"Why Is It This Way?" - Part Two - "The Door Closed"

"Why Is It This Way?"

Part Two

"The Door Closed"

            Each point (aspect) of antiquarian interest (intrigue) is, and as it further refines itself, an ever smaller... already small... smaller ...point (aspect)

Of actual human interest.  Each antiquarian intrigue becomes a further out toward the end of an antiquarian interest diving board.

            Less ‘people’ venture there; to the ‘end’.  There are less there should one get there.  These less are

            Always small in number.

            It has always been this way.

            To ask for.. or to discover... a larger status (state of affairs), one may

            Wish upon a star?  Yes, certainly.  But one speaks to the antiquarian gods alone.

            Both ‘just to the gods’ and, actually, alone... when doing this.  When one comes back from a travel such as that, one will be in the mundane of ‘does the car start?” and taking out the trash ‘please dear’.  That ‘comes back’ utopia is the opposite of ‘always small’; it is a very large...

            That does not, did not and... will not ever... care about... impassioned antiquarian interest.

            OH ONE MAY HAVE a few local and provincial flirts over a “CHAIR” ... “I BOUGHT”... or perhaps a very rare 1850’s daguerreotype photograph ‘image’ of an exterior view of a newly built store... possibly once in a small Maine village... but “no one is sure (yet) where it was”.  Taken.  Someone did ‘take’ the ‘picture’.  But that doesn’t matter.  When one returns from executing curbside trash disposal placement... all of one’s verbose antiquarian banner waving about the discovery of the old photograph has been ‘forgotten’ and ‘moved on from’ by the ‘a very large’.  Only your personal thoughts... hang by their finger tips.  Then...

            Your thoughts drop off and fall... away.  Too.  Periodically you ‘visit’ and ‘flirt’, just yourself... with your “old photograph”.  There is no point in ‘showing it’.  Even to yourself.  You already know what it looks like.  And the rest of them... went to the beach... “anyway”.

            If I take this banter to the commercial side of the antiquarian intrigue... do you sense how fragile that ‘actually is’.  Commercially I am always ‘getting there’ (to the diving board end) and finding either ‘a very few’ (“always small”) or a... no ...one.  That’s how I know about what I am writing.  You... even you... and the other ‘you’... are too..

            NOT THERE.

            Yes:  You have distinguished between a door mat and a Persian rug upon a “floor”.  And... you’ve carried that up a ladder to a few more decorative accessories that you either... found, discovered, bought, inherited or... purloined ‘along a way’ of a ‘that’ that is actually a murky definition of how you “SEE” the antiquarian ...what.

            Do you

            “SEE”?

            Not very much... in the ‘murky’.  I go on without your participation.  You denote that your ‘collection’ is ‘complete’ “anyway”.  So you go to the beach too.  “Always small” becomes even smaller; a smaller ‘always small’.  I have to wait it out.  Soon enough another wandering thought-as-apparition emerges through the murk.  “I am” says they ‘collect’ Bennington Pottery tobacco jars.  Or was it snuff jars; who knows a difference?

            I do.

            They do.

            So I am in luck?  Today?  I have a tobacco jar and a snuff jar

            “BOTH SIGNED”

            “Isn’t that cute” (that you had to take the household trash out BEFORE) you could further explore this interest of yours in... well...

            “OLD”

            “THINGS”.

            “That IS too bad that they are ALL THAT:  You always have ‘old things’.”

            While I am ‘accommodating’ with that... another arrives wanting to know if I will “take sixty’ for a “that”.  This is in the very small at the board’s end too.  So I say yes.  I know my chance very well here... there and ‘about that’.  But they know too... that I know... too and we have a brief conversation about the ‘cleaning up’ of the ‘surface’ with this including a fingernail scrape ‘test’ to ‘assure’.  These are all just fireflies in the murk at the end of the board of ‘always small’.  I like fireflies.

            Do you?

            If the defining is ‘always small’, ‘diving board end’, ‘murk’ and ‘fireflies’...as the ‘is it this way’ “Why?” and...

            Always has been

            Since ever an “I” may remember

            Ever...

            Is that an ‘it’ or an ‘anything’... at all?  If the Persian rug and the door mat are on the floor of the front hall floor of the front door to the...

            Wait patiently...

            You walk on them

            Throughout the home.

            If the ‘stand’ is a ‘table’ and the chest is a ‘dresser’ and the bedstead ‘was my mother’s’ and the timepiece is ‘the old clock’ that ‘stopped working’... do you look back over your shoulder to the closed front door that is keeping out the murk and the fireflies?  That really is the boundary of ‘always small’.  Just close the door.  It is gone.

