I went home to Chapel Hill this week so that I could gather one last batch of desired belongings from my bedroom, but I found out that during my absence my room had become something of a self-storage unit for my parents. My mom had put aside for herself a teetering pile of old clothes she “might still want” but wasn’t sure about, and my stepdad apparently thought he’d help her out by moving her entire fabric collection up there as well. This stuff made the process of organizing my stuff a little harder, but I managed by shoving all of their stuff into a corner. George Carlin once did a monologue about stuff, and I find it to be very true. We can’t function without our stuff, but other people’s stuff? NOT IMPORTANT.
The only things I really cared about rescuing were my pop-up books, all given to me by my aunt. I’ve never bought a pop-up book for myself, and neither has anybody else, and it’s really only in my own collection that I’ve even seen most of these books.
Aka “Clever Cathy”
My first pop-up book was about the extinction of dinosaurs, given to me when I was zero years old. I suppose the book was more for my dad to enjoy than me, because its post-apocalyptic theme is a lot more serious for a baby than The Tale of Peter Rabbit—incidentally, my second book. Now that I’m 23 I don’t receive as many of these books, but I have at least 50 in all. Since they’re safely under my care again I decided to take some pictures of my old favorites:
It’s really kind of hard to take pictures of the more elaborate pop-ups (just try to envision the tornado and Emerald City from the Wizard of Oz in pop-up form), but check these out and see if you’re not excited by the possibilities of paper.
My aunt herself has a collection of frog figurines. Anybody else collect?
i collect giraffes. have done for years and years now. every birthday or christmas my mum will surprise me with something new, it’s fantastic. people always know what to buy me.
i love the idea of collecting pop up books. pop up books are amazing.
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/mia/tags/giraffe)
Herb is adorable! I really like that drink stirrer, too.
Animals are fun to collect. I kinda had a collection of cats when I was younger, but I haven’t held on to many of them. One thing I’ve definitely kept is my Kit-Cat clock.