We went to the flea market today. Whenever I go, I usually don’t take more than $20 because it is guaranteed that I will spend any dollars I bring on something stupid like the time I almost bought an entire set of vintage Samsonite luggage because it was purple. That would have been a bad idea, but luckily, I was out of cash.
What I really like to do, though, is to find a single, weird treasure that, ideally, costs about $2. I usually have really good luck with this. I have a tiny promotional calendar from 1957 that was printed for a beauty salon and every month has a different hairstyle pictured and some hilarious, 1957-style woman-to-woman advice that I got there once for, like, a dollar. This is a prime example of the kind of treasure I go searching for.
Today, I got this old picture:
I want to be this lady when I grow up. Who is she? Why is so so dramatically lit? Look at all the lines in her face – they’re amazing and beautiful. Look at how melancholy her expression is. Look at how expressive her eyes are. I think, although I have no way of knowing, that this is a headshot and that she was an actor. There’s an address on the back, and a phone number, and a name that I can’t quite make out – Marie something? Elena? Ellen? Plum? O’Something? Who even knows – which is of course driving me, crazy because if I had that last name I would IMDB her. But I love that the address is on Vine, which is such a famed, Old Hollywood thoroughfare, even though it’s kind of shitty and unremarkable now. And I love that it’s so old that it was before 7 digit phone numbers – the HO at the beginning of the line of numbers at the bottom stands for Hollywood, the name of the telephone exchange. And I love this picture in a lot of inexpressible ways.
Some day I want to have a wall in my home hung with fascinating old pictures of strangers.