7.30.2010

Fashion Friday: The Purple Summer Dress

A while back I reenacted one of my dad's travel photos. It was a way for us to be together at different points in time. Here's another experiment in time travel.

Then
My mom and I in Beverly Hills or some other LA shopping destination. Not exactly sure where, tell me if you can identify it!

Now
I'm in the same dress outside of Issey Miyake in New York.

How To Play Super Mario Brothers 2

The instruction booklet for Super Mario Brothers 2 for NES! It's was the oddball Mario game that takes place in an Egyptian desert and set to ragtime music. The best part is there's no time limit, so you can swim up waterfalls explore dungeons at your leisure.


SMB 2 has a "sub-space" world where everything was inside out. It was a shadow dimension where turnips turned into gold coins when plucked.


Instruction booklet images are real photos of TV screens! This was way before screenshots. 


(In case you were wondering, I do a zine about video games.)

7.28.2010

Something Wonderful

Their love was fiery, glorious. 


An artless country girl, a tempestuous marriage, and a rich and powerful duke! 


In high school, Something Wonderful came highly recommended by a friend's older, cooler sister. The sister was the valedictorian who kept a secret collection of romance novels under her bed. 

The book is probably as good as it looks. I feel bad I never got around to reading it! 

7.27.2010

The American Bicycle

None of them knew how to ride. But at least the bicycle was American.

Aunt Yaling, Aunt Yalee, and my mom.

Taiwan was provincial and poor in the 60s and it was hard for normal folks to get anything from the States. My mom and her sisters had an in. My oldest aunt had married a Chinese doctor who worked for the U.S. Army. He had an ID card that my mom used to sneak into the U.S. base in Taiwan where they sold American things. 

My mom was proud to bring the bike home. But she and sisters kept falling off of it. They decided to give it to their younger brother instead. 

 ∞ 

With fabric sent by my oldest aunt in the States,  Aunt Yalee (middle) told me she specifically designed the op-art skort in the photo to ride that bike. She made a kick pleat in the middle so it would look like a skirt standing up but open like shorts. 

Thanks Aunt Yalee for recounting this story!

7.26.2010

Chinese Cassette Tape Wallpaper

Oh peeling sticker labels and plastic swivel containers! I wouldn't mind if my wall were lined with faded cassette tapes. 


The beauty of tapes is that they let you pick up exactly where you left off. No lag or repeats until you loop around. 


I found these cassettes in a "Viva Life" vitamin tote bag that came free with the CoQ10 and green barley  my mom once ordered. 

Like bags of change and pantyhose, I find tapes all over the house. We have Chinese pop from the 70s and 80s, French pianist Richard Clayderman (wildly popular in Asia!), Oldies But Goodies compilations my dad ordered off TV, and Taiwanese and Japanese tango music. Tango music was the jams when my parents were young. 

Here's the queen of Chinese pop Teresa Teng singing "Goodbye My Love." Note the pink lens flare and male back up dancers! 
  

7.25.2010

Mentioned in the Daily Breeze and Apartment Therapy Unplggd!

Read more about the Garage in the Daily Breeze and Apartment Therapy's home tech offshoot, Unpluggd!

Karaoking in my living room, which is not normally purple. Infinite leopard print top and jeans by the Garage.
Unpluggd's focus on the Garage's vintage gadgetry.
Thank you Sylvia from the Breeze and Greg from Apartment Therapy for the love!
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