Go Santa, go Santa, go Santa…

The rarest of the rare are displayed behind thick glass in an old-timey bank vault next to the main desk. Here you’ll find your Mark Twain signed first editions and rare monographs handwritten by former kings. Otherwise, everything else is out in the open. You can just wander around leafing through early editions of ‘On The Road’, children’s books from Soviet Russia, or pulp Victorian romance novels with ornate jewel covers. There’s even a tiny room in the back filled with books so ancient they disintegrate before your very eyes (it smells very nice though).

Now, ‘rare’ doesn’t always translate to ‘unaffordable’. Rare just means something you don’t come across very often, something there’s not very much of. This is an irresistible proposition to me, the possibility of having what may be the ONLY COPY LEFT of something, even if that something has little or no practical application or resell value. Actually, especially if it’s impractical with little resell value. Imagine my joy then, after wandering around looking at lovely and far too expensive tomes, to come across this baby on a shelf for a mere $15.00:

‘How To Click Before The Camera’ is a 1949 step-by-step guide for models on posing. I’m not sure why it’s so rare – the back page implies this was one of several booklets the company sold regularly, and How To Click seems the most comprehensive of those offered. In any event it’s a treasure trove of surreal imagery – floating heads, disembodied limbs standing on clock faces, and articulated mouth gestures with strange phrasings beneath.

Seeing as the magazine’s apparently so rare I thought I’d share the whole book right here, so in the unlikely event my computer and apartment simultaneously spontaneously combust, the world can go on learning which poses are FOR EXOTIC HIGH FASHION ONLY. Please, use this knowledge wisely.

Click to learn the dark secrets of ‘How To Click’.

Something about the kid’s expression…I can’t quite place it. It wouldn’t be out of place on a DEVO album, especially with the plate of giant sausages floating next to him.

These bright, saturated orange and yellows popped cheerily on the shelf and drew me right in. Then again that could be due to placement next to a refrigerated case full of de-fleshed cow legs. Whole cow legs, hoof and all. Mmmmm boy.

We on the East Coast are geographically fortunate, mostly avoiding natural disasters that plague the rest of the country. We’re on a major fault line, but it’s mostly inactive. We do get storms, but they’re weakened after moving up the coast. We’ve even had the occasional tornado, though with the dense build-up they’re rarely as destructive as those in the Midwest and barely touch down. So it’s a bit of a surprise having a hurricane follow an earthquake in less than a week.

The yin and yang of stereotypical New York mindsets, the high-strung neurotic and the blasè rock, are reacting about as expected. For every gallery owner panic-grabbing fontina and prosecco at Eataly screaming “I HAVE CHILDREN TO THINK OF!”, there’s a stoopfull of elderly Hispanic guys quietly chatting and playing dominoes (which they would continue doing whether the sun came out or a car exploded in front of them). Given how hectic day-to-day life in a crowded city is, either mentality is an acceptable coping mechanism, but it’s funny how few major disasters the city has to deal with. With the 10-year anniversary of September 11th drawing near that may seem strange to write, but it’s the 10-year anniversary, and how many large-scale terrorist attacks have we experienced since? Exactly.

Which brings me rather long-windedly around to this week’s pattern, from a state that’s no stranger to devastating natural events.

Stay safe, everyone.

On a random tangent, I declare the Allan Moore lookalike the Stevie Nicks of Kansas, for while the rest of the band plays 12 instruments each, he sings and plays tambourine. And sports a boss beard.

No relation to Dunkin’ Donuts. Or ‘The French Connection’.

Walking past this salon I thought they’d used Wendy O. as their mascot. Nope! Just a random punk lady glowing over a roomful of Dominican ladies done up in enormous curlers at 11pm on a Thursday.

Easy there, Hulk. Focus on one social message at a time and you’ll have more impact.

Ziiiinc! Come baaack, zinc! ZINC! (‘A World Without Zinc’ HAS to be based on ‘Spring Fever’, an actual histronic educational movie about the horrors of a world without a particular unloved item).

It took me a minute of staring to realize this said ‘Forty’, not ‘Farty’. Classy.

Queso Boricua? Queso Columbiano? ?Que queso es el mejor?? Aaaayyy, que problema.

BUY AMERICAN (envelopes).

This has nothing to do with Puerto Rico and everything to do with some guys fixing a kid’s motorized Escalade.

Yep. They were chastity post-its, covering up scandalous cleavage so the eye wouldn’t commit the sin of oggling. Apparently this goes for cleavage of all kinds.

I’m assuming this has something to do with Islamic law, as more intensive versions of censorship have come to light, most hilariously the Photoshopped covers of Mariah Carey albums sold in Saudi Arabia. What I’m still unsure of is whether the cover-up was for the sake of the kiosk operators or us, the gullible masses. Whoever’s eyes were to be averted, there were some major quality control issues going on. Trina’s ass is too much, but Katy Perry’s boobs get a free pass? What are your parameters?!

The Insane Clown Posse? Here? While there’s an urban vampire movement scattered in small clumps around Brooklyn and parts of Queens, The Dark Carnival has yet to make a deep impression in New York City (not counting their ironically appreciating fanbase among the supposedly erudite). Insane Clown Posse are proudly Midwestern, and despite both urban vampires and Juggalos trading in ridiculous makeup, eye contacts, baggy bondage pants and a love of the cartoonishly, gratuitously violent, the two groups appear to have little crossover*.

Please bear in mind, I wandered outside at about 2:00 pm. Doors for the show couldn’t have opened earlier than 7:00 pm, and yet there were devoted Juggalos in full make up lined up outside behind the barricade. I suspect the Juggalos showed up first, then, realizing the the crowd potential, the management set up the barricade 5 hours earlier than expected.

*As I haven’t deeply researched this, I could be totally wrong. Perhaps there’s a series of anthropological papers out on the confluence of the urban and suburban relationship between these two groups and their respective love of clown-themed horror-rap.