Category Archives: Ephemera

Ephemera

Cookout

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So the joy of living in a big city is that there are so many interesting events to go to. The downside of living in such a city is that said events often involve crowds, and finding the time to get across town, and trying to park nearby. But on this evening I was invited to a local annual event and it was perfect.

The street behind this woman is busy during the week, but not much was happening on this glorious summer evening. She was singing old familiar songs(if you’re from the 60’s-70’s) accompanied by her autoharp.

Across the street it’s all industrial places, this side is a trendy vintage (1890’s) neighborhood. This spot was once a cigar manufacturing place.

And what exactly was going on this evening? Why it was the annual free corn roast at the neighborhood bar. (Note: I was in fact born in this very neighborhood). The corn is free, but the beer is not. And I can’t imagine just having a corn costume laying about for just such an occasion, but it works for some people.

Here it is in all it’s glory. The man on the right (Farmer Mike) to his friends) grew this lovely corn on his farm across the river and had picked it that very afternoon. He is keeping a practiced eye on the roasting ears, to make sure that they are perfection.

And they were. Slow grilled over charcoal, the corn was smoky and sweet, almost unimaginably delicious (okay, it was the best I ever ate).

As we were sitting there enjoying the ambiance, this neighbor walked up and plopped down in a chair (anyone can come). Not interested in having either a beer or some corn, this cat was just there for the loving (and it did get it). When there had been enough attention, it left and continued on it’s rounds. Then so did we, with a bit more of Farmer Mike’s delicious corn.

City, Ephemera

Urban Decay

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It is inevitable that nothing lasts forever. Even the symbol of the country, the White House, was once burnt to the ground (and then rebuilt in an identical form). Most cities go through cycles of building, redundancy, and perhaps rebirth. And I am from a city that has mostly fallen into decay, and I love to explore these outliers that resist the forces of change.

This particular chain was once part of every downtown (and downtown was the place to shop). The company started in 1879 as a five and ten cent store (precursor to today’s dollar stores). I loved to shop (mostly just looking, I had no money) at these when I was small. But, this sort of business became obsolete years ago and now it sits vacant, with the ghost lettering to show that it was once part of an urban center.

These fine brick storefronts are no longer pillars of commerce. The building at the end claims to feature “Vegas Showgirls”, however this is a dubious claim at best.

This ornate door handle hints that this building was once the pride of it’s owners, however, it also shows the negligence of time. It probably had some sort of gilt finish that has since weathered away.

The building also has these lovely cast iron details that have survived paint. rust and time. Again, someone spent some money to make this building special. And it was originally conceived as a local grocery in 1879, and is still a family owned deli, marooned by time and circumstances.

Inside is slowly edging toward rack and ruin, which is paradoxically part of it’s charm. Why do I love this state of being? Because I grew up in such an atmosphere, where things were old and slightly shabby. It is part of the conundrum of gentrification (which has taken place where I live), if everything was fixed up and modernized, this business could not afford to exist. The interior would feature reproductions of the period details and it would be a clone of whatever the current trend is. But I think I have had my fill of nostalgia here, and instead I look forward to the new in the future. Perhaps this place shall hold on until modernization or it may be steamrollered into oblivion. Perhaps the future will include a reproduction of the original, spiffed up for the nostalgia of future generations, hungry for an imagined past.

Ephemera

Ornaments

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Years ago I had the sort of standard Christmas tree as everyone else; glass balls, garlands, tinsel, etc. And then I started collecting odd ball ornaments that had a personal meaning to me, like a pink dragon (purchased in Berkeley), African lizard (purchased in San Antonio) or a wooden fox (purchased in St. Louis). So when I unwrap them, I also recall their acquisition, who I was with, and why we were there. And at some point I got rid of all the ordinary baubles and now my tree is just these personal trinkets. So this was this year’s addition to the collection.

I already have a number of dinosaurs for the tree as I love them and studied them in college. This and the following felt dinos are fair-trade ornaments from either Peter Jones or the Natural History Museum in London. They are rather adorable, aren’t they?

