minty keen

Minty Keen is a relatively new shop in downtown Grand Rapids.  Angie, the adorable owner, has lots of great vintage--mostly furniture and home decor items, but some great dresses, too!  (Love the one shown above.)

The storefront, with that awesome yellow tandem bike parked on the left.

The shop is open and airy, but chock-full of beautifully displayed items.  And it's not just vintage--there are items for sale from local artisans like the Beerhorst family and artgoodies.

This neat old window with a metal bird attached to it caught my eye.  If you're in Grand Rapids, you should definitely check the shop out!  (Minty Keen is located here.)  Angie also has a nice little Etsy shop.

After stopping by Minty Keen on Saturday (we were dropping off a few dresses for Angie to sell for us), we headed out for our now-regular pinball date. Grand Rapids (in this respect alone reminding me very much of NYC) tends to empty out on summer weekends as everyone heads up to their cottages.  So we mostly had the Pyramid Scheme--and our favorite game, Bride of Pinbot--to ourselves.  I wore this 1950s cotton floral print day dress.

You can see the print a little better here, as well as the cute little fabric loops which decorate the neckline and the pockets.  I'm also wearing a heart locket that I've had since I was a child.

Funny story:  there's an ivy-covered wall across the street from the Pyramid Scheme that is pretty much the perfect spot for photos.  We've taken more than a couple there.  Last time we played pinball I saw a group of three young hipsters take some shots there.  And on Saturday, well...a dude with a camera and a gal in hot pants, halter top, and high heels got out of their car and proceeded to take some shots.  I didn't get to see the whole shoot (I was playing pinball) but at one point, I saw the woman putting her top back on.  I don't know if she was merely changing into a new outfit or taking photos au naturel, but it was pretty funny.  They hopped back in their car and took off rather quickly after that.  I guess all kinds of people see the beauty in an ivy-covered brick wall.

xo

K

pinball date

The fantasy:

Suzy Parker with Robin Tattersall and Gardner McKay, evening dress by Lanvin-Castillo, Café des Beaux-Arts, August 1956.  Photo by Richard Avedon.

I love that photo.  Partly it's the gloves, shoes, and gorgeous dress, and the men in evening wear...but mostly it's the pinball.  I love pinball, and I've been an avid--if infrequent--player since college.  Luckily, Grand Rapids has a number of bars with good beer on tap and excellent pinball games.  Andy and I have been spending our Thursday night dates testing our skills.

Here's my pinball reality.  Not a party dress, unfortunately, but a more comfortable plaid 1950s day dress, cardigan, and flats.

I feel like I have shared the below image on this blog before.  If I have, I apologize.  But I can't help it: I love old signs painted on the sides of buildings.  And this one--in downtown Grand Rapids--just happens to be my last name.

xo

K

swirl girl

This 1950s ballerina print Swirl dress was an exciting recent find. Even more exciting was discovering that it fit me! I love the wide, lattice-trimmed portrait collar. And though ballerinas aren't really my thing, I can forgive the print because it's on a black background (enlarge photo below to see print more clearly).

I wore this on date night last Thursday. Andy and I went downtown to play some pinball, have dinner, and see the Kent County String Band.

A few downtown GRR sights, including some stencil graffiti...

Love the lions on this building, which was built in 1910.

Squirrel!

Andy, looking a little angsty because I kept beating him at pinball.

xo

K

mini golf

Andy and I went to play "artist-designed mini-golf" at the UICA last week.

My outfit:

*1950s dress--estate sale

*cardigan and tights--Target

*shoes--rustlethepetals on Etsy

The mini-golf was hilarious. At this hole, you put on gloves and handled the club like you were handling dangerous material in a nuclear plant.

See that blue blur in the lower left corner--that's Andy's golf ball heading toward the hole.

Loved the doughnut and coffee cup hole, but sadly, it had issues and couldn't be played.

I beat Andy by two strokes. I celebrated with a Sazerac!

xo

K

a night out! OR trouble at the museum...

Andy and I decided to take a much-needed and well-deserved night off, and go out on a date. We used to do this all the time, but that was before Etsy and pedicabbing and the garage filled with garbage bags. (I digress.)

