Busy, Curious, Thirsty
Good thing this thing isn’t on a schedule, or I’d be fucked! Ha ha! Nope!
But seriously, I actually have been up to a lot lately. I did Taedis a solid and drove out to Saint Paul to pick up a movie poster they got on eBay, to save on shipping. That led me to explore the pick-up point, a high-end vintage miscellany and refurnishing shop. I acquired a couple pulp fiction novels, some jazz 45s, a vintage airline bottle of booze for my miniature writer’s studio, and a huge image-heavy magazine to inspire some future zine-building, if it comes to that.
The movie poster, I’m told, came in a parcel of preserve posters from a movie collector in western Wisconsin. My unfounded guess is that the collector either died or needed to unload their property, and this vintage outlet acquired the posters for resale online.
My wife found signs indicating a couple boutiques upstairs, and as it was a lovely summer day and we were enjoying not being in the apartment, we moved to explore. Immediately we found the studio of someone who specialized in weaving, stitching, upholstery, and likely brocade and tapestry, based on the supplies covering the tables and mounted to the walls. There was another boutique of antiques, and within a minute my wife breathed, “Holy shit, these are real antiques,” as opposed to the chronological jetsam we’d climbed from.
The proprietor was an affable older woman with an accent that made me keen to make her acquaintance. She pardoned herself, as she was struggling to compose some Instagram posts to feature a set of silver bowls she’d recently attained.
“Well, I run several social media accounts, including a couple on Instagram, if you wouldn’t mind my help,” I said, and she dimpled in a continental way, where a Midwesterner might have been more effusive at their stroke of luck. She further explained that she was having some difficulty finding the words and hashtags to promote the property.
“I’m also a copyeditor for the university,” I added, “so I have a pretty strong grasp of the written word.” Again she dimpled, and we became fast friends. After I brainstormed with her on her autumn lineup campaign, she gave us a personal tour of her acquisitions, including a 17th century Moroccan trunk inlaid with mother-of-pearl grids and two 15th century small tapestry pieces. There was an alabaster carving of Venus de Milo, less than two centuries old, whose expression moved my wife to tears.
She saw me eyeing the womanly tomb figure from Jalisco. “If there’s anything you’re interested in, let me know and we can talk,” she offered generously, but at that ticket, there’s no amount of talking that could broker a transaction. And if I had it, I’d probably fly it back to MUSA Museo de las Artes Universidad de Guadalajara, as close to a rightful owner as I could come up with.
We had a lovely visit, a lovely afternoon, and now I have a new contact. I can zip on out and check up on her, see if there’s anything I can help with. I’d finally pegged her accent as French and I wasn’t technically incorrect. We talked about the languages we were practicing on Duolingo, and we commiserated over the younger generations’ lack of curiosity.
“They just come in here, do a loop, and walk back out in silence,” she said. “No questions, and there are so many stories in this room.”
When did curiosity die off? When did it become normal to stop asking questions? Why do people hide in the back of their intellectual caves, making haphazard guesses at the world outside rather than stepping into the light and interacting? So many times, I’ve been targeted in online communities by groups of people who lash out from preconceived notions and supposition, framing unlikely motivations for my actions, when one or two questions would have cleared everything up, without any hurt feelings.
Or maybe it’s self-absorption, posing for a selfie with an interesting dining set in the background, rather than asking and learning that it came from a local corporate magnate who filled his mansion with treasures from around the world. Our host pulled out three detailed photos of the mansion, pointing out items in the photos that now resided in her boutique. Her memory was unflagging, too, citing both the country of origin and the point of purchase with approximate dates for each. I saw her handwriting, as she planned the autumn-themed Instagram post, and I can only hope there’s a beautifully scripted record of these purchases and their histories, because when this lovely lady goes, so goes the verbal record of these treasures.
The only lingering questions will be “what does this have to do with Billboard’s Hot 100” and “can I repurpose this for TikTok?”
Good writers are curious. Good writers read anything they can get their hands on, not just the stuff in their lane. They learn from different perspectives, and they keep asking questions. Please stay curious, friends, it will be what distinguishes you from the masses.
In Her Shadow,
Aborigen
©2024 Aborigen/Size Riot