Shopping is the Subconscious Need to Exist

 

Shopping is the Subconscious Need to Exist

September 18, 2018

September 18, 2018

A dream trip to Paris is more poignant when you develop back pain.  Le French Chair does not fit the needs of my body, and therefore there is some suffering involved on this trip.  Oddly enough I'm not complaining because I'm happy here in Paris.  Still, I plan to go to the bookshop at Pompidou Centre, which is less than a mile from my headquarters.  A beautiful walk, but now the stroll will add a certain amount of awkwardness and pain.

Yesterday in a higher state of pain I walked down Rue Vieille du Temple, which is the street for independent fashion boutiques, bistros/cafes, restaurants, and specialty shops of all sorts.  The stores around the Louvre are crap, but here on the road, it is nothing but refined chicness and beautiful fashion. 

One of the stores I admire greatly is Au Petit Bonheur la Chance (13 rue Saint-Paul 75004) which is an antique store, but focusing on 20th-century pop culture items and objects from one's youth.  This perfectly named store is jam-packed with sewing material, notebooks from another era/generation, and most movingly a whole section of photographs taken of family trips and get-togethers.  Why these photos are not in some family's collection is a tad depressing, but also has an emotional charge when you look through these images.  I found a box of 7" 45 rpm singles that included a Jacques Dutronc record, but alas, I have the same copy at home.  So its a shop full of French toys from the 1950s, old fabric, napkins, statuettes, old playing cards, games, and old retail signs plus postcards from another time and era.  The shop is very much a second-hand store, but beautifully curated with real soul and feeling.  A very charming way of going into the past, but alas, it is not my past, but the history of someone of my age, who is French.  

Their website is http://aupetitbonheurlachance.fr

As I struggled toward home (here in Paris), I went to Muji France to purchase two striped shirts - both cost under $40, and as anyone who knows me personally, I have a sizeable striped shirt collection.  The best high-quality shop for strip shirts and shoes is St. James, which is a traditional French clothing company and the ground zero for striped shirts and sweaters.  I suspect that me and perhaps hardcore TinTin (although not French technically) fans will see this spot as a shrine.  I do treat the store in such a manner, but alas, the clothing here is beyond my budget, which is basically between a few euros and entirely broke.  But to walk into this small shop and breath in the strip shirt inventory is as good as sex.  I would give you the address, but I don't want any outsiders coming here!  Although with the help of Google you will find it quickly enough. 

I was going to have dinner out, but instead, my wife went to the Pharmache de la Place Republique to get a can of cream for my aching back, and therefore we had Chinese food-to-go in our petite rented apartment.   All holidays have a sense of tragedy, and you need that to appreciate the good things that one experiences on a trip to another land. 

- Tosh Berman

January 4, 2017 (Tosh's Diary)

January 4, 2017

I haven’t been sleeping that well, I think due to the tension of trying to raise funds for the Trump statue.  My purpose is to bring people together, but it seems that the road is way too large to bring both sides to the middle of the road.  I will not give up.  But the latest news on my front is that I can’t find the 8mm footage of “Greed” in my storage shack.  I’m now worried that someone may have taken it, or perhaps I just misplaced the damn film.  I have to imagine that it will show up.  I have lost things before, thinking that history has it in its closet in some different time zone or dimension, but then one day I would walk into a room, and there it is all of sudden.  Sort of the Borrowers system of little demons that lives in one’s house that takes away the other sock from the washer. It is often a frustrating experience, but once found, happiness comes back to Toshville.

Last night, feeling restless, I went to Counterpoint Books on Franklin just to window shop and look for ideas.  I came upon a book behind the counter that caught my eye.  It’s what they all a “Better Little Book.”   From 1935 to 1939, the Better Little Book published narrations from comic strips of the time, with illustrations.  It was very much a Depression era of book publishing at the time that attracted young readers.  A lot of the Walt Disney characters, for instance, Mickey Mouse/Donald Duck were part of this phenomena.   What I found at the store was a beat-up copy of “Mandrake the Magician and the Midnight Monster” by Lee Falk and Phil Davis.  Falk did the daily comic strip of Mandrake as well The Phantom.   Davis, I have to presume, wrote the narration to this book, and Falk supplied the story line as well as its illustrations.   It’s a beautiful adventure of a professional magician who travels around with a Black African by the name of Lothar.   How these two became friends or worked together is a total mystery to me.  What they do is solve crime by fighting various criminals throughout the world.   Mandrake had the ability to make others see visions of his choosing.   Quite a talent!

I then went home to work on my memoir called “Everything I Know,” which so far is about 150 long.  At the moment I’m writing this memoir by hand.  I use a ballpoint pen as well as a notebook from Muji, which specializes in designed objects of all sorts.  I tend to work late at night.  It is just usually an owl that sits on my window pane and me.  Hoot Hoot.

Tosh Talks MUJI May.06.2011

I do have obsessions about retail stores, and one of my favorites is MUJI. A Japanese no-brand store of sorts but with high design quality - and all the goods are excellently made. I have used their notebooks and pens for over 20 years. Remarkable stationary, but they make everything from shoes to pre-fab homes.