Episode 3: Digital Verdigris
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[00:00:00]
Kate LB: We've all heard the old adage that 'what's old is new again'. And I'll tell you this, it feels like just yesterday where my mother, through a knowing smile, she would tell me that those flare jeans I was coveting, they were just the same as the bell bottoms she wore when she was a teenager. Or those capris I was buying? Those were actually called pedal pushers.
I would roll my eyes way back into my head, sigh, and then willingly fork over my cash to the annoyed looking employee at the register. And we see this again, and again, and again. We see it in the high wasted jeans on passersby and the Polaroid cameras at parties.
Even now [00:01:00] as I browse for my own daughters, there in the racks, I see the eighties, nineties, and early two thousands staring right back at me. This temporal merry-go-round of fashion has gotten me thinking about how other things in my life might in fact be on the same cyclical journey. I've been reading lately that the big trend for 2026 is a return to analog.
The trend watchers are predicting we'll all swap our tablets for typewriters and our streaming for vinyl. But honestly, I'm not so sure I buy into the idea of a full scale retreat. To me, it feels less like a trend and more like a necessary recalibration, a search for a new kind of balance between our digital efficiency and our analog souls.
[00:02:00]
Kate LB: This is Dust and Devotion, a podcast about stuff. I'm your host, KLB, and I must say it feels a little surreal to be here today because where we stand right now, well, it's the first Monday in January, and it's smack in the middle of a very distinct, heavy kind of stillness. All that tinsel, well it's been stripped from the trees and the holiday lights, they're back in their cardboard boxes.
And, that collective pause of the season? Well, it's been unceremoniously broken. We're back at our desks, back in the hum of the routine, and there's a specific melancholy that's hanging in the air. It's that quiet post-new-year ache that comes when we realize the calendar well it's marched forward again, leaving us longing for a place in time that doesn't really exist anymore.
It's a version of the world that felt more solid or perhaps just more human than the one we're currently [00:03:00] occupying. This longing is its own kind of weathering, much like that beautiful bluish, green patina that forms on copper as it's exposed to the air and the rain our memories of the world are developing their own layer of oxidation.
We look back at our older technology through this crusty, nostalgic film, a verdigris of low res memories and clunky interfaces that remind us that even the new eventually becomes the stuff of the past. But while a digital world simply becomes obsolete or disappears into a broken link, these physical objects wear the passage of time, like a badge of honor.
They develop a texture that demands that we slow down. In a few moments, I'll share a recent interview I did with my brilliant brother-in-law, a man whose enthusiasm for deep contemplative thought is frankly contagious. Throughout this interview, we discuss how this march of [00:04:00] technology creates vintage in the first place and how the quality, the memories, and the physical rituals associated with older items.
Well, they're exactly why we treasure them today. And this leads us to the big looming question, the one that I want you to carry with you throughout this episode. What happens to vintage in the digital age when so much of what we use is software-based or machine-crafted to be disposable. What will be the cherished, long lasting tangible artifacts of our time?
What will our great grandchildren find in their dusty attics? Something that speaks of quality, longevity, and a kind of charming imperfection? With the rise of the digital and the mass produced, what will be the inheritable, solid and treasured items that define our present? It's a thought experiment wrapped in a history lesson delivered with a hefty dose of nostalgia.
So grab a comfortable chair, maybe one that's [00:05:00] been passed down a generation or two, and let's dive into the beauty and the melancholy of the things we no longer need.
Kate LB: You go into any one of the big box stores and, you will see things that appear to have that vintage look to them. The argument in the vintage community is it's not real, right? I think that's when the line starts to get blurry. It's not Old. Certainly, but it looks the same way that the others do. It may not have the same kind of quality, and there are vintage loyalists who say, you absolutely have to follow this by definition, must be 20 plus years old, 30 plus years old in some cases, depending on who you're talking to. And then, a hundred years old for something that's antique. And that's really kind of arbitrary, right? Because [00:06:00] something that is 19 and three quarters years old today, what it suddenly becomes of value, it suddenly becomes valuable. And so you do see this debate over manufactured recently versus something that might have relied on older technology to create it. More traditional methods. And I think it's that same argument that we've been talking about with this new digitized world versus that old analog world.
I wanted to get your take on just things that you have encountered and any noticings that you might have had around that.
Mike B: I think, with those kind of examples. it's down to the market. It's down to who wants to acquire these things? What value do they put on those things based on how unique they are, how well they fit into, a particular, scheme, [00:07:00] theme, whatever heading you would like to put 'em on. Now that said, if something's mass produced and looks vintage versus something that is pretty unique, and it also has a little bit of history behind it, and there's more to the story behind that piece than the fact that you picked it up and it just looks like it.
Then that's another level, right? You can't deny that has more to it than the piece that was mass produced that you pulled on the shelf that you bought at a big box, et cetera.
You're gonna have the market flooded up to a certain point, with a lot of items, a lot of people who are capable of producing, to a certain level, you're still gonna have the upper crust that you can't mass produce. It's just maybe harder to find, because now there's a ton out there, so you have to be more discerning.
Kate LB: And you have to ask yourself this question too. Does it make what [00:08:00] is already out there? What is already scarce, more valuable. Versus do I just want the thing to look like it, to appear like it? It makes me think back to the Beanie Baby phenomenon. I was at a dance competition in the early nineties and
Mike B: mm-hmm.
