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Showing posts with label . Show all posts

      snapshaught
          sphoto number 13


          When I saw this 1¾" (45mm) sphere in a Portland, Oregon, antique mall I thought it might be a vintage "feathery" or "leathery" golf ball.  The tag said: Antique ball, $39.  I doubted it was a golf ball because of its size (slightly too large, compared to modern ones) and its price (too small for a nearly unused stitched leather 125 year old ball); I bought it anyway.

          Although commonly confused with golf balls (by the unscrupulous or ignorant) this was actually used to play Fives—a type of handball game involving hand-made soft leather balls of this size, weight, and style of stitching—between the late-1800s and early-1900s mostly in Britain.
          The memories this sphere instigates are about the period in my life between the summer of 2014 after receiving my new car, exploring antique stores with Pam, sitting in the sun at my desk in the dining area of my apartment, and walking in local city cemeteries with my cat, Cecil, but before 2016 when Cecil (for no reason I could determine) stopped wanting to explore cemeteries and, instead, skulked back to the car and hid under it.

          Also, it reminds me of the Monticello Antique Mall in Portland's Montavilla neighborhood, where we would regularly eat at The Observatory, a great restaurant (lifetime best: cheese plate and charcuterie plate and fry bread as a full meal for two or three).


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         sphoto number 12


          Last week's (Aug 2012) Rodger Hodgson concert caused me to recall the circumstances surrounding my purchase of this rather ordinary white agate 1⅚" (48mm) sphere.


          In 1994, I read in a French magazine about an upcoming Alan Parsons Project concert in Freiburg, Germany, which was about a four hour drive from where I lived in Mons, Belgium.  I purchased tickets over the telephone from a woman who understood and spoke very little English (the European equivalent of Ticketmaster).  When they arrived in the mail the tickets were printed in German.

          On the day of the concert, I leisurely drove to the quaint city of Freiburg on the edge of the Black Forest with many hours to spare in order to be able to explore the city during daylight.  Upon arrival, it was immediately clear that there was no concert scheduled in the city's concert hall.  A local Freiburg citizen explained that although the word Freiburg was on the tickets, the rest of the information indicated the actual location of the concert was in Friedburg, Germany (oh, that pesky little missing 'd' meant I was, now, at least three hours away).

          With more than five hours before the concert was scheduled to begin, I headed north.  First it began to rain.  Then the traffic went from bad to worse.  And then it got dark.

          The next three hours and forty five minutes are blur-burned in my memory under a deeply carved label:  stupidest/most risky.  I foolishly drove beyond my brake's abilities, beyond the limits of my tires, faster than my high-beams could illuminate...and, occasionally, faster than my wipers (on their fastest setting) were able to clear the windshield.  In other words, I reached speeds in excess of 120 mph (200 kpm) and sometimes hydroplaned in the express lane of the German autobahn around Frankfurt, while high-beam flashing and passing hundreds of slower moving cars...in the dark.

          I arrived on time.  A little early even.  No problems (except for the tiring aftereffects of a huge amount of adrenaline).  Not even any close calls (which is less the result of my abilities and more because of luck—all it would have taken is a mechanical failure or one driver not using his side mirror and cutting in front of me).

          There was a very sparse crowd around the concert hall.  A Friedburg citizen said they heard the concert was cancelled but they were staying until they got an official word.

          I counted umbrellas:  less than two hundred.

          Glanced around the venue's exterior:  it would probably hold three thousand or more.  There were no buses or equipment trucks.  There were no lights on inside.

          I returned to the Friedburg citizen and asked if he could recommend a good local GasthΓ€us.  He did.  I got a room, a schnitzel, and many, too many, beers.

          The next day I found this sphere in a local store.

          I was unhappy with The Alan Parsons Project and avoided their concerts for several years.  Later I learned that Eric Woolfson wasn't the lead singer at any of their 1994 concerts, so I was less upset.  I saw them in Rochester, New York, as the opening act for Yes in 1998 with Eric Woolfson (which made that my lifetime-favorite concert).

