Great charity shop finds are harder to come by these days, aren't they? You know the score...bloody charities have the audacity to put treasures online, where they can snag buyers nation or worldwide and get higher prices than they would from the olde worlde long shot stick-it-in-the-shop method. I tell myself that's fine as I rummage through a load of rubbish, thinking, for instance, that the more money going towards mental health improvement, the better.
So to Mind charity shop in Kentish Town. Doing the Kentish Town charity shop run is usually good for my mental well-being. One lives in hope, after all, that there are gems to be snapped up. The only downside is the music they play in the PDSA shop, which may explain why the Mind shop is only a few doors away. Anyone with sensitive ears, i.e. decent taste in music, may well end up phoning the Mind hotline (assuming there is such a thing) having spent ten minutes in the PDSA shop. I can't recall the station they're always tuned into but it only plays upbeat, brain-scrabbling 'dance' Pop whatever-it's-called. You know, the kind that features about five words on repeat to beats that send those crazy philistine kids wild! Mind you, the women working in there are old enough to know better, but since when did age equate with learning to appreciate music that isn't aimed at 15-yr-olds?
Mental health is improved by focusing on the positive so here's what I found for £3.50 in Mind. Published in 1965 in the USA by Random House, the illustrations by Earl E. Mayan are the reason I bought it. He also painted ten Saturday Evening Post covers as well as illustrating the magazine but I doubt he ever did anything as hauntological (remember hauntology?) as these. Great use of pink as the sole alternate colour to black and grey along with the subtle inclusion of collage. 'The monsters are coming!', as Hitchcock says in the intro.
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