Kate LB: They were selling it on a little card table, these are like the original and they have the little thing that they call the tush tag that goes on it, and you have to make sure it says certain things and that tells you when it was made. So if you have one of these original tush tags, sure, your Beanie Baby is significantly more valuable than what was later mass produced. And now, I mean, my goodness, I look on all of these marketplaces where they're selling these things, hundreds of them, you could purchase for pennies, because they were so produced and so dispersed across the population. There is no real value in the eyes of that [00:09:00] group anymore because they all got the thing, they got that instant gratification.
Mike B: Does the actual thing maintain its value in that case? If you find one with the right tush tag?
Kate LB: So with the original tush tags we're not talking a million dollars here, but as far as a Beanie Baby is concerned. Yeah. It's gonna be much more valuable than the hundred, that are being sold in a cardboard box at a yard sale.
Mike B: It's just harder to find,
Kate LB: right.
Mike B: The market was flooded by so many of them. I almost equate it to trying to search for something that you want and you put in a search term and you're like, this is the search term. And you scroll down a little bit and you realize I'm so far away from my search term.
How did we get here? How was it relevant to what it is that I was looking for? And some people are gonna realize the difference and some people are not. Or you have to work a lot harder than you used to to try to find the actual thing you were looking for.
Kate LB: It's funny you should say that. So last night we were buying presents for the holidays and we wanted to get the kids , and you will have seen this, a [00:10:00] blast from the past. They're plexiglass, flat containers. And they're about the size of a dinner plate and you flip it over and it has sand and a viscous liquid inside.
Mike B: Yeah.
Kate LB: And then the sand slowly trickles down and it creates a mountain landscape and we were sitting side by side on the computer, scouring the internet for the right sand landscape creator that was closest to what I remember in my childhood.
And then it came to be like, oh, well this one looks flimsy. This one has a plastic, surround on it. This one has a wood surround. And it was this battle of balancing price versus how we were adhering to this memory that I had from what, 1989? Being in someone's house who liked to shop at the Sharper Image Store.
You know, like, and, so ultimately where we arrived [00:11:00] was selecting the one that was most true to that. And also one that didn't look like it was gonna break.
Mike B: And how clear are our memories of that thing in the first place? Thinking of something from 20 years ago, is that actually what it was? 30 years ago, 40 years ago.
Kate LB: Right.
Mike B: However, just who's to say how long ago it was? But are we even remembering the thing accurately or did we elevate it in our mind in some way over time? And now it's like, oh, that's what that actually looked like. Huh. It's like going back to watch a movie and you're like, did that hold up? Oh, that didn't hold up the way it was in my head. It just made me think, how good are we at looking back and making those distinctions. And how much are people relying on the fact that in general people are not very good at that?
And I, think, it goes back to vintage be like, well, yeah, that looks close enough. In my head that seems about right. Marketing depends on that element [00:12:00] of it being pretty close. That's gonna be enough to get me across the line that I'm trying to cross.
Kate LB: So many of my clients, I'll get feedback on things that are either on my table in a market or that I'm selling online. And they'll say, my mother had one exactly like this . You certainly get those people who are specifically looking for that accuracy because it's so intimately tied to those memories that people have. Where you have other people saying, oh yeah, my grandmother used to have a salad bowl like this and I wanted to have one like this. So
Mike B: like that
Kate LB: it was that approximation. It's close. Close enough.
Mike B: I was looking around the house at things that we have as I was preparing to have this conversation and there were a few things that stuck out to me that were specifically unique. And I don't know that it was down to the unique element of the item, but it was the unique element of the memory and the connection that we [00:13:00] have to the item, like to that specific item, we have a pitcher. It's for tea, lemonade, et cetera. And I'm not sure how unique it is, but it is very unique to everything else we have.
And it's referred to as, can you get my grandmother's picture down from the shelf? And maybe it would be easy to find, maybe not. When her grandmother had it, was it a unique item? I don't know, but it made it through our family. To her. And so therefore that item now has meaning and significance and that defines the market for that item for her. That's a tough thing about antiques and vintage is some of it is due to the parameters of the item when it was made, how it was made, et cetera. And some of it is due to the connection that was made with an individual regarding that item. In that way, the sale of items that look vintage is almost irrelevant because it's not the thing that I have a connection with, so [00:14:00] I don't care how many of them you make. I don't care if it looks close. It's not actually the thing that means something to me.
Kate LB: And it comes down to, are we decorating for an aesthetic, a fad?
Mike B: Well, I would imagine that you would have people who are doing that, they wanna stage a space.
Kate LB: Mm-hmm.
Mike B: And they want that space to have a feel, they just want to give that impression.
Kate LB: There are people who regularly are saying, okay, I'm Maximalist and they fill the space and I watch these videos, people painting walls with spots and wallpaper
Mike B: mm-hmm.
Kate LB: And layer upon layer textile upon textile. And then they're like, yeah, I'm minimalist now. And it all comes down and gets painted greige and then it seesaws back and forth. I think the same thing. We see so much in all different areas of our society. What's going on in the world, what's going on politically, internationally, socially.
All of those different things tie [00:15:00] into the spaces we need to make for ourselves at home. And some people, given all of the outside pressures, may want a minimalistic space, and then that changes and they may want a cozy, safe space, and then it becomes a maximalist texture bomb.
I think those fads also speak to the nature of everything that's in everybody's lives.
