Posterior - Part Three - "Sleight of Hand (Sight and Hand)"

Posterior

Part Three

"Sleight of Hand (Sight and Hand)"

            Now that... old things’ (antiques)... we find... may be found, seen, stumbled upon or:  Bought, sold, collected and discoursed upon...

            At a

            Flea market

            With withering (inter-vendor finger pointing and rumor mongering).  Too.

            Now that

            The Port-“oh”-Potty has been “occupied”, the food court taste tested, the ‘field’ walked, the vendor stalls ‘tire kicked’

            The philosophy (of flea market) acknowledged.  The humanity (of flea market) bleeding out.  (All from Part Two).

“Now then”.

No:

            Now that:

            A

            Trick

            Book?

            Not only did it start at a very young age (for I) but there was an ‘also’ of having others pointing out that one could

            “Do that”.

            One old man (an antiquarian sales tactician) assured me that if I want to sell a ‘whatever’ for a lot of money I just do not...

            Put this ‘whatever’ out on a flea market table ‘for sale’ with a price tag on it.  “No.” he assured me, especially if the ‘whatever’ was an especially desirable ‘whatever’ and I sought a price capturing that aspect.  “No.” he ...told... me.  “Let them only see a quarter inch of it if you want to sell it (for a lot of money)”.

            That was not a sleight of hand that was easy to ‘live by’.  The antiquarian connoisseurship rule is, always, that one is, always, a ‘to show’ the best things (‘whatever’) one “HAS” to an (knowing and receptive) (?) audience that, too, “BUYS”.  No; the ‘little-bads’ lie

            About ‘Buy’.

            That part; the (actual) buy... chokes.  So. “HIDE IT ON THEM” (sight and hand):

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

            (Quoted from Part One).

            So if I am at a flea market, I may sleight of hand using... sight and hand. And:

            Be considered too that “A” flea market and/or an “I” being there may too... be too... a sleight of hand (sight and hand) TOO. 

            That is... to understand, I may be “at” this sleight of hand (sight and hand) on

            NUMEROUS... market tiers.

            (I will come back to this point but).

            Yes; that is right.  And the intentional effort... is to ‘get you to buy’ ‘whatever’; a ‘good’ one... ‘for a lot’.

            “What happened to the bowls of fish chowder?” you say.  (Part Two)

            I already told you about that.  I was a nice guy.  I still am a ‘nice guy’ for telling you about ‘this’ (sleight of hand – ‘sight and hand’).

            To bring us back to the start-together:  Above I notice that one may not depend on a simple ‘put whatever on your table with a price and someone buys it’ to create enough sales to make all this (“doing a flea market”) worth it.  One must... sleight of hand... using sight and hand... to increase sales.  So... following that self advice I start preparing for ‘the market’ and my ‘tables’ days... weeks... before... in a effort to have a ‘perfect balance' of ‘whatever’ to sell... “INTO” my ‘configure that’.  There’s where ‘dicey’ starts.  I am saying I ‘sleight of hand’ ‘whatever’ as basic commercial preparation on as many ‘whatever’ as I ...feel... I may configure to ‘be prepared’ (Boy Scouts of America) to sight and hand... sales... from the

            Posture (here the posterior antiquarian market called ‘flea’)

            Of my table tops at these flea markets.  Yes; posture.  The table tops are a nominal ‘street corner’ from which I may, at nominal cost and regulation, ‘stand’.  Sleight of hand does the rest.

            If  I consider, professionally as an antiquarian dealer, and configure my street corner well, I will, as that antiquarian dealer, be ‘loaded for bear’ and any “you” shuffling along down my vendor’s lane, will “never know”.  Unless, of course, you seek and spy a ‘quarter inch’ of a ‘whatever’ I have... ‘sleight of hand’ that happens to be a ‘your thing’.  Understand this?  It is harder than you think and is... much harder to do than you think ...too.  Need a simplistic example?

            If I am a rare book dealer... TOO... I buy and sell rare books.  Discounting ‘buy’ and featuring ‘sell’ I do not simply put my ‘a rare book whatever’ “OUT” on the table for you to

            Maul

            With your well intentioned curiosity and... fumble fingers.  No.  I do not like you TOUCHING my rare books and... even seeing them.  Do not fret for if one should be a ‘serious’ I NOTICE THAT either from past contact and / or that you ‘handle’ (inspect) a carefully chosen ‘rare book’ on the table that... IF YOU ARE SERIOUS you ‘must’ and ‘will’ handle because... that is what you came to the flea market to do.  ONCE you have set my ‘ice fishing flag’ to wiggle, I ...MAY (my choice) step in to you with a ‘this’... or ‘that’... or “A” (quarter inch visible) “must have – collector grade... “rare book”.  Do not worry; this all happens very fast and you’d never notice if you are on the outside of, in this example, a ‘the rare books’... anyway.  Meaning too that IF you are, for example, looking for ‘PAINTINGS’ I “do that too”.  In fact the need is for one to understand and conceptualize that ALL... DESIGN... TYPES... as many as possible... are ‘brokered’ this way on my street corner all the time as fast as I can with as much prepared

            Sleight of hand

            As possible.  It is... on going... and ‘never stops’ for me... “ever”.

