Posterior - Part Four (B) - "Highborn"

Posterior

Part Four (B)

"Highborn"

            Let us just stop:

            This ‘all’ of the posterior market is not that easy.

            For

            The object itself; the ‘antique’

            Is not that easy

            Particularly when one stands

            With it in hand

            Within the designated buttock

            Of the antiquarian market.

            More lustre?

            Less bluster.

            Less accomplished (sophisticated).

            Less astute.

            Less art-design sword play.

            More... potato racer

            And sunscreen smell (Part Four [A]).  Yes;

            More of that.  A lot more of that

            “Taste”

            It is a malignant taste, traditionally celebrated, currently celebrated, always a ‘there’ and commonly

            Titled

            “Bad”... “Taste”

            A lot of flea market adventurers have that, especially for (in regard of) the ‘highborn’ ‘antique”.

            If I say so?

            Well just look at the board game.  Everyone loves playing board games... at the summer cottage... on a rainy day... when the (out of doors) flea market is closed.  “Chutes and Ladders”.  Playing that... ‘again’.

            How about playing Chutes and Ladders with antique English Lustre Ware; an “OLD”... “CHINA”.  “Oh yes:  It IS a little raw out today.”

            Very few of the very highborn had ‘gold’ to eat off of.  Out of.  “SILVER”, by lay terms is adequate for the mind’s eye of what “RICH PEOPLE” “EAT WITH”.   If one wants to be ‘of’ ‘highborn’ say “old plate” (18^th century silver plated copper serving vessels) (“Old” “Sheffield” “Plate”).  And all the ever-after imitations of ‘old plate’ that get crummier with each passed decade (250 years as I write).  Yes:  Make me look at your crummy ‘silver plate’ and the skimpy inclusions of “STERLING” that, well... you never use except for an ‘it’s SPECIAL’.  For the record, that is what the ‘IS THE’... is the... commercial buy and sell at flea market’s “SILVER” “MARKET”.  The ‘is the’ of these two IS “Sterling”.  I am shown objects simply because they are “STERLING” “SILVER”.

            “Tawdry”?

            Yes it is.  But that is not Lustre ...Ware.  And the sterling does not care.  I recover Lustre Ware from the common (posterior) markets.  There is silver lustre, canary lustre, strawberry lustre, copper lustre, pink lustre.  Today is a pink lustre... day. 

            The shiny pink hand painted decoration upon SIGHTLY off white mold cast ‘pearlware’ forms (pitchers, teapots, cups and saucers, et al) with the mold cast form ‘slightly (decoratively) embellished’... are, also, enhanced to the eye with popular practice of applying black transferware decals... too.  All and only ‘just (pink lustre) brushwork’ is scarcer.  The two; pink brushstroke and black transfer, “MIX” well to the eye when displayed.  Assembled, the arranged convey a certain ‘Regency’.  As they are from the English Regency period (1790-1825)... that... then...  ‘makes sense’.

            If that... then... makes sense and does this to your eye... perhaps... “HAVING” that “LOOK” is something... you “MIGHT”.  And yes it does “LOOK” ‘highborn’.

            Perhaps just starting with one... good... specimen of pink lustre... sort of feel your way in.  SEE if it TAKES with you; highborn (good) taste.  Take the crummy dishes out of the cupboard and put in ONE piece; preferably a ‘better one’, of pink lustre to “TRY”.  Put the tawdry silver plated metal and assemblage of “STERLING” away too:  OUT OF SIGHT.  Live... with your eye... in English Regency.

            “Oh don’t bother”.  But feel how much fun one may have visiting posterior markets and knowingly recovering the highborn of English Lustre Ware.  Made two hundred ago for a demanding, exclusive and design sensitive eye... the fragile china has... passed through Hell... to be at the posterior market for... I... to recover.

