Coon Hill - Part Thirteen - "Occasional... Table"

Coon Hill

Part Thirteen

"Occasional... Table"

            Way back in Chapter Four when I was still relating my ‘grabbing the stuff’ (pilfering) sense of this estate, I had discerned and commented upon an ‘occasional table’ ‘floated’ in the bedroom.  It, I here and there went on to relate... sort of / eventually... was (is) an English Regency period (1800-1835) ‘drum’... ‘stand’.  I gave verbiage to my discernment and antiquarian interest; my ‘pleased’ to ‘get that’.  From the bedroom and at its doorway I extended my ‘pleased’ state by ‘raking’ my eye over a (sort of vaguely) similar stand in the outer room:

            “I was standing alone in the old dead woman’s bedroom with ‘most of that room’ ‘cleaned out’.  I looked at the back of the closed bedroom door.  I opened it and stepped into the outer room.  I glanced at the ‘pedestal base stand’ across that room in the dark.  The bedroom stand... too... was ‘in the dark’ of that room.  My antiquarian eye raked it... in the dark... as my eye had... just now raked the other stand... in the dark.  In fact, I turned from one stand to the other stand... while standing at the threshold... and raked them both... with my antiquarian eye.  Again.  Then I”.  (from Part Four)

            “Then I” what?

            And what do I mean by that / this... now?

            Do I eye?  Did eye I?

            The point of I for eye for these... occasional tables... IS THAT; the ‘my antiquarian eye’.  It is my antiquarian eye AND the object infatuation of BOTH for I and EYE with ‘this’ (antiques).  I and my eye are the ‘there, doing that’ (raking the old furniture of the old house and its... ‘household goods’... to discern... ‘all of that’ ‘in there’ as I

            “Clean out”.

            No subplot.  No character(s).  No story.  No spirits.  No:  Just the MY I and its MY EYE.  When I was raking at the doorway threshold I was at the pure point of what I do.  Do you do... that too?

            You do?

            Then why do you keep showing me... “something”... to ‘see’... if I (eye) ‘see’ “something” that creates the state of... ‘is something’... (for you)?

            That’s why I do not like ‘other people around’ when ‘I’m doing that’... standing in a bedroom doorway threshold looking back and forth (‘raking’)... two... ‘occasional tables’ with each in its own ‘dark’.

            They look better in the dark.

            Because they show the ‘form’ .... THEIR form... ‘better’.  You have to be there to a ‘get this’ (standing in this doorway in this estate)?

            Yes.  It’s a radical state; an active dynamic... the raking if antiques with the I-eye.  Do not push me around when I’m doing that with some piece of crud that ‘came down’ ‘in the family’.

            You don’t know what crud is... for you wouldn’t be showing crud to me if you did... know what crud is.  Better work on that first; defining I-eye-crud.  How do you do that?  Well last night I spoke with a woman who had just spent three hours in the Frick (museum 5^th Ave NYC) and then ‘went to Target’.  Her verdict was... not... ‘still out’.  Try that ride a few times:  At the Frick, pay to get in.  At the Target... pay to get out. 

            Anyway... it’s the ...occasional tables; the two ‘stands’... for me; my I and eye.  Most of the... those... I ‘work with’ ‘don’t’ that and if they do it is a ‘poor job of it’.  WHY JUST THE design door (figurative entry way) of the two stands-in-their-dark... stops me in the bedroom doorway... for “Well that a perfectly SPLENDID example... of THAT,”

            Of what.

            OH GO ON because you do not really care about THAT.  But I do.

            OK SO:  What I rake is the “WORLD” of antiquarian state-of ‘appreciation of’; that is always spoken of in traveled antiquarian circles as the well understood adage that HERE in old New England ‘they took’ the old English ‘styles’ and (radically) ‘made them over’ to ‘give us’ a ...very singular old New England... pure expression of a New England... sense of grace and form that is both light and gutsy, pushy but understated, simple but crisp and

            Well...

            More... superlatives.

