Idle Chat Thread

foamin' at the mouth · Post by **foamin' at the mouth** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 6:40 pm

See, I love the universality of that--the idea that the story of one object told by a stranger can surface an analogous experience in you. When was the last time you thought of that little bowl?

It is something distinct about the human brain I think. I suspect that many animals have more self awareness and higher cognitive function than we understand (octopi and elephants) but I bet this makes us distinct, if just a little or just enouigh to send us spinning off the way we have. Its not the same as what some birds (like bower birds)collect for their courtship nests (although I wonder about crows sometimes -I suspect the things that crows choose to collect have to do with the crow liking their look or texture at least sometimes- and I mean personally liking-- a personal aesthetic of that particular crow.)

Too obvious an observation, perhaps, and easily trashed by the downside; the rampant materialism of our current culture. Yet somehow lovely. Thanks for your story.

LeChatNoir · Post by **LeChatNoir** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 7:16 pm

When was the last time you thought of that little bowl?

It’s been a year or so actually. It’s currently packed away with a few other things for safe keeping. But it certainly is curious how thoughts are tiggered.

I suspect that many animals have more self awareness and higher cognitive function than we understand

In my time as an animal lover and Humane Society vol, I have witnessed numerous times the ability to reason within animals. And crows are very intelligent. A fellow I know used to have one that he raised from a chick (found it in the yard). Old “Joe Crow” would follow him to town and back, flying above the car the whole way. There again... those triggered thoughts.

M

Spokes · Post by **Spokes** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 7:24 pm

. I always take note when browsing through a flea market or antique store of things like that, because the majority of treasured items eventually pass through these types of places sooner or later. I swear sometimes I can sense the... hell, I don’t know... emotion or vibe... or maybe “aura” might be a better term, in different things. I really do feel that people impart a bit of themselves into their creations and things that they cherish, or perhaps more correctly stated, the things that represent the things they cherish. I’ve picked up some things that seem warm to me and I’ve picked up some stuff that just feels damn creepy too.

Besides one story triggering another, interesting is the trigger that these objects pull on us. Most any object will do but those that have a sense of time play with us especially and begin the spool of personal memories, senses and emotions as well as the stories from others that we might assign to these objects. When the story is not known the vibe is more about us than the previous owner.

foamin' at the mouth · Post by **foamin' at the mouth** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 8:04 pm

t’s been a year or so actually. It’s currently packed away with a few other things for safe keeping. But it certainly is curious how thoughts are tiggered.

oh wont you just please go dig it out and look for it and have a little perfect moment of your very own, and laugh because you are doing it because of what someone wrote you on a little electron generated board of communication -and then marvel at how silly and how sublime that is all at once-oh please, please!

remember it used to take time and ships and longhand to do this.

LeChatNoir · Post by **LeChatNoir** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 8:47 pm

Oh my Lord... I should be going to bed by now... but I get this little bing-bong, “You’ve got playa mail” tone just as I’m sending off my last reply of the evening. And being me... I have to go look. Heh Heh Heh... But that’s perfectly Ok.

When the story is not known the vibe is more about us than the previous owner.

You know what... that is a very good observation. Because I truthfully don’t know anything other than what the bowl tells me with it’s inscription. Perhaps it spoke to my inner “hopeless romantic”?? For all I know the poor sot was dumped and tossed himself off a bridge. But that’s not the feeling I get (or could be argued “the feeling that I want to get”). Hmmm... I must ponder on this. But I do have to reiterate that I’ve found some items (and been in some places) that just damn well creep me out, even though they may seem totally benign in appearance. I’m talkin’ hair raising on the back of the neck creepy. I’m tellin’ ya’... some stuff puts off a vibe of its own... some good... some bad. You just gotta listen.

oh wont you just please go dig it out and look for it

Foam... take comfort in the fact that before I wrote that note out to begin with, I went madly digging for it only to remember that it was boxed up down in the back of the shop. If it weren’t so dang cold and late I’d be excavating at this very moment. Tommorrow, however, is a different story...

remember it used to take time and ships and longhand to do this.

