Layers

Layers

            Layers, in this essay, are not about egg laying poultry production.

            Layers, in this essay, are not about the clothing worn in Maine during the winters.

            Layers, in this essay, are about the ‘things’ (“the stuff”) in old houses and the role the

            Layers of that “the stuff” play in my interest in pursuing an active excavation within the ‘things’ found in the layers of the stuff within an old house.  And:  How I make very rapid intuitive decisions about the state of the layers and their potential to harbor “good” antiques and rare books.

            Layers is about the behind my eyes walk through of what I see when I

            Walk through.

            To begin with, I am looking for layers.  Once I see them (sense them), I look at them “very hard”.  I am told.  Of course I never let on that I am doing

            That.

            I don’t even ever tell anyone at all about layers.

            And very few people ever figure that out

            Anyway.

            That pretty much leaves me alone... in an old house... looking at the layers.

            “If you don’t know... you don’t know” with this including the what... you... don’t know.

            Yes:  There is that much of a bottom drag on all this that the mire of that usually wins.  ‘Winning’ is that the ‘the stuff’ in the ‘the layers’ is protected and preserved for the ‘few people ever figure that out’ give up, cease actions and... go away.  Presuming I have been “let in”... I then am ‘left alone’ with the layers and... well...

            That is that.

            What does that mean?  It means that the next time any ‘few people’ go into the old house it is empty; it has been ‘cleaned out’.  I did that.  I don’t talk about that.  I just do it.  I take away everything including all the layers.  I take away every... thing.  That is what I do.

            I have to take away every thing so I may be sure that all ‘the stuff’ in the layers of household contents is... “complete”.  For example, I do not want to have you suddenly latching on to, and keeping (taking out of the estate contents), your grandmother’s teaspoon that she

            Administered her medicines to her self in addition to stirring her tea with it for

;            SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS.

            It is MY SPOON NOW; part of the LAYERS.

I BOUGHT and OWN IT

            Now.

            IN SHORT... I want it all; all ‘the stuff’ and all the layers, complete.  Nothing is left out or left behind.

            Of course there are stupid people meddling with this by, well, “wanting”... stupid things.  A good example is a “FAMILY” “PAINTING”.  The house contents “HAS ONE”; an ‘old’ ‘oil’ painting and it is too... an “I WANT”.

            “Yes.  Okay.  Here we go.”

            I say that and finalize with “Take it:  It is all yours.”  Delighted, they scurry away clutching the “PAINTING”... too.  Occasionally I am asked “what do I think” of the “PAINTING”.  For these sorts of paintings I do not have to think and... carefully sidestep what I actually ...feel... about the “PAINTING”.  No reason to spoil such fun.  Right?

            What am I conveying here exactly?  I am assuring that ...in most all cases... old “PAINTINGS” found in old New England layered home contents are of little merit or value.  The big feature is that they are “FREE” when found in an estate so... continue the heritage of the painting as being ‘good’ because it

            Allows folks who have never owned a painting... who would never buy a painting (Yankee Wasp characteristic)... who know nothing about “PAINTINGS”... have barely ever looked at a “PAINTING” and... etcetera.... to ‘smug up’ about a truly crummy ‘thing’ that they found in the bedroom of long dead great-uncle George. “WHERE” (what, how, why) “DID HE GET THAT!”

            Great Uncle George was a quasi trash picker later examination of his layer reveals.  But I never say anything about that fine old cheapskate Yankee bugaboo.  I, too, certainly do not stop the purloinment of the old painting “within the estate” (private family distribution).  A problem with this last is that the purloin does not have an ‘appraised value’.  I ‘don’t do those things’ (appraisals) I say when queried.  And... they DO ‘love’ “IT” (that painting) still:  “It is valuable”.  What ever that means.

            Turning from an example of stupid people meddling and ‘wanting’ to the actual layer-e (a plural), I advise from the get-go that that is where one should ‘seek’ layers.  Most all of those layer-e... who were any good at it... are

            Dead. 

But look for “fondly remembered family” trails and you’ll start to notice, for example, old but recent photographs of the short past generation’s grand old bitch matron who ‘rode herd’ over the house, the family, the things, the stuff and... their layers.  Spot that woman and you are way ahead of great-uncle-George (Dartmouth 1928)’s old painting that I assure the Matron dismissed too.

            Now I with her, eye to eye including she KNEW what I KNOW... lets me tie off with clothes line rope “HER” “DESK”.  That is, I tie the whole Grand Old Bitch Matron’s desk up like it’s a crate full of “stuff” packed by the “FAMILY” in its drawers and... never looked at...:  If the Matron was alive she would spend TWO WEEKS showing me EACH iota in the drawers ‘from her family’ but... as it is I am the best game in town so her ghost lets me tie it off and carry it out... unchallenged.  Yes and that cubby is full of ‘all about the family’ including great uncle George at Dartmouth in twenty-eight.  She, bless her ghost soul, gives me the maelstrom center of her layer whole.  It proves to be the skeleton key to ALL the home’s layers.