Note:  The correlation between Rodger Hodgson (former lead singer of Supertramp) and The Alan Parsons Project was only made because I lump them together in time:  I consider them both progressive-rock favorites of mine from the late 1970s.


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      snapshaught
         sphoto number 11

          How can one count the ways?

          To describe the woman whom I love, I could draw, paint, or take a photo of her...but I want more than to capture the moment.  I might abstract the artwork (as I did for myself) or even write a poem, but she connects better with the tangible and literal.

          I bought this 1¾ inch (47mm) multicromatic glass marble in 2003 when my relationship with Pam was in its embryonic days.

          We exchanged emails for about ten days and then phone calls and emails for another two weeks before agreeing to meet.  It was nice to get all our landmines and deal-breakers out of the way utilizing several modern marvels (today it's possible to never learn too late that you would've had a chance if you'd only known open-toed-shoes were a deal-breaker before meeting for coffee wearing Birkenstocks).

          One of the reasons our relationship is still vibrant and under full sail (I do love to mix my metaphors) is that when I bought this sphere, both of us were sufficiently aware of ourselves to not only be able to recognize our own landmines but to be truthful about them; ditto with our deal-breakers.

          Email just made it easier to write my biggest deal breaker is smoking (of any kind) and one of my big landmines:  I'm a voluntarily unemployed artist living in a mobile home on a pension.

          Maybe that was actually four (or five?) landmines in one.

          So we spent almost a month probing and divulging.

          And then we decided it was time to find out if the other kissed good enough; if we enjoyed similar levels of intimacy as well as the same type of fucking; and determine if we might-could become simpatico with things like the other's snoring, farts, and idiosyncrasies.

          ADDENDUM:  Obviously, I began with a plan to describe Pam, the person I'm in love with (and maybe include some of the why I love her) but that became derailed by the sphere itself, and the memories it holds.  Which is the whole reason I'm writing about some of my spheres.  So I left it as is.


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      snapshaught
         sphoto number 10


          When my grandmother (whom I called Nana and have written about before) lived in New Hampshire, I found this almost two inch glass marble in an antique store in Keene, NH.  I purchased it in 1993 and was told it was about 90 years old.  It isn't a perfect sphere because the chips and scratches were buff-polished away by a previous owner (which significantly lowered its value and its purchase price).
          I have no negative memories affiliated with my Nana (Rebecca "Anne" Bullard nee Walker).

          For three and a half decades—from my earliest memories of moving into her house in the early-1960's until the mid-1990's when Alzheimer's turned her into a pod person and she became lost to everyone including herself—she was wonderful.  To me.

          She may have been a royal bitch to her husband, siblings, and extended family, a harridan to her children and other grandchildren, and a spiteful shrew to neighbors and others (which I occasionally witnessed or learned about afterward) but, when I was around, she was always in a fantastic mood.

          Every person I have ever known has a wonky day once in a while, or gets more than a little grumpy for a few days every month, or acts like a high-functioning petulant cunt most of the time, but I've only known two people who always have a smile to share.  Nana was one (albeit only when I was around) and the other is my partner, Pam.


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          sphoto number 9


          The word bad in Bad Kreuznach, Germany, refers to the Dutch word for bath because the city was once renowned for its bathhouse.  Because of my experiences there—for me—the English definition of the word is more apropos.    
          When I first visited the city in 1993 I was performing a protective service mission (at that time, I was a protective services agent for the NATO Commander).  Oddly, I found this 1⅞ inch (48mm) limestone sphere and its too-large-cup-stand at a local Italian restaurant where I ate dinner.  For two days I worked with SA Nwtptg (name withheld to protect the guilty) from the two-man Bad Kreuznach CID office.  He always referred to the city by its initials, so I—also—began doing so.

          Six years and two assignments later, I took over the Wiesbaden, Germany, CID office and learned the BK office was now subordinate to me.  Oddly, SA Nwtptg was still there.  I quickly learned he was unable to perform the most common tasks (report writing, investigative note taking, collection of evidence, etc.) without constant oversight and guidance.  I documented his failings, but as is normal (not just in the US military, everywhere) he was promoted and assigned to a larger office, where he assaulted a suspect, lied to an internal affairs investigator and coerced a witness to lie for him (resulting in his extreme reduction in rank—from officer to enlisted—and removal from CID).