I always try to remind myself of this very thing. And I always try to write out letter to friends, etc (write, not type). A hand written note or letter is important in this electronic age (in my opinion). More personal... I'm such a Luddite. But enough about my crap... I’m off to bed. And I know there’s some lurker out there who’s synapses are firing because of this thread. Don’t be stingy... share, share. I’ve got tons of stories, but I’ve heard ‘em all six or seven times.

Good night friends...

M

Spokes · Post by **Spokes** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 6:50 am

For all I know the poor sot was dumped and tossed himself off a bridge. But that’s not the feeling I get

There are universal notions and reactions to things because of universal experiences and feelings. If you feel good about something, it is likely that others may have as well, especially the person that made it and the person that cared for it. These points of connection may be very similar in there effect on us, yet very unique in the specific reasons why. It is a part of what links us all together. In many ways this information is a physical reflection of the vibe that is passed between us. How else would one describe this synchronicity?

LeChatNoir · Post by **LeChatNoir** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 9:57 pm

Spokes...

Is that Carl Jung I hear??

Friend, I like your style...

M

Booker · Post by **Booker** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 8:04 am

easily trashed by the downside; the rampant materialism of our current culture. Yet somehow lovely.

Lots of people are quick to dismiss the attributions of "value" our society places on commercial objects, but I see the price tag as a an analogue at best (often a perversion) of the sense of real value that objects carry. I think that comes from people caring enough to make things well or to give them important roles in human lives. People really do sometimes find fulfillment in their jobs, because they create things (goods or human interactions) in ways that give them a feeling of pride. Without people investing themselves authentically in commerce, I don't think it would be able to sustain the social dominance it does (as annoying as the overemphasis on money exchanged can be).

Also, I'm going to think a lot about how stories make time and experience a tangible thing, something that people can share. In particular, the ability of stories to transcend time is not something I had thought about. But they definitely process time differently than current experience, preserve evanescent moments, yet the retelling is a new moment of its own. I'm gonna think on this some. Thanks.

Finally, I'm touched by these stories, and reaching back into my head for one of my own to reciprocate: On my shelf sits a small ceramic bottle that I made during a pottery class in college (an extracurricular, fun thing, not a for-credit class -- which seems important to me for some reason). I vividly remember making this pot, being thrilled with the form that emerged under my hands, delighted that I had been successful in narrowing the wide pot to form the neck. A chip was broken off the lip while it was still green (before firing) which felt like it ruined the damn thing, but I fired & glazed it anyway. Still satisfied with the final result, I gave it to my dad the next Christmas.

A couple years ago, he died suddenly and unexpectedly of cancer. (Not the usual thing with cancer, but he worked a full shift the day before the giant tumor killed him, never even knew that he carried it, I'm still not sure how.) So of course, we had to go through his stuff. There was this bottle, with a new chip out of the lip in addition to the one I had made. It came back to me, and up there it sits. I'm wondering what my sons will make of it, come the day.

Lydia Love · Post by **Lydia Love** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 9:47 am

Foam - thank you for pointing this conversation out!

For me stories, the ones I tell, take on a bit of urgency. I have an uncomfortable relationship with my own memory. There are entire years that have fallen into some sort of black hole - and every so often I find some other chunk of my life has fallen into it. Names, faces, events... so I've become an incontinent story teller - relating every little bit to *someone* to, maybe, preserve that little bit of me in someone else's memory if not my own.

My mother said to me once, "What you need is a memory keeper - someone who'll hear you and repeat your stories back to you every so often. I'll do that for you." And she does, every so often, and sometimes she does indeed give me a piece back.

As far as objects carrying personal history and value I'll share a story too. I was given a cookie-jar by my friend Juan. It was made by his mother who had passed away a few years earlier. It's a plump and apple-cheeked little woman in a dress and apron - she has long red braids and makes me thinks of a German Hausfrau. It's a *very* kitschy cookie jar. But she looks to me like what I imagine Juan's mother looked like (I never met her) and in fact a little what Juan himself would have looked like had he taken up German Hausfrau drag.

He gave it to me during one of ever deepening spirals into insanity, to keep it safe from his own self destruction. It was, as far as I know, one of the very few items in his life he felt the need to preserve and he entrusted me with that. I told him he could reclaim it when he found he got his feet back under him. He never did and finally took his own life.

She sits in a place of honor in our house, completely unlike anything else we own and certainly unlike anything we'd go out and *try* to acquire. She's what I'd try to save if the house were on fire.