            “It” is an individual’s actual interest in “antiques”.  This is the that that has always actually been the way it has always been ever since... “I” may remember.  It is not a something that is “happening now”.

            “YOUNG PEOPLE” have always been “NOT INTERESTED” in “ANTIQUES”.  I know this fully for I was once a young person highly interested in antiques and noticed fully the “no one else was”.  Except “OLD PEOPLE”.  So that takes care of that:  Antiques interest is an ‘always small’ gathering of “OLD PEOPLE”.  Let us just “BANK” on that.

            And move on to “the DEALERS”

            This is the occurrence that there is a workable notion that one may “MAKE MONEY” by (buying and) selling “ANTIQUES”.  Even television shows demonstrate this

            Perchance.

            I remember when this ‘that’ “did not”.  No... ‘back then’ it was a very small ‘always small’ to be an ‘antiques dealer’.  No one asked me about it... back then.  Most didn’t even know I could be, in front of them, an “antiques man”.  Originally we (antiques dealers) were a ‘curiosities vendors’... with some old books and paintings “thrown” into that mix.  A sorrowful plight?  No... really... no one noticed ‘at all’.

            But then the enhanced escapade escaped into a wild movement of ‘things’ called antiques that, as I opened with (Part One), are actually ‘crud’; old vans full of smelly crud.

            Yes... that is what it is.  Do not believe me.  Look down your front hall standing on the Persian rug... in past the door mat... and notice the ‘old (serpentine front) Hepplewhite New England made satin wood inlayed “Federal” “card table”. Then look on further past to the tall clock; the ‘grandfather’s clock’.  Do you smell anything?  Of course not.

            Crud is crass.  It is not a curiosity.  It is not a decorative art.  It is not art.  It is crass crud... that, usually, smells when it is closed up in an old van and has the sun beat upon that closed up unit (“always small”?).

I turn the tide?  I just did?  The always small... is always small... and now buried within the crud... industry... that is pandered and peddled as ‘antiques’ ‘business’.  Bantered, driven, parked, yard saled, flea marketed, auctioned, stall shopped, store fronted and hoarded... crud... is industry.  And not small.  It is very large... the secondary market; used things.  It... here; in our USA but cinched down to New England... is the largest and the finest in the world.  No place else is better... anywhere ever.  Crud.  That is the one word of the largest ‘what it is’.   It does not effect you at all; just close the door.  The crud, like the ‘very small’ antiques intrigue... is gone.  Too.

Then.... what is the... “Why is it this way”

            It is only that...; has always been only that and... is always small.  Keep the door closed.  It will never be seen unless, of course, one ‘stumbles across’ a ‘real antique’ when out and about... and does actually notice that; a ‘real’ ‘antique’.  Then one may address it; that... the ‘antique’ stumbled upon.  Otherwise just ‘don’t’.  Stay back somewhere between the Persian rug and the door mat in the front hall of the front door to the intrigue of the very small apparition appreciated as ‘antiques’.  It is this way... and that is why.

The Silver Twin's ...Place... In New England Decorative Art - Part Eight- "An Aesthetic"

The Silver Twin's ...Place...

In New England Decorative Art

Part Eight

"An Aesthetic"

            Picking up my “I found out exactly what I wanted:  ...  I wanted a certain expression... that is as if a... certain breeze... whispering:  A certain expression of a certain breeze that comes whispering” (Part Seven)  And:  Retrieving with that my notice of the Concord Museum (Part Seven also)... I use the latter to protect my ‘what I wanted’ before defining ‘breeze that comes whispering’ at the Silver Twin’s Place.

            I am not the only antiquarian who feels a breeze and hears a whispering.  The most common antiquarian reference is the expression “It (any ...but of that moment usually... a certain antique object) speaks to me” (“Is speaking to me”).  If that is new to you it is probably because it is a ‘little too in daily use’; you missed it (hearing it).  That is okay.  If you listen for it now, one will hear it.  Better for our chat is to flip to the introductory pages of the Concord Museum collection book and

            Quote the quoting of Cummings Davis, the original ‘founder’ (collector) of the museum: 

“Spirits of the past that whisper

            Pleasant tales of long ago”

            Davis hijacked his own words (the quote above) from his own poem about his own... “tall clock” (‘grandfather’ ‘clock’) and used them (1870) to define, as printed advertisement, his “antiquarian rooms” that were the original Concord Museum (David F. Wood, editor, THE CONCORD MUSEUM  DECORATIVE ARTS FROM A NEW ENGLAND COLLECTION, The Concord Museum, Concord, MA, 1996, pages xv-xvi).  So... my point... is... ‘whispering’ antiques came well before I started listening to them.  But:  We do need to know, if only ‘know of’, this ‘certain breeze... whispering’ accolade... to understand what happens next when one seeks to define the Silver Twin’s ...Place... in New England Decorative Art.

