Monday, September 22, 2014

Cowboy Down - A Conversation Between Two Professional Thrift Shoppers - Part Eleven - "Swashbuckling Who"


Cowboy Down

A Conversation Between Two Professional Thrift Shoppers

Part Eleven

"Swashbuckling Who"



            At this apex...  or would we PREFER it an INTERSECTION... in this conversation between two professional thrift shoppers...:  It is not an intersection we are at.  BUT... we are just PAST an... this... THE... apex.  And... that apex has been divulged:  The secret of the thrift store profiteering has been told... to... you.  So we are PAST a ‘the apex’?  Swashbuckling is what remains of the tale; iota, tactics, poise, position, proper procedure and ...parking.  With the aura of swashbuckling?  That (swashbuckling) is the action that titled this perplexity; Cowboy Down.  That is a thrift store behavior... or two?  That we told of (Part One).  That; this cowboy that downs... is but NOW a swashbuckling.  Or is it... a... swashbuckling WHO?  Who be that swashbuckling? 
Do ponder that I know that there are ...salt... AND... pepper... shakers... as I curse (haunt) an isle of a ‘my little thrift store’.  I... eye... that ponder... do I EYE?  A vulgar spittle is what I see?  As I swashbuckle down isle cowboy I eye and:
Do not gather a reciprocation?
Salt and pepper shakers are so humorous ...when I ... in an isle ...at thrift store... throw all.... ALL... my design WHATEVER at... a ... salt (and pepper).  Do I?
OF COURSE I DO while
YOU are ‘IS not this NICE FUNNY HA, HA IT IS’ and I am ‘17th century are a wood... vessel or Dutch PEWTER or CHINA or English maybe but could be FRENCH from Canada (Quebec) “my mother’s; she ALWAYS SAVED THAT”.  Until she died and that ‘you’ cleaned out ...her ‘ALWAYS SAVED THAT’.
            No... I do not encounter others using a classic design background to judge and jury the CRUD in the isle of the bric-brac at thrift stores.
            No... it is spittle that is most expressed of the ‘need’ to ‘do that’.  I know that SALT was, in the 17th century coastal New England, dispensed at the table in little wooden bowls, primitively (lathe) ‘turned’ from local native hardwoods (a ‘sugar maple tree’) and served using a little carved wood or horn spoon (these are rare to be ‘found with it’; the ‘salt’).  New England salt dispensing design was in DIRECT imitation of the current English or Western European fashion but... but... but, but... “AMERICAN” (Colonial New England).  Spittle back WHO be that WHO swashbuckling WHO by using WHAT density of WIT to be so half-witted that a SWASHBUCKLER is not I (eye) but that THY; their own highway to hell themselves be upon it.




            “Ha, ha and that is funny to me too that.”
            “Well we have told them and now we follow it by affirming from our daily experience that no one is using a design base critique in ‘the thrift stores’.  And that this same dynamic freely... ignores our sage input upon this subject.  In fact it is not ignored but is actually... dismissed.”
            “And then they show you something they bought in a thrift store and think it’s an ‘isn’t this GREAT’.  They say it that way too.  You know:  Like you just said.  Spittle.  From the mouth.”
            “And brain.  But:  We are used to this vulgar treatment?”
            “Of course.  I love it.”
            “Show and tell never stops”.
            “Oh and they think I want to BUY it and are so CLEAR that it’s NOT for sale so much of a TREASURE they have found.”
            “Salt and pepper shakers.  I ask them:  Do you know the design history of them?  ‘NO WHAT’S THAT’.”
            “Ha, ha and there isn’t a book ‘about it’.  NO.  You probably have FIFTEEN books that covers it.”




            “Fifteen little snippets of study AND A MUSEUM VISIT TOO.  To ‘see one’.  And handling one... or two... at one of those ‘expensive’ antiques shows OH NO NOT THAT (Paying admission to attend, inspect, handle and study ‘antiques’ at a ‘show’.  They ARE called ‘antiques shows’?  Yes they are.)  Colonial period wooden ware; tureen ware; American, European... is constantly ‘bric-braced’ at thrift stores.  Colonial Dutch around New York; up the ‘North River’ (Hudson).  Absolutely have to watch out there.  New England; they’d walk right by a maple salt.  Walk right by it.  ‘NO’ they’d say... ‘No design today thank you .  My head’s too full of my own SPITTLE to want (need?) to ‘study art’.
            “I tell ‘em; those who flaunt their education:  Remember all those slides you watched in that intro art history course you took in college?  ...They were about something.  They look at me like I’m an idiot.”
            “And they DO soooo KNOW what they’re doing when it comes to art.”
            “Shouldn’t we say something nice to them?”
            “No.  Why?  They never say anything nice to us.  We’re, like, ‘in the way’.
            “In their way?”




