Manhattan mini storage ads are the best

[lapsedmodernist]

it's the eyebrows, really.

Comments

[never-the-less.livejournal.com]

totally. you've posted about this before, no? also, the majority of their ads are very very gay themed.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I think I might have posted before about the ad with putting G.I. Joe away until the world is less weltschmertzy.

I only remember one gay-themed one, with storing a (boy's) boyfriend's stuff. Were there others?

Lovely to have run into you on the B61 the other day, btw! Just like old times!

[never-the-less.livejournal.com]

I know -- I was so happy to see you on the bus! It was one of those totally comforting some thing never change moments.

There was another ad about bbqing in the winter or something with two guys (who were obvously together except to the most oblivious tourists)....i feel like there have been a few. either way, they def. have a slightly left of mainstream tack....

[antonstrout.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna wake up trapped in a storage unit with thousands of them. I just know it...

[amadea.livejournal.com]

This disturbs me a little also because it looks very much like the cover of The Little Friend, one of the most unexpectedly horrible books I've ever read.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

YES! I KNEW it reminded me of something, and that's what it was. I totally agree with you about The Little Friend. I was just telling theophile how excited I had been about it, b/c I loved The Secret History so much and waited for her second book so eagerly, and I actually bought it in hardcover like the day it came out, and it was so awful I could not finish it.

[mashuta.livejournal.com]

yes yes yes!!! whenever i walk around manhattan i inevitably run into some of these, and they are so hillarious they make me laugh out loud when i least expect it. which is especially freaky to passersby because i am usually alone. i wan more! more! maybe i'll remember to take photos of them when i am in nyc next.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I like that they are really morbidly weird, like the "bad things happen when you leave the city" series, which I can't find any images of, sadly :(

I also like it that they are often randomly progressive.

[pirat-ponton.livejournal.com]

that one is pretty weird, but the burning-your-crotch one is weirder

(just thinking - was that even a mini-storage ad?)

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

It sure was:

[cascadianista.livejournal.com]

AWESOME.

[mjmj.livejournal.com]

is it just me, or does it remind you of la femme petite? it's missing the bangs and the lips, of course, but the eyes and cheeks...

[downward--dog.livejournal.com]

unheimlich!

It's a Kewpie!

[sun-moon.livejournal.com]

ha! Wow, that was a blast from the past. I got one of those Kewpie dolls from my parents when I was an infant - she's wearing a devil suit. Same eyebrows. :) Some antique dealer guy (freaky when your toys are in antique shops, Im not THAT old) offered me $300 for it when he heard I had one.

Seriously - I have NO doll collection. Just that one. Only wanted animals when I was a child. ;)

Re: It's a Kewpie!

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

ah, so it's a real doll! That's...frightening.

[blainerunner.livejournal.com]

years ago, i briefly dated an otherwise fairly groovy chick who turned out to have a fairly professional collection of barbie dolls. she must have had forty, ten of which were still packaged, and six or seven of which were "theme" dolls (international, period costume, etc.). i must admit that her possession of them and their presence caused me some disquiet, and may have contributed, in a quasi-conscious way, to the dissolution of my romantic bond with their owner (other reasons presided as well; i'm not dollist). it *is* odd to, well, perform certain acts in front of an audience of wide-eyed, unblinking miniature entities (a video-camera wouldn't have been so unsettling (at least one knows that that mode of recording is predictably mechancial)). dolls of that sort (as opposed to ritual dools (voodoo, kachina, whathaveyou)) are supposed to radiate, invoke a certain type of pre-adolescent innocence, one that should (!) definitely be at a remove from certain modes of mutual exploration and awakening.

i can sort of understand the kitschy impulse behind their collection. but i must presume that part of the motive for their arenal situation/presentation was psycho-sexual (here, my mind makes alteral foray to 'red dragon' and retreats promptly and with self-admonition). why, do you think, a woman would encircle her bed with barbies?

also, on the L, naturally, i saw a defaced copy of that ad. many ads are defaced. but the defacement of this one seemed more conspicuous or more telling. what's the urge behind such defacement or transformation, which almost invriably involves the alteration of gender (the addition of a beard or moustache) or enforced maturation (the addition of a beard or moutsache) ? (in general, the addition of stall-worhy genitalia doesn't sprak my speculation as much. that just seems like a trite readily-explained eruption of the id.) of course, facially hair is easy, and, most often, the only addition that's anatomically germaine. but the urge to masculinize or age interests.

than you

[no-slouch.livejournal.com]

yes. and it's me who posesses quiet a variety showe of them der Q-pie dolls but nonetheless shameful of i am not. oH cotreau! I like it and will exhibit it as is my nature in not so distant future to come!

By te bye, let me make my acquaitance felt right here: no_slouch (vlad lill the whale) yu name it. very nice picutres. and pleasure to look at is all mine.

[goddessspiral.livejournal.com]

LOL

I've seen those ads too now that I'm all I-commute-into-Manhattan-to-work-ey. They make me do this little squeak laugh when I see them. Which is not cool since I'm on the train tryign to look all I-am-a-reserved-NYCer-ey.