As promised, here is a photograph of the object Ray found. It is bird-like in appearance, and seems to have some kind of flower on its head. It was found poking out of a brown bag wrapped in twine. Ray mentioned that the bag appears to have been burned. So far, he has not unwrapped the twine or removed the bag, so we don’t know what the rest of it looks like.
that be Window tools.
I don’t remember how we came upon the subject. Perhaps it had to do with a book we found condemning all space aliens as demons who bury dinosaur bones to fool the unrighteous. But I cautioned that if we talked about it enough, the secret chiefs would hear us and soon crop circles would begin manifesting themselves. HaHa.
He informed me that the very next weekend he was attending an art exhibit. One of the photographs on display depicted a crop circle. He was intrigued by this synchronicity, and the idea that a mere suggestion could alter the universe. He announced that he wanted to see a crop circle appear in an unlikely location, relatively closeby the pub. Perhaps in Glen Ellyn, Wheaton, or nearby Naperville. HaHa.
And so it has arrived.
This particular crop circle is more than likely a mediocre hoax, produced as a media stunt to advertise the upcoming M. Night Shyamalan movie.
For me, the likelihood that Naperville’s crop circle is a hoax doesn’t diminish the strangeness that two men in a pub could manifest a crop circle within 10 miles in less than three months without lifting a finger.
And next I’ll share an image of the strange object Ray found on the side of the road. HaHa.
The accompanying image is a photograph of a statue I own sculpted in bronze by one Sergio Bustamante. One may notice if one looks closely enough, the presence of five eyes, including the one situated on the forehead over the pineal gland. I read in an interview with the artist that the many eyes on his figures symbolize enlightenment. His site contains other artists’ work alongside his own, and the delineation isn’t apparent at first until one gets a feel for the different styles of each artist. I do like Bustamante’s bronze sphynxes, and the ceramic ram-sphynx is delightful as well.
An acquaintance of mine named Ray, who is a gentleman of the hipster variety, was working on one of his projects at the pub. He and his chums are preparing an overview about the works, life, and opinions of the author G.K. Chesterton.
I have only read one of his books, the surreal tale called The Man Who Was Thursday. I enjoyed it very much. The lead character, a certain Gabriel Syme, reminds me quite alot of my friend X, who helps out quite alot around the Mercuriosity Shop.
At any rate, it seems that G.K. Chesterton was fond of Stilton cheese. So much so, that he wrote at least two poems about his favorite fromage. For inspiration, Ray, the hipster gentleman, brought some Stilton cheese for all to sample. I enjoyed it very much as well. And so I have included it on the main page in a new category to your right, les fromages dans le icebox, or the cheeses in the fridge. Bon Appétit from the Mercuriosity Shop.
In the heat of summer the melons are OUT! Big ones, little ones, all shapes, sizes, colors. Firm, round, and ready for thumping. As my friends know me as a sort of Connoisseur of Melons, I thought I’d pass along some beautiful photographs by Victor Schrager whose work has been featured in Martha Stewart’s magazine Living.
When I’m all downhearted, although we have parted,
I love you and I always will.
And while I’m so lonely, I’m writing you only
To see if you care for me still.
Are you lonesome tonight? Do you miss me tonight?
Are you sorry we drifted apart?
Does your memories fade to a bright summer day
when I kissed you and called you sweetheart?
Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare?
Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?
Is your heart filled with pain?
Shall I come back again?
Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?
—Are You Lonesome Tonight?
With all the new gadgets being installed, I decided to stop wringing my hands about it and venture out into the marvelous day. A number of Muses unexpectedly arrived and have accepted my invitation to stay in the rooms I’m preparing for them. I saw two precocious cherubs battling over a “snail of contention” they found in the bushes. Also, a crate filled with rare pigments I had ordered from an alchemist was delivered as I have decided to take up painting as a hobby. And all as I was sitting out in the courtyard drinking sun tea and listening to the sonorous sounds of Leon Redbone. Ahh, the life.
More work is being done to the Mercuriosity Shop. It’s behind the scenes work. Secret Masons, don’t you know. It’s tantamount to changing some of the gas lighting fixtures to the newfangled eclectricity gadgets X keeps talking about. I’m told this should be relatively seamless, although I do expect the whole edifice to fade from view for a bit. But fear not, we’ll be back at the end of the week. Stay well, and watch for more refurbishments to the Mercuriosity Shop.
