Hey - my thoughts exactly!

It's Memorial Day and we are not open.  So I have a little extra time at home to browse through the pile of books on my table and generally muse on things.  I was looking through a new book written by a designer/businessman I have always greatly admired (even if I have occasionally been brought to despair by the high prices of his beautiful clothing).  His name is Paul Smith and the book is Paul Smith A to Z.  Musings on everything from Abbey Road and Architecture to the White Stripes and Zebras, lavishly illustrated with photos and drawings.  He has a small shop on 5th Avenue in New York that I've often gone into, occasionally to buy, often to admire.  An interesting mix of clothing and small items from toothbrushes to handmade toys to watches and plates.  In one of the book entries he writes about his shops saying "the premise is always the same.  When you come into a Paul Smith  shop, even if you don't buy anything, it should be a pleasant experience."  This is exactly how I feel about Joie de Vivre.  We never want anyone to feel that they must buy something to be welcome.  Some days you're just browsing.  Or you can't afford the $250 shirt - or in our case, kaleidoscope, that you fall in love with. It doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy looking at it.  And you may come back another day, to buy the orange striped toothbrush - or in our case a postcard or a wind up toy.  Anyway, it made me very happy to realize that my retail philosophy is shared by Paul Smith !  And though he is a business man, he is also an artist and writes eloquently of his love of everything from music to friends and family to the Queen (he's a Brit) to porcelain rabbits.  I think he would approve of us closing for Memorial Day.  Life beyond business and all . . . .

It's a . . . Small World . . . ?

Actually the world seems kind of impossibly large when you find out that three packages originating from a company in London, and shipped to us were sent to  . . . Afghanistan !   Through the miracle of modern technology I was able to see the shipping label and they had everything about our address correct - except instead of USA, it was Cambridge, 02140 AF -  and since to UPS, AF is Afghanistan - that's where they sent the boxes.  Especially odd as we've been ordering from the company in London for at least five years, and they've always gotten our address right before.  It made for a few funny emails anyway - and possibly some confused people in "AF" !

Never Say Never (continued)

I'm starting to think I should have numbered and tagged these "never say never" posts.  We sold an item years ago - probably over 15 years ago - that we are still asked for today - it was a little plastic car crumb sweeper - good for sweeping up toast crumbs, or eraser dust and the like.  It was made in Japan, sold really well, and all of a sudden we couldn't get them anymore.  There was a Taiwanese knock-off briefly available but it wasn't as good, and even that disappeared - as knock-offs usually do.  I had a request card from a customer who desperately wanted one - but I think I threw her card out a year ago - we'd been holding onto it for - ten years?  and it seemed silly to keep it.  Until today.  At the Stationary Show, where, walking the aisles, I stopped at a Japanese booth - and there they were.  The same little cars, original version.   Just another reminder that I should never - never - say "never."  You just "never" know what's going to come back  . .

Collector's Item Alert !

Years ago we bought music boxes imported from Japan from a company called TMC Designs. They are no longer being produced or we'd have them still as they were beautiful — sophisticated (i.e. non-cheesy) images of clowns and fairies and animals.  Sometimes the tune choices were — to put it kindly — a little odd.  When we asked about this the distributors explained that the Japanese makers didn't really relate to the song selection so were somewhat arbitrary about what went in what.  If the song was too odd they would be given a more appropriate song to replace it with.  For example — there was a box featuring a cute little grey rabbit that played "Hey Jude" — and evidently was a sought after item in San Francisco until the tune was changed to something more along the lines of "Here comes Peter Cottontail."  Anyway, we recently found a new music box company — a German company producing in China, and we got our first order today.  A set of ducks in a pond that played "Waltzing Matilda."  A circus monkey "The Entertainer."  Two little fish "It's a Small World."  All reasonable.  But wait — what's the music on the box with the two elephants?  Collector's alert!  It plays "Old MacDonald had a Farm" as the elephants madly spin around.  Pretty funny . . .