Mike B: It's interesting, I think that there's a natural divide in society of people who get comfort in the things that the majority are doing. And then other people who get comfort in the things that are not the majority.
I'm really happy with this thing because so many people have it and I feel like I'm part of something bigger, that everybody's doing it right or I love this thing because nobody else is doing it in this way and [00:16:00] therefore it feels more real. It feels more authentic. And so that's what makes me happy with it.
And so there, there is this constant ebb and flow. You can have people who lean towards one side of the line or the other with a lot of things in their life, and those things may change over time. And then flips again, and flips again, and flips again. Like my kids in high school and in middle school have both described experiences where they're at an activity and they're in downtime and somebody has brought in an old, Walkman CD player and a collection of CDs and plugged it into the audio system in the room.
And they've listened to nineties alt rock on the CDs in the band room. And , it's become a thing where this kind of reemergence of certain musical styles, reemergence of certain ways of playing that. Is the quality on that Walkman CD player that was maybe pulled out of somebody's parent's box in their attic [00:17:00] as good as going with a lossless compression version of that same song on Spotify or Apple Music?
No, of course not. But be like, oh, he's got the CD player. That's cool. Okay, let's do it. So, I think the things that make us think of what we do now in a simpler way , there's still appeal to record players to vinyl. There are still people who are like I don't know if the sound is better or worse, but it's different and I like it and I like what it is.
Not quite as capable, but not quite as complicated either, and, not quite as involved. And so they're gonna have a pull towards those types of items.
Kate LB: I definitely agree with you on the physical media piece of it. We have my CD player from, oh gosh, high school, middle school hooked up in the basement. There is something different about the effort going into picking out a disc. Pulling it out of the case placing it in the thing, pushing, [00:18:00] play, skipping songs, being limited to a small amount of songs on a given piece of media that requires work. It requires physical activity and somehow that creates this little spark in my girls that I see and they get excited about it. 'cause it's like they're doing a job to get to the thing that they want and it's almost more gratifying.
Mike B: We have our old Nintendo still hooked up. So once in a while Isaac will be, sitting, in the, in front of the tv blowing in a cartridge, or trying to figure out how to blow in a cartridge. And he'll be like, dad, I can't do this. And, I go through the process that, I learned. When I was his age and younger to get that thing working and then put it in, in just the right way and hold it down maybe with another cartridge, and then, maybe say a little voodoo magic or something, whatever it is that's gonna get the thing to work.
And then it comes up and you can play Tetris for 20 minutes before the screen fuzzes out and it's like, oh, I gotta try again. [00:19:00] The experience of going through that is, is more fun than firing up an emulator. Everybody would joke about throwing controllers and breaking controllers and whatever else, but that was part of the experience, right? Whereas now the kids would probably look at me and be like, that's just dumb. Right? Right. That's just old. Um, you're just old.
Kate LB: Going through passing the remote, going through the levels, or even finding the CD, taking it outta the box, putting it in the thing, pushing play, skipping through to your favorite song. That is a ritual that is being created. And it's also anachronistic, right. It almost takes you out of your current time and your current rituals, and it's completely different. It completely flips you over into almost a different dimension. We could go so far as to say, right, because. Those rituals are not things we tap into regularly. The muscle memory for that is gone. So you're completely removing yourself out of the time that you're in and creating this weird sort of [00:20:00] dissonance. And
Mike B: there's an escape element to that.
Kate LB: Right, right. And I think if we tie it to collecting and we tie it to vintage, even those who want to create the atmosphere of that vintage space, even if it's all purchased at a big box store, it might be something, at least for some people related to that, some sort of escapism, you know?
Mike B: Mm-hmm.
Kate LB: Even if it's in this narrow corner of your mind, I want to feel like I felt, I want to evoke this time. I want to feel like it's simpler here. I could see that very much being, a thing this weird time warp through activities or through spaces.
Mike B: A trap that we can fall into is thinking that what we see as that moment in time, as that thing of value is the same as what others see as well. You know, I'm a big Star Wars nerd and, [00:21:00] family tradition and I find it really interesting, within the Star Wars community, there are certain people that I know who think episodes one, two, and three that were created in the nineties and early two thousands are the greatest Star Wars.
Kate LB: Really?
Mike B: Right. I mean, for me it's the originals. And I see the value, in episodes one, two, and three. I don't wanna talk about seven, eight, and nine. But, it's very specific to the age. It's very rare that I hear anybody say that about those particular movies who are outside of a certain kind of birth year range. And it hits on just that right spot to when Star Wars was making an impression on them and connection with them, and that was their Star Wars because they were at that age.
Kate LB: Mm-hmm.
Mike B: Where they were in a place to be impressed upon and connect with that series. [00:22:00] So, it doesn't matter which one has the highest IMDB rating or digital creation of assets or whatever else, doesn't matter to them.
What matters to them is that's what got them into the series and that's what holds the most meaning to them. And so that is the best for them. So some of these things that we're talking about with antiques and vintage and everything like that, it's the same concept of when did you experience it, what did it mean to you in that moment when you were in that right place to be impressed upon? And that then defines the value for you. And it kind of doesn't matter what anybody else thinks because you know they're not you.
But at the end of the day. I know that, I know that dog is completely ugly, but it's my dog and I love it. Right. Um, you know, is it the same kind of thing? Right. Um, you'd be like, that is the most hideous animal I've ever seen. I know. Isn't it cute? It's so adorable. No, it's just yours. Nobody else thinks that.