Besides dinos there was also these animal musicians, and well, they don’t really fit with any theme that I have so far, but, they were cute, so in the basket they went.

Dinosaurs are also available locally, these were the last two on the shelves, but there were plenty of ballerinas still available.

Oh yeah, this fancy dinosaur came from the Natural History Museum as well. I thought that the museum had dressed their animatronic T-Rex in a similar sweater last year, but maybe I only dreamed it.

I did tell you that I loved this tiny armadillo, and had to purchase one for myself, so here it is, hanging on my tree.

So now all of these ornaments have become part of my memories of this year. They will be appearing in my living room until January 1st. Then they shall join the others until next year, as part of the ghosts of Christmas past.

City, Ephemera

Clouds

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I grew up in a place where the clouds always seemed to be quite close, almost oppressively so. When I first moved to the West, the clouds and skies were so vast as to be almost frightening. But I grew to love this beautiful open sky (someone even wrote a song mentioning “the spacious skies” of this area) and clouds are what makes it so. So, I went to an outdoor art festival recently, and the thing the impressed me the most were the clouds on that day.

The clouds were teasing us with the possibility of rain, but didn’t really deliver.

This place is very near to the mountains and does get more rain than the plains, so the trees are taller and more imposing here.

The clouds were keeping the temperature down and it was a perfect summer day for strolling about.

Rain is pretty much always a localized event in the West, with rain alternating with innocent blue skies. If by chance one is rained on, just wait a minute and the weather will change.

Even the reflections of the clouds are beautiful. The windows doing the reflecting are part of a replica of a French palace (why build an ordinary mansion when one can have their very own palace?)

And another local-ish person was inspired (perhaps by these Western skies) to write a song that says “it’s clouds illusions I recall” and that was what I celebrated this day.

Ephemera

Still Very Merry

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I am not one of those persons who goes crazy for holiday decorating. Years ago I decided to get rid of the ordinary round balls and tinsel and only go with ornaments that remind me of trips and special moments. I do love the gradual accretion over time of each years’ ornaments. And this year is no exception, as I have added new ornaments to the cast of characters. They were what appealed at the moment, there isn’t really a decorating theme, just lots of sub-themes.

It’s not crystal, it’s a plastic deer, but I love it and it joins a number of others in my collection. I don’t know where it fits in the theme of Christmas, but I like to look at deer. (Even though the local herd has gone somewhere else this year and I seldom see them.)

I saw this fire-breathing felt Welsh dragon in the shops last month and I thought it was adorable. So this joins the felt dinosaurs of last year.

I mentioned at a ladies luncheon that I had acquired a new dragon for my tree and that I also had another dragon from prior years. So my friend decided that this dragon needed to live at my home. She had this for a number of years, but it was the lone dragon on her tree, so she gave it to me to join the crew.

Lions are supposed to be the “king of the beasts” and they probably got the title because they are an apex predator. The lion has been used in British heraldry since people noticed that they are apex predators, and who doesn’t want to be at the top?

I didn’t have a proper nativity set (and I still don’t), but I thought that this one was rather nice. As I looked at it more closely, I noticed that it includes a teapot, a detail missing in most sets. And the baby has a tiny mouse stuck to the bottom of it’s foot, so it’s possibly not a newborn. Peace on Earth is always a good idea.

So this is the current display, and as you can tell, I went a little crazy with the Welsh dragons. I was going to give the excess away (is there such a thing as too many dragons?) but they looked so fabulous as a herd that I couldn’t part with them. This is the current line-up, until they are displaced in turn by whatever I find for next year. (Except that the dragons are so cool, they may have to stay up year round). You will never find this particular decorating tip on Instagram and that is probably for the best.

Art, Ephemera

Very Merry

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There is something magical about the Christmas tree. No matter how drab the room is to start, it suddenly gets transformed with sparkles of light and color. And it’s temporary, it only happens once a year, otherwise it would not be so special. Back when I was travelling a lot, I would often follow S in her quest for the perfect Christmas ornaments. Now I acquire new ornaments in a random fashion, perhaps it is that they have chosen me.

