Sunday, December 23, 2012

Presents for the Kids, Part 2


I finished shopping for the kids today, so I now have a present 
each for eight children aged 5 and under. It's easy when they're so young,
but I still try to find them to suit the child. What is difficult is
finding age-appropriate stuff that hasn't been commercialized into
plastic banality, creating only plastic, banal adults.
Two of them are now old enough for beautifully illustrated
picture books. Hopefully, they will be captured by the color and line
of the drawings, entering into the world of the written word,
guided by art and design.


These pictures are of the animated window displays from the old 
L.S. Ayres & Company Department store, which was located
at the corner of Washington and Meridian Streets from 1905 until
it was closed in 1990. Along with this display, furniture and decor 
from the Ayres' Tea Room was kept and re-created 
in the Indiana State Museum. During the Christmas season,
one can enjoy the store's displays, Christmas train and
the Tea Room's famous Chicken Velvet Soup.


7 comments:

dive said...

Cool window displays, Speedway. I … er … particularly love the pole-dancing schoolgirl.

This year's presents for my friends and relatives over here: books (real ones) and fountain pens (my one-man war against the iPad is a campaign for letter-writing … I've already snared one blogpal - yay).

Speedway said...

You've snared me, too Dive, though I don't think I ever left the written letter behind. Whenever I have something I really want to say, I prefer to sit with pen and paper to do it. Besides, when I "write" I've found that it's just confusing to do it on the PC, I use my trusty BIC pen and a legal pad, then type it into a Pagemaker file.

However, I've never been able to write in a straight line. Things wander, as I'm certain you will find in the next week or so. (How do I make a wink? Is that ;-)? OK, so ;-) it is.

dive said...

You make a wink with your eyes, Speedway; nobody should ever in their whole life use an emoticon.
So glad to hear you're still a pen person. We may be the last generation so let's go out with a flourish and some curlicues.
As for the next week; for me it's just another week; no decorations, tree, stupid food or extra booze, so things aren't likely to wander any further than normal. I'm enjoying my annual reading aloud of "A Christmas Carol" (I always love doing the voices, even if there's only me to hear) and toasting the turning seasons with the occasional glass of old Armagnac, but that's my lot.
Happy Hols!

Speedway said...

I will watch "A Christmas Story" at least once, then head off with my brother to a relative's house for Christmas. He and I will enjoy some wine, then sit back to watch the annual slaughter, skinning, and disembowelment of various presents by numerous children as they dig for the gifts hidden within. There'll be two about 5 years old, another couple about 3, 1 just short of one year, while the triplets are about 18 months. I think. Oh, let the joy begin.

Anonymous said...

There is a jewlery shop in Zionsville that specializes in fountain pens and since the husband of the owner found available ink boring, he decided to make his own in many colors. http://www.avalonpens.com/collections/private-reserve-ink-and-cartridges
They are repairing my parents old fountain pens and when they are done I will have a hard time choosing the color of ink I want. And I do not see alll the colors on the website.

Speedway said...

Merry Christmas, f1f3! I've been wondering how you and Siegmund are doing. I hope the season finds you both well and happy. It's nice to know about the custom inks. I have an art project in mind for which colored ink may be suitable, as part of a series of drawings. What colors do you think you'll want for your pens?

Anonymous said...

They had some named after wine (burgundy or merlot...) in dark red and then I have a passion for green, avacado looks cool, but my mother's old pen is grey, so maybe I need something that goes better with that... Siegmund is talking about plain old blue for his :-(