Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Gettin' Jivey with a Vintage Teen Book.

Dahlinks, this week we have a little switcheroo on the Story Time Tuesday bus. This book is one of my all time favorites—not so much for the images, though those are pretty great, but for the writing. It is a decorating book written in 1960 for teen girls and is SOOOO chock full o' slangy goodness. This little treasure is all about decorating your room and making it the perfect lil hideaway. "It's not written for squares. It's for you, in your language, giving you jivey pictures, plans and color combos. Dig this too, you'll get tons of tips for making your room totally YOU!" Hee. I keep thinking I want to introduce "jivey" into my vocabulary more. I found this baby on eBay and have been smitten ever since!

As I flipped through the book, I couldn't help but wonder what real teens thought of this. I mean, on the one hand it seems SOOOO over the top, like "Really? You're going to say Dig It every other sentence??" Oh, and she also calls people "Cha-Cha", which is pretty great. At the same time, back then, maybe no one ever really took the time to write like this. Maybe kids thought "Wow! This is soooo cool! She's like totally part of the beat generation! Dig it!"












Is this not jivey beyond belief, cha-cha?

Stumble Upon Toolbar

12 comments:

  1. I'm going to make a sign to hang over my bedroom door that says "dream dugout!" Thanks for this jivey post cha-cha.

    ReplyDelete
  2. JOYgasm!! That copy reads like something out of A Clockwork Orange... haha

    also, i rather like the chair in the first pic. i just snapped up a cane beadhead thats all curly like that. Jivey! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jivey! I LOVE the front cover! But I just can't do the cha-cha thing I'm afraid. A friend of mine uses the word cha-cha for vagina... oh do you mind if I say vagina here?! So as you can imagine I'm not going to call you cha-cha.

    ReplyDelete
  4. it's totally bonkers. love it!

    ReplyDelete
  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  6. (Oops link was broken. Now fixed...)

    This great book was featured in The Retro Teen, a Flickr group that focuses on illustrations and various items directed at teens during the mid-century era: The Retro Teen.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hey ward! Yep, I'vee saw it on there. Just to clarify, this one is my own personal copy that I scanned....it's the best book around! The writing is so hilarious!

    ReplyDelete
  8. And to further clarify, ALL the books I feature on Storytime Tuesdays are from my own collection! Just don't want anyone thinkin' I'm snagging photos without permission!

    ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  9. I love strawberry specially, they are delicous, it drives me crazy!!!! i like to eat strawberry any time. actually I was interested to find information about how to buy viagra online and i found this blog. i must to say is really wonderful, i stay entertainment all the time. Really fantastic.

    ReplyDelete