Childhood Rape: The Movie

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hughcasey

MIchael Philately IS... Lord Of The Stamps

When I was a kid, I collected stamps.

Baseball cards, too, although that didn't last much beyond the Tigers' World Series year of 1968. But I thought stamps were pretty cool. Still do, on a number of levels. World travel and education and language and art and all in little squares, decades before Icon Love. But one day I realized that all those stamps were sitting in a book I didn't look at much and didn't open much because many of them were delicate and a few of them were valuable and they were just sitting there.

And I sold 'em for a decent amount, by 1970s-ish teenager standards. Couldn't tell you what I did with the money; nothing important. But something that involved doing.

What inspired this little flashback was this story about someone selling one of the great Maguffins of our time, the 1918 "Inverted Jenny". As a kid, I dreamed of finding one. Obviously, that never happened. But, if it did now, I'd certainly find a collector to buy it.

But I don't know that I'd put it up for auction. I'd find someone who really cared about stamps. Not as investment, but as history. As art. As a tiny summation of civilization.

See, this led to my next collecting hobby.

Comic books.

Much of the same thing, really, except that I did -- and do -- still read 'em. But nowadays I buy compilations. Back in 1982-84, when I lived in Cincinnati, I worked at a comic shop. Lots of fun. Way cool. And I found out very quickly that, if you treated comics like investments, you were missing the entire point.

And George and Jeff and I exhorted our customers to buy for the sake of reading pleasure rather than pulp-and-ink futures.

I'm a lousy businessman, I guess, because that was one of the last periods that you really could buy and sell comics as if they were stocks. Not too long after that, the Internet started, and not too long after that, eBay started, and... well.

I don't have any valuable comics that I'm aware of. But damn have I got some great stories.

And, of course, I've got books. And DVDs. And some games. And, while I have to catch up on many of the books and DVDs and even a few of the games, by FSM I get stuff to do.

That said, there are a good number of tchotchkes around the place. The ones most prominent right now are a gigantic Darth Tater on the table near the window; a few stuffed animals, including a talking Kermit, on top of the DVD shelves; a bunch of fridge magnets; the Harry and Hermione bookends Anne got me a few birthdays ago, in front of my monitor (recalled by the manufacturer for having lead in them, so I'd better not lick 'em anytime soon); a Slave Leia Unleashed figure next to the monitor; a few other small things.

(Not Da Bear. He's family.)

What tchotchkes have you got within line-of-sight right now? And which ones are really important to you?

Her Morning Elegance

I saw this one awhile back, but Anne reminded me.

Riffing THE ROOM

FSM save us all, on Thursday RiffTrax releases their riff on The Room. If you have not experienced this fantastic, brain-rotting horror show -- one of the few films that makes Battlefield Earth seem coherent by comparison, a movie that makes you long for the depth and introspection of Manos: The Hands of Fate -- Mike Nelson's blog covers it in some depth, with lots of links to both specific "classic" scenes and other people's video reimaginings.

If you could make your own really bad movie, what would it be? Don't be all self-pitying and say, "My own life" -- we wuv you, and we can find goodness and drama in full measure in your life and make a pretty good flick out of it. No no no, let's hear about your magnum o'pus, a cinematic idea whose time will never come at all. I think mine is Cherry Cordial: How A Hershey's Limited Edition Kiss Became Unlimited To An Extent.

Home From DucKon

Lots and lots of fun. I admit that I was concerned about how packed the filk track was -- I thought people wouldn't be able to get a bathroom break or anything; it just seemed like a whole lot o' stuff. Well, it was a whole lot o' stuff, and it was great. Wish I'd seen more of it, but I got to hang out with so many lovely folks I don't often see and I thought my set went pretty well and the Whose Line? on Friday was fun and Toyboat kicked ass all weekend and so did Seanan and Vixy and Tony and I finally met the lovely S.J. Walker and there was Riverfolk and Graham and Randy and Brooke and I could go on and on and on.

This week: Music. Cleaning. Catching up on sleep. Saturday, back to the scene of the crime: Christine Lavin is at The Ark.

You?