The Crap We Wade Through...

Actually you have 2 Ookpiks - the fuzzy owl like things beside the totem pole. Ookpik mania was big in the 60's and 70's - though not TOO big, cause a quick online search doesn't come up with much... here's an Ookpik beer mug...

http://www.lswilson.ca/dewmug.jpg

In any case, Ookpik is the inuit name for Owl (I think) and so probably was a hybrid of the craze for all things native and all things owl converging at the same time. Further reserach reveals that all is not fluffy and happy in the world of Ookpik - the Ookpik conspiracy dates back to 1965!

OTTAWA: Jack Shafter, vice-president of Regal Toy Co., today accused the Department of Northern Affairs of "wheeling and dealing" in making private arrangements for commercial production of Ookpik, the fuzzy, saucer-eyed version of the Arctic owl. Designed by an Eskimo woman in Fort Chimo, N.W.T., and made of sealskin, Ookpik was promoted by the Government at trade fairs. When orders out-stripped Eskimo production, Northern Affairs granted rights to the Reliable Toy Co. to manufacture Ookpiks of white plush synthetic fabric to sell at about $2.98. Another version, made of imported possum pelts, sells at around $7. Ookpik has been registered with the trademark division and unauthorized copies are illegal. Lawrence Samuels, vice-president of Reliable, said: "We've been told bluntly to keep our mouths shut about this thing. Any public relations or publicity will have to come from Northern Affairs."

Then of course, the Ookpik was immortalized in poem by the fabulous Dennis Lee. I remember reading this in a book I had as a kid:

Ookpik - by Dennis Lee

An Ookpik is nothing but hair.
If you shave him, he isn't there.

He's never locked in the zoo.
He lives in a warm igloo.

He can whistle and dance on the walls.
He can dance on Niagara Falls.

He has nothing at all on his mind.
If you scratch him, he wags his behind.

He dances from moring to night.
Then he blinks. That turns out the light.

That, I think, is more than anyone needs to know about the Ookpik. Except for me of course, now I have to go do some more Ookpik research!

and we inch ever closer to the creation of "owl central..." :)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3903233616&category=13754

Wow, your ookpiks might be worth some dough!

Oh, also, we had one of those little wooden Vikings on the mantlepiece when I was little too!

Days after reading this thread, my local Goodwill decided to do one of their end-of-aisle "displays" with all owls! I got paranoid for a second, is this why tiki items are so hard to come by around here? Is there a T.C. member or even worse a T.C. lurker working in the back, sorting out all the good shit for himself? Hmmmm...

As for the records, I'm surprised no one mentioned Al Hirt, Montovani or Percy Faith - I think I could own every damn song these three ever recorded by looking through one bin. Last week I visited a "foreign" Goodwill, it's about 1/2 hour away from home, and noticed one of the employees or a discouraged/disgusted, perhaps manic compulsive, vinyl junkie had gone through all ten bins and left behind an amusing calling card. Each and every Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass album was dissected from the confines of the dusty bins and placed in the front. Some of the bins were 12 to 15 Alpert records deep! Also, to keep it interesting they had made sure that each front album was different..."Whipped Cream and Other Delights" in bin 1, "What Now My Love" in bin 2, "Christmas Album" in bin 3, etc. all the way down the row. The nice thing about the anonymous patron's compulsion was that when you went through the bins there was not ONE of those annoying platters mixed in anywhere!

Gotta go - I'm off to OwlCentral!

JohnTiki

Aloha from the enchanted Pi Yi Grotto in exotic Bel Air Maryland!

[ Edited by: johntiki on 2004-03-24 17:55 ]

Today, I saw the most owls I've seen yet. I see a lot of mushroom related items too.

Someone should start a mock forum, for those who love the things we have to wade through.

"I love owls! They are soo cool. You know you can find hundreds of them at the sally ann! I think they're worth big bucks on e-bay!"

hehe....maybe that would clear a path.

So, everybody saw that there is a real, live http://www.owlcentral.com, right? Some kind of Aussie consulting firm. Not as funny as what JT had in mind.

I'd forgotten about Al Hirt. Man, that guy was prolific.

[ Edited by: DaneTiki 2009-08-30 19:09 ]

How about them damn giant walnut dishes with the little squirls on the top?
Aloha,
:tiki:

On 2004-03-24 21:46, Tiki Royale wrote:
How about them damn giant walnut dishes with the little squirls on the top?
Aloha,
:tiki:

They're usually parked next to the ceramic asparagus serving dish brilliantly shaped like a bunch of asparagus.

Thanks for the Ookpik research, Tikifish, I haven't seen one or even thought about Ookpiks in years & years -- they've just sort of disappeared. They were a big deal when I was a kid. I'd place the height of their appeal somewhere around Centennial year (1967) -- before your time I'd daresay. And speaking of which, I found an Expo '67 guidebook yesterday, complete with pavillion stamps on the covers -- brought back fond memories (anyone old/canuck enough to know what the hell I'm talking about?).