Kate LB: Oh my goodness. I have a story to tell you. Have you heard [00:23:00] of Garbage Pail Kids?
Mike B: Uhhuh.
Kate LB: Okay, so Rewind. It was probably like 1991. We recently moved into our neighborhood. And, I made friends with the neighborhood girls across the street and that was, I think, a different time where everybody was just sort of running around the neighborhood and running into each other's houses and playing in basements, and all of those things. Well,
Mike B: sure,
Kate LB: there was this kid, he was probably like 12 or 13, and he decided he was going to create an amusement park slash carnival in his basement. And all the neighborhood kids piled in to try to do the ring toss and to try to do a shuttle run across their unfinished concrete floor in their basement and
Mike B: that's great.
Kate LB: Then he had like another thing where, oh, do you remember that game where it was, a bunch of little fish that chomp upward and you have a little [00:24:00] magnet attached to it and it rotate around.
Mike B: Yeah. You had to do the fishing pole,
Kate LB: right. You had to
Mike B: Right into the little magnet in its mouth. Yeah.
Kate LB: Right. So it was stuff like that and I think it was the, ring toss game where, the cone was ridiculously close. I mean, like, I could've just reached down my arm and put it on it
Mike B: just like dropped it
Kate LB: and right. And he was like, here are the prizes. This kid had a Garbage Pail Kids collection. So, you know, picture me, what was I a 7-year-old girl?
Mike B: Yeah.
Kate LB: And I see these things that look like Cabbage Patch kids, except they're gross. Well, for whatever reason, I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. So I was like, oh, I have to do the ring toss. Okay. Oh, it's so hard. Oh look, I won again and again. I cleaned that boy out of his entire collection of Garbage Pail Kids the entire, like, we're talking maybe 150 cards.
Mike B: Oh my God.
Kate LB: It was a lot.
Mike B: It was merciless. Yeah. [00:25:00]
Kate LB: I was like, I won again. I won again.
Mike B: Yeah.
Kate LB: Well they are now in a special binder.
Mike B: Okay
Kate LB: with protective covering because these things are so valuable to me.
Mike B: Oh my gosh.
Kate LB: Right
Mike B: to you. Yes.
Kate LB: And my mom saw them. I remember I brought them home, look what I got. And she was like, what did you bring home? These are horrible.
Mike B: What are these things?
Kate LB: You are seven and you should not have this. And I was like, well, I don't care. They're mine. And they're special.
Mike B: I love them
Kate LB: and I still love them to this day. And it's the same thing. So while they do have collectible value, to your point, these things are the greatest things I've ever seen.
Mike B: I think that's the hard thing about antique and vintage is you have a definable set of parameters and then you have an undefinable set of parameters that provide value to items based on its purpose, its intent, for collection.
Kate LB: So like you've said, it [00:26:00] is the age that you were, that time and space that you were, it's the memory and it probably a little bit of like the scarcity all combined into one to give us this larger value with a capital V.
Kate LB: And suddenly I'm just a person sitting in a quiet room on a cold January afternoon watching the light fail outside my window. I'm struck by how much this conversation has shifted my perspective on the year ahead. We started today talking about a return to the analog, a retreat almost, but I'm realizing now that this isn't about a total reversion to the [00:27:00] past.
It's about a rebalancing. We've spent years swinging so far toward the instant and the ephemeral that perhaps we've finally hit the far edge of the spectrum, and now, now we're drifting back toward the center searching for that middle ground where modern innovation meets the physical soul of things.
This inquiry into the analog is really just another way of asking what makes us feel real. We heard today how the march of technology inevitably creates vintage. The magic isn't just in the age of the object, it's in the ritual it demands. Whether it's the tactile resistance of a fountain pen or the intentionality of a film camera.
These things act as anchors. They hold us steady when the digital tide threatens to pull us into a state of constant fragmented distraction. We don't just use our things, we experience them. A digital file [00:28:00] is a convenience, but a physical object is a witness . That specific January melancholy, we feel that longing for a place and time that doesn't quite exist anymore.
Well, it isn't just a holiday hangover, it's a hunger for weight. We want friction. We want something that doesn't disappear when the power goes out or the subscription expires. The past isn't a place to live, but it's a place to learn. The beauty of the analog world isn't that it was technically better, but that it was built for a human scale.
It allowed for imperfection, it allowed for the patina. That verdigris of a life well lived to show on the surface. My goal for this year isn't to throw away my smartphone or to live in a museum. It's to practice a more intentional kind of sensory curation. It's about choosing which parts of my life deserve the speed of the digital and which parts deserve the slow, deliberate [00:29:00] grace of the analog.
We are the architects of our own attention, and we get to decide what we hold onto and what we let drift into the cloud. Digital tools are exactly that tools, but the analog world is an orientation. It's the way we remind ourselves that we are biological creatures in a physical world. A very special thank you to my brother-in-law Michael Brody for his contagious curiosity and for helping us navigate this return to the center.
And thank you for joining me in this quiet, reflective start of the year. Take a look at the tools you're using this week. See which of them are merely helping you move faster, and which ones are actually helping you feel present. If the world feels a little too hollow today, maybe it's time to reach for something with a bit of weight.
I truly hope you found a little magic in exploring the stories that tie us to our belongings. Join me next time as we continue to uncover the hidden histories and the timeless tales [00:30:00] held within the stuff of our lives. Until then, keep collecting those moments and remember, live your life tangibly.
