james_davis_nicoll (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
james_davis_nicoll) wrote2010-10-14 04:32 am
james_davis_nicoll) wrote2010-10-14 04:32 am
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
neiman marcus.
www.neimanmarcus.com/christmasbook
For some reason, I think the Lee Valley catalog is my favourite. This is very odd, as I'm not at all a DIY type of person...
Yes!
http://www.skymall.com/shopping/detail.htm?pid=102174152
You know, none of the pictures ever show that from the back.
http://www.skymall.com/shopping/detail.htm?pid=102174152
You know, none of the pictures ever show that from the back.
Or the watertight polyester weaves that'd make you feel clammy in a blizzard, let alone a summer day. (Or a dance floor... *shudder*)
-- Steve comes to bury the '70s, not praise them.
-- Steve comes to bury the '70s, not praise them.
My problem was that pretty much all of my clothes were handed down to me from my two older brothers. They tended to preferentially wear the clothes that were not a complete affront to all that was right and good in the world, and of course wore them out. Leaving me with the dregs, like plaid pants and polyester turtlenecks. Fashion advice wouldn't have helped.
For some reason my mom had a Sears wishbook (we were in the Philippines) and it was AMAZING to me. All those toys!
The Christmas season catalog (from Sears, at least) was much less interesting (and smaller) than their regular catalog. It was full of dull clothes and stupid toys, and gave a lot less space to interesting things like mimeograph machines and firearms.
I used to get their catalogs, yes. Really, I ended up doing so very little of that kind of thing it's strange I still have memories of it.
I've had an amateur radio license since the early '60s, and built a Knight-Kit shortwave receiver from their catalog before that. Built receivers and transmitters from scratch afterward. Haven't built much of anything since the '70s, because I don't have an electron microscope to see the components with . . .
ICs and especially surface-mount must have caused a lot of people to stop doing so much of their own building, or at least be consciously retro (I have a friend who's collecting WWII radio gear that can run on the ham bands).
I tried to build a Knight-Kit shortwave receiver, and failed. Quite possibly an over-ambitious project for my skill level, but in fact an electrical engineer of our acquaintance couldn't make head or tail out of the instructions, either, so perhaps the kit was a partly to blame.
I was interested in amateur radio, but never quite enough to do anything about it (other than that one try; that probably discouraged me some, too). I loved the idea of personal worldwide communications -- but not the idea of being able to talk only to other hams. Clearly I hadn't yet (never did) made that my group identification! And I was starting to get into computers around then (1968 for the computers, not sure the receiver project wasn't a couple of years earlier).
I tried to build a Knight-Kit shortwave receiver, and failed. Quite possibly an over-ambitious project for my skill level, but in fact an electrical engineer of our acquaintance couldn't make head or tail out of the instructions, either, so perhaps the kit was a partly to blame.
I was interested in amateur radio, but never quite enough to do anything about it (other than that one try; that probably discouraged me some, too). I loved the idea of personal worldwide communications -- but not the idea of being able to talk only to other hams. Clearly I hadn't yet (never did) made that my group identification! And I was starting to get into computers around then (1968 for the computers, not sure the receiver project wasn't a couple of years earlier).
Heathkit instructions were much better than Knight-Kit. Dynaco instructions were also good -- still have a stereo amp and tuner in use from their kit line.
When I was a kid, the Eaton's Christmas catalog was the most read book in the house. I could and did spend hours looking at all the kids toys for boys. When I went to my grandfather's there would invariably be the current catalog and the previous year's catalog so I could compare the offering from one year to the next and, of course, circle all the items I wanted.
I don't remember if I consciously realized it then or just realized it in hindsight, but I got much more pleasure looking at most of those toys and games in the Wish Book and dreaming about them than I did actually playing with them when I came across them in real life.
I've mostly encountered the little squares in Amtrak trains. When the dispensers haven't run out entirely.
Even without the DIY and craft stuff, the Lee Valley catalogue is full of wonderful toys.
My dad got the J. C. Whitney auto parts catalog. I remember it as being full of fascinatingly incomprehensible objects, as well as classic lowbrow-taste items like girlie mudflaps.
A year or two ago, some purveyor of hardware, assorted machinery and firearms sent me a huge, thick catalog out of the blue, for reasons I cannot ascertain. That was great for aimless browsing.
A year or two ago, some purveyor of hardware, assorted machinery and firearms sent me a huge, thick catalog out of the blue, for reasons I cannot ascertain. That was great for aimless browsing.
I do get the B&H Photo Christmas catalog these days. In addition to the stuff in my area of actual participation (photography), they've got pro-level video gear, and audio-recording, and that I can browse much more safely and still enjoy it.
Fortunately I lived in New Mexico during that era and thus had to wear very little other than denim cut-offs and a tan.
In winter you pulled on knee high boots and threw on an ankle length fleece leather coat and were good to go. Winter also lasted about 2 months.
Love, c.
In winter you pulled on knee high boots and threw on an ankle length fleece leather coat and were good to go. Winter also lasted about 2 months.
Love, c.
Yours were. The 1970s were in retrospect a glorious time to be totally unfashionable. Since I am *always* totally unfashionable(1) it's amusing to win at least one decade.
(1) Well, sometimes when the in look goes from A to C and I am at B I become briefly fashionable by the intermediate value theorem, but for a few weeks at most.
William Hyde
(1) Well, sometimes when the in look goes from A to C and I am at B I become briefly fashionable by the intermediate value theorem, but for a few weeks at most.
William Hyde
Edmund Scientific, Cave Optical (why they put all those rather plain women beside those beautiful telescopes puzzled me greatly at age 10). And so on.
William Hyde
William Hyde
Remember implies some of these aren't still around. Sears still puts out the Christmas Wish Book along with its seasonal catalogues. I think we got ours just before September 1st.
Page 2 of 3