Wow, I didn't realize Poly Pop was associated with "the artistic bohemian lifestyle"

Check out the product description for this tiki at Sears:

http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_07153493000P?keyword=tiki&prdNo=24&blockNo=24&blockType=G24

"It's time for some good clean fun with this upscale kitsch dècor piece celebrating the art of "Polynesian Pop!" You'll understand why he was called "the party god" as the designer resin Tiki helps invoke the artistic bohemian lifestyle, and adds a playfully primitive attitude to even your most "civilized" celebrations. Our island survivor is cast exclusively for Toscano in wood-grained designer resin for home and garden. 6"Wx5½"Dx24"H. 8 lbs.

• dragon bones archeologically accurate
• Weather Resistant
• always looks good."

Sounds great! Sign me up.

TT

I knew it! and love it. Along with the alien tiki connection, the bohemian tiki connection is my favorite. And the tiki hula girl connection.
Always looks good.
:)

Sears*
Life Well Spent...

Money*
Not So Much!

PTD

To paraphrase Frank Zappa - Is that a real Tiki, or is that a Sears Tiki?

Good quote, Silverline :)

On 2010-06-22 11:56, Tonga Trader wrote:
Wow, I didn't realize Poly Pop was associated with "the artistic bohemian lifestyle"

Wehell, you must not have read The Book of Tiki then! :D

This Toscano Tiki is an oldie but a goodie: First Toscano copied the Enchanted Tiki Room totem pole out of the book...

(see on left edge of photo)

....and then the Ku candle on page 184:

That they are now copying my text to hawk their wares is really hillarious! :lol:
It's probably the original Design Toscano catalogue text and Sears just used it. Man I used to love those catalogues, the epitome of bad taste made possible by the miracle of modern resin casting.

By the way, I spent a good part of "Tiki Modern" delineating how Tiki was initially associated with the "artistic bohemian lifestyle", too. :)

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2010-06-22 15:53 ]

TIKI BOHOs UNITE!
:)

I'm surprised a major corporation made the connection and used it in their copy since it's unlikely the majority of Sears customers have any idea what the phrase "artistic bohemian lifestyle" would be referencing. (I myself have no idea what "designer resin" is.)

While Polynesian Pop is general associated with the squares from a previous era part of the appeal back then was a vague tropical free wheeling fantasy often associated with a bohemian beachcomber lifestyle. Flowery shirts, unkempt hair and beard, straw hats, and an untended easel or typewriter.

And of course plenty of mid century and earlier artists of every discipline...The true "bohemians"...Found inspiration in Polynesian culture.

Ironically the bohos (a term from Tom Wolfe) in the 80s got into Polynesian Pop because it was amusing in its mid century white middle class cartooning of Polynesian cultures. (It was also cheap and fairly easy to find.)

All the artist types I knew back then seemed to have a bit of Tiki here or there not as objects to inspire beach combing daydreams but as humorous artifacts from the days of the Patiohemians (a term I just made up). Some of us then took the joke a little too far and here we are today.

And this is just a humorous citation of the bohemian Poly Pop connection: In the earl 90s my friend Gael owned the New Bohemian coffee house in Anacortes, Washington. She mostly served espresso drinks in standard coffee cups but if you were someone she really liked you might get your latte in one of a few Tiki mugs she kept around.

But not all bohemians like Polynesian pop. You can read here what Gael's then husband J___, a very talented painter, did to the Tiki mugs when there were moving.

Ahhh Sears...

South Coast Plaza, Romper Room filming, the Carousel,the Enchanted Tiki Room now the links from my childhood are all comming together.

My mom work at the Sears there for years, I would have my B-day partys at Disney thanks to the deals that Sears employees got.

Thanks to this post I can now have a Sears Enchanted Tiki Room tiki!!!!

Sears has a long history of being a fine art retailer.
See this video of Vincent Price instructing Sears employees on
selling fine art from the Vincent Price Collection.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIQj7_zVzxA
"Art doesn't necessarily have to be dead serious." - Vincent Price

Coincidentally, PolynesianPop caught me belittling this tiki years ago when I saw it listed in the Sky Mall Catalog. Sears' sale price is for real.
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=2068&forum=1
Here is the current Sky Mall listing. (They are on back-order.) By the way, shouldn't this be on the tiki marketplace forum?
Current Sky Mall Listing.