            “No. ‘In THE way’ of THEIR art.  They show you a salt and pepper set of, like, ‘made in Japan’ and you go ‘ah...’ and they go ‘I JUST LOVE IT’ and you, like, just bought a French 18th century delft table salt up the china isle WITH THE OLD usage rim chips assuring ‘it’s old’ for fifty cents with ‘AS IS’ emphatically written on the tag too.”
            “At least they (the thrift store) put it out (offered it for sale with a price sticker on it).”
            “Yeah...:  Are they swashbuckling?  Ha, ha.  That’s SOOOO cowboy down of them to do THAT.”
            “You know... we could say that the thrift stores actually know something about design, although a bit innocent... I guess... but... they actually DO put the stuff out, priced.  I mean; fair and square.  They put a seventeenth century New England salt out for fifty cents and do not try to say a THING about doing that.  They just do it.  I mean; no attitude.  It’s only after they do that that the swashbuckling begins.”
            “Walking by great art cheap is swashbuckling?”
            “To hear them tell it is.  I mean... it’s pointed out (that they DID walk by IT).”
            “That what?  AND they found THEIR art?  I just take the salt, buy it real quietly and leave.  So I’m out.  That’s cowboy down.  Right?  Get in, get it, pay, get it out, get away clean.  Right?”
            “Absolutely.”




            “So... swashbuckling WHO... is... swashbuckling WHO.  The thrift shoppers are the swashbucklers?”
            “They’re swashbuckling alright.”
            “So they must be swashbucklers.”
            “Well not ALL of them.  I mean.  The butt blockers (Part Eight)?  I can’t say that.”
            “They want to be.  They would if they could.  And:  It would be what THEY say.  I mean.  If physically they could get into the fray... they wouldn’t use a design critique either.  They’d be ‘WHAT’S THAT SHUT-UP’ too.”
            “Well... ah...
            “Sorry to say it but.. I can’t cut ‘em slack.  You know it’s true.  The whole rig of the other shoppers is headed to swashbuckle all the time.  I mean:  NO ONE is using design and they actually get pissed when they find out the ‘you do’ (‘you what?’).




            “It’s our little magic wand that’s casting little magic spells that turn rubbish into MONEY.”
            “First the spell turns the rubbish into art.  So many items I ‘find’ are told to my face to ‘cannot believe’ it is ‘that’ (art).  We must, as we speak here, keep art FIRST.”
            Well... they are grubbing along before me; grubbing....  Their dirty sausages of fingers poking, prying, sorting, shifting... rubbish.  A mound of rubbish.  Isn’t that what a GOOD thrift store is?  Ha, ha.  Meanwhile I but touch my wand here or there.  I spell it; art.  They’re looking for money.”
            “And there is the swashbuckler!”
            “Money.  Of course.”




            “Now you would be... never so low as THAT would you?  NO!”
            “Well... I COULD be and then be THEM.  But art comes before money.  Trumps all money.  If I was the money then I, I believe, would be but a slut.  An isle whore.  Ha, ha.  Now THAT is ART.  I art not MONEY.  Art is first.  Money tumbles along after.  Do I say I like MONEY and art.  NO.  I like art.  The collections are of ART, not money.  No one counts money in art... unless they are vividly crass.
            “Vividly crass is swashbuckling?  Hunting for money in a thrift shop is... vividly crass?  From our vantage it certainly is.  It also has the foundation flaw of assuring that if money comes for one BEFORE art... one will have trouble finding EITHER in a thrift store.”
            “That’s sweet of you to say”.
            “Well I’m not an art slut like you!”




            “And I’ve BEEN ONE for so many years now!  I’m not even slightly tired of being one.  No one bothers me.  NO ONE.
            “Yes.  That is the funniest.  In and out (of the thrift stores) we go; art sluts.  No one ever notices.  And I always pay in correct change (Part Three).  Yes... remember the real rules.  Right?”
            “That is the procedure; the silent travel.  Nothing is there.  There is no ripple on the surface.  No light breeze at a window.  The art (and antiques) is gone.”
            “What’s left?  The dirty sausage fingers?”
            “ON THE CLOTHES.  I mean REALLY.  Ugh; yuck.  Do you have to touch it!  ‘I have to SEE’ they say.  Then LOOK... don’t TOUCH.”
            “You like that; them touching.”
            “I do not.  That’s the worse part.  It’s not TOUCH anyway.  It’s maul.”
            “But you’re not buying that stuff.  You’re not interested.  Actually... YOU ARE INTERESTED.  I forget your infatuations ... with your fellows.”
            “Fellow sluts.  They can’t even do that; be thrift store SLUT.  I mean...  If I said they were sluts they be offended.  I think it’s a compliment these days; to be a thrift store slut.  Even if you’re a crummy one.  Ha, ha.”
            “We have told them.  Now.  Haven’t we.”
            “They won’t like it.”
            “Who cares.  It’s the truth.  Also... it explains the crowds in the (thrift) stores.”
            “It DOES do that!”







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