Atomic Monster Cafe: Ready...

...and Action! Or in this case, no sale.

I took pictures of my Bolex Paillard P1 Zoom Reflex 8 mm movie camera with the idea I'd put it on ebay...I've been selling a number of things lately with some sucess, but this isn't going to join their ranks.

Checked around and for this high end 8 mm movie camera - Swiss made and much higher quality than anything that was made in the USA at that time - $50 is about the going rate on ebay.

And I get it...no one but the victims of "golden age thinking" syndrome - the fallacious idea that somehow days of yore were better than current times - would care a whit about the forgotten film format of 8 mm - or its primary tools - from 50 years ago.

Of course, I'm one of the leading voices of that particular victim demographic, so to me it has some actual value.

Give it away for $50? Why they can kiss my big fat hairy fill in the blank however you want to before that happens.

So forget it...I'll hold onto it, if only for its sleek aesthetics, and hey, it still works...maybe I'll be inspired to create an 8 mm silent movie classic someday.

Act 1, Scene 1, Take 1...and...begin: "it was a dark and stormy night...suddenly a shot rang out...meanwhile, back at the ranch...somewhere in the distance, the lonesome wail of a prairie coyote pining for his mate pierced the silence..."

So our unforgiving taskmaster - the need to list our house for sale - along with its merciless partner, the relentless forward march of time - continue to crack the whip on this seemingly unreachable goal.

Nothing on the walls! Clear every flat surface! Banish every lurking chunk of clutter to the outer darkness, or at least to a corner in the garage or a rented storage unit!

And why? Because buyers are too unimaginative and stupid to see themselves living there unless every wall is a blank canvas, ready and waiting for them to splash the paint of their lives all over everything.

Any identifiable trace of your DNA must be wiped clean by the weary hand of decluttering.

And yet today I see listed for sale a home smaller than ours, and all they did was take pictures...oh, they might have passed a dust mop over a few articles, but this guy had as much of a museum in his finished basement as I did...memorabilia and vintage items galore...definitely has that lived in look...and their asking price? $200,000

But I've already emptied the loft and basement...

...of every vintage toy, phone, radio, lighter, camera and TV...items ranging from the 1920's to the 1960's, with maybe just one or two slipped in from the 1970's, though that decade clearly owes the world an apology: Carter, disco, my first marriage...

On the plus side, Karen - with an assist from Mother Nature...has the backyard coming along very nicely...

Pictures happen this week with the house listed just before the holiday...

And since I feel the sting of the cat-o'-9-tails biting my backside, I must leave my winsome pastime and return to the heavy task at hand...

later, mcm fans...

* Crass Commercialism Corner *