I found this cowboy/chili pepper mashup at our annual garage sale, it doesn’t really seem like one of my standard obsessions, but. So some years ago I was in San Antonio for a convention. I was walking down the street early in the morning, when I found a Jalapeno lying on the sidewalk. I decided to take that chili on a tour of the city and photograph it was we went around. I even had it with me when S and I went to a proper Christmas store. This ornament is in memory of that long ago art project.

This ornament is another mashup between the classic Blue Willow pottery (like my grandmother had) and a monster attack (we’ve all been there). There is an entire series of these featuring various calamities, but I found this one by chance at a thrift shop, and I love sea monsters which stand in for the fear of the unknown.

I think we all know about my obsession with pterodactyls. It is true that a pterodactyl makes any photo better, but this one isn’t gaudy enough to make the tree better. Oh well.

This ornament certainly qualifies as gaudy, and it is really quite tricky to find a dodo ornament, but I was up to the task.

This one is a rather generic sort of dinosaur, but the hat and smile give it some charm.

Every Christmas tree must have a topper of some sort, and angels are a common theme. This one bears a number of traits: it has a halo and wings like a saint, it has a Santa hat, and it appears to be some sort of Saur. So it’s a St. Santasaurus Rex, which makes it a perfect addition to this years magical tree. It was this year’s featured ornament at the Natural History Museum in London, so I hope that this motif spreads all over the world (really, I hope I’m not the only one who bought this at full price). These ornaments are now all a treasured part of my holiday tradition, so see you next year.

Doings, Ephemera

Opa!

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I do love to attend church festivals, it’s a left-over tradition from my youth (which was a very long time ago). So on this rare rainy cool Saturday I was off. First, a stop at my sometimes church to pick up a box of tree-ripened peaches from the western part of the state. Imagine if you will, peaches that smell like peaches, and are soft and yielding to the touch. And they taste like a peach should, rather than what passes for a peach at the local market. I might give a few to my friends and then eat peaches until I tire of them (if that’s possible).

So the nearby Greek Orthodox church was having their annual fund-raiser festival that day as well. Who can resist such an event? Well certainly not me.

Any church festival is greatly improved by the selling of booze, so “step up ” was a good invitation. They featured Ouzo, local beer and regular Greek wines (no Retsina, that stuff is vile).

They always have these tents set up to eat in, usually it’s to protect one from too much heat and sun. Today it was protecting against a light sprinkling of rain. I was enjoying a freshly made gyros (quite delicious!).

There is typically folk dancing going on, but there was that bit of rain which discouraged this for now. The other necessity for a festival is something to buy, (I did mention that this is a fund-raiser for the tiny church). There were t-shirts, souvenirs, icons, belly dancing scarves (the scarves don’t dance, they are to wear while one belly dances) and Greek food items for sale. So I picked up an expensive jar of olives and called it a day. And next year I shall do it again exactly the same (ain’t tradition wonderful?).

Ephemera, Town

Easter Parade

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It was once a custom of people to get especially dressed up for holidays such as Easter. Easter is both a religious holiday and a celebration of Spring after a long Winter. When I was a tiny tot, Easter involved getting a new dress to wear to church, a new hat (courtesy of my grandmother, who was hat mad), and white gloves. Then there would be a feast that took forever to be ready. Later the new clothes would be packed away if I hadn’t ruined them playing with my brothers (while we waited for the food).

But on this Easter weekend, I enjoyed a different sort of parading about in finery, as on this weekend there was a local pow wow. (Confession: my friend M had guilted me into going even though I was busy).

First up were the Aztec dancers, a dance troupe which was celebrating the indigenous styles of Mexico.

There was a strong, freezing wind blowing, so the dancing was moved to a nearby tent. Every pow wow starts off with a grand entry of all the dancers in attendance. First to enter are the veterans carrying flags, then people in order of importance. These were the head dancers and tribal representatives. (Miss Gallup can butcher a sheep in three minutes, so don’t mess with her.)

