Good friends and dream lamps

It’s too pretty not to show off. My good friend

Holly MathNerd

took me to lunch today for my 50th birthday . . . .

(my name is Sally O’Malley and I like to stretch, and kick)

. . . and it was the best afternoon. Just how I like it, a conversation with a friend, a nice meal, and no more excitement than that.

She and a mutual friend, Adam, really outdid themselves on the gift front, and I’m nearly embarrassed about it. The clever little minx asked me to show her my favorite antique kerosene lamps as she’s using them to refine her drawing technique.

So I found the perfect dream lamp, my favorite color, style, and burner, and showed her that. It was an Ebay listing, and I remarked that I’d never spend that kind of money on myself for a toy.

Well.

I apologize for the soft focus photo, but my phone’s lens is permanently marred. Still, you should be able to see how beautiful it is.

It’s the perfect emerald green, the world’s most beautiful color as established by The Science. Not only that, but it’s got a Kosmos burner. This is a European standard design different from American lamps, most of which had flat wicks. The Kosmos burner takes a flat wick and rolls it into a cylindrical burner to give a round flame. They are brighter for the same amount of kerosene than most comparable flat wick lamps; it’s my favorite of the smaller round-wick burners for balance of heat, light, and fuel.

And it so obviously goes with the piece on the right, no (more below)?

Here’s a photo of one of my other Kosmos lamps, also a favorite.

To top it off, Holly gave me a lovely matted and framed drawing she did of another kerosene lamp. (For those who don’t know, I collect them and use them to light and heat my house in winter months).

Yes, the bottle on the right in the first picture is a replica of the I Dream of Jeannie Bottle. Here’s the backstory, since Gen Xers at least find this interesting.

When NBC was putting I Dream of Jeannie into production, one of the writers noticed the beauty of the 1964 Jim Beam Christmas edition decanter. That became the base for the bottles on the show.

They made a total of 12 props for the show. Many don’t remember, but the first season of the show was in black and white. The paint scheme on the first-season bottle was made with that in mind, highlighting tonal rather than color contrast.

Going to color in 1965 was a huge honking deal. Hell, my family was too poor to afford a color set so I grew up with black and white TV until my Aunt Vivian gave us her cast-off furniture-sized console color television set when I was 11 years old in 1985. That was the first year we saw The Wizard of Oz in color; it used to air on CBS every fall and watching it was a family event. I about peed myself with excitement to see Dorothy step into Technicolor for the first time.

Anyway, the arrival of color television was a sensation to Americans, and the networks went all out. The I Dream of Jeannie Crew made the most of it by redesigning the bottle in fantasy colors, along with changing up the colors of the costumes and the set.

This is what my bottle looks like in a crisp photo.

Do you want one of your own? There are many out there now, some are more or less “authentic” than others, if that matters to you. The two main types:

1. Original 1964 Jim Beam bottles hand painted by an artist.

2. Reproductions in brass and glass.

They’re both beautiful options.

Mine is an original decanter I got on Ebay about 22 years ago when I discovered that a)it was the basis for the bottle b) I could finally have one.

To say that I was obsessed with the Jeannie bottle as a kid is an understatement. I was nearly autistically fixated. It was the object of my dreams, the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and something my heart ached for. I bought or scrounged every single bottle of any type that had even a passing resemblance. Empty Avon shampoo bottles, flower vases, old liquor bottles. My stepfather bought me a brass bottle that looked “genie-ish”, but nothing was the same.

About ten years ago I decided to send it to an artist who hand paints them. She has done official reproductions for NBC Jeannie reunions and Nickelodeon events with Barbara Eden, who has one of her bottles. I cannot recommend her work enough-if you could see it in person it’s stunning and looks exactly, precisely like the bottle on the show.

Michelle runs Dreamy Jeannie Bottles if you’re interested. I paid I think $75 for the original decanter 22 years ago, and $400 to Michelle 10 years ago to have it painted. It was a rare and unusual splurge, but man, I can’t tell you how good it felt to have that childhood dream realized, because I didn’t think it was possible. The wait made it so much sweeter.

Now, thanks to Holly, I have the perfect green piece to set off the predominant purple and candy jewel tones of the bottle.

It’s been the nicest day I’ve had in a while. Thanks for reading!

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