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[00:00:00]
Kate LB: We've all heard the old adage that 'what's old is new again'. And I'll tell you this, it feels like just yesterday where my mother, through a knowing smile, she would tell me that those flare jeans I was coveting, they were just the same as the bell bottoms she wore when she was a teenager. Or those capris I was buying? Those were actually called pedal pushers.
I would roll my eyes way back into my head, sigh, and then willingly fork over my cash to the annoyed looking employee at the register. And we see this again, and again, and again. We see it in the high wasted jeans on passersby and the Polaroid cameras at parties.
Even now [00:01:00] as I browse for my own daughters, there in the racks, I see the eighties, nineties, and early two thousands staring right back at me. This temporal merry-go-round of fashion has gotten me thinking about how other things in my life might in fact be on the same cyclical journey. I've been reading lately that the big trend for 2026 is a return to analog.
The trend watchers are predicting we'll all swap our tablets for typewriters and our streaming for vinyl. But honestly, I'm not so sure I buy into the idea of a full scale retreat. To me, it feels less like a trend and more like a necessary recalibration, a search for a new kind of balance between our digital efficiency and our analog souls.
[00:02:00]
Kate LB: This is Dust and Devotion, a podcast about stuff. I'm your host, KLB, and I must say it feels a little surreal to be here today because where we stand right now, well, it's the first Monday in January, and it's smack in the middle of a very distinct, heavy kind of stillness. All that tinsel, well it's been stripped from the trees and the holiday lights, they're back in their cardboard boxes.
And, that collective pause of the season? Well, it's been unceremoniously broken. We're back at our desks, back in the hum of the routine, and there's a specific melancholy that's hanging in the air. It's that quiet post-new-year ache that comes when we realize the calendar well it's marched forward again, leaving us longing for a place in time that doesn't really exist anymore.
It's a version of the world that felt more solid or perhaps just more human than the one we're currently [00:03:00] occupying. This longing is its own kind of weathering, much like that beautiful bluish, green patina that forms on copper as it's exposed to the air and the rain our memories of the world are developing their own layer of oxidation.
We look back at our older technology through this crusty, nostalgic film, a verdigris of low res memories and clunky interfaces that remind us that even the new eventually becomes the stuff of the past. But while a digital world simply becomes obsolete or disappears into a broken link, these physical objects wear the passage of time, like a badge of honor.
They develop a texture that demands that we slow down. In a few moments, I'll share a recent interview I did with my brilliant brother-in-law, a man whose enthusiasm for deep contemplative thought is frankly contagious. Throughout this interview, we discuss how this march of [00:04:00] technology creates vintage in the first place and how the quality, the memories, and the physical rituals associated with older items.
Well, they're exactly why we treasure them today. And this leads us to the big looming question, the one that I want you to carry with you throughout this episode. What happens to vintage in the digital age when so much of what we use is software-based or machine-crafted to be disposable. What will be the cherished, long lasting tangible artifacts of our time?
What will our great grandchildren find in their dusty attics? Something that speaks of quality, longevity, and a kind of charming imperfection? With the rise of the digital and the mass produced, what will be the inheritable, solid and treasured items that define our present? It's a thought experiment wrapped in a history lesson delivered with a hefty dose of nostalgia.
So grab a comfortable chair, maybe one that's [00:05:00] been passed down a generation or two, and let's dive into the beauty and the melancholy of the things we no longer need.
Kate LB: You go into any one of the big box stores and, you will see things that appear to have that vintage look to them. The argument in the vintage community is it's not real, right? I think that's when the line starts to get blurry. It's not Old. Certainly, but it looks the same way that the others do. It may not have the same kind of quality, and there are vintage loyalists who say, you absolutely have to follow this by definition, must be 20 plus years old, 30 plus years old in some cases, depending on who you're talking to. And then, a hundred years old for something that's antique. And that's really kind of arbitrary, right? Because [00:06:00] something that is 19 and three quarters years old today, what it suddenly becomes of value, it suddenly becomes valuable. And so you do see this debate over manufactured recently versus something that might have relied on older technology to create it. More traditional methods. And I think it's that same argument that we've been talking about with this new digitized world versus that old analog world.
I wanted to get your take on just things that you have encountered and any noticings that you might have had around that.
Mike B: I think, with those kind of examples. it's down to the market. It's down to who wants to acquire these things? What value do they put on those things based on how unique they are, how well they fit into, a particular, scheme, [00:07:00] theme, whatever heading you would like to put 'em on. Now that said, if something's mass produced and looks vintage versus something that is pretty unique, and it also has a little bit of history behind it, and there's more to the story behind that piece than the fact that you picked it up and it just looks like it.
Then that's another level, right? You can't deny that has more to it than the piece that was mass produced that you pulled on the shelf that you bought at a big box, et cetera.
You're gonna have the market flooded up to a certain point, with a lot of items, a lot of people who are capable of producing, to a certain level, you're still gonna have the upper crust that you can't mass produce. It's just maybe harder to find, because now there's a ton out there, so you have to be more discerning.
Kate LB: And you have to ask yourself this question too. Does it make what [00:08:00] is already out there? What is already scarce, more valuable. Versus do I just want the thing to look like it, to appear like it? It makes me think back to the Beanie Baby phenomenon. I was at a dance competition in the early nineties and
Mike B: mm-hmm.