So there is a lot of expected outfits, buckskins and beads, etc. but there is also room for updating things. So the dress is in a traditional style, but she chose to go with a manga style print which looked fabulous.

Your expected sort of Easter hat (like my white grandmother loved) often was garnished with ribbons and feathers to make a statement. But I have to say that this dancer out-does any typical Easter outfit, and it was eye-catching to watch the ribbons rippling in the breeze.

Then for my feast I stood in line for some fry bread, then I scurried home, as I said, it was freezing cold out there and I had expected Spring.

Art, Ephemera

On Record

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A friend had recently been gifted with a new bit of antique technology, so we were off to the place that sells both new and antique items, a record shop.

When I was a very young person I had a portable record player. It was in a square case (maybe 15″ x 15″) that folded open to reveal the mechanism for playing a single 45 (one song per side, with a large hole in the middle). One of my brothers used this to drive me mad by playing “The little white duck” a bazillion times in a row.

So there we were at a record shop, which also sold the antique technologies of cassette tapes, compact discs and DVDs. We were searching the bins to replace old favorite music that had somehow fallen by the wayside. And I also found these treasures.

I was talking about this record with one of my friends. She had been clearing out her mother’s house, and had found a similar album. We laughed about it a bit, and she said she made the audiophile who picked up the stereo system take this too (serves him right!).

I had recently met a blogger who writes about, and appreciates World Music, and I was thinking of her when I snapped this photo. What was most interesting to me was the sticker that labeled this as once being part of an Air Force base collection. I imagine the record is in pristine condition (but I didn’t actually look) and I wondered how on earth it had ended up here.

I have a copy of this music on compact disc, but not with this conductor. I took this picture because I loved the album cover.

Here’s another one that had a gorgeous cover, done in a style between Aubrey Beardsley and Margaret Keane. I have been to the opera, and can’t really say that I enjoyed it (although it was fun to get dressed up and spend lots of money for the ticket [maybe not that part]). But I was almost tempted just by the cover art.

But I succumbed to temptation with this record. What is it? I have no idea because I have never listened to it, I bought it solely based on the cover ($3 at my local thrift shop). Cover art on these old albums was an important part of getting one to pick it up and buy it. With the advent of compact discs, a picture was included, but it was so small as to be irrelevant, and with downloads there is no picture, or a very tiny one. But interestingly enough this shop also carried brand new vinyl of new music, and reprints of some classic rock albums for the hippest of the hipsters to carry off and listen to on their new/antique turntables. Maybe there will always be a place for vinyl (until the next new thing comes along).

Ephemera, Town

March

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So after a two year hiatus, the big event was on again. And I once again braved the murderous traffic to drive up north, and attend. It quite often snows on this weekend, but this time it was warm and sunny, so there were lots of people with the same idea.

This was the 46th annual event, and it is quite a show with dancers and vendors coming from far away to participate. And it has lots of things to buy that one can’t get anywhere else, like bits of curly-haired goat skins, sage, beads and bling. Plus t-shirts with characters like Pikachu and Yoda in tribal dress and assorted pop culture mash-ups. If one wants to stand in a very long line there is traditional food to be had (okay, it’s just fry bread).

The event is held at a sports arena that is most famous locally for the annual stock show in January (a stock show is where one brings prize cattle and horses, it’s a beauty pageant for animals, and winning means money and a chance to reproduce). It’s located in the shrinking industrial part of town (yes, even this part of town is becoming gentrified).

Just like the livestock show, this event is also judged. There are points for participation, decorativeness of the dance outfits, and dance style. (Not sure which is the most important, but there is prize money involved as well as prestige).

The more bling, the better.

I saw this sticker on a car in the parking lot (and you know how I love stickers). I thought it was funny, and I think the crowd on hand agreed with the sentiment. And that’s why I like to go, despite the traffic, the crowds, etc.