog run), each with a designated dog breed. (Lileks like a labrador? we'll let it sit ) If boynton makes the blogger most recent board now, the recursive process may begin anew.

Blogs are the new novelist's commonplace book. Cory Doctorow on writers and blogging, at Boing Boing

Can Dogs Be Trained To Detect Epileptic Seizures (via Interconnected)
While some dogs evidently pick up on cues, or more likely the 'scent of a seizure’, training is problematic. “Every dog can [alert], but not every dog cares to," he said. Even if they have an alert disposition, "not all respond appropriately". In his youth, Doug may have the desirable “middle of the road cool temperament”, but I fear this would be his most likely response now. And as for Bronte, her over-alertness often leads her to a particular kind of inappropriate behaviour. A complication is that Douglas himself suffers from the odd idiopathic seizure, and his custodian, although overalert and closely bonded, is obviously not MOR cool enough to scent out the seizure threshold. Perhaps like this research on epilepsy in children would suggest, she should just continue his fatty food diet and chill.
The Cassius Coolidge dog prints were found via Speckled Paint. Boynton grew with these, they adorned the walls of her father’s workplace, and now reside in her parent’s kitchen

Some excerpts from the work of ecologist Aldo Leopold.(via Plep)

Also from Plep recently - an essay from a collection of Nature Writing by Robert Winkler. Requiem For A Farm desribes the loss of a remnant wild place, a portal to the disappearing world of nature, 'developed' for an athletics field

Must get smarter and get up earlier. Missed this interview by Red Symons with Barbara Feldon this morning, talking about Living Alone - and loving it.

And a photo from the world's most liveable, risible village.

Still on the canoe theme, we simply had to link to this tippy typewriterly photo, from a collection featured at Portage.

(Update - and a recording of In My Tippy Canoe at The Virtual Gramophone)

One of the less dumb things that boynton used to collect was anonymous snapshots.(One of the dumber things was a brief flirtation with sexist ashtrays from the 50's - although ironically that's just the sort of quirky oddity gallery fodder that the web and the blogosphere seem to inhale). Like many more serious collectors, boynton loves the narrative mystery of the found photo, enhanced sometimes by the quirks of composition, the absence of clues, when guesses (and dresses) are literally cropped. Yesterday she found a whole digital repository at the Lake Macquarie Library. Such cultural treasures here. How could she possibly go past a photo with the caption:
Louise Boon in a canoe called Frolic
Here are a few... more of her many favourites.

Teaching Pillikin to Bowl (stumps)
Mason strode across to him.
‘I say,’ he said, ‘you’re a bit conspicuous, young Nye. We don’t wear ties on the field, you know, and we all have white trousers. You’ll slip up in those rubber shoes, I’m afraid, too. And – and I should get a white scarf or something to keep your bags up.’
‘I would rather be as I am,’ said Nye.
‘Eh?’
‘What does it matter? I shall not be seen again in the team.’
‘But you can borrow a pair of whites, man, and some cricket boots.’
‘I’d rather not,’ said Nye.
‘But dash it all –‘ began Mason, then stopped.

Regular readers - yes you two - may have noticed a shift in house style since the Harley Eleven circus came to town. Blame Pillikin. A pattern of pillikin-n-linking has set in like compulsive crochet. We may defer to the third umpire. Or we may have to retire Pillikin tomorrow, as is indeed proper after 5 lively days. Maybe like many reluctant retirees, he will make the odd appearance after that, forestalling sporting mortality.

The future we were promised- an exhibition of the rediscovered works of illustrator and imagineer A.C.Radebaugh (via lindsay marshall) The promises are also in the advertising text: When and if flying saucers are real... when frozen plant foods are put on wheels (which is reminiscent of Leevi Lehto's When a car gets into an accident )
Also from lost highways – images from the exhibition The Family Car On Mars: American Station Wagon Design 1956-1962
This is one car print boynton could conceivably covet.
But Could a Holden look sexy? From a Powerhouse exhibition Cars and Culture
More Holdens here – slow to load, but worth the nostalgic weight in golden holdens

Teaching Pillikin to Bowl ctd
Eight minutes later, Winter, who to his friends seemed to have aged considerably during his stay at the wicket, succumbed, and returned to the pavilion babbling strangely of a ball which had broken thirteen times, dodging about the pitch as if following a crochet pattern, and finally, curling round his legs, had come back and shot it under his bat.

A font based on George Harrison's handwriting (via J walk) . (Wonder if the font irons out the ambiguity of the scrawl -apparently Eric Clapton once misread a scrawled title by George: and Bridge became Badge) And while it is possible to convert one's own handwriting into a font, it's not an offer boytnon is likely to take up. A small sample of whose handwriting can be seen here.
More of the handwritten here - a fascinating collection of found notes like this literary fragment . (via The Presurfer)

Teaching Pillikin to Bowl ctd
Mason looked at him to Winter, who stood waiting at the batting end, with the comfortable stance of a batsman thoroughly at home. Such a stance one sees in sketches of people like Hobbs. The bowler, who had been approaching in a curious zigzag manner, and at a pace which attained neither the dignity of a dead march nor the quaint jubilance of a jog-trot, came in due course to the wicket, whirled his arm fantastically from behind his back, and despatched the ball. Winter flung out his left leg confidently, lifted his bat, then hesitated, made as if to play back, and finally attempting a late cut, missed the ball altogether

Anil Dash on the Raging Cow blog row.
Ethical weblogging part one (via empty bottle)
Google and blogger as a memory extension exceeding Vannevar Bush’s legendary vision? This idea of personalized link collections, augmented by software, is straight from the pages of "As We May Think"(via plastic bag)

Today is a Rest Day for Pillikin and the Harley First XI.
(But boynton has found a note on one of Hylton Cleaver's contemporaries, the prolific Percy F. Westerman, who wrote (among hundreds)The War Of The Wireless Waves, and this title. )