            Its base is ‘what I’ve found’, what ‘I have’, what it , commercially ‘actually is’ (value reality check DONE IN HOUSE), who ‘buys that’ for ‘how much’, when – where and will they be a

            BE THERE and

            DO I... have it with me.  Just ‘think’ what that last means.  It is me sitting in a chair in the dark in the barn a three thirty in the morning mentally rapidly rattling design ‘fields’ through my mind to determine what I “HAVE” at that moment so may, therefore, ‘bring’ at that moment.  That is a vast amount of ‘whatever’... and ‘who ever’ (a buyer) to be configuring.  So you will not be doing that soon... in competition with me.  No.  This is professional grade sleight of hand (pee in cupped hands).  It is not something one may practice.  WHY?  Because, Sissy, one has to HAVE THE ‘whatever’ before one may even approach a ‘sleight of hand’ ‘flea market’ vendor... vending.  YOU HAVE TO HAVE

            A something.  Or... in my case... a LOT of DIFFERENT “GOOD” (from an antiquarian design perspective) “STUFF”... showing only a quarter inch

            Of.  “Good luck with that”.

            Jack knives, Barbie dolls, 1960’s retro Pyrex glassware... and all such crud... GOES (is sold) NOW retaining ever ‘better’ whatever and these are ever more expensively priced to ...blossom... within ‘sleight of hand’ as ... these prove to be... pretty fine and ‘touchy’ expensive ‘antiques’.  Am I saying that if you look at a vendor table top that has a six dollar crap painting on it one may, too, denote by ‘quarter inch’ notice that ‘that same guy’ “just sold” a “PAINTING” ‘that looked really good’ ($3,500) out of the truck’s cab?  Yes.  And you were not invited.  You do, in fact, have to EARN your ‘way in’ to all this.  HOW?  By becoming known to be one who ‘knows’ ...AND... “buys”.  And does this; knows and buys.  It is an action.  Taken.

            Okay...now I go back to the part I said I’d get back to:  “Numerous market tiers.

            Simply... notice that one may make a fatal mistake by believing flea market vendors are ‘idiots’.  Wrong and quite ...need to understand... the opposite.  For myself, the theater of the flea market is a ‘perfect (commercial antiquarian) storm AND a perfect home for that storm.  Getting a ‘you’ to dismiss a ‘me’ is ...very lucrative when enhanced on the ‘me’ side with sleight of hand.  You ‘thinking’ the not-possible is possible at a flea market IS the ‘quarter inch’ in process.  I just put the ‘whatever’ ‘THERE’ (the not -possible... possible).  I say nothing at all.  YOU’RE THE EXPERT.  Remember?  That is why you came to the flea market.  So I keep... it all... ‘shut... up’, except, of course, the quarter inch.

            I do not promote.  The quarter inch object is all I need.  YOU do the rest.  It works best when there is no conception on the buyer’s part as to a who, how, why, where of any of this... aside from the quarter inch view of the ‘priced’ ‘whatever’.  Look at it.  Go away and ponder.  Come back and look again.  Ponder and wander.  Return.  Buy... it.  No I do not want to hear your ‘game plan’.  I want you to ‘think’ I am an idiot.  Thank you for doing this.  You will come back ‘seeking’ “ever more”.  Or not.  My ‘Santa list’ is in constant edit (revising).  YOUR place on the list CHANGES.  Often in seconds.  Trust me:  One faces a real.  This is real.

            So it turns out at a flea market that an antiquarian may be, shall I say, ‘dressing down’... and be a slippery commercial critter too.  That is ‘of that’ a ‘treasured too’; a ‘kept in deep respect for’.  It is hard to not respect something that works so well and is a perk full too.  For example, I don’t “NEED” to shave ‘that day’.  En-stuff.  And again... it IS the stuff (the collector grade antiques) that fuels the engine.  Without my “THAT” there is no quarter inch that may be spied by ‘you’.

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.”