This June was the 40th anniversary of the dedication of Alexander Calder's La Grande Vitesse stabile in downtown Grand Rapids. It was controversial at the time it was commissioned. Apparently many in Grand Rapids didn't understand why money should be spent on something like art. Especially abstract art. But I love La Grande Vitesse. It's one of my favorite things about Grand Rapids. Here's a photo I took of it (not from the best angle) last year when we attended the Obama rally on Calder Plaza.

The Grand Rapids Art Museum has a Calder exhibit now (his jewelry is going to be on exhibit early next year--I can't wait to see that!), as well as an exhibit about Eliel and Eero Saarinen I wanted to see, so we went to the GRAM to check them out. I knew ahead of time that, sadly, budget constraints had caused the GRAM to cut back on the Saarinen exhibit...but it was still disappointing. It was just a few items (mostly from the permanent exhibit, that I'd already seen) and a running documentary. I'd toured the Saarinen home at Detroit's Cranbrook Academy with my friend Stephani last year, and it was amazing. If you are ever in Detroit, it's a must see--as is the whole Cranbrook campus--a beautiful arts and crafts home, and a fascinating tour inside the lives (and cocktail hours!) of the Saarinen family. (Eero Saarinen was the architect of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, of particular interest to me since my parents were wed in the chapel beneath it. If you ever get a chance to see the PBS documentary about it, The Gateway Arch: A Reflection of America, make sure you watch--it's completely fascinating.)

So the lack of Saarinen stuff was disappoining, but the selection of Calder paintings on display made up for it. The Calder mobile and animobile (which I think are on permanent display) are some of my favorite things in the GRAM, and I decided to have Andy get my picture by them. We weren't sure if we were allowed to, but the only signs up said not to TOUCH the art, and since we weren't going to use the flash...we went for it! Well. The guards must be trained to hear the whizzing of a digital camera being turned on, because the dude came running from the other side of the galleries. He was very nice about it, and Andy did manage to snap two photos, including this cool, shadowy, noir-ish one:

I do have a history of trouble with authority. Particularly museum authorities. See, I was almost thrown out of the Vatican Museum by Swiss Guards in college when I tried to take a photo. I don't mean to be a troublemaker; I guess I just get carried away by art.

The GRAM is quite lovely, by the way. They recently rebuilt it, and it's the first LEED Gold certified museum in the world (which basically means it's really green). Here's a photo I took from the side.

After the museum we had tapas at longtime favorite, San Chez. We always try to have something new when we go there, so we ordered some crazy calimari and bacon concoction, goat cheese with piquillo peppers, and albondigas (meatballs!). Here's Andy's beer and my caipirinha.

After dinner we decided to walk back toward the museum, where the last night of the summer's Blues on the Mall series was going on. I'd never been before. Well, the place was jam-packed with bikers. Wall to wall. For blocks. It was insane. The music, for some reason, sounded like Lite Jazz, so we left.

On our way out we ran into our friend, Mark, driving a couple of customers around in his pedicab!

Andy drives a pedicab for Mark on weekends. Sometime maybe Andy will do a guest blog post on a Pedicab Confessions theme. He has some pretty amazing tales of drunken girls. If you're ever in Grand Rapids and need a fun ride from one end of downtown to the other, call Green Machine Pedicabs. (It's Mark's birthday tomorrow. Happy birthday, Mark!)

We ended our evening at my favorite bar in Grand Rapids, the Meanwhile. Great jukebox, lots of local beers on tap (they always have my favorite, Bells Two-Hearted), Star Trek and Star Wars pinball games, and a backyard beer garden of perfection.

Hee hee!

The Meanwhile is owned by the fabulous brother/sister team, Jeff and Tami VandenBerg. Jeff is a music promoter/record label owner, as well as an artist, as you can see from the excellent murals in the beer garden, which I absolutely love.

Um, waiter? There's a fly in my beer.

It was a lovely evening, and I now feel recharged and ready to take on more laundering, mending, ironing, photographing and listing! I think.

xo
k