            Traveling from crummy old painting to tied off desk holding the family’s preserved archive... are one sensing the meaning of layers?  Who is doing better at this?  Once I locate and purloin the master vault box I simply pile the rest of all of the layers “in there” on top of this golden treasure chest and... I don’t, once I remove all the layers undisturbed and intact... have to touch them for years... should I choose. “Storage” is a big feature of my antiquarian dealer side.  And of course... am I in some sort of hurry doing this?

            No.

            That (hurry) is too... a fatal mistake.  Not in a hurry allows one to absorb the layers better (mentally and physically).  Six layers are like reading a six volume family history (as if they are old books in dust jackets).  I enjoy studying the souls of the layers for... as long as their intrigue lasts... preferring them with a strong “dash”, that they are characters and too... “did something”.

            May I review?

            Layers are a multitude of ‘things’ (“the stuff”) that make them up.  They are not ‘a thing’ or single things or great things or fine things.  No.  They are not an actual old painting.  But they are part of a layer’s painting.  They are the gathered material residue of old dead souls; the stuff they ‘left behind’.  They are little things in abundance that ‘don’t matter at all’ until noticed that they are part of a layer.  Perhaps even a very notable layer... that is surrounded by other related layers of related layer-e dead souls.  It (layers) do become quite rich and reaching “very fast”... should one learn to look.  For example the OLD SHAVING equipment for eight different men of a time passage of one hundred and ten years...  Each shaver was young, then old, then dead ‘in there’; in THEIR layers.  The shaving equipage is “worthless” without the association; its role in the layer.  The layer is worthless without its soul.  The soul is found in “the stuff”.  The more stuff in a layer...  It (an estate and its layers) may become vivid beyond words and last for decades.  By 1969 I had become familiar with and knowing of layered estates.  In 1973 I acquired my first full bore layers estate that “lasted for decades”.  There are still bits, pieces and smidgens of that one around to this day.

            “You may not want to wipe the old pigeon dung off the chair when you get one (a layered estate)” an old dealer advised me early.

"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.

Antiquarian Sophistication of the "I" and the "Eye" Upon the "It" - Part Three - "Corners of the Rooms"

Antiquarian Sophistication of the "I" and the "Eye" Upon the "It"

Part Three

"Corners of Old Rooms"

            Once it is conveyed that there has been a cultural (culture – ‘the arts’) appreciation decline... that has created a ‘world turned upside down’ house burned flat within the ‘it’ of the antique interest with this... being carried by the antiquarian ‘eye’ no longer knowing what it is looking at and... this surveillance status supported by the ‘I’ who... know nothing... about any of this

            At all.

            AND substitute a ‘their own’ cultural appreciation formula (also using the classic ‘I’, ‘eye’ and ‘it’ ratio) to.... reflect

            “Where they are at” usually with a touch of ‘in your face’ too.  I alluded to examples of this (Part Two) but here actually state that it is ‘really bad’ inclusive of revving side by side Mustang auto engines in suburban driveways (“Breaking Bad”) as a cultural appreciation – [celebration of taste]) with Walt Whitman there too... on the

            Back of the toilet.

            From that setting... in that setting... Whitman does bring ‘all that’ down.  In fact (the ‘plot’ of “Breaking Bad”).  One may want to make more than a ‘note to self’ of that. 

            But that is not where Whitman began or from where he came from.  He began and came from a ‘long time ago’.  That hints that ‘I’ too... must a ‘long time ago’ go too... to open the door of ‘go there’ (Part Two, at the end) to ...get there; to see (‘eye’) the antiquarian ‘it’ and ‘classic good taste’.  Again:  A long time ago.

            Where could that be?

            It be... in old New England.

            It is your grandmother’s... grandmother’s... grandmother’s “Things”.  And in the old days... a long time ago... that was a very simple process.  My grandmother... one day when I was ‘little’, showed me ‘a piece of pewter’.  If your grandmother shows you pewter (a metal), you remember that... unless you’re a hopeless idiot and your grandmother DID know THAT too...  And I (‘I’)... after ‘seeing’ pewter... ‘never forget’.  After a while my grandmother

            “Showed me her pewter”.  Emphasis is on ‘her’ that was short for ‘her collection’ (of pewter).  My grandmother collected old pewter... among other ‘old things’ that she collected after being “shown” these “things”

            By her grandmother... who was shown them by

            Her grandmother.

            That is the way ‘it’ was done; ‘I’ to ‘eye’

            A long time ago.

            And that is how I (‘I’)... learned; my grandmother told me.  Herself.  Slowly.  Overtime.  As she had been ‘told’.  She introduce the ‘it’ by ‘eye’ to ‘I’ and... that I had, too, an ‘I’... just like SHE had an ‘I’ that managed her ‘eye’ to examine (an old New England) world full of ‘it’ (objects).  A long time ago.

            ‘It’ was a very simple process... readily accomplished... by grandmother...

            In the old New England home.

            Grandmothers were in THE home back then.  Now... they are in ‘A home’.

            But that is not a ‘long time ago’... is it.