Kate LB: They were selling it on a little card table, these are like the original and they have the little thing that they call the tush tag that goes on it, and you have to make sure it says certain things and that tells you when it was made. So if you have one of these original tush tags, sure, your Beanie Baby is significantly more valuable than what was later mass produced. And now, I mean, my goodness, I look on all of these marketplaces where they're selling these things, hundreds of them, you could purchase for pennies, because they were so produced and so dispersed across the population. There is no real value in the eyes of that [00:09:00] group anymore because they all got the thing, they got that instant gratification.
Mike B: Does the actual thing maintain its value in that case? If you find one with the right tush tag?
Kate LB: So with the original tush tags we're not talking a million dollars here, but as far as a Beanie Baby is concerned. Yeah. It's gonna be much more valuable than the hundred, that are being sold in a cardboard box at a yard sale.
Mike B: It's just harder to find,
Kate LB: right.
Mike B: The market was flooded by so many of them. I almost equate it to trying to search for something that you want and you put in a search term and you're like, this is the search term. And you scroll down a little bit and you realize I'm so far away from my search term.
How did we get here? How was it relevant to what it is that I was looking for? And some people are gonna realize the difference and some people are not. Or you have to work a lot harder than you used to to try to find the actual thing you were looking for.
Kate LB: It's funny you should say that. So last night we were buying presents for the holidays and we wanted to get the kids , and you will have seen this, a [00:10:00] blast from the past. They're plexiglass, flat containers. And they're about the size of a dinner plate and you flip it over and it has sand and a viscous liquid inside.
Mike B: Yeah.
Kate LB: And then the sand slowly trickles down and it creates a mountain landscape and we were sitting side by side on the computer, scouring the internet for the right sand landscape creator that was closest to what I remember in my childhood.
And then it came to be like, oh, well this one looks flimsy. This one has a plastic, surround on it. This one has a wood surround. And it was this battle of balancing price versus how we were adhering to this memory that I had from what, 1989? Being in someone's house who liked to shop at the Sharper Image Store.
You know, like, and, so ultimately where we arrived [00:11:00] was selecting the one that was most true to that. And also one that didn't look like it was gonna break.
Mike B: And how clear are our memories of that thing in the first place? Thinking of something from 20 years ago, is that actually what it was? 30 years ago, 40 years ago.
Kate LB: Right.
Mike B: However, just who's to say how long ago it was? But are we even remembering the thing accurately or did we elevate it in our mind in some way over time? And now it's like, oh, that's what that actually looked like. Huh. It's like going back to watch a movie and you're like, did that hold up? Oh, that didn't hold up the way it was in my head. It just made me think, how good are we at looking back and making those distinctions. And how much are people relying on the fact that in general people are not very good at that?
And I, think, it goes back to vintage be like, well, yeah, that looks close enough. In my head that seems about right. Marketing depends on that element [00:12:00] of it being pretty close. That's gonna be enough to get me across the line that I'm trying to cross.
Kate LB: So many of my clients, I'll get feedback on things that are either on my table in a market or that I'm selling online. And they'll say, my mother had one exactly like this . You certainly get those people who are specifically looking for that accuracy because it's so intimately tied to those memories that people have. Where you have other people saying, oh yeah, my grandmother used to have a salad bowl like this and I wanted to have one like this. So
Mike B: like that
Kate LB: it was that approximation. It's close. Close enough.
Mike B: I was looking around the house at things that we have as I was preparing to have this conversation and there were a few things that stuck out to me that were specifically unique. And I don't know that it was down to the unique element of the item, but it was the unique element of the memory and the connection that we [00:13:00] have to the item, like to that specific item, we have a pitcher. It's for tea, lemonade, et cetera. And I'm not sure how unique it is, but it is very unique to everything else we have.
And it's referred to as, can you get my grandmother's picture down from the shelf? And maybe it would be easy to find, maybe not. When her grandmother had it, was it a unique item? I don't know, but it made it through our family. To her. And so therefore that item now has meaning and significance and that defines the market for that item for her. That's a tough thing about antiques and vintage is some of it is due to the parameters of the item when it was made, how it was made, et cetera. And some of it is due to the connection that was made with an individual regarding that item. In that way, the sale of items that look vintage is almost irrelevant because it's not the thing that I have a connection with, so [00:14:00] I don't care how many of them you make. I don't care if it looks close. It's not actually the thing that means something to me.
Kate LB: And it comes down to, are we decorating for an aesthetic, a fad?
Mike B: Well, I would imagine that you would have people who are doing that, they wanna stage a space.
Kate LB: Mm-hmm.
Mike B: And they want that space to have a feel, they just want to give that impression.
Kate LB: There are people who regularly are saying, okay, I'm Maximalist and they fill the space and I watch these videos, people painting walls with spots and wallpaper
Mike B: mm-hmm.
Kate LB: And layer upon layer textile upon textile. And then they're like, yeah, I'm minimalist now. And it all comes down and gets painted greige and then it seesaws back and forth. I think the same thing. We see so much in all different areas of our society. What's going on in the world, what's going on politically, internationally, socially.
All of those different things tie [00:15:00] into the spaces we need to make for ourselves at home. And some people, given all of the outside pressures, may want a minimalistic space, and then that changes and they may want a cozy, safe space, and then it becomes a maximalist texture bomb.
I think those fads also speak to the nature of everything that's in everybody's lives.
Mike B: It's interesting, I think that there's a natural divide in society of people who get comfort in the things that the majority are doing. And then other people who get comfort in the things that are not the majority.