            It is a gas doing that; recovering pink lustre.  I get the pitcher.  You smell like sun screen.  (Part Four [A])  We are worlds that never meet.  Pink lustre is hardly the only ‘design form’ I ‘practice’ with.  No...;  Looking glasses.  Seating furniture.  Old silver plate.  Paintings and rare books.

            English glassware?  Of course.

            “Did you know some people collect old dog collars?”.

            Once one crosses over the footbridge of Lustre Ware... and leaves behind the fore noticed ‘I know’ of ‘doesn’t sell’ ‘no one wants it’... and arrives at a self directed private collection (gathering?  Accumulation?) of recovered highborn antique English earthenware... “CHINA” (‘old paste’);  Once one... well... within the current state of affairs... I have it all to myself.  And it is costing ‘no money’ too.

            This is “Why?” I am at the posterior markets; to recover highborn antiques?  Yes.

            Absolutely. 

            This essay seems to be going ‘on and on’?  It is not.  I am looking at three different things here; the posterior markets of ‘antiques’,  highborn design antiques that may be recovered at the posterior markets and... how a .’you and I’ are best suited to do that (recover antiques) there (at the posterior markets).  The weave of these three.

            The first features I bring to a posterior market are... “I am there” and “I care”.  This is buttressed by a splendid dash of “I know”:  I am more than rather well informed of highborn antiquarian design and this is ‘prepared’ for active usage amongst ALL of the those who are ‘not’ (the sun screen ‘smell of’ set, et al).  So all of those are in a defensive poise before I start... noticing... for recovery... ‘old lustre’.  And I noticing them.  Too.  That is my recognition that ‘they’ have ‘bad taste’.  And I can bet on that to my advantage.  “They do not know” (highborn) antique (design).  They... walk right by and that includes MY eye walking right by the crud THEY ‘I know’ in their own domestic setting (design squalor?).  If it is a ‘them’ like that at the posterior market, “of course”... think then... of what... it is like... “at (their) home”.  Oh that’s nasty... I know... but its foundation is solid.  Just go look for yourself.  Most will actually (act to) ‘show you’.  And again I notice that it is not just ‘old lustre ware’ I am ‘doing this with’.  The posterior market place is full of all sorts of highborn design specimens available for ‘recovery’.  What I see ... actually see... is ‘no one’ ‘doing that’.

            Oh I see a few ‘sniffs’; a pick-it-up and look over.  A ‘touch’. An ‘inspect’.  An ‘ask someone’.  (If you ask me and you do have a ‘I found’ of merit but have not ‘recovered’ (purchased it) I have no qualms about ‘being mute’, waiting for you to ‘set it down’ and then.. ah...  buying it... “MYSELF”.  YOU have to ‘decide’ (the antiquarian design merits of “THINGS”... YOUR... SELF.  Or put more sunscreen on the tip

            Of your nose.

            The cumulative effect of multiple decades of ‘doing this’ recovering highborn antique design at posterior (buttock) markets... is disturbing when ‘how much is’ recovered by I (eye).  Probably even more ‘of bother’ is the expansive array of ‘dealers’ I recover from who willfully articulate that I “AM” the “ONLY ONE” who “KNOWS”:

            “That’s the oldest thing on the field”, etc., et al.  Yes; the ‘my free range’ is so cavalier midst the “I KNOW” bad taste that it is freely spoken (joked) of AT THE TIME of recovery.  The “I KNOW” are “still going around looking”.

            For what?  And I do not want to know that.  Chutes and ladders.  A board game of  the recovery of highborn antiquarian design played on a posterior market field.  The game starts with YOU... for the antiques are already there on the game’s board.  YOU... need to KNOW...

            And set aside your personal... ah... “tastes” and... rebuild one’s taste using an educated eye.  Brutally, I say that you are not really suited to shop at ‘flea markets’ unless you’ve, at least, visited several museum collections to ‘find out about’ what you are looking for (what it, for example, “looks like”)  To get to the buttock in the market you have to ...go to art school... yourself...  Otherwise...:  “So sunscreen”.  And let your dog out before you... leave... so it can ‘pee’.

