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Earlier this week I wrote about how a 1950s Frigidaire promotional glass led me to do a deep dive on the subject of decorator colors. But as I mentioned in that piece, there’s another aspect of the Frigidaire glass that I particularly liked, and I want to talk about that today.
As you probably know by now, I’m fascinated by vintage catalogs, which I collect and sometimes write about. They appeal to me because, much like collections and lists, they create order out of chaos. Each catalog has its own categories and subcategories, its own taxonomy, its own alphanumeric inventory system, and so on. Plus many old catalogs are just flat-out gorgeous.
The only downside to collecting catalogs is that they spend most of their time filed away on a bookshelf. So unlike, say, wall charts or coin-operated gadgets, which constantly make me smile because they’re displayed in my home, the catalogs only make me smile when I pull them off the shelf and flip through them, which isn’t very often. The lesson, which I’ve come to appreciate more as I’ve grown older, is that having an object — even a truly remarkable object — can be a somewhat empty pleasure if that object is usually stowed out of sight.
That’s part of why I like the Frigidaire glass so much. In addition to being a de facto color catalog, it’s a functional object, so I can have the fun of engaging with it on a regular basis. In fact, it’s already become my beer glass of choice for meet-ups on my neighbor Jason’s porch (as seen in this article’s header photo).
Of course, Frigidaire makes home appliances, not glassware, so there’s a slight disconnect there. It would have been better if they’d made a sample refrigerator rendered in all five of the colors. Granted, that might be impractical to produce (and harder to bring to Jason’s porch), but some companies have managed to create catalog-like versions of their signature products. For example:
PITTSBURGH — A regular intake of lime wedges served with his favorite beer at local dive bar The Rock Room was apparently the only thing keeping punk Dennis Koranski from succumbing to scurvy, sources report.
“I guess I don’t think too much about proper nutrition,” Koranski admitted as he sucked on a lime wedge plucked from the top of his can of Tecate. “Maybe I’ll eat some kielbasa or pierogies if the bar I’m in is serving them and someone else is buying, or I’ll find something good in the trash while I’m walking home, but other than that, I’m more interested in beer than food. It’s probably not the best thing for me, but I actually feel great minus the hangovers and occasional alcohol poisoning. Other than that I must be doing something right, so I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing. You mind if I bum a cig?”
Koranski’s friend Diane Lowery was puzzled at his physical state.
“Dennis and I have basically the exact same lifestyle, and I feel like shit all the time,” Lowery noted. “We eat the same stuff, so I don’t know how he feels so good. The only difference I can think of is I prefer Pabst Blue Ribbon while he drinks Tecate, but that can’t be it. My muscles are constantly sore and I’ve actually started to lose teeth. I don’t know what’s going on with me, or why the same things aren’t happening to Dennis. Just the other day we both got worried when my skin broke out in this horrible rash, but we ultimately decided to just go to the bar instead of the hospital.”
Koranski’s doctor Theo Czekovic was not surprised by the situation.
“You have no idea how many punks are narrowly avoiding catching diseases that have been all but eliminated in modern society,” Czekovic opined. “Clearly, Dennis is staying alive solely because of the lime wedges he’s consuming with his daily alcohol. I’ve had unvaccinated punk patients who are only staving off smallpox by eating a daily leaf of lettuce with their McDonald’s burgers, and I’m convinced one of my patients doesn’t have polio solely because I instructed him to begin washing his hands regularly. I guess I’ll just tell Dennis to keep drinking his Tecates.”
At press time, it turned out the only reason Koranski didn’t have bubonic plague was because he had inadvertently been inoculated through his constant exposure to fleas.
The post Lime Wedges Served With Cans of Tecate at Local Dive Bar Only Reason Punk Doesn’t Have Scurvy appeared first on HARDTIMES.