            It is an aesthetic.  Art, history and heritage... the Silver Twin’s Place.  It is art.  It is history and... it is heritage.  There, as a whole, at the Silver Twin’s Place.  What does this ‘look like?’

            You say.

            Well let me start with a bowl of ‘soup’.  A... bowl... of soup.  Look at it; a bowl of soup.  NOW ADD ‘New England’ too.  And recalibrate the bowl of soups to be that; New England... so be then

            “Chowder” and/or “Lobster Stew”.  Yes:  New England bowls of soup.  Look at them.

            As an aesthetic.

            They are art.  They are history.  They are heritage.  Critiqued with these (aesthetic) advantages they ARE aesthetic to one’s eye very promptly... even though they be

            But

            Bowls of soup.

            I may exemplify the chowder and stew... but I should not need to.  Right?  So moving along I say the “this of this” is what I am seeking at the Silver Twin’s Place.  It is the ‘this of this’ of the bowl of old New England soup... that I:  ‘A certain expression of a certain breeze that comes whispering’.  And everyone can see that now... in the bowls of...

            Old New England soup.

           Let me take that to objects; take the ‘bowl of soup’ aesthetic, to an object... or two.  We first notice that... the soups suggest that the Silver Twin’s Place ‘bowls of soup’ objects are... not... ‘brought up hill’ “pretty much” objects... even though SUCH an (up hill) object may too... be of ‘bowl of soup’ aesthetic.  Yes; keep both these thoughts in mind for they will come back.

            The easiest... surface... and form... and presence... merged with historic design place... AND ‘used’ at the Silver Twin’s Place... is found in a classic “Maine” stoneware “beehive” storage jar.  Plain; just... surface, form and presence... with classical design and ...classical function... it is a stoic... in place and in use at the Silver Twin’s Place.  “Put away” and then ‘left alone’ I ‘found it’

            As old New England

            Decorative art.

            The beehive jar is redundant in its multi-understated ‘bowl of soup’ qualities.  I may say it ‘screams’ the ‘what I am seeking’.  Screaming is not whispering.  This storage jar, a splendid ‘spot on’... may actually be TOO... easy... to ‘get’; to see that it ‘whispers’ in the breeze.

            I turn attention to a more difficult object.  It is so difficult that it, for the most part, slips by... and slips away ‘not noticed’ as a paramount statement of antiquarian whispering.  Further, it has no ‘commercial value’ (“worth money”).  I choose a smallish Victorian style ‘ironstone’ (opaque high fire [high heat] clay body) cast molded ‘mug’; ‘coffee mug’.  The design form is still with us today.  This Victorian mug may be considered a design prototype for ‘the coffee mug’ we ‘use’ today.  Fine; the form is understood.

            But it is not imbued.  That’s right.  Why?  It is too common (familiar) a design form.  And:

            Looking at this specimen, one’s eye quickly sees that it is ‘gray’.  In color.  So ‘gray’ in spirit... too?  One passes by this object and its color.  Wait.  It seems ‘all gray’ but a closer poke with the eye shows the form to be ‘highlighted’ very lightly with hand painted ‘silver’ “highlights” on the rim and handle and:  The handle is white.  All white... ‘against’ the ‘gray’ whose ...gray... is the body of color.  Yes:  the gray is a color ..shown off... by the white.  It is a color...:

            What color?  A titled color; a titled Victorian color.  This color is found to be titled through another Victorian color.  That color is (Victorian) “Army Blue”.  This gray, therefore, is (Victorian) “Army Gray”.  What armies are blue and gray?  When was the gray coffee mug ‘made’?  During the Victorian – Civil War era.  So the heritage of the color equals the history of the color on the mug and

            The mug is a Victorian design form classic that is

            Art.

            All at once a ‘lost’ and ‘passed by’ object has become ‘required notice’.  Because it is ‘that plain’... ‘that simple’.  Objects may be full of art, history and heritage but be “absurdly” simple.  And be right in front of one.  And be of no commercial value.  Too.  How does the antiquarian act to that? Well... if one in only ‘there for the money’... one is... ‘gone’.  Right?