Mother and Daughter

It was Mother's Day today.  And it was an absolutely beautiful day.  We were not very busy - I'm sure people were out walking or at the Lilac Festival or who knows - I know you would have had to drag me inside on a day like today.  Of the few who did venture into Joie, many were mother daughter combinations.  The one that stuck out for me was a mother and daughter who came in, the daughter maybe 20 or so, and excited about bringing her mother to the store.  The mother seemed a bit unenthusiastic at first, but she began to have a good time and was enjoying looking around.  The odd thing was, the more the Mom was enjoying herself, the less the daughter seemed to.  And she tried to talk her mother out of anything she was interested in buying.  It was all little things, gifts she wanted to buy for other people.  The daughter would say, "but you shouldn't buy something for someone else today, you should let me buy you something!"  If the mother said so and so would like this book/ray guy/squeeze cow/whatever - the daughter would say no they wouldn't.  Then, when the mom picked something up and said she liked it, would like it for herself - never anything expensive - the daughter just ignored her.  I was tempted to intervene, but instead I bit my tongue.  Eventually the daughter started urging her mother  - who still seemed to be enjoying just looking around - to leave.  I hope the rest of their afternoon went a bit better !  

15 Minutes of Fame?

A small part of a documentary film was shot today inside Joie de Vivre.  It's about a palindromist who lives in our neighborhood -see previous blog for a sample of his work.  It was quite official, we had to sign both a location and a personal release form - as well as turn off our music system to avoid legal problems for the filmmaker.  The action?  Man walks into Joie de Vivre, hangs around and chats a bit - asks the Magic 8 Ball a couple of questions, buys a mother's day card - and leaves.  Two of the three of us who were here fled to the back room for the duration of this, leaving me to be the one who just might possibly look awful on camera someday.  I have seen myself on camera before - and can only say - results vary.  Wildly.  But, hopefully Joie itself will look good, and the filmmaker did spend some time filming various of our objects - from our tiny automata to balloon mobiles and sound machines.  It will be interesting to see it someday - and we will be sure to let you know when that day arrives.

A Palindrome for Our Sidewalk Sale

The weather for said sidewalk sale is looking a little uncertain - but never fear,  the sale will go on shine or rain - if it rains, we will simply bring the sidewalk inside, where rain or shine, we will also feature additional bargains.   And now we present our palindrome, courtesy of local palindromist extraordinaire, Barry Duncan !  Title - (not a palindrome) - Mass. Ave Sidewalk Sale.

Now, one lass send a memo: Shop, I hoot, on M.A., 5/5. Am not (Oh) side (yes) walk (sir!) sale? Very. Name varied. A mix: 11 hosts. Oh, hey! (Ad: 10-5, 5/5, 01 day, eh?) Hosts? Oh, 11 (XI) made, I rave, many. (Revel as risk? Laws eyed?) Is hot on M.A., 5/5. Am, no? Too hip! Oh, some madness? Sale. Now. On.

Various Tiny things

The other morning freshening and straightening the front desk displays at Joie de Vivre, I saw something that gave me pause.  For years, we've had a little container of "various tiny things" at the desk.  It's been an odd little collection - tiny devil ducks, tiny ninjas, nuns, and brides and grooms, snakes,  rubber chickens, Japanese creatures of indeterminate species, tiny frogs, cats, cows, etc.  Maybe 5 years ago there was a big shake up in the toy world when a few companies were found to be importing things from China that might not be 100% safe for children. This led to industry wide testing and rather stringent new requirements that every single item that was to be sold as a toy go through a battery of expensive tests.  Every item - so if you paid $2500 to have your tiny rubber frogs tested, and your tiny rubber snakes were made of identical material - you still had to pay $2500 to separately submit proof for the snakes.  (My $2500 figure is arbitrary, but various companies have assured me it was in that range.) Needless to say - a lot of smaller companies dropped their tiniest items, rather than pay for the testing. This is why we no longer have tiny devil ducks and ninjas - a truly sad thing for us at Joie de Vivre.  Anyway, our available "various tiny things" pool has drunk considerably and when I looked at it the other day I noticed something truly odd. Our collection now features rubber chickens (evidently popular enough to justify the expense), a group of very realistic tiny animals from a major toy company - and a bunch of black men. And there is a reason for that - of the various races of tiny brides and grooms we had -(white, brown, black) - the black men were always left behind.  When they were scattered in with other races, it was fine, and I guess because I knew this I didn't really think about it.  But that morning,  I suddenly thought - what would a black man think if he came in and glanced down at this?  It really does look kind of bizarre. I think I will be removing the little black men from our display ! !