            Oh don’t hurry... or worry.  The actual antiques in quest (here today being pink lustre) will actually ‘still be there’.  Especially at the little lost flea markets.  A ‘really great antique’ may actually be “FOR SALE” for a very long time (like ‘two summers’) simply because the ‘no one knows’.  Until I ‘go through’, of course.  I stop.  Park.  I ‘go through’.  An then ‘that’s that’ until I ‘come back’.  The biggest ‘wild cards’ I find?  The classics; paintings, furniture and rugs.  The biggest antiquarian markets are the biggest ‘find’ markets:  I FIND old paintings, furniture and (‘oriental’) rugs.  I don’t use sunscreen.  Just pants, long sleeves and a hat.  And ‘proper foot gear’.

Posterior - Part Two - "A Flea Market Beyond"

Posterior

Part Two

"A Flea Market Beyond"

            “Where did you say you found that?”

            “At the flea market.”

            Or is it... was it... “A”...

            Flea Market. 

            I didn’t remember to mentally structure that (those) (flea markets) for

            Clarity.  I just stood looking up

            Then down

            The vendor’s isle I didn’t

            Have a thought beyond my self center

            (and an unbounded superficial whirligig) I call my

            “I collect”

            And there didn’t seem to be anyone having that today; my “I collect”.

            There is no far end game passing “I collect” so the bigger the (flea) market place; the acreage, vendor isles, distance of the drive/travel time, food court, Port-“oh”- Potties and the “I forgot my wallet”.  Smart phone

            Aren’t you.

            Didn’t notice me... peeing in the woods behind a tree. 

            That flea market was too small to “make me stop”?

            It was, wasn’t it.

            “Animals.  A lot of them (vendors) are almost animals”.

            Actually they are animals just like you are an animal.  You just do a better job of covering it up with sun screen

            Stuff;

            Being your little life so it doesn’t ever count that there could be... counted...

            A flea market ‘beyond’.  And maybe it is not a big one (a large flea market)

            After all.

            The smaller flea markets allow a vendor’s wares to force a larger table top of exposure to the other animals.  So small is better.  The Port-“oh”-Potties are cleaner... with no waiting line.  The food may actually be inspired.

            That part (food court) is an old Maine fact of life in action.  Simple... but applies to the ‘a flea market beyond’:  If the old girl makes chowder the same as her mother made it who made it the same as her mother and

            Lives up the road “BY CARRIE’S” and reaches her battle worn arm with its crinkle skin, slight tan, slight burn out of her “I didn’t think about it THAT much” dress top... down into the fish muck as she calls out “CHOWDER READY” across the (flea market’s) field.  I seen the old man vendor sipping, spooning, sipping, spooning

            His

            Cup.  Bowl.  His whole day right there when she reached her ladle to the bottom.  Not just for him.  She serves every bowl that way; just the way her grandmother did. He knows that.  “Good chowder” he said.  “Good coffee too”.

            He has his black. “Can stand a spoon up in it”.

            “Where did you say this flea market is?”

            “You drove by it asshole”.

            They (a flea market beyond) gets a lot more interesting when you get to the beyond.

            What do you think?  We don’t know that?  The old gent with his chowder and coffee don’t know that:

            “A flea market beyond”?  He sits there with his “I JUST BOUGHT” Official Boy Scout hatchet (with the scout insignia on the sheath).  Come up with it... brought it up to me... to “SEE IF” if I heard of the hatchet maker.  “ODD ONE” I said.  “That’s what I think too” he said.  “Never seen it”.  Then he went back down cross isle to his table.  Only one table top.  I always get two because I can ‘cover that’).  Sipped, standing over it, the black coffee.  Then sat back down.  Under his (sun screen) umbrella  The empty chowder bowl sat on his table’s edge.  “GONNA TAKE IT BACK UP TO HER (the food court)” he said.