            Once I was ‘shown’ ‘the old things’ I, too, heard of the ‘old ways’ that created a fondness for these old things.  “MY FATHER’S GRANDFATHER’S BROKEN TANKARD” was a declaration of ...good taste.  “BATTLE” “OF WHITE PLAIN (s)”.  I have spoken of plain white before (Part Two).  They are both ‘from the same date’ (a long time ago).  “He carried it (the broken tankard) back”.  No matter that the actual broken tankard was not made until AFTER the Revolutionary ...War (circa 1810).  “She”... greatest grandmother treasured it for... “I must” for “every generation to come”.  The critical ‘I’ denotes, using ‘eye’, that the tankard is not... creamware but the slightly later ...and brighter (“dental”) white ‘pearlware’... with ‘hand painted’ decoration.  Members from the family “FOUGHT” in the “WAR OF EIGHTEEN TWELVE” too.  The broken tankard could have ‘come home from that’.

            “OH GRANDMOTHER”... your great grandmother did not have a smart phone so could not SEE all of the ‘brushstroke’ decorated pearlware tankards ‘there are’ “on the Internet”.  AND NOW YOU HAVE DIED and left that broken tankard behind TOO.  What am I going to do with it?

            That is easy.  I’ll ‘get rid of it’ (throw it out)

            Because

            “I don’t know what it is”.

            The semblance of discord to the ritual of great grandmother’s heritage craft is easily found... among the antiquarian ‘it’ I purloin.  Stickers, notes, mentions, keepsakes, collections, storage, hoarding and ...as messages... from the corners of old rooms.  Documenting ‘it’ has ‘always been done in the home’.  Until recently.  By 1840, ‘old things’ and ‘old ways’ were already gathered as more than curiosities.  The process continued for nearly one hundred fifty years (1825-1975).  And then was erased.  1975 saw the start of the flourish and rash of ‘antiques’ ‘dealers’ who “did this”; commercially appreciate ‘old things’ from ‘a long time ago’ that were, evidently... “IN” “GRANDMOTHER’S HOUSE”.  Looting has taken place.  Grandmother’s house is ‘empty’ of ‘antiques’... and all else that ‘can be sold’.

            The ‘can be sold’ reached an object-self-sensitive-saturation point and... “the market” crashed.  Every old footstool and old pairs of old snowshoes are... ‘for sale’ in an ‘antiques shop’.  Right now.  No one is buying them... unless they are ‘cheap’.  That last is relative to the ‘I’ that utters it... about ‘it’ ...after ...surveillance.

            And that is the way it is.  Right now.  In fact the emphatic about this are so emphatic that they say that “it” will “never recover”.  I am... to understood... this is... a commercial delineation; the market for old footstools will never ‘come back”

            WELL WHERE DID IT GO?

            And took the ‘good taste’ with it too.  Did it?  Shutter your antiques shop because the old foot stool ‘will not sell’.  After forty years (1975 – 2016)... finally... ‘it’ “closed”.  The vast closures ‘sell off’ their snowshoes for ‘a loss’.  I do look... sort of... over... sort of... ‘some of them... sometimes’ (closing antiques shops) (many want to ‘sell me’ ‘everything’).  They never have any ‘old’ ‘creamware’ (Part Two).  They never did.  They never even

            “KNOW WHAT THAT IS”.

            My grandmother knew.

            What it.... IS.  It (an ‘it’) is STILL HERE.

            What I have just handed out... is a titled ‘folkways’... of old New England.  When Grandmother tells you... about ‘it’ and the heritage of her ‘its’, her home of its.  Her heart felt home full of its... she shows considerable ‘classic good (old New England) taste’.  Her old mouth full of crocked teeth (not particularly white teeth by YOUR ‘today’) murmur the heritage of whispers of messages from the corners of old rooms that she heard told to her when she heard of... being told that... “these old things” “are”

            “You”

            “Dear”.

            You remember... don’t you.  Or is it “no I don’t.”?  Popular today, after the full dismissal of what I just wrote of; an old New England folkway; a ‘way’ of ‘passage’... are the commercial value focus of, for example, television programs and internet web sites suggesting, through commercial foundation... what is... sophistication ... of... good taste... in old New England.  Yes... and a voyeur can hardly remember what the purveyed object was or ‘how valuable’ it was... moments (less than a day) “later”.  With that ‘is too’... is the...“not one in Grandmother’s house”.  “Either”.  No... what was in grandmother’s house is not there anymore?  Was it thrown out?

            Or did the aspect that the sophisticated taste of the antiquarian “what ‘it’ is” become the ‘I’... do not...;

            Is it ‘know’?

            Or is it ‘care’?

            Or both?

            “I”(the folkway) is not in ‘the’ home.

            “I”(the folkway) is in ‘a’ home... and dies ‘in there’.  No one notices a dead or dying folkway?

            I do.

            I straighten my tie...

            And spit in your ‘eye’.

            “You have bad taste; a bad eye, and your great-great grandmother would tell so.”

            It is her last message... from the corners of her old rooms... that you just

            “Cleaned out”.