LeChatNoir · Post by **LeChatNoir** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 3:53 pm

What you need is a memory keeper

What a wonderful thought... I never really looked at it that way. Quite beautiful actually. I often laugh with my family about all of us forgeting we've already told stories and retelling them. And the listeners forget that they've already heard them so it's all new again.

I told him he could reclaim it when he found he got his feet back under him. He never did and finally took his own life.

For this I am without words. Perhaps this is when words simply fail and human touch... a hug or reassuring hand... is the only language that will do.

M

Badger · Post by **Badger** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 6:10 pm

Liking this thread a lot.

LeChatNoir · Post by **LeChatNoir** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 1:13 am

Anybody else care to share?????

Spokes · Post by **Spokes** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 12:32 pm

When the time came to sort through my father’s belongings I had already been through this process a number of times. All the elders in my immediate family were gone and this would be the third time I was the executor of an estate. Four deaths ago my siblings had come up with the method of dividing the smaller things of some value by putting three pennies with different dates in a cup. We would draw for the turn order at each round robin of choosing those significant things. The whole business seemed dirty and reminded me of the biblical story of the Romans casting lots for Jesus’ robe at the crucifixion. But in the process there were a couple of items that came into my possession that are dear to me.

My great grandfather was an immigrant from Norway and tried to farm in South Dakota. He lost his wife to illness and sent his children off to live with others for a time when he couldn’t feed them. I felt a close kinship with my grandfather, who was an odd fellow with that tough life as his baggage. In clearing out his goods I found a small handmade barrel knife made in Scandinavia with a date of 1874 on the blade. My mother had also died of illness and thus the knife came from him to me. It provides a link back through time to those people and places.

My father was from rural Oklahoma and was a son of depression era people. He grew large and was strong for his age, so he was expected to work as a man from the time he was young. His parents managed to send him off to college where he majored in business and met the love of his life, Donna, a beautiful art major from the city. After a courtship and college, they escaped to Colorado Springs and rented a small apartment. My father got a job as a tour driver taking people up and down Pike’s Peak in a sedan with two rear seats. Those were happy days of young love thriving in a beautiful place. They were days before he lost his wife to disease and later came to a time when he sent his children away for lack of an ability to feed them. I keep safe in my possessions a lapel pin from his driver’s uniform from that time. It is a small official badge that says “Colorado Chauffeur” in raised letters, has a serial number 4 2979 and a winged emblem with 1951 in the center.

Edited to add: As time passed, families were reunited and wounds healed for the most part as they are prone to do.

Now that my son is off to college and soon to be on his own I begin the process at looking through my own accumulations for a way to simplify and reduce the mass. The question comes to me at this transition… what small weapons and badges from my existence will my son or his grandson find as armor in their battles against the Pandora’s box of time?

Lydia Love · Post by **Lydia Love** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 11:07 pm

Oh, Spokes...

Thank you.

nipples · Post by **nipples** » Tue Feb 03, 2004 12:15 am

today i fell in love with a squirrel

it was chocolate brown

hopped across the snow towards a far tree

even though patches of grass & woods-floor were a bit out of the way
& it was not rummaging them for food (definately not)
this chocolate brown squirrel was going slightly out of it's way
to land its feet on summer/fall

i also am quite fond of you

please smile today at & with every one you meet

LeChatNoir · Post by **LeChatNoir** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 10:53 pm

There are entire years that have fallen into some sort of black hole - and every so often I find some other chunk of my life has fallen into it

I’ve found this to be all too true myself. There are many sections of a hard few years that I honestly can’t remember. And now I find that other places and faces seem to be fading too. I’m not too sure as to why either. Maybe only so much room up there to store stuff.

For various reasons, the blues have come calling at my door tonight. Nothing terrible or heart breaking, really. But here none the less. So I came back and reread sections of these posts and was gently reminded (as so often has to be done) that I am human too. We all laugh and cry and simply live. And in the course of life, things happen, beyond our control, beyond our wishes, beyond our ability to change... life happens, full of conundrums and beautiful irony. The human heart has the amazing ability to take what was once a anguish that seemed intolerable and with time, soak the pain from the scars and leave you with bittersweet reminiscence of hard earned life-lessons. This reflex, this inborn ability to see past the bad and find good, however infinitesimal, I believe is at the core of us... the very engine of the thing we call "hope".