For those eager to participate in the Animal Mask competition, here is a letter I received today. I thought I would pass it along.
From: KarenBDE@aol.com
Sent: Monday, July 15, 2002 4:09 PM
Subject: Humanscale Mask Design CompetitionHello. Thank you again for your interest in the upcoming Humanscale Mask Design Competition/Auction to benefit the World Wildlife Fund.
With the deadline fast approaching and the limited space available, I will need a confirmation of your participation no later than Friday, July 19th. If you have decided not to participate, please let me know that as well, so I don’t keep sending you reminders.
If you have any questions please let me know and I will try to answer them as best I can. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely,
Karen Dickstein
Consultant to Humanscale
As I was going through the Librarium here at the Mercuriosity Shop, I noticed that a few of the books are illustrated by this fellow, Peter Malone. He did some exceptional paintings for Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and also for Gardens of the Imagination. But some of my favorite work is from The Possibility of Angels.
A call for entries was recently run in Metropolis magazine for the 3rd Annual Wildlife Mask Competition and Benefit Auction. It looks as though last year’s entries were quite good. And it seems Gloria will be difficult to beat in the competition this year. Winners of the competition will receive Humanscale’s Freedom chair while proceeds from the mask auction will benefit the World Wildlife Fund and the World Trade Center Disaster Relief Fund.
All mask entries must be tangible, easily transportable, made from environmentally friendly non-perishable materials, and representative of the face of a non-domesticated animal.
The deadline for entries is Monday, September 23, fnord, 2002.
For more information, contact Karen Dickstein at KarenBDE2aol.com or phone 212.353.1383.
Here is a place to visit if you’d like to learn more about how to make masks or if you’d like a little inspiration.
Sometimes beautiful and magical creatures pass through the Mercuriosity Shop. A few grant me the kind favor of allowing me to take a photograph or two. I only wish I had recorded her name in the registry.
What do lightning bugs have to do with Viagra? Here is an informative (and somewhat amusing) article about fireflies. The family portrait alone is worth a look. With all the talk of mitochondria, one wonders if this family doesn’t resemble the Murry family from Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quartet.
Michael Ondaatje has written some marvelous poems which touch upon his exotic childhood in Sri Lanka. His best known novel was made into an Oscar award winning film, The English Patient. His book of poems, Handwriting, evokes a lush, haunting, mysterious world.
750 AD the statue of a Samadhi Buddha was carefully hidden, escaping war, the treasure hunters, fifty-year feuds. He was discovered by monks in 1968 sitting upright buried in Anuradhapura earth, eyes half closed, hands in the gesture of meditation.Pulled from the earth with ropes
into a surrounding world.
Pulled into heatwave, insect noise,
bathers splashing in tanks.Bronze became bronze
around him,
colour became colour.
The previous is a selection from his poem, Buried from the book Handwriting. Copyright © 1998 by Michael Ondaatje. Photo from PhotoDisc.
For the last week or so I noticed that the yuccas around the Mercuriosity Shop were tall and white as brides, veiled so heavily with blooms they could hardly support their heads. Their mild scent of faint citrus and old encyclopaedias hung in the air. But the Green Man has found them and courted them all. Today they awoke dishevelled, their flowers lying at their feet, and pregnant with seeds.
This is the night of revelation. This is the night the dolls wake. This is the night of the dreamer in the attic. This is the night of the piper in the woods. —excerpt from Steven Millhauser’s novella, Enchanted NightPresently, in the fullness of summer, sticky days give way to cool nights. If there was a book that captures the soulful essence of a midsummer evening, it is Enchanted Night.
Writing in hushed tones, Steven Millhauser pens a moonlit tale of one summer evening in a small Connecticut town. The novella explores the footsteps of the adventurous few who steal out from their daylit lives and into their town strangely transformed by the enchanted night. Ebbing from the mundane to the magical, reading this story gives one the feeling of drifting in and out of sleep. And reverie is always recommended at the Mercuriosity Shop.
Fireworks cannot be remembered. Not truly. We can think about the idea of fireworks, we can think about what we were doing when we saw them, or we can think of