            That (New England Federal.. carrying the tradition forward from the New England Colonial periods)... DOES NOT a... BE A... BETTER... eye for I or all eye’s I’s for that matter.  No... the spade foot Regency ‘drum stand’ here estate found... is remarkably (for the form is ‘historically’ awkward)... ‘of good proportion’ noting, I-eye, especially the splendid proportional size of the drum table shelf above (and of direct linier design relation) to the stand base it rests on.  BOTH are ‘good size –good lines’ and merge to form a...

            Charming ‘occasional table’.

            The actual design weak point is found, by my (doorway I-eye threshold) raking eye, to be ‘in’ the New England ‘dish top (candle) stand’.

            “Really?”

            Well... there is a little bit of a ‘that’s the way it came out’ feel to the WHOLE construction; a little bit of ‘out of control’ that ... by denote of this ...abject... the English ‘occasional table’ does not have; it ‘carries’ its ‘consciousness’ from start to finish. 

            I know... these are such small things for one who... doesn’t even know what crud is.  BUT it is in the end a ‘stall spot’ for the New England stand.  What does that mean?  It means I can, will and HAVE ‘found better’ “STANDS” (occasional tables) ‘like that’.

            But it is good enough.  That day.

            Now... if that’s all I care about and actually do... find, rake and carry off... old occasional tables, et al... when I clean out, et al...:

            That leaves Asa, et al... including Her, et al and HER, HIS... THE... et al... ‘cleaned out’:  That is why the occasional tables were ‘still in there’ when I and Asa were... still in there too?  He would like... to have for his hoarder’s trove in his barn... the ‘Death Chair’?  I have ‘put back’ the Death Chair into the bedroom where I know he was once ‘in there’ and then was shut out.  That I...eye... that death chair too but stupidly let go my radical antiquarian eye to... muckle with these sub lots... they don’t merit the word ‘plot’?  Asa and Her are NOT a plot.  The Regency occasional table IS a plot.

            HOW DID IT get IN THERE.  For how long has it BEEN THERE.  WHO was in the old homesteader’s bedroom that... no... it was ‘in the house’ before being in that room...:  Someone took it in there.

            Her mother.

            And put a potted plant on it... to destroy (?) ‘the leather’ ‘top’.  “I like the way the top is.  Only an idiot would ‘fix it’ (remove the stained original leather and replace it with a ...piece of... modern... crud ...from the Target [?])”.

            Won’t happen.

            I own it.

            A rescue?  Who rescues what whom why how.  Rake with my eye that’s what I do.  I like the ‘dish top’ (candle... stand) (occasional table) too.  It’s funky interruptive spade foot; a ‘copy cat’ by New England Furniture?  Well... the English spade foot is ‘ALL” carved from one piece of wood; the whole leg with the spade foot at the end; one piece of wood.  The foot is not ‘put on’.  Here, too, the leg is ‘inlayed’ with ‘light wood string inlay’...too.  So the New England spade foot has about one fifth as much ‘work’ to its making but does have those... “OHhhhh” clean... pure... White Mountain ice water lines sliced through (striped) with ‘tiger’ (maple; New England hardwood) graining.  And the ‘dish top’; a crotch cut (hand cut from the ‘V’ of a ‘double tree’) New England maple ‘board’ cut round and then crudely ‘lathe turned’ to form a round with it’s ...from the same piece of wood (NOT APPLIED)... top edge rim... and, too, amplifying the crotch grain... ‘in the center’.  “OH!”

            But who turned that lathe?  One man’s foot treadle?  A horse?  A slave?  A ‘boy’ (apprentice)?  “Really... you think so?”.  They did have the TIME back then.  The Federal urn columns (on the pedestal of each table) ‘match’.  “Don’t they.”  Lathe turned too.  “Look at the drawer construction on that one (the English Regency).  “Well... look at the (New England’s) top splat (top support board) yourself.”

            “They are both equal under God.”

            “Ok so which one would you take?  Keep?”

            “Depends on your taste.”

            “Right.  And, here, if you have good taste you...”

            “What?”

            “Keep both.”

            “Well of course that but the SPACE.”

            “You can just float ‘em around.”

            “Float them?”

            “Put one in the bedroom window with a plant on it.  Leave the other in the living room.

            “I wouldn’t use it.”

            “Oh I think you’d find you’d use that table... occasionally’.