Monday, May 19, 2008

Curiosities

I haven't written much over the past week. But I decided to share with you some of the curiosities to be found around the apartment.



This is a wonderful Lucite grape swag light. I think it is just great! I love the kitch of the whole thing. I got it on ebay and it cost me more to have it shipped than it did to buy the thing.



Nothing says "Mardi Gras" like rubber duckie beads. I got them for Nick last year when I went to New Orleans.



This is the Hat rack Chair. I bought it at an art show about eight years ago. I love it! It is not very comfortable, but it sure is a fun piece of furniture.



In keeping with the Lucite theme, we have the Lucite crucifix. Nothing says, "Our saviour died on the cross" like Lucite. Some former parishioners of mine who are antique dealers found this one for me.



These are my wonderful 1950 Chinoiserie lamps. I got them at auction for only $15. Some say I paid too much for them. I think I got them for a steal!



My final curiosity for this post is the ball bearing clock. I have wanted one of these since I saw them in Spencer's Gifts as a kid. If you have not seen one, they are quite cool. The arm swings around and lifts a ball up to the top where it is dropped off. From there, the ball rolls into the minutes track. At five minutes, the balls roll down the channel and one ball drops onto the next rack which marks the five minute demarcations. At the hour, the balls roll off the five minute rack and one drops down to the hour track.

Here is a video of the clock going from 12:59 to 1:00.

3 comments:

Ur-spo said...

The Old Curosity Shop lives on.

Lemuel said...

A ball clock! We had one of those and the motor died on us. Did you get that on EBay, too? Our neighbors used to come to visit and hang until 1 o'clock just to see all the balls clear out.

I'm old enough to remember lamps like those, although we never had any. I think one of my "rich" uncles had them.

Although the corpus is a bit kitchy, that lucite cross somehow reminds me of the Salvador Dali painting.

Anonymous said...

I love the grape swag light!