            But I am not an antiquarian shuffled away by ‘money’.  No.  I have already told you several times: “I found out exactly what I wanted:  ...  I wanted a certain expression... that is as if a... certain breeze... whispering:  A certain expression of a certain breeze that comes whispering”.  I defined this as an aesthetic.  Through several objects after two bowls of ...soup.

            What I have to do now... for myself; for my personal and professional interest... in the Silver Twin’s ...Place... in New England Decorative Art... is go to the homestead and look around to see... if I see... ‘anything’ of this aesthetic... there.  And:

            I have to define for myself a little bit more of the up hill... down hill... or ‘made there’ boundary line.  Yes; that. I said I would come back to this.  The soups came up hill.  Dried salted Cod Fish and oyster crackers were not made or found “there”.  Nor were lobsters.  They traveled “there” covered in ice  and rockweed.  Mostly the latter.  The stoneware beehive storage jar was not made “there” either.  It was made in Maine... but... ‘down hill’.  The (Victorian) army gray mug was... made in England.  What I want...:

            What I want... is the certain breeze that comes whispering to be “made there”.  Only.  I want the SOUL of the Silver Twin’s ...place... in New England Decorative Art to ‘speak to me’ purely from “there”.  I have already ‘found’... ‘put away’ and ‘left alone’... the sap yoke... hanging in the shed with the roof collapsed.  I took that down and purchased it (Part Four).  That is it:  I want that aesthetic.  All of it.  There; in the Silver Twin’s Place.  Because.

It is being destroyed.  Not only do I want that ‘all’ for myself but I want it, too, FOR the Silver Twin’s place. I understood that only I sought “that” “there” and soon

            My chance to find it would be gone.  Because the Silver Twin’s Place would

            Be gone.

Coy - Part Thirty-Five - "This is a Glory"

Coy

Part Thirty-Five

"This is a Glory"

The raw fabrication

Of a coy façade;

Its raw setting

Has been related?

The impudent thief

Disguised as a janitor

Takes out the trash

After paying in cash?

Folded finger money

Decides the fall back destiny

Of old New England

Fading away?

            I did (and do) not have any problem with this estate distribution at all for I... was a chosen one too and the others were that too so it was only an US that was in full agreement that THIS WAY was... well...:

            “FINE”.

            Turned up side down and pitched... the Savage Estate escapes becoming... right side up.  One cannot visit it.  One cannot... get in there ‘and see’.  Your flashlight in the cellar next to mine?  No.

            IN THIS END... there IS NO ONE THERE... ‘from away’.  There is no congestion at the estate.  WE pry up the gravestones and pitch them into the sea?  Or have I saved it all in a massive mound in an old barn that only I have the key to and only Hiram and I ‘go to’ ‘knowing it’s there’?  Or is Hiram excluded ‘from that’... “too”?  And:

The procedure... of the distribution of the contents of the ‘Captain’ Savage estate mansion... continues.  And will continue... until a death... makes us part.

            Do I think Hiram will out live Helen?  If anyone can it will be he.

Do I think Helen will be found dead in her pool side chair... beside her... condominium’s swimming pool... in Florida... ‘after lunch’... some day... in a February ...with her cigarette still burning in its ashtray?  Her highball glass still sweaty?

            “She’s a tough old bird.” religiously opinionates Hiram.  And he should know for he... is one himself.  I could, I suppose, ‘make case’ that ‘this’ (the procedure) is keeping BOTH of them ‘alive’.  That means... ‘heaven forbid we finish’ “cleaning out”?  And that query I may rebut for I... now having evermore... NEVER MORE... creeped around the mansion... ‘know’ that it is... ‘adequately stocked for its duration’.  One day... some lawyer... from some bank will ...lock me out...

            I suppose.

            “Are not you the ONE we tried to HIRE?” twenty years ago... I will be asked.

            “Who me?”.  Do not worry.  By then they all will have been replaced by subordinates and those from that ‘before’ ‘cannot remember’.  One actually has to be good at this; picking antiques from old New England estates, to ‘remember’ ‘twenty years ago ‘that-that... is-in-there’... “still”.

            “Still”... that’s a word that pickers use.  Owners do not.  Collectors do not.  Antiques dealers do not.  I ....I ‘ask’ “DO THEY STILL...”  “HAVE”

            “I’m SURPRISED you REMEMBER THAT.”

