Laundryroom Swapmeet

Hey there!  You know what’s been kind of bugging me about the ol’ Swapmeet (other than that me-not-updating-it thing)?

Everything is out of date!  You might not realize this, but most of the photos that have been posted since, like August?  Were taken back in August.  There was a real big pile of action down on the swapmeet table around then, and as a result I got a lot of pictures.  And since I was doing one item at a time, those pictures lasted a long dang time.

As a matter of fact, I still have a backlog.  And it’s been killing my morale, and that’s just about enough of that.

So to heck with that!  Let’s jump to the present, dump the one-item-per-entry thing, and just see what’s going on in the laundry room, goddammit!  Are you ready?  Yes!  You are totally ready!  Let’s go!

Two decorative christmas-y wine glasses, and a small metal frying pan with a wooden handle!  These showed up independent of each other, I think, but they’ve been hanging out together down there for a few days now; seems like no one wants either.

Consider that those are not particularly over-sized glasses: that is one tiny little frying pan.  I’m thinking a dwarf got his second growth and is upsizing.

Detail shot of the pan.  I kind of feel like mocking its smallness and crappiness is the clear path, but for some reason I find the handle on this thing just plain charming.  And that little metal hook or loop or whatever you want to call it, on the end there?  I don’t know if it came standard or got customed in by the dwarf or what, but I like it.  Very rustic utilitarian.

Maybe it’s not a dwarf at all.  Maybe it’s a giant descendent of William Burroughs, and this is the belt-loop spoon he keeps around for cooking up–but he’s kicking, man, he’s kicking that dang old giant-sized horse and he doesn’t need this stuff anymore.  If a hypodermic the size of a turkey baster shows up, I’m going to consider it a closed case.

Ho ho ho!  It’s frickin August, okay?  Nobody wants a glass with christmas trees and snow on it.  It’s like stopping at a news stand in the middle of the Sahara and picking up a copy of Water Monthly.  No.  No thank you.  These glasses are going to sit on the table until at least Thanskgiving, if someone doesn’t destroy them in a fit of heat exhaustion first.

Oprah is just fucking thrilled to be Oprah.  In the mean time, Andre Agassi is just happy to be on a magazine cover.  You know what I miss?  The mullet.  That dang mullet.  That was a rebel, Andre.  That guy, over there, who you used to be.

And this happy crowd?  This is me giving back to the swapmeet.  We cleaned out the cleaning supplies last weekend; this is all the stuff we just don’t use.  The iron is fine, but we got a new one; the detergent is fine except it smells way too much.  (I put signs on both of those, since either could be conceivably mistaken for non-swapmeet laundry paraphernalia.) 

The spray bottles were occupying niches we just didn’t need filled; and I don’t need those Clorox things because I live in a state of constant, willful filth and it’d be kind of antithetical to have it around.

And what about that speckled-out blob in front of it all?  What, indeed!  Introducting a new feature: What the Hell is That?

The way WtHiT works is, I don’t tell you what it is.  And you’re all “What the hell is that?”  And I’m all, “nuh uh, not telling.”  And you’re all, “wait, I bet I totally know.”  And I’m all like, “yeah, well, leave a comment or something then, smart-face.”

Aaaaaaaaaaand scene.  There’s your first big old round-up digest-type post.  It’s a change–end of an era and all that, I know, break out the kleenex–but if it’s one of these every weekish or so vs. the old style with months-long breaks, I’m kinda leaning toward this.  Let me know what you think, natch.

Item:

Six magazines: three issues of local richie rag Portland Monthly, plus one issue each of the sisterhood of Us, Star, and People.

Why It’s Here:

Have you ever tried to read any of these?  These are here because burning is too good.

Probable Recipient:

A humble and generous fire.

Friday is sigh-day:

And I’ve got nothing.  How are you doing?

Item:

An issue of Taste of Home magazine, featuring Apple Contest Winners.

Why It’s Here:

Deposited by embittered Apple Contest Loser.

Probable Recipient:

Recent out-of-town transplant who’s feeling homesick.  Ironically, eating this magazine will only make them feel sicker.

So those caramel apples:

What’s going on there?  There’s, what, caramel and frosting and, uh, crushed peanuts?  Crumbled cornbread?  Whatever it is, jammed in around the popsicle sticks.  That’s just way too busy for a caramel apple.

Item:

A copy of Intercultural Communication, by Ron Scollon and Suzanne Wong Scollon.

Why It’s Here:

Previous owner dropped out of the class because he couldn’t understand where the professor was coming from.