          I investigated numerous grisly traffic fatalities on the road between Wiesbaden and BK because several drivers took their eyes off the road to change their radio or CD; I got the biggest ass-chewing in my career (from a two-star general, the 8th Inf Div CG) because of the unprofessional actions of another subordinate assigned to the BK office; and the German civilian "translator" at the BK CID office was the highest-paid, most-worthless person I ever had the misfortune to share a room with (I'd write supervise, but she never worked...all she did was read books).  I attempted to terminate her employment and discovered it wasn't possible.  In fact, the opposite was true—authorizing an annual bonus was mandatory even though she performed no assigned duties, ever.

          Not every sphere reminds me of good places, people or times; this one elicits nothing but bad memories.  I guess that's not completely true—the lasagna at the Italian restaurant was pretty good and I am still good friends with a couple who lived in BK before they moved to Wiesbaden.


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          sphoto number 8


          I already wrote a snippet about my Crater Lake visit in 2009, which is when I bought this grey agate sphere.  I found in on the way to the crater in Eagle Point, Oregon, after we left The Oregon Vortex and House of Mystery.
          When one has as many spheres as I, it can be difficult to find a unique one which conforms to my parameters:
  • Between 1½ and 2¼ inches (40 - 55mm) in diameter.  Golf ball to billiards ball...not much larger.
  • One piece.
  • No intentional flat portion (they all have some form of a stand).
  • Reasonable price (relative to my budget).
          I've gone on many trips and come home without a sphere.  And not always because there weren't any for sale, sometimes every sphere I found was a duplicate of one I already had.

          I don't love this design/color; it's forgettable.  But I had no grey-streaked agate before this...and besides...the weather was rather grey that trip (except for a bit of sun at Crater Lake, but not much).


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          sphoto number 7


          My retirement present to myself in 2001 was a month in Australia.  I found this 1¾" (47mm) sphere in a store called The Crystal Caves in Atherton, Queensland, while staying nearby (in an amazing treehouse).  Prior to that I visited/stayed at the lava caves in the outback.  The following week I was scuba diving from a live-aboard in the Coral Sea and Great Barrier Reef.  The vacation also included stays in Sydney and Cairns; deep sea fishing from Port Douglas; a day-trip to Lizard Island for snorkeling...too many to recount once-in-a-lifetime events.  
          I like spheres which are composed of a visually interesting mix of minerals or types of rock.  This one is a combination of Australian jade and either quartz or calcite.  When turned just-so the light refracts through the crystal, bounces off and magnifies the interior side of the jade (rust-brown to green) and looks just like a tiny bit of ocean bottom through a SCUBA mask.


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          sphoto number 6


          This glass marble reminds me of my stepfather.

          My first memory of him:  He was dating my mother.  I was seven.  We were all "going out" as a family to an event (I vaguely remember The Ice Capades but that may have been a different night) I think it was a celebration because I recall all the adults...her, him, Nana, and Papa...were happy and full of loud smiles.  He asked if I'd help him get a tool box from his backseat.

          I accompanied him out to his sky blue 1964 Lincoln Continental in the driveway, he opened the backdoor, and I commented that it was backward.  He laughed and said it was a suicide door...no further explanation.  I'm seven.  Why's it called that?  Because it's backwards.  I didn't think to myself at this point:  Oh boy, living the rest of my childhood with this motherfucker is going to be a real treat if he thinks that's an explanation.  But I did the third-grader's equivalent (shoulder shrug or eye-roll or head shake) and thought "adults sure are stupid".

