Summer is coming

North Plaza Motel 

'Cincinnati's finest' 

Postcards from the east

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has an online collection of over 20,000 postcards from Japan.  The collection is massive and beautiful and wondrous.  It showcases many different styles and ways to make art.  I'm slowly wading through it and here's some gems I've found so far:

Found photos that go together

I can easily imagine this early 1970's just married couple
spending their honeymoon in this motel:
The motel is the Continental Motel and Lobster House Restaurant in Williamsburg, VA. It featured 41 air conditioned rooms, wall to wall carpeting, a TV in every room, private tiled baths, steam heat, and free coffee. It's just the sort of slice of vacation paradise that our chubby newlywed couple from Wisconsin might have enjoyed.

(The top photo comes from a packet of 20 photos I bought for a buck in an antique store in NC and the motel postcard was fifty cents from the same store.)

Motels of the week

I bought a slew of vintage postcards today for a quarter apiece.

I love the off kilter inset photo on this one.


Raise your hand if you stayed in a motel like this when you were growing up.


I'd build a time machine just so I could go back in time and spend some time here.

Vintage postcard of the week

Fact: This is still the tallest building in North Dakota and corn is stored in most of it.

Hang in there

Summer will be here before you know it.

New found object of the week

I found this postcard, which is blank on the back so someone somewhere will get this in the mail some time soon, in one of the books I bought to resell on Book Monkey the other day:
Given my love of kitschy postcards I feel like it's a good omen.

Swag Update

It's been a banner week for swag here at Monkey Central. Suzy sent me a swag package that I've already shown you in another post and then the other day I got this super cool postcard from Delia Guzman:
That's Natalie Wood walking that dog so joyfully. How did Delia know I had a major crush on Ms. Wood when I was younger?

And today the hits keep on coming. I got this book
from Lisa (The blogger fromerly known as D Cup)! It's a super cool vintage pop up book. It's not culturally sensitive but it's keen nonetheless. Thank you ladies for all the swag, you are too kind!

********

Now, for those of you who have not sent me any swag, what the hell are you waiting on?

Fran strikes again

My Albany homegirl FranSheIs sent me another postcard. She got it for me while she was in Washington DC at the separation of church and state conference.
As if that weren't enough, she got her cohorts and some of my blog buds to sign it:
Many thanks Fran for thinking of me and for getting all those reprobates to sign my card, however, Dr. Zaius and DCap, your effrontery did not go unnoticed and it will not go unpunished.

I could have sworn I asked for fries with that

Oh, ok then. I see 'em now. Sorry for bothering you.

(This 'fine' looking meal was from a place called Henry's in Charleston, SC.)

I got this and a few other vintage postcards today for a quarter each.

Look what the coolest chick in Toronto sent me

The lovely and seriously deranged Tanya Espanya took time out of her recent vacation to Cuba to buy me this postcard. She had to wait until she came back home to Canada to send it to me because there is no mail service between Cuba and the USA.

Being a baseball and vintage photograph fan I couldn't be more pleased to own this postcard. Being a subversive troublemaker I could not be more pleased that it was purchased in Cuba. I hope the profit from this postcard went to fund the national health care system of Cuba, which according to all reports is one of the best in the world.

Yay Tanya! Yay Cuba! Yay baseball! Yay postcards! Yay single payer national health care for all!

Paradise

This is one of four vintage hotel/motel postcards I bought yesterday:
It looks like paradise to me. Hot chicks in bikinis, cool looking lodgings in the Sierra mountains, a figure 8 pool with a water slide, what more could a guy have wanted in a California vacation get away back in the mid 1960's?

I've begun posting some of the photos I wrote about in the previous post. You can check them out by clicking here. Many more to follow soon.

Name that film

You all must hate Suzy Amis because no one guessed last week's film, in fact, no one sent in an entry at all. The film still was from The Ballad of Little Jo, which is a great underrated western, you'll dig it even if you don't like westerns, I promise.

Here's this week's film still:

Send your guess to monkeymuck AT gmail DOT com and if your correct guess is chosen then you might win a vintage postcard with a Zen proverb on it.

That Whiskey, she's a saint

And she's a great blog bud.  Despite having a surprise house guest show up at her place last week, she found time to send me this cool as the day is long postcard.  Yo girl, thanks for thinking of me!