[ Edited by: mrtikibar 2010-06-22 15:18 ]

[ Edited by: Bora Boris - Changed link to be more direct. - 2010-06-22 19:31 ]

"By the way, shouldn't this be on the tiki marketplace forum?"

No. The title of the thread is Wow, I didn't realize Poly Pop was associated with "the artistic bohemian lifestyle." The author of the thread, Tonga Trader, is bringing attention to a cited connection between Poly Pop and the artsy boho set, not to the fact that Sears is selling a tiki made of luxurious designer resin. So we're discussing the culture around Tiki, not the selling of a tiki.

Had the headline been something like Wow, tikis for sale at SEARS!!! then I'd say it should go in Marketplace.

Okay. Just as long as Tonga Trader (of Chicago) isn't sitting in a corner office in the Sears Tower.

We often forget nowadays how strict and puritan the reigning dress, decor and social code was in the first half of the 20th Century. Many 9-5 men and women fantasized about trading in their boring jobs for a freer, more relaxed lifestyle:

That of the traveller, the artist, the bohemian, the beachcomber. To live in a shack, filled with exotic mementos of an adventurous and artistic life.....

The huge success of Don Blanding's 1932 book "Vagabond's House" was an indication of that: In its title poem, Blanding describes such a fantasy place, a place which none of the regular Joes and Janes at that time would dare to actually decorate their home like:

Not a literal description of a Tiki bar, but the feeling and atmosphere of a jumble of exotic objects, materials and art that are intriguing and unusual is all there. When we look at this 1940s interior of Trader Vic's and its patrons in contrast to it...

...we can perhaps appreciate how much this type of environment must have felt "bohemian" to its suit-and-tie clients.
"Bohemian" here equalled "informal". For an evening they could be Leeteg, the painter of nudes, visiting a rowdy sailor's dive - and still be safe and sure to return home to their orderly life afterwards.

It was this "fake" bohemian make believe that the children of that Polynesiac generation found ridiculous and shunned as passe. Until, as woofmut pointed out, the next generation of artistic-minded bohemians dug it up and dug it again.

Excellent post as usual, Big Bro!

It's amazing that as far back as 1932, they got it so right!

and a generation later we now regard the old fake stuff as real (as in vintage tiki) and the new stuff (as in part city tiki) as fake. I hope some day the new fake stuff doesn't become real fake stuff like the first fake stuff did.

On 2010-06-22 20:52, abstractiki wrote:
and a generation later we now regard the old fake stuff as real (as in vintage tiki) and the new stuff (as in part city tiki) as fake. I hope some day the new fake stuff doesn't become real fake stuff like the first fake stuff did.

How "abstract!" LOL

Vintage Tiki is as real as it gets: Actual artifacts from a particular era. Much of the original Tiki was obviously designed with skill and intent. Even most of the more unattractive mugs such as some of the Trader Vic's Hawaii items were crude not because of lack of skill but by design in order to evoke primitivism.

The Party City sorta Tiki crap is a ham handed rendering designed solely for the purpose of providing cheap decorations to people who are so dull and unimaginative that it's not enough for an item to be vaguely Polynesian it has to also be splashed with eye stabbing cartoon color.

On 2010-06-22 13:38, bigbrotiki wrote:

On 2010-06-22 11:56, Tonga Trader wrote:
Wow, I didn't realize Poly Pop was associated with "the artistic bohemian lifestyle"

Wehell, you must not have read The Book of Tiki then! :D

By the way, I spent a good part of "Tiki Modern" delineating how Tiki was initially associated with the "artistic bohemian lifestyle", too. :)

Ouch, busted. I do own both. Apparently just for the pretty pictures. I should have said wow, I didn't realize sears would make the connection with tiki and the artistic bohemian lifestyle. Or, wow I didn't realize sears would have the Book of Tiki laying around. Actually it does appear this was Toscano's original pitch copied, so I'm not surprised Toscano would have the BoT.

And no, I'm not in the Sears Tower.

And no, there is no longer a Sears Tower.

No connection with sears, though it appears I may have inadvertently helped sell the three that were available on the website yesterday...

TT

'Makes a haole right proud to be a tiki-phile.

<I myself have no idea what "designer resin" is>

No doubt it originated from those who brought us imported polyester.