          Seeing the size of the metal box, painted the same color as the car, I thought he was testing me to either see how strong I was or to see how willing I was to try to pick up something I knew I couldn't lift.  I couldn't tell which test it was by his smile, so I went along with it...grabbed the handle, gave it a tug (it didn't budge) and then watched as he oompfed and grunted it into the house.  It was filled with his coin collection...and probably weighed as much me.
          In 1995 he died of heart disease complicated by diabetes and exacerbated by being an obstinate asshole.  I've written about my stepdad before.  Because he was divorced from my mother, after his funeral I took a month off from my military duties, slept in his house, and spent hundreds of hours sorting through and throwing away decades of junk, files, and papers (he wasn't a full-blown hoarder but he kept unnecessary things...like thirty years of credit card receipts).

          This 1¾" (46mm) marble was on a shelf in his bedroom surrounded by other knick-knacks...my last memory of him.


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          sphoto number 5


          I lived in Mons, Belgium 1993-95.  Summer weather permitting, I occasionally drove west about ninety miles to one of the beaches near Oostend (which I thought at the time was another everything-is-backward-in-French thing, today I read on everyone's favorite chalkboard that there's a historical reason why the farthest western city is named Eastend).

          After a long beach afternoon in 1994, I and my wife-at-the-time had a very nice dinner and stayed in a bed and breakfast in nearby Bruges.  The next morning I rescued this from a flea market vendor who was intending to cut it in half.

          He was running a geode grab-bag: select from a huge pile of over three hundred various shapes and sizes, pay for it, and then he'd halve and polish the halves.  No guarantees that your geode would contain a druzy cavity.  On display were precut and polished halves with beautiful crystals lining the inside pockets (priced double to 20X more than the uncut, rough geodes).

          Although there is a slight score mark on this 2 inch (53mm) geode, it's as perfectly spherical as a naturally formed rock could be.

          The Flemish vendor (who spoke no English) seemed quizzical (het inclusief!) and became rather flabbergasted when I didn't want to take advantage of his saw and grindstone services and couldn't explain myself other than to smile and repeat, dit is goad, as I nodded and walked away.


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          sphoto number 4


          Last April we stayed in a yurt (because we'd never done it before).  Two mid-week nights were available the following week, so we decided the weather was nice enough and made the reservation (we aren't dedicated foolish enough to lock-in anything over a year in the future...so yurt camping in the Summer or on a weekend would never happen).

          As we headed to Fort Stevens State Park, the weather was normal for Oregon in April: partly cloudy and cool.  We stopped in Astoria, Oregon, to eat and I found this sphere in a second-hand shop.  Slightly larger than 2" (52mm), this hand-blown glass float most-probably was attached to a Japanese fisherman's net a half-century or more ago.

          As it got dark it began to snow.  By the next morning many of the high-passes were closed even though only about two or three inches accumulated on the beach.  We drove the ice and snow covered sand, explored local eateries, and kept as warm as anyone could when camping in below freezing weather.

          Although the yurt had a built-in space heater it also had edge flaps which were laced and tied-down.  One cancelled out the other.  Depending on the strength of the wind blowing through the cracks, the interior temperature fluctuated between 45° and 55° (7-13°C).


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          sphoto number 3

          One of my spheres was a gift from my fiancΓ©e in 2010.  In 2008 we noticed a 2" (50mm) ivory billiard ball in an antique store near McMinnville, Oregon.  I was ambivalent about ivory.  After some weeks of thought and discussion, I realized buying antique ivory would no more incentivize the present and future slaughter of large mammals than would watching 1984-Traci-Lords-porn jeopardize the innocence* of today and tomorrow's sixteen-year-olds.  So I decided that if I ever ran across another antique snooker ball, I'd buy it.


          Two years later, my fiancΓ©e was traveling home after a week of working-on-the-road and I was sitting in our living room gazing at my collection.  I thought about the routes she could travel, realized she might be driving through McMinnville, and called her.

          'Hiya'
          'Hi, I was just wondering if you were driving back through the McMinnville area.'
          'Yup, why?'
          'Do you remember that antique mall we visited a few years ago?'
          'uuuuum yeaah?'
          'Well I thought that if they were still open when you got there, could you do me a favor and see if they still have that ivory sphere?  I know it's a long shot...'
          'THAT is so weird, I've got goose bumps.'
          'Huh?  What is?'
          'Do you know where I am right now?'
          'Oh wow.'
          'There goes my surprise.  I'm standing at the check-out counter with it in my hand.  You know it's got a couple cracks, right?'
          'Yea, that's OK.  What made you think to stop?'
          'I was driving past and just remembered talking about it years ago.'
          'Is the din-din din-din Twilight Zone music as loud on your end as it is on mine?'
          'I can hear it much too loudly and waaay too clearly.'