I'm really happy with this thing because so many people have it and I feel like I'm part of something bigger, that everybody's doing it right or I love this thing because nobody else is doing it in this way and [00:16:00] therefore it feels more real. It feels more authentic. And so that's what makes me happy with it.
And so there, there is this constant ebb and flow. You can have people who lean towards one side of the line or the other with a lot of things in their life, and those things may change over time. And then flips again, and flips again, and flips again. Like my kids in high school and in middle school have both described experiences where they're at an activity and they're in downtime and somebody has brought in an old, Walkman CD player and a collection of CDs and plugged it into the audio system in the room.
And they've listened to nineties alt rock on the CDs in the band room. And , it's become a thing where this kind of reemergence of certain musical styles, reemergence of certain ways of playing that. Is the quality on that Walkman CD player that was maybe pulled out of somebody's parent's box in their attic [00:17:00] as good as going with a lossless compression version of that same song on Spotify or Apple Music?
No, of course not. But be like, oh, he's got the CD player. That's cool. Okay, let's do it. So, I think the things that make us think of what we do now in a simpler way , there's still appeal to record players to vinyl. There are still people who are like I don't know if the sound is better or worse, but it's different and I like it and I like what it is.
Not quite as capable, but not quite as complicated either, and, not quite as involved. And so they're gonna have a pull towards those types of items.
Kate LB: I definitely agree with you on the physical media piece of it. We have my CD player from, oh gosh, high school, middle school hooked up in the basement. There is something different about the effort going into picking out a disc. Pulling it out of the case placing it in the thing, pushing, [00:18:00] play, skipping songs, being limited to a small amount of songs on a given piece of media that requires work. It requires physical activity and somehow that creates this little spark in my girls that I see and they get excited about it. 'cause it's like they're doing a job to get to the thing that they want and it's almost more gratifying.
Mike B: We have our old Nintendo still hooked up. So once in a while Isaac will be, sitting, in the, in front of the tv blowing in a cartridge, or trying to figure out how to blow in a cartridge. And he'll be like, dad, I can't do this. And, I go through the process that, I learned. When I was his age and younger to get that thing working and then put it in, in just the right way and hold it down maybe with another cartridge, and then, maybe say a little voodoo magic or something, whatever it is that's gonna get the thing to work.
And then it comes up and you can play Tetris for 20 minutes before the screen fuzzes out and it's like, oh, I gotta try again. [00:19:00] The experience of going through that is, is more fun than firing up an emulator. Everybody would joke about throwing controllers and breaking controllers and whatever else, but that was part of the experience, right? Whereas now the kids would probably look at me and be like, that's just dumb. Right? Right. That's just old. Um, you're just old.
Kate LB: Going through passing the remote, going through the levels, or even finding the CD, taking it outta the box, putting it in the thing, pushing play, skipping through to your favorite song. That is a ritual that is being created. And it's also anachronistic, right. It almost takes you out of your current time and your current rituals, and it's completely different. It completely flips you over into almost a different dimension. We could go so far as to say, right, because. Those rituals are not things we tap into regularly. The muscle memory for that is gone. So you're completely removing yourself out of the time that you're in and creating this weird sort of [00:20:00] dissonance. And
Mike B: there's an escape element to that.
Kate LB: Right, right. And I think if we tie it to collecting and we tie it to vintage, even those who want to create the atmosphere of that vintage space, even if it's all purchased at a big box store, it might be something, at least for some people related to that, some sort of escapism, you know?
Mike B: Mm-hmm.
Kate LB: Even if it's in this narrow corner of your mind, I want to feel like I felt, I want to evoke this time. I want to feel like it's simpler here. I could see that very much being, a thing this weird time warp through activities or through spaces.
Mike B: A trap that we can fall into is thinking that what we see as that moment in time, as that thing of value is the same as what others see as well. You know, I'm a big Star Wars nerd and, [00:21:00] family tradition and I find it really interesting, within the Star Wars community, there are certain people that I know who think episodes one, two, and three that were created in the nineties and early two thousands are the greatest Star Wars.
Kate LB: Really?
Mike B: Right. I mean, for me it's the originals. And I see the value, in episodes one, two, and three. I don't wanna talk about seven, eight, and nine. But, it's very specific to the age. It's very rare that I hear anybody say that about those particular movies who are outside of a certain kind of birth year range. And it hits on just that right spot to when Star Wars was making an impression on them and connection with them, and that was their Star Wars because they were at that age.
Kate LB: Mm-hmm.
Mike B: Where they were in a place to be impressed upon and connect with that series. [00:22:00] So, it doesn't matter which one has the highest IMDB rating or digital creation of assets or whatever else, doesn't matter to them.
What matters to them is that's what got them into the series and that's what holds the most meaning to them. And so that is the best for them. So some of these things that we're talking about with antiques and vintage and everything like that, it's the same concept of when did you experience it, what did it mean to you in that moment when you were in that right place to be impressed upon? And that then defines the value for you. And it kind of doesn't matter what anybody else thinks because you know they're not you.
But at the end of the day. I know that, I know that dog is completely ugly, but it's my dog and I love it. Right. Um, you know, is it the same kind of thing? Right. Um, you'd be like, that is the most hideous animal I've ever seen. I know. Isn't it cute? It's so adorable. No, it's just yours. Nobody else thinks that.