            So you missed the Boy Scout hatchet but ‘caught eye’ on my Chippendale looking glass?  I guess you did.  Slowed right down in your time and space to look.  Like you’d never looked before.  Yep:  Walk right by Chippendale looking glasses most of the time don’t you

            Wish you could say that is not true but some how this one ‘caught eye’.  “It’s a busy one” I said passing you off as stump in a woodlot ‘there’.  You didn’t know quite what about that so you went on up the isle.  I know I’m the only one whose got one of those here ‘for sale’; a (New England ‘country’ made 1790) (emulating ‘formal fashion’) Chippendale ‘courting glass’.  (boy – girl – looking glass); a ‘got one here’.  “Busy” means its cutouts; the ‘Chippendale’, are... tight cut plentiful to the eye yet still subtle and understated; the looking glass ‘dances’ to the eye.  Don’t worry, it takes years to get that ‘to eye dancing’ “right”.

            “Most of them are clunk”.

            You don’t know and that’s not what I was speaking of.  Anyway.

            If you don’t get beyond.  See ‘a flea market beyond’... you miss it... all.  I mean:  You can come back down the isle and talk to me about the looking glass... and such.  Let us just see how expert... WHAT?

            Well we did see you pull off the road and park.  It’s not like there’s a whole lot of cars in the parking lot.  This ain’t a BOX STORE parking lot.  We seen you all get out.  Everyone has to pee... we know that.  We see you looking around like you need a map.  There’s only two isles with four rows of vendors (one vendor row on each side of the isles).  And they peter out.  So it’s ‘up and back’ twice.  Think you can make it?  Oh don’t worry; they (the vendors) don’t care.  They’re not there for you.

I am not there for you. 

            It’s ‘about the stuff’

            And protection

            Of a flea market beyond

            The old man’s empty chowder bowl... at the edge of his vendor’s table... with the spoon resting in it... saves me from ‘eternity’ and... you.  Go back and get in your car and drive away.  “Thank you”.  Okay you even bought my looking glass and paid me too.  No cash but finally “would you take my check”

            “Yep”.

            What state are you from?  “I didn’t even know there was a state there”.  “NO:  BEYOND”.

            A flea market beyond.  “There?”  I already bought two eighteenth century side chairs (Part One) and sold an eighteenth century mirror (looking glass) TODAY.  That’s right and that’s NOT ‘a beyond’ either.  THAT’S MY JOB.  I’m an antiques dealer:   An ‘it’s what I do’.  BEYOND

            YOU.

            So what.  I moved my umbrella to increase my shade spot.  I sat in my folding lawn chair.  And figured out.  So I said “I suppose”.  I got up and went down cross isle to see the old gent.  He’d returned his chowder bowl to the food court.  And refilled the coffee mug.  “BILL” I said.  “That HATCHET have the (scout) emblem on it.  NOT the sheath.  The HATCHET”.  He started fumbling under the table then reached out over the top of the table to “WHERE I PUT THAT DAMN THING”.  Brought it into the umbrella shade.  Slipped sheath open.  No scout emblem.  On the hatchet.  “Someone put that hatchet in a scout sheath.  That hatchet don’t go with the sheath.  Originally”.  He looked up a me.  I went back up cross Isle to my tables.  A little breeze came in across my shade spot.  I sat in my chair nice.  Another two cars pulled into the parking lot.  They got out.  They had to pee.  One of ‘em had a dog too.  It peed right way.

            “I guess it’s better

            That way”.

            I don’t want you to have to think that there some sort of philosophy or humanity at a flea market.  I don’t want you to hear talk like that.  Bill says to me “That’s a pretty good book.  You ever read it?”  He was referring to Thoreau’s’ IN THE MAINE WOODS.  “I bought it for a dollar off of Eddie’s table.  Pretty good book”.