I was in a charity store yesterday and they had a woolen owl mounted high on the wall, then i noticed sticking out of its chest was a CCTV camera lens, THEY REALLY DO WATCH YOU!!

Expo 67 was the probably the last 'Space Age' expo when people still believed that in the future, we were all going to live in plastic preformed modular cube homes, wearing miniskirts and go go boots, and listening to Herb Alpert on our spherical bubble domed turntables.

Therefore, Expo 67 was the shiznit.

I bet they sold Ookpiks at Expo 67!

hey, i still believe that...

{veering topic dangerously offcourse: if you watch "logans run" and see how they approach dc., it means the future city of young people is somewhere around fairfax, va}

[ Edited by: Johnny Dollar on 2004-03-25 08:25 ]

DaneTiki said:
"And who could stand to have their place cluttered with a bunch of weird, semi-disposable artifacts of American consumer tchotchke culture, anyhow?"

Not to flame, but some of us will see a delicious irony in this. Once again, Tiki's unique schizophrenia raises its head.

With a name like danetiki, I'd figure you'd be into trolls :D (Which, incidentally the ookpik remind me of...)

[ Edited by: Philot on 2004-03-25 09:01 ]

[ Edited by: Philot on 2004-03-25 09:02 ]

trolls on tiki central? never! :)

On 2004-03-24 14:40, martiki wrote:
The Owl Tree, or to be formal about it, "C. Bobby's Owl Tree" is right across the street from Tiki Bob. It is fantastic inside- (this may only make sense to Californians/Nevadans) looks just like a Tahoe area vacation house that gets filled with all the leftover 70s furniture from your real house. The owl collection is spooky. The highly gruff old barkeep takes a while to warm up, but some friendly banter and a decent tip, and he'll talk to you.

We spent the entire evening there after enjoying the Tonga Rooms buffet, and the bartender did indeed mellow out as the evening wore on (and we kept spending money.) It was one of the first bars in SF we went to, and assumed they were all similar to that! Luckily we were very wrong, but it's worth nipping in for a couple of drinks just to get the weird vibe.

And those Viking things have been christened 'Noggins'. "The scholarship is staggering, the photos of life-size Noggins quite worrying and the book a masterpiece of its type. Art Monthly"
It's 'The Book of Tiki' of the Noggin world and you can get it here:

http://www.mpawson.demon.co.uk/noggins.html

Trader Woody

[ Edited by: Trader Woody on 2004-03-25 10:10 ]

On 2004-03-25 08:20, Johnny Dollar wrote:
hey, i still believe that...

Johnny, your lifeclock is blinking. Run, Johnny, run!

Johnny$: they're remaking Logan's Run as we speak.

Tikifish: that Viking thing is called a Noggin. There was a little talk about them here on TC like a year ago or more.

My ookpik is like 2 inches tall, if that (d'oh! this is the second time this week I've opened myself up for all sorts of innuendo), so I doubt it would fetch the sort of cash the one you linked to on Ebay did ($52 whne I saw it!).

Iorana!

JT

"Ignorance of the Tiki is evil."

[ Edited by: tikibars on 2004-03-25 12:22 ]

This thread is bringing back long repressed memories.

There used to be a Hoot Owl Lounge in the Ramada Inn in Belton, Missouri. It had wonderful foil wallpaper with big owls all over it and owl light fixtures.

I just now remembered my owl jewelry collection. My mom gave me a piece of owl jewelry every Christmas when I was in Jr. High because she said I liked owls. SHE is the one who liked owls.

Mom painted some oval rocks to look like owls & glued them to a piece of driftwood. It sat on top of the console T.V. If you see it at a thrift store be sure to snatch it up. It's a Bernie Original.

Mom also used to draw mushroom tableaus and force me to make them into yarn stitcheries in the summer to keep me out of trouble.

[ Edited by: kctiki on 2004-03-25 13:14 ]

On 2004-03-25 13:12, kctiki wrote:
Mom painted some oval rocks to look like owls & glued them to a piece of driftwood. It sat on top of the console T.V. If you see it at a thrift store be sure to snatch it up. It's a Bernie Original.

[ Edited by: kctiki on 2004-03-25 13:14 ]

aahhhh! that 70's confulence of owl and pet rock!

remember the driftwood with rocks and the little craftstore googly eyes labeled "rock concert?"

glued on top of driftwood = 1970's

Another collision of owl and mushroom:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3667852355&category=12587

I also noticed that the owl-on-mushroom print has been relisted.

Here's another candidate for Owl Central:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6108407710&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1

Eeeeeaaaaagh!

Lately, I'm seeing a TON of ceramic squirrels sitting on giant nuts. Gee, maybe this should be posted in "Things That Sound Dirty"

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6107869848&category=13924

-Z

Seriously, I've seen 3 in the last week.

[ Edited by: TNTiki on 2004-11-06 15:00 ]

Lately, I'm seeing a TON of ceramic squirrels sitting on giant nuts.

