Spero Archives

03/28/2020

Guys, please read and share this Google Doc about an unforeseen long-term consequence of coronavirus hospitalization. Link in bio. Thanks.

03/27/2020

03/22/2020

Tulips and hyacinths on racks at the grocery store entrance, brought in for a snowstorm freeze and then forgotten in this emergency.

03/16/2020

You guys, I have so many great books coming into the shop soon, these aren't ready yet but I just wanted to give you something not only to scroll past, but to swipe through. Because I know you're both bored and terrified rn.
I don't have any answers but I'm going to be on here and in Stories this week, trying to cheer you up, present you with novelties, facts, a bit of outrage and modicum of comfort. There will probably be a sale of goods at my . If you haven't been, the Armadillo is a wide warehouse of a space and you can wander without too much interaction with others (right now it's still open). Shipping is also available if you spot something you like here. But the important thing is being safe. Support each other as you can. In solidarity, Sarah

03/03/2020

Hey, everyone, sorry to be AWOL here. I've been working on personal stuff (everything's fine), & IG has been neglected. This is just to say thanks for following me, & to appease the algorithm gods. There's new stuff in the shop this week but I didn't photograph it. So here's a columnar close-up of a historic funeral home my neighborhood is trying to save.
Denver Northside is mostly residential, made up of single family homes that are older than this modest '60s building w/ its fancy columns, but it's what we have, as far as public architecture--when you don't have much, you fight to preserve what you can, even if it wouldn't be worth saving elsewhere, & especially when there's been a recent onslaught of callous, indiscriminate building-razing to make way for really crappy condos (not to be NIMBY, but ).
The funeral home was owned by a family business that seems to have cornered the death market for a large portion of Denver, and its style references were muddled maybe but its grounds & building were very well-maintained, clean-edged and "formal" (symmetrical), & its flower baskets & wrought-iron electric lamps were "pretty," & its low arched portico was human-scaled instead of imposing, all of which must have added up to a comforting but respectful experience for grieving families. Looking up the funeral home business's family name just now, it is German, & there is something miniscule-gingerbready-and-clean-pretending-to-be-Gothic-French about its building. I remember how bizarre it looked, the first time I saw it.
Next to it is an elementary school, & down the street is the park where my partner grew up climbing on a dinosaur playground sculpture that's still there, cracked, pitted & more like a blobby, deep blue-green Loch Ness monster than any anatomically correct dinosaur species. There are many ways of living with history, whether it's saving buildings or dinosaurs from being knocked down just because they're old & would require thought to repair or repurpose, or choosing to buy quirky housewares from an antiques mall rather than trendy big box goods. I hope you find something quirky this week. I hope you save something.

02/22/2020

Hello. Here's a tree. Have a great weekend!

02/16/2020

Unicorn bookends still available in the booth!

02/14/2020

Barbed-wire rose and a snarky, q***r AF (he insisted letters to him be addressed "Dear Fa**ot"), very 90's Dan Savage presiding over some sentimentally awesome cartoonish retro-hetero love stuff take the saccharine edge off of a V-Day display.
(Seriously, how could anyone ever have thought q***r folks were "perverse" when it's straight people who consistently depicted CHILDREN in romantic couple poses on all their tchotkes??) Pardon the filters, was trying to distract from the totally blown-out book cover in this quick photo I took in the booth.
Have a glorious day and if you feel unloved and alone, I know exactly what to do: Order yourself the most decadent, huge, luxurious take-out dinner you can, w/ no utensils (b/c they'll give you 2 sets since you look like you're eating for 2, you don't need the reminder), and pick it up and go home, get off the streets, before 5 pm, when the couples come out on their way to dates. Go home and eat all the damn food, carnally, enjoying every bite, and watch something that makes you laugh. Live to fight another day, b/c you are awesome and the universe loves you.

02/11/2020

Books for V-Day, in the booth today. Including a vintage Joy of S*x (not illustrated, sorry! 😉), a baby-faced Dan Savage on the cover of a delicious, hard-to-find first printing of "Savage Love," the s*x columnist's collected advice in Seattle's The Stranger (shout-out also to and , wasn't The Stranger amazing?), a DIY-covered paperback "Lady Chatterley's Lover" made of what seems to be a vintage United Colors of Benetton magazine ad, and a pristine copy of Marguerite Duras's "The North China Lover," which expands on the autobiographical story of her infamously disturbing, brilliant, lyrically self-obsessed, heartbreakingly beautiful book "The Lover." ♥️💗💖

02/09/2020

Can we talk about how amazingly wrong this rabbit-faced Ares is? With its parted lips, sensitive expression, and long craned neck, this muddled modern reproduction bust of the god of battlelust completely misses the point. And that's its brilliance. It's an echo of an echo of an echo, trying for department store decor "stately home" reference to the "founders of Western civilization" but creating something else entirely in its simulacra, a nervous aesthete in war helmet still trying his best, turning his head to listen fully to whomever is speaking, off-camera, the multiple competing hard truths of the 21st Century, where there is no original left. He's thinking as he listens. He knows he can never get it all right, with his peach fuzz mustache and his ironic armor. He knows he's ugly, he's ill-equipped, and softer than they told him a man-god should be. But he's stubborn and he's wickeder than his long face suggests and he doesn't care about historical accuracy: He's here to win. Put him on your Millennial altar with an offering of Burt's Bees lipbalm for that forever-open mouth. He'll help you navigate the tricky battles of contemporary existence. $10, in the booth whenever it stops snowing. (Also I just watched "Purple Rain" for the 1st time last night can you tell?)

02/08/2020

Incredible trio of matching local Boy Scout mugs still available in the booth, $18. Big enough for the large mug of cocoa you're going to need tomorrow, when it snows, again! (Denver's freaking out rn cuz we've had several days of snow instead of the usual one w/ all accumulation melted in 4 hours by the nuclear mile-high sun.)