            “That’s an abridged edition” I said.

            “I know.  Still reads good.  You ever have it (meaning ‘have a rare book edition’)?

            “Yep.  Here and there over the years.  Four hundred dollars

            Here and there”.

            We both looked past the vendor row below us and on into the parking lot.  A car was turning around.  Another was turning in.  Neither of us said anything.  I’d put the two 18^th century chairs up in my truck and had an old blanket tossed over them to ‘keep the sun off’.   I left a piece of them sticking out just for someone who ‘knows’ to spy when they come along.  Then Bill says “I think your right about the hatchet. Its not a scout hatchet.”

Posterior - Part One - "That Was Easy"

Posterior

Part One

"That Was Easy"

            Coming from behind something?

            Situated behind something?

            Situated to a rear?

            Near or towards a back?

            Coming after something?

            Following?

            A buttock?

            A bottom?

            Can you do that?  Is a... at a...

A flea market?

            Or is that a situated posterior

            You hear?

            What if it is not?  Not a ‘back there’; behind.  To a rear.  Coming after.  Following.  After you have ‘caught’ an ‘antique bug’.  Defined that and accomplished initial gatherings and accumulations.  Defined a personal boundary... that crumbled when you found a “that”.  And decided to include that too.  In your antique bug.

            But are not those words you’ve heard?  Too.  “Flea Market”.  “It couldn’t be anything at all.  I’ve been there and it is just awful.”  You are such an expert at all this.

            Aren’t you.

            On Saturday morning one of the (flea market) vendors left the market to attend a local “yard sale”.  There the woman proprietress pointed out her ‘best thing’ to him.  It was (is) a Colonial era (1760) New England straight back banister back, sausage turned and carved crest side chair with a newer ‘replaced’ broom straw seat and an equally newer coat of black paint.  “She wanted seventy-five dollars for it”.  That was a very nominal price but the flea market vendor fell short of ‘I know’ confidence and... “left it”.  That was okay in the long run for the omission to the description was that the ‘original’ front feet; carved ‘Spanish feet’ were... long gone.

            The old foot stubs had been sawed off, probably at the time of the new seat and new paint.  They were replaced (in the front) with ‘ball feet’.  The rear feet were just  ‘ended out’.  Both foot works left the now ‘restored’ side chair ‘a little low’.  To a knowing eye.  Like mine.  Your knowing eye does not matter.  I don’t depend on it... for a living.  In fact it is doubtful you, even after I have written out the chair’s description, know what the chair... or even ‘kind of chair’ “it is”.  That is exactly where I want you on this.  So... there.  And stay there.

            The flea market vendor doesn’t know to ‘look for’ the ‘ending out’.  For the ‘you’, consider that a two hundred and fifty year old chair will have had “a lot” of usage “wear” and ‘height loss’ to “its feet”.  So... ‘ending out’ is ‘very common’ and a

            Colonial era side chair that does not need to be ‘ended out’ because it retains full height and has its original feet an... “are intact”... is very rare.  Okay? 

            And especially if the chair is ‘an arm chair’ and has ‘a spoon back’.  A banister back is nearly always a straight back so they (“banister backs”) are... a... notch (or two) “down” in “desirability”.  Don’t bother yourself with that ‘spoon back’ crap; most don’t.

            I do.  Though.

            Did I say this is all at a flea market too?  I should notice that to you.  Too.

            When the vendor came back to the flea market he hunted me up and spoke about the chair at the yard sale.  I was (am) too a vendor at the flea market.  He told me about the chair; described it.  As best he could.  I asked if it was an arm chair.  And if it had a carved crest.  And... did nothing more.  I qualified the whole chair using my developed expertise.  I configured that the chair was ‘not that good of one probably’ for ‘being a side chair’ with a banister back made it ‘they are around’ common especially in the hands of people who ‘lucked into it’ and don’t ‘know them’ (banister back chairs) so ‘show them around’ and ‘find out what they are... sort of.  “FIXED UP” (restored) is usually not part of the... ah... my consideration-of-good formula.  And since it was ‘not an arm chair’; a form of banister back (with carved crest) that is truly “grand”... I

            Did not need to drop everything and drive to the ‘yard sale’ to ‘buy it’.  No.