* A once very common quality (even ubiquitous in some parts of society) which, although not yet extinct, is narwhal-rare.  Or is that attitude just the cranky old duffer in me coming out?


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          sphoto number 2


          On my first vacation to Negril, Jamaica, I commissioned this sphere to be made from local ironwood.  I located an artist who understood only a little English but eagerly agreed to interrupt his current carving to make a sphere (which I described).  When I returned two days later, he presented me with a golf ball...the entire surface crammed with hand carved dimples.  I promptly paid for it without argument (my cats enjoy it...and it's probably under one of my chairs or couch at this very moment).  Then I commissioned another (for the same price) only, this time, would he be so kind as to make it smooth?  Yes, of course; respect mon.  And could he make it slightly larger?  Just a little larger?  Irie...two more days.

          It is smooth and it is ever-so-slightly larger (it's close to 1½ inches, 40mm).  It also has a hand-crafted look because it is almost but not quite a perfect sphere.

          Every time I look at it I think about pumpkin soup at a West End restaurant overlooking the cliffs, walking the beach drinking just-squoze orange juice from a recycled whiskey bottle with little shards of ice still floating in it; golfing at the Negril Hills (with a caddy who sprinted off as soon as I hit in order to locate the ball...what a way to earn a tip); sunburn removing beach massage with the goop squished fresh from Aloe Vera leaves; obtaining my SCUBA certification (with stingrays!); Orange Bay; catching crabs and lobsters from a pier using a net-shrift and some twine, and a private concert by Brushy One String.

           All these memories are completely intertwined from my 1997 and 1999 trips; only with concentration can I pick the them apart.


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          sphoto number 1


          I've been asked why there aren't more snapperhead pics of cats, myself, loved ones, Portland locales, or locals even (whenever I end a sentence like that, my inner ear hears the voice of Snagglepuss).   My tweet-able response (by which I mean, Mom, 140 characters or less) has always been:  When I rely on my eyes and brain my memories are strengthened.  Camera = crutch.  Carrying a camera weakens my experience.
       
          Along the same vain:  Van Gogh is attributed with saying that it isn't the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to.  The feeling for the things themselves—for reality—is more important than the feeling for pictures.  And I do soverymuchespecially love finding a quote by someone I admire which parallels my own thoughts on a subject.

          However, I do have a collection of items, like snapshots, which act as memory-stimuli, even though they aren't snapshots for anyone else but me.

          Here is the first one I collected:
          You see a polished sphere, about two inches (47mm) in diameter, made from veined red jasper sitting in a curved malachite dish.  I see Moab, Utah, 1990.

          Obtained at the end of a vacation from the Moab Rock Shop, it reflects all the elements of those two weeks:  Sitting up at night on the rim of a canyon watching a brilliant, close-falling, meteorite; tent camping in Canyonlands; hiking in Arches; trekking the length of Shafer Canyon Road from Dead Horse Point State Park to Devils Garden Campground (before it became easily accessible for two-wheel drive vehicles) in a front wheel drive Oldsmobile.

          Here's the most unique thing about this type of memory trinket:  overlaid and conjoined with that trip is my first visit, thirteen years prior, (with Brian Ottinger, a college friend) where we drove the same road, dirt and boulders at that time, but in the opposite direction in my shit-colored VW beetle (we each took turns riding on the rear bumper holding on to the curved flange of the roof-edge); bathing in the frigid Colorado River; and camping at Slick Rock Campground, as well as all my more recent visits to Moab and the Canyonlands National Park area (2002, 2005, 2006 and 2007).

          I wouldn't want to live there, but my favorite place to visit in the US is Moab, Utah.


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