Ha!
I just said that exact thing to my fiance yesterday...
I just noticed like the sixth one in 2 months!

I swear I'm not making this up: Last year on an Ebay Tiki search, I found a Coco Joe's style Owl ashtray with "HAWAII" embossed accross the tail!

On 2004-03-14 20:13, Feelin' Zombified wrote:

On 2004-03-14 19:13, tikibars wrote:
OwlCentral

:lol: The hardest I've laughed all month :lol:
thanks, I needed that

I notice that there's still no offical launch for OwlCentral...

But how about R2-D2 Central?

I kid you not...

http://www.r2d2central.com/

I'm defecting!

Gaaahggh!

There IS an OwlCentral!

http://owlcentral.com/

What?! No owl salt & pepper shaker discussions? No "Creating Owls" tips?

The scary thing is, there may be a market for the "How Many Wee Little Figurine Owls Can You Cram Into a Curio Cabinet?" message board!

[ Edited by: ZebraTiki on 2004-09-03 18:56 ]

oo, they provide business solutions. What a novel concept.

On 2004-09-04 17:31, kctiki wrote:
oo, they provide business solutions. What a novel concept.

or should you say a "wise concept"?

ugh i need to quit mixing OTC pain killers and Mai Tais

Did you know that Muppet Central doesn't have a "Creating Muppets" forum either?!

Yes, yes... there IS a Muppet Central. :o

One last thing on Whipped Cream...

When I was a young, hot headed punk rocker, nothing pissed me off more than finding 20 more copies of Whipped Cream and Other Delights at Goodwill. I've probably seen a thousand copies of this thing, Now....I would probably cry like a baby if I found one mint for 50 cents.

I went to the local Sal Army the other day and they had 50-70 Al Jolson LPs from the '60s & '70s, and had double copys of most of them.

on saturday at the salvation army, my wahine was inspired to buy shaun cassidy's "born too late." we rocked that mother when we got home. :)

to be fair, we got some good clash, siouxie and psychadellic furs too.

We were seeing so many Herb Alpert & TJB records that my husband, the record collector, instituted the Herb Alpert Challenge. He wanted to see how long it would take to get every recorded Herb release in both mono and stereo for under $1 a pop, just from thrifts. It took mere months. Once that was over he started over again on open reel tapes.

On 2004-10-18 11:49, velveteenlounge wrote:
We were seeing so many Herb Alpert & TJB records that my husband, the record collector, instituted the Herb Alpert Challenge.

Someone once told me that Herb sold more records than the Beatles during the 1960s. Does anyone know if that's correct?

On 2004-10-18 12:34, cynfulcynner wrote:
Someone once told me that Herb sold more records than the Beatles during the 1960s. Does anyone know if that's correct?

It may be correct, but it is certainly just wrong!

yearrgh!

J$... I'LL GET YOU FOR THAT!!!

You used to be able to sell a set of those Bailey's face mugs on Ebay for $30. No longer. Same with "The Zone" diet books. They were good for an easy $20 pop. No longer.

Sabu

hey sabu, is this your cousin?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=29223&item=6935540303&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

[ Edited by: Johnny Dollar on 2004-11-16 13:34 ]

On 2004-11-16 13:33, Johnny Dollar wrote:
hey sabu, is this your cousin?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=29223&item=6935540303&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

[ Edited by: Johnny Dollar on 2004-11-16 13:34 ]

Here's his step-brother
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=67&item=2284310470&rd=1

On 2004-11-16 13:33, Johnny Dollar wrote:
hey sabu, is this your cousin?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=29223&item=6935540303&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

Oh God. Good old Rickshaw Boy. When we were kids he would insist on doing that politically-incorrect L/R substitution thing:

"Hi! Me Lickshaw Boy! Hey Lady, you needa Lickshaw?"

"You think you're being funny," I said. "But it just sounds nasty."

"Yeah, well Rick me, Sabu! Maybe some little boy wanna sit in your "Lapa Nui".

(He even knew I was into tiki back then). He used to say his favorite musician was Lickie Lee Jones. He was such a stupid rittle Plick.

For some reason lately I have contracted the curse of the cornucopia!

Every time we go antiquing they are showing up in droves. All sizes, colors and materials.

Geez, I know they are sometimes called the Horn of Plenty. Now I am beginning to think that it's because I've seen plenty of the damn things!

When we first met.......

[ Edited by: 8FT Tiki on 2005-01-26 20:25 ]

Now that Ray Charles has passed away, maybe the volumes of Diet Pepsi "You Got The Right One Baby!" tumblers I find at every thrift store will finally be worth something.

Tonight, my opinion of ceramic owls from Otagiri on eBay completely changed...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7322381689&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&rd=1

coconut owl:

http://cgi.ebay.com/MID-CENTURY-TIKI-Eames-VINTAGE-COCONUT-OWL-Cocoanut_W0QQitemZ380051230296QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item380051230296&_trkparms=39%3A1%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A3&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14.l1318