Strange But It Happens

I was changing a display the other day — taking some powdered metal hooks and shelves off the back wall to make room for some new arrivals.  As I took them down, I realized how few of them had sold in the year and a half since we'd gotten them in.  It was puzzling — they weren't particularly expensive, they were beautifully made, nice colors, and they were animal themed — rabbits, hummingbirds, cats, seahorses — when I ordered them I'd expected them to sell really well.  And I had moved them around the store a lot, trying to find a spot where they'd be noticed, but no matter where they were, they were very rarely purchased.  I mentioned this to the other person working — who expressed an equal sense of "why don't they sell?"  I said I was thinking of putting them in our upcoming sidewalk sale, then went about my business for the rest of the day.  I left an hour before we closed.  This morning, when I opened the store, I flipped through the sales books to see what had sold after I'd gone the day before...   and my eye was caught by "hummingbird shelf."  It's so odd — this seems to happen often.  Just when you think you're really going to give up on something, just when you think, "we never ever sell these" — then someone comes along and buys one.  It's like that odd experience when you think of someone you haven't thought of in a long time... and then within hours — you hear from them.  The world is a strange and mysterious place!

Kids These Days

I pulled a piece of paper out of my front yard the other day when I went out to get the newspaper in the morning - it was too big to ignore.  That would be exhibit A - above. We've had some beautiful weather this week, and it's school vacation week so it wasn't hard to figure out that some neighborhood kids had been taking advantage of the 80 degree weather to make a little money - after all, a time honored American tradition - the lemonade stand.  50 cents seemed like a reasonable price as well - but what was that little blurry note beneath the price?  I looked closer.  It said "we take tips."   Now I'm sure that grownups who patronize lemonade stands run by the younger set often do leave the whole dollar, or some extra change.  But I found it kind of odd that the sign was not so subtly asking for them.  Kind of reminds me of the day I noticed a tip jar in a fish store. The only service provided was the regular stuff of retail - you enter, ask for a pound of salmon, they give it to you, you leave.  The idea of asking for tips for that seemed - kind of greedy to me.  I can't imagine having a tip jar at Joie de Vivre, though people  very occasionally have tried to slip us an extra dollar as a thanks for gift wrapping - a dollar we always refuse. Anyway, these were just kids .. . .  but I found it an interesting indicator of how pervasive the "give me extra money" sentiment has become!  and full disclosure, I find the whole tipping thing, outside of restaurants, to be kind of confusing!

R.I.P. Moss

MOSS was a design store in Soho.  A wonderful store that showcased very very modern design alongside porcelain birds and squirrels.  A very carefully curated store.  A store after Joie de Vivre's own heart.  Beautiful displays, the first to show designers like Tord Boontje . . . and the "burned" show where a Dutch artist scorched almost beyond recognition iconic pieces of furniture . . . and the place I found my wine glass doorbell . . . a place I lusted for things I couldn't afford - for instance a $250,000 crystal chandelier, and bought a few things I could - a set of shot glasses.  This afternoon I was reading the latest Metropolis Magazine and read that Moss has just closed -  Various reasons were given from the health of its founder Murray Moss, to the way the web has made buying design products easier to an increase in rent - from an absolutely staggering $80,000 a MONTH to who knows what.  (Guess Joie won't be opening in Soho anytime soon!)  Anyway, I was a regular and happy visitor, and that block on Greene Street will seem oddly empty without it.  1994 -  2012. Moss will be missed.

Science Sometimes Surprises !

Well,  we have now concluded our scientific investigation into jelly bean preference by color, and the results upended years worth of previous experience.  This is a photo of our jelly bean bowl at the beginning of the test period.  We fully expected to publish another picture alongside it - a picture that would be dramatically different, showing a bowl full of black, green and a few yellow and purple jelly beans.  Much to our surprise, we could not take that photo - the bowl looked virtually identical at the end of the test period.  Maybe we influenced the results by telling people who expressed a preference for black beans to take as many as they wanted . . . maybe not.  Maybe the taste buds of our customers have been subtly changing.  At any rate, after several weeks of jelly bean consumption, we posit the theory that all colors of jelly bean are equally popular.  Next years results expected post March 31st - and we promise not to April Fool you !

and we apologize for the odd spacing of this post - another mystery - to us, anyway!