            I am not... so... “DO YOU... STILL... HAVE”... or did you pry it up and pitch it ...into the sea

            Where upon I

            Will scramble down the shore bank

            OF YOUR ESTATE

            And

            GET IT FOR FREE.

            Turned up side down, pitched... but ‘still there’... more often these days... it’s free.

            No one cares.

            All the old china in the dining room.

            All the old fruit jars in the cellar.

            All the ‘old buggies’ in the carriage shed.

            The old pitchforks

            The old pots and pans in the kitchen.

            The old painting in the hallway.

            The ...complete assemblage:  The material oblivion of six generations ‘living there’ including their very own gravestones in the ‘family cemetery’.  The cast ceramic garden urns abandon-lee decorating the... abandoned Victorian garden whose ‘old fence’ is ‘fallen down’ and a someone took its... gate away.

            When I was coming out of the well house

            With Hiram

            One late October afternoon

            In a breeze and below rolling clouds

            The geese were flying south

            ‘For the winter’

            Above us.

            We stopped, together

            And watched them

            Fly away.

            The old, age tone darkened and dirty wooden box he and I had filled with the scattered... mostly sheet iron tin... but ‘having a few glasses in there too’ well water ‘dipper cups’ AND the old tin... and gray galvanized enamel... foursome of actual water dippers (ladles)... and... leaving only ONE old bucket behind... we

            Had finished ‘cleaning out’ ‘that building’.

            I could tell from the manner of his handling one tin cup that Hiram... ‘used that one’ himself

            For years.

            I still have that one... for sale... at a little higher price ...so it ‘stays around’ because... no one cares.

            The ‘Grandfather’ clock in the front hall... was (is) a cheap one; “Scottish or Welsh”.  ‘It is one’... that old One John bought on the dock.  It never worked (“worked well”).  No one cared because no one ever ‘went’ in the ‘front hall’.  By that date (1850’s) tall clocks (‘grandfather’ clocks) were fading as timepieces to become the design form ‘requisite decoration’ of the front halls of old New England (and beyond) homes... simply ‘standing there doing nothing’.  Even cheap ones.  Helen has never mentioned ‘selling it’ or even spoke of ‘what it is’ beyond its symbolic poise.  I have and never will... ‘ask’.

            The sundial... also a timepiece... in the garden was... a Victorian era Romanesque knock off that ‘didn’t work’ too.  IT... was cast off of its white marble Victorian base when that base ‘was tipped over’.  WE found it lying there pitched from the base.  Upright that base was headless until I set the cast iron sun powered time telling mechanism upon it... again.  I’d already ‘bought it’ by specific cash treaty that included ‘all the old (garden) fixtures ‘in there’ (inside the fallen down fenced... in... Victorian garden).

            “I’ll get my dolly from the truck.” I said to Hiram BEFORE we walked from the front door of the mansion back out to the garden.  The front door is where, as usual, we negotiated a ‘specific cash treaty’.  WE ‘rolled’ the sundial’s base onto the dolly’s shelf.  I ...hauled it... ‘across the yard’ to the truck while Hiram followed carrying the ‘sun dial’.  WE ‘lifted’ “IT” into the truck.  We did the same for the garden urns.  I even used the dolly to ...haul the garden’s gate... “away”.  Too.

            “PRETTY OLD that one IS.” pronounced Hiram.  He is getting much better at denoting objects “YOU (I) LIKE THAT ONE I can tell.”.

            We found no silver dollars in the garden.

            We always look for silver dollars.

            I... did... find... bags of

            Dollars

            In the garden

            That I had to ‘dolly away’

            That day.

            Then we ate our sandwiches.

            Then I left

            With that ‘load’.

            “Attic?” you say.  You old New England ...fool.

            “She doesn’t even know there IS an attic.  “GO THERE?” she thinks means “IN THE CAR?”.  And no one else in the family ever hauled anything ‘up there’ anyway.  “WHY BOTHER” and they just ‘left it there’ for the ...following generations that ‘came’... bringing their own “PUT IT IN”.  The attic?  No.  Their room.  The hallways.  And, of course, the “in there” of the meandering ‘rooms’ ‘in there’ (of the mansion).

“Attic you say?”... is about it... for that

For it is filled with bats.

“REALLY?  UP THERE?  In the

ATTIC

You say.”

            Snakes in the cellar

Squirrels in

EVERWHERE

Mice.

“I hate mice”.

Rotting wood.

Flaking paint.

Torn screens in screen doors

“OH THIS IS A GLORY” being ‘in here’ I.

The End