            I did not.

            That is pretty cavalier isn’t it.  Yes it is if you don’t... do that (a ‘not go’) all the time “anyway”.  The next vendor ‘in’ or ‘down’ or ‘over’ or... if  the chair WAS A GOOD ONE... will ‘pick it off’.  You may count on that.  And I do.

            Three days latter I was walking across the ‘field’ of an outdoor flea market and spied the chair on the table of a flea market vendor visiting from another Southern Maine flea market.  He’d “set up” with the chair “today”.

            I said

            He saw me

            Come across towards the chair

            He said.

            I said nothing then said

            “IS THAT THE CHAIR FROM THE YARD SALE?”

            He said, his hand touching the chair that was set on his table so the

            Seat of the chair was exactly at my face so allowed my

            View to not notice the aspect of ‘low’ for the chair’s height.  I

            Calibrated that alone as my eye walked at the chair.

            At the table I was “done”.

            “Yard sale?” he said.  “Seventy-five?” he said.  “It’s a lot more than that now”.

            He said.

            Of course it would be (“a lot more”) if it was a good chair; a great chair.  An arm chair.  Or just a side chair with ‘original height’ (feet intact) and not a ‘low too’ ‘ended out’.

            That was the end of that conversation about that chair

            At the flea market.  I didn’t walk back to my truck with it.  No one asked me

            Anything about it at all

            Or again

            Because I got caught up with another chair and two.  Funny how flea market days have “things” come in three.  Do they?  Or is it just my eye

            Working in the posterior of the

            Old New England decorative

            Art

            Of the chair (“Early New England Seating Furniture”).

            One chair was just dumped out on the ground in the isle.  “How much?” I said holding it by the scruff.  “No one can sit in that” I added.  “It’s Hitchcock” came back.  That summarized the decoration; a 1920’s gold stylized 1840’s floral stencil decoration on a 1920’s black paint.  “OK how much” I stated

            “Forty”.

            So I rescued that one:  Connecticut, 1760 sausage turned four slat back ‘ladder back’ retaining original finials and original full height.  Why is it ‘full height’?  You were already told: “No one can sit in that.”  These chair’s back is ‘too straight’ to comfortably ‘sit in’.  No one ever did.  It made it all the way to my truck.  That trip took two and one half centuries.

            But that wasn’t good enough.  One of the scruffy vendors blocked my view of a woman opening the side door to her minivan.  Then I stepped behind her van and looked back up to her.  She unload a (painted black with old wove straw seat) spoon back soft shoulder Queen Anne splat back side chair with its original full height, original Spanish feet ‘intact’, full bulbous turning at the front and hand whittled finished on the splat at the back.  Boston area; North Shore or Salem, 1740-60.  Perfect.  (Excepting the ‘acceptable’ old black painted surface).  Original.  Condition.

            “How much”

            “Fifteen”

            That was easy.  She was cleaning out her mother’s house.  Herself.  “It’s easy to do really.”  It is easy to do really.  Just load some of mother’s old stuff in your minivan and go to the flea market.  One by one; load by load... her mother’s house is cleaned out.  I cleaned out her minivan by selective purchase, each week for four months.  I was very ‘helpful’ she said and I always paid her in “correct change” (cash).  Her mother’s house, today, is empty and is for sale.

            She didn’t know she ‘had antiques’; that the mother’s house had old New England decorative arts that had come down through the family and always been there?  

No.

            I stood on a posterior; a roadside flea market field

            And ‘recovered’

            Classic Colonial New England seating furniture

            Found in old New England homes

            For pittance.

            “That was easy.”