Probable Recipient:

The resident mad scientist, who is looking to foster some collaboration between his various strains of sentient yogurt.

Boy George:

should have done commercials for Yoplait.  Adopting “Karma Chameleon” lyrics for a yogurt jingle is left as an exercise for the reader.

Item:

Photography - Art and Technique, by Alfred Blaker.

Why It’s Here:

There were actually eleven—eleven!—other books by Blaker, deposited at the swapmeet table over time, though all the rest were deposited before this site came into being.

This is simply the capstone, the final, twelfth volume in the Blaker’s dozen.

Probable Recipient:

Me, actually.  Despite the copious evidence on this site to the contrary, I sometimes try to take good photographs.  And anything that might help me make short, stumbling steps in the general direction of competence deserves to be saved from the swapmeet and left, unread, on the floor of my apartment indefinitely.

Pulitzer, here I come!

That Blaker’s dozen pun.  Really.

Look, I’d like to see you do better!  You think this is easy?  You think this sort of thing just writes itself?

Oh, I know!  I’ll just head on over to your website at giftexchange.laundromat.com and see what sort of wonderful brilliant things you have to say about Alfred Blaker’s non-fiction works, and—oh wait, there’s no such website!

So quit smothering me!

[slams door to bedroom]

Item:

A stack of the current issue of kaleidoscope, the catalog for Portland Community College.

Why It’s Here:

You know how they do “college week” sometimes on Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune?  I think maybe it’s something like that.

Probable Recipient:

Theodore Roosevelt!

Theodore Roosevelt?

I am incredibly high right now.

Item:

The September 2006 issue of The Warbler, a publication of the Audubon Society of Portland.

Why It’s Here:

Prior owner had been expecting a newsletter about the German highway system.

Probable Recipient:

Someone looking for a splash of purple in their bathroom reading.

I have an admission to make:

I was wholly aware of the surreal and amorphously icky secondary meaning that could be taken from associating the phrase “splash of purple” with the concept of toilet use.

Item:

A copy of Guideposts magazine, with Food Network icon Alton Brown on the cover.

Why It’s Here:

I’d like to think that all of the “true stories of hope and inspiration” turned out to be fake lies of despair and disillusionment.  Imagine this: some fiendish anarchist spends years infiltrating the Guideposts publishing machine.  Eventually they attain unquestioned editorial control.  And then it all comes crashing beautifully down when this Alton Brown issue comes out and every single heartstring-pulling story ends with the phrase, “…and then a puppy died.”

Probable Recipient:

A staunch proponent of the theory of Alton Brownian Motion.

So, Alton Brown:

Is he totally Bill Nye the Food Network Guy, or what?  Say what you want about watching food porn all day—Alton knows how to inject just the right sort of MST3K lo-fi production dorkery into his show.

Item:

A copy of Vanity Fair, with Kate Moss on the cover, and an accompanying handful of catalogs.

Why It’s Here:

Someone’s making a panicky attempt to cleanse their apartment after a spike of Fashion Consumer Overload (FCO).  Of course, just like in The Ring, they can’t rid themselves of the curse without passing it on to someone else.  And so the credit-destroying cycle continues!

Probable Recipient:

Someone whose clothes-to-money ratio needs rebalancing.  Or someone who really, really wants to know if Vanity Fair thinks that Kate Moss, who is currently on the freakin’ cover of Vanity Fair, can “come back.” 

Don’t call it a comeback:

She been here for years, rockin’ her peers and puttin’ meals in fear.

Item:

A paperback copy of The Closers, by Michael Connelly.

Why It’s Here:

I want to make a joke here about Glengarry Glen Ross, something about the book being for people with coffee, or Always Be Reading The Closers or something. Maybe some sort of Al Pacino gag. What was his character? Roma. I think it was Roma. Maybe I could put together a Tony Roma joke? That might—no, no, that’s just stupid.

I gotta think of something. Gotta—guys, cut it out, quit waving your arms like that. I’m trying to think here. Christ. Can’t a guy work out a joke for his websi—

On the air? What do you mean, we’re on the air?

Probable Recipient:

Someone who want to read a novel?

Look, I’ve got nothing here. Nothing.

Michael Connelly:

Is Sean Connery’s…Japanese brother?

Christ. Stupid and offensive. Why would I make light of a superficial difference in the phonological content of spoken Japanese vs. English? How is that funny? And Michael isn’t a Japanese name, anyway. The joke doesn’t make sense.