Kate LB: Oh my goodness. I have a story to tell you. Have you heard [00:23:00] of Garbage Pail Kids?
Mike B: Uhhuh.
Kate LB: Okay, so Rewind. It was probably like 1991. We recently moved into our neighborhood. And, I made friends with the neighborhood girls across the street and that was, I think, a different time where everybody was just sort of running around the neighborhood and running into each other's houses and playing in basements, and all of those things. Well,
Mike B: sure,
Kate LB: there was this kid, he was probably like 12 or 13, and he decided he was going to create an amusement park slash carnival in his basement. And all the neighborhood kids piled in to try to do the ring toss and to try to do a shuttle run across their unfinished concrete floor in their basement and
Mike B: that's great.
Kate LB: Then he had like another thing where, oh, do you remember that game where it was, a bunch of little fish that chomp upward and you have a little [00:24:00] magnet attached to it and it rotate around.
Mike B: Yeah. You had to do the fishing pole,
Kate LB: right. You had to
Mike B: Right into the little magnet in its mouth. Yeah.
Kate LB: Right. So it was stuff like that and I think it was the, ring toss game where, the cone was ridiculously close. I mean, like, I could've just reached down my arm and put it on it
Mike B: just like dropped it
Kate LB: and right. And he was like, here are the prizes. This kid had a Garbage Pail Kids collection. So, you know, picture me, what was I a 7-year-old girl?
Mike B: Yeah.
Kate LB: And I see these things that look like Cabbage Patch kids, except they're gross. Well, for whatever reason, I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. So I was like, oh, I have to do the ring toss. Okay. Oh, it's so hard. Oh look, I won again and again. I cleaned that boy out of his entire collection of Garbage Pail Kids the entire, like, we're talking maybe 150 cards.
Mike B: Oh my God.
Kate LB: It was a lot.
Mike B: It was merciless. Yeah. [00:25:00]
Kate LB: I was like, I won again. I won again.
Mike B: Yeah.
Kate LB: Well they are now in a special binder.
Mike B: Okay
Kate LB: with protective covering because these things are so valuable to me.
Mike B: Oh my gosh.
Kate LB: Right
Mike B: to you. Yes.
Kate LB: And my mom saw them. I remember I brought them home, look what I got. And she was like, what did you bring home? These are horrible.
Mike B: What are these things?
Kate LB: You are seven and you should not have this. And I was like, well, I don't care. They're mine. And they're special.
Mike B: I love them
Kate LB: and I still love them to this day. And it's the same thing. So while they do have collectible value, to your point, these things are the greatest things I've ever seen.
Mike B: I think that's the hard thing about antique and vintage is you have a definable set of parameters and then you have an undefinable set of parameters that provide value to items based on its purpose, its intent, for collection.
Kate LB: So like you've said, it [00:26:00] is the age that you were, that time and space that you were, it's the memory and it probably a little bit of like the scarcity all combined into one to give us this larger value with a capital V.
Kate LB: And suddenly I'm just a person sitting in a quiet room on a cold January afternoon watching the light fail outside my window. I'm struck by how much this conversation has shifted my perspective on the year ahead. We started today talking about a return to the analog, a retreat almost, but I'm realizing now that this isn't about a total reversion to the [00:27:00] past.
It's about a rebalancing. We've spent years swinging so far toward the instant and the ephemeral that perhaps we've finally hit the far edge of the spectrum, and now, now we're drifting back toward the center searching for that middle ground where modern innovation meets the physical soul of things.
This inquiry into the analog is really just another way of asking what makes us feel real. We heard today how the march of technology inevitably creates vintage. The magic isn't just in the age of the object, it's in the ritual it demands. Whether it's the tactile resistance of a fountain pen or the intentionality of a film camera.
These things act as anchors. They hold us steady when the digital tide threatens to pull us into a state of constant fragmented distraction. We don't just use our things, we experience them. A digital file [00:28:00] is a convenience, but a physical object is a witness . That specific January melancholy, we feel that longing for a place and time that doesn't quite exist anymore.
Well, it isn't just a holiday hangover, it's a hunger for weight. We want friction. We want something that doesn't disappear when the power goes out or the subscription expires. The past isn't a place to live, but it's a place to learn. The beauty of the analog world isn't that it was technically better, but that it was built for a human scale.
It allowed for imperfection, it allowed for the patina. That verdigris of a life well lived to show on the surface. My goal for this year isn't to throw away my smartphone or to live in a museum. It's to practice a more intentional kind of sensory curation. It's about choosing which parts of my life deserve the speed of the digital and which parts deserve the slow, deliberate [00:29:00] grace of the analog.
We are the architects of our own attention, and we get to decide what we hold onto and what we let drift into the cloud. Digital tools are exactly that tools, but the analog world is an orientation. It's the way we remind ourselves that we are biological creatures in a physical world. A very special thank you to my brother-in-law Michael Brody for his contagious curiosity and for helping us navigate this return to the center.
And thank you for joining me in this quiet, reflective start of the year. Take a look at the tools you're using this week. See which of them are merely helping you move faster, and which ones are actually helping you feel present. If the world feels a little too hollow today, maybe it's time to reach for something with a bit of weight.
I truly hope you found a little magic in exploring the stories that tie us to our belongings. Join me next time as we continue to uncover the hidden histories and the timeless tales [00:30:00] held within the stuff of our lives. Until then, keep collecting those moments and remember, live your life tangibly.