You guys touch me with your outpouring of stories and emotion for no other reason than to touch or comfort the life of another. All of you... even Nipples’ musings, which I can never quite completely interpret... and hope I never really do................ especially Nipples' musings.

And one thing shines through it all: Whether we openly admit it or not, we all come back to the basic goodness and beauty of being human. Under all the daily gripes, the stress, the things that drive us crazy, push our buttons and keep us blinded... when we turn out the lights and our heads hit the pillow, we are all the same. Staring up into the almost darkness at the ceiling, we are reduced to the pith of our being. Reminded of the heart that feels, beating within our breast.

Thanks guys...

Matt

Last Real Burner · Post by **Last Real Burner** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 12:53 am

People still trying to get to Burningman 2002

ship shapely,
mr smith

Wind_Borne · Post by **Wind_Borne** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 12:27 pm

That's the second time that same guy has modified a car into a boat to cross the straights to Florida. Second time he was caught, too.

But, hey, it's a cool machine. I think we should let this guy in. Ingenuity like that is just what we need. Some company in Britain is selling an amphibious car for a quarter-million. This guy could start a business turning your old beater into a yacht, and do it cheap!

What's this guy's name? Someone give him a job and sponsor his visa!

Wind_Borne · Post by **Wind_Borne** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 6:45 pm

Mmmm... What an exquisite little toy.

juanicoheal · Post by **juanicoheal** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 7:03 pm

Hey Wind_Borne

those are cool looking- but what are they?

Wind_Borne · Post by **Wind_Borne** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 7:13 pm

Those Pebbles, as they're called, are sex toys -- and they vibrate!

Check out this link for more info: http://www.myla.com

Chai Guy · Post by **Chai Guy** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 7:43 pm

What's this guy's name? Someone give him a job and sponsor his visa!

Or at least a guest spot on "Junk Yard Wars"

Last Real Burner · Post by **Last Real Burner** » Mon Mar 15, 2004 12:08 am

Good night Johnboy.

yawningly,
mr smith

LeChatNoir · Post by **LeChatNoir** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 3:33 pm

I'll get the lights...

Licentious Queen · Post by **Licentious Queen** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 4:43 pm

I need to be amused. I'm dreadfully sick and tired (literally). So, humor me....

come on now...

DVD Burner · Post by **DVD Burner** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 5:03 pm

Licentious Queen wrote:I need to be amused. I'm dreadfully sick and tired (literally). So, humor me....

come on now...

You want humor, I'll give you humor. Here ya go;

http://pages.sbcglobal.net/digicastipv7/salmon[1].asf

Licentious Queen · Post by **Licentious Queen** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 5:54 pm

heh...I've seen that. Fecking brilliance, that! Anything else?

Licentious Queen · Post by **Licentious Queen** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 5:57 pm

All right everyone...Check this out. Not sure of my opinion, I personally believe in this sort of thing, but I know people are VERY good at doctoring photos. Ok here it is:

http://www.rockandrollbadboy.com/morrison.html

weird amazingness...

-Lauren

Last Real Burner · Post by **Last Real Burner** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 11:04 pm

I just picked up the greatest little practical car you've ever seen. Its a 1988 Nissan Stanza, it's a Japanese market Hybrid Stationwagon/Van thingy. It has sliding doors on both sides, and a hatchback. Air Conditioner, great little radio, cruize control, and a bench seat that folds flat or folds forward. Its a 4 cylinder with plenty of pickup it is awesome and runs like a little bandit. It's gonna be just what I need to get to the burn and carry all the crap I need to bring and will probably get me there on a tank of gas. Dude I am so totally happy. I filled it up with premium for $25. Oh yeah, it cost me $1,000 for the car. It's so practical it's scary. Can you see me dancing, ok maybe you can see my banana dancing.

happily,
mr smith

DVD Burner · Post by **DVD Burner** » Wed Mar 17, 2004 1:02 am

I have to admit, I'm kinda jealous.

Idle Chat Thread

12/14/03

And now for something completely different...

Well, it's time for bed...

Hey I finally got a little car...