Old New England Glassware in the Home - Part Twelve - "Goofy"

Old New England Glassware in the Home

Part Twelve

"Goofy"

            Now that I have disemboweled old glassware in the New England home by using the tiny jewel of the earliest innovation forms of New England ‘invented’ ‘pressed glass’ found in that home as a design creation that ‘changed’ ‘things’ glass ... in the New England home... AND

            Demonstrated without direct pointed finger that most all of the ‘that’ is LOST on... ‘most of all THAT’ (the ‘them’); a ‘walking dead’ of ZERO design sense in the THEIR “NEW” ‘old’ NEW ENGLAND home... ah....

            THAT’S RIGHT:  The roads are going in opposite directions?  The juice glass win?

            “Noooo”:  I’ll link ‘em BACK AROUND with the always useful

            Good and bad

            Taste.  Declaration.

            I’ll spread the disemboweled entrails out with my hand as though we are in the... always fondly remembered... tenth grade ‘biology lab’.  I’m your “pair up with the person next to you”  partner... “in lab”?  I left off with a:

            “I’ll leave (the term) ‘Lacy’... ‘Glass’ as a stand alone pontification” and... I did NOT promise to ...pontificate upon it (Part Thirteen B) so... I, having the established the ‘short bus’ option on the discussion table will ...use that.

            Short Bus Lacy Glass ‘field trip’:

First... the first... New England glassware is ‘blown’ glassware.  Next the notion of pressing glass metal and the actual production of a product by doing that; the ‘bases’ of ...old New England whale oil lamps is ...accomplished... noting again the ‘it is a crude product’, these early ‘pressed glass lamp bases’.  Improvement... in name only... refine both the pressing process and mold making.  The glass metal; the molten glass... remains ‘difficult’ as a ...molten material.  Yeah; that’s right:  ‘Difficult’.

            So they (glass men in the back room with rum ration) are trying to ‘control’ this metal... that is... for the pressing process ...of small (tiny) iota... like glass knobs for drawers on furniture and... cup plates... salt dishes:  They are TRYING TO... do this; press the glass in a mold.  No one knows what they are doing.

            “Wing it”.

            So each little baby step... confined mostly to mold making and tiny iota object design innovation with a ‘that stuff is hot bitch’ metal control thoughts... rarely carrying to ‘improvement in the glass metal’ gives I... and you... and the world... the almost fifteen year window of ‘New England Lacy Glass’.  It’s the global ‘primitive’ state of ‘Pressed Glass’; the point where pressed glass comes out of the sea of and walks on land.  It, in hindsight design comparison... looks like this; sea, land, walk.

            “Lacy Glass” is, most mostly, small snowflake shimmering iota of, most all, small and useless ‘dishes’ for ‘use’ on a (dining) table that... no one ever really knows what to do with them; stupid little dishes.  The 1828 New England diet was nearly two hundred years behind today’s Asian food influences of ‘dibs and dabs’ of little this and that ‘sauces and stuff’ in tiny table top “OH I LOVE THEM”... dishes... that we will... actually drive for an in-state-of-Maine HOUR to ‘get to a place’ that ‘serves that’ (sauces and stuff in little dishes; lots of little dishes).  I WILL COME BACK TO THIS in later chapters... including Eve and Bing... so don’t forget this.  MEANWHILE... the old New England home bought up a FEW ‘lacy dishes’ along with A LOT of ‘cup plates’ and a responsible-for-usage-in-the-home number of... ‘lacy salt dishes’.

            Short bus ride is over.  GET OFF THE BUS.  For lacy glass... a cup plate or two and a lone vigil of a single salt dish... is appropriate and historically correct old glassware to have in one’s New England home.  MORE importantly is for one to have the GOOD TASTE to ‘know about this’ and that... a that... IS ONE... when one... ‘SEES IT’.

            “OH.... GOD.... HELP... ME”.

            There is NO trickle down of this that I have ever denoted in my fifty antiquarian years.  Lacy glass is totally ‘on the bus’ – ‘off the bus’... in OLD and NEW... New England.

            I couldn’t care less.  Especially for ‘lacy’.  There just is not a function trail IN the home to have allowed it to ‘flourish’.  The actual productions, for the most part, are NOT FUNCTIONAL to the 1835 New England home.  That includes the furniture knobs.  “LIKE:  How many you WANT?”  A one box of glass knobs goes... a long ways... in the home.  All this just makes it easier for me to ‘enjoy’ the old New England glassware without having the “ANYONE AROUND” and... THE COST... ‘is nominal’.  “Old Lacy”, the iota... is ‘dirt cheap’.  I think it is even cheaper than that (‘dirt’; check with your landscaping service).  What that means is ...watch out... when I come back to ‘this’ as forewarned above.

            I want to touch on two ‘things’ (objects; object types) ‘of lacy glass’ that are sort of ...neat.  Sort of ‘cool’.  Sort of goofy.   They are ‘tids’ that one should fit with one’s ‘tads’ of this ‘lacy glass’... as old New England glassware in the home.

            AS I HAVE harped on; lacy appears as ‘iota’ and has little function and purpose.  SO THERE... in this there of iota made... is a round-up of ... rather deep collector delight... in the production products called “miniatures” and “toys”.  Oddly, the ‘they’ (pressed glass makers) DID make ‘a lot’ of them (these) and... AND, today, ‘collectors’ covet ‘them’...especially ‘of color’.  Little bowls, plates, covered dishes, spooners, pitchers in bowls, doll juice glasses and even... teeny tiny flat irons... were made as token ‘for children’ give-aways and

            Collectors ‘love them’.  Especially ‘of color’.

            And oddly, from my ‘in (old New England) house’ working experience... these ...teeny tiny miniature iota are IN THE DAMN HOUSES:  I find them... not quite an ‘all the time’ but... way more than ‘you’d think’.  It’s actually easy to explain:  The kid got it gifted and... like... it’s too small to smash and so... it survived ‘childhood’... and otherwise... never went anywhere else so stayed THERE in the ‘undisturbed’ old New England home ... house contents... until some

            MAD MAN like me...

            Hunts it down...

            In micro seconds

            While saying nothing

            About it

            To anyone

            At all.

            So those are sort of cool and one should know about them; “Sandwich miniatures” by generic collector  title... often proceeded by “I COLLECT” and followed by “especially colored ones GOT ANY?”.  Ok... what’s better?  FINDING ONE in the dark back third floor child’s bedroom of the old sea captain’s mansion or... COLLECTING... ONE?  BUT a “YOU” of an old New England home... WILL BE SO VERY on top of it IF ONE knowingly includes a ‘one or two or it-is-hard-to-stop-at-THREE’... in one’s... proper and of good taste gathering of

GLASSWARE

In the New England home.

            After practicing this mantra; “It is a Sandwich (glass) miniature”, casually displaying-without-appearing-to-display the “your” lacy salt dish and...  “Those are CUP... PLATES... from... my... FAMILY”; a stack of those too... we will have ‘of good taste’ you to be that... ‘of good taste’... WITH TOO... a ‘they collect all this’ (old New England glassware)... flying buttress... supporting your old-glassware-in-the-New England –home cathedral YOU have built.  What does a ‘they collect’ buttress look like?

            A premier example is the ‘collector’s reference book for “Pressed Glass Salt Dishes of the Lacy Period 1824-1840”.  I mean the premier, long established... “BIBLE”... of... collector books for... “Lacy Salt Dishes”  It is goofier than the ...goofy... salt dishes.

            “NEAL” being how this tome is referred to by collectors... (a short for the authors’ “L. W.” and “D. B.” with the “D... B...  NEAL” being “QUEEN”... is a HEAVY... dense... 1962... privately printed... of no use to anyone for any reason unless YOU are ‘interested in’... LACY... Salt... DISHES.  Otherwise ‘not’ and ‘never’ on a ‘any reading list’.  I was the “USING” “NEAL” by, like... 1968.  I bought the still-have-my (traveled and storied) copy for $95.00 on August 10^th, 1972.  I...

            STILL USE IT

            HAVE HAD MANY ‘copies’ come and go’ and

            STILL USE IT

            As a core communication forum between I and collector Who Ever I

            STILL USE IT.

            With this bitch slap (“STILL USE IT) portraying its integral necessity on ‘in my (antiquarian) life’ but these slaps... do not treat

            “GOOFY”.

            OK if your sitting down in your preferred chair ‘using Neal’ you are... probably pretty somewhere of pretty in there about something literally in there (NEAL) being something ...you there... need to find in there to show to someone who very much cares that it is in there so, too, would sit there and look too to see that it is, as you say, IN THERE and

            This is communicated by I finding in there the head title here sought to be

            “OP  Ia” (OH-pee-one-A)

            And say that

            Then add that “the color is not recorded”.

            “Oh shit” is what Bing said when they opened the bottom door to the buffet and discovered that a ‘whole shelf’ of ‘glass’ (glassware) “HAS FALLEN”.  HERE in that dining room I had “Please come” to “MEET” a woman who had scared the “oh shit” out of ME when I had ‘shelf fallen myself’ been admitted to MEET her and

            She was from Texas.

            I mean...for real.

            And she was wearing this professional all black pant suit ish thing with the starch crisp white collar white shirt thing with black spike heal ‘expensive’ shoes... thing... too;  Dyed (died?) blond hair with dark brown roots showing too white teeth all gold very carefully hung and too smile-ing with her sharp polished nails attached to a Texan girl handshake that ...crushed me.

            “Texas?” I said as self reflexive.

            “Houston”.

            “Oh... nice”.

            If that is what is coming... then that explains why I savor sitting in my preferred chair ‘with Neal’.  The... ah... ‘pictures’ in Neal are ‘line drawing’ drawn from actual plaster cast molds... made of each and every ‘salt’ ‘in the book’.  Front-back, sides, bottom.  The Neal identification number is at the top of each page.  The skimpy ‘maker’ and ‘known colors’ are at the page bottom.  If ‘that one’ on ‘that page’ is not the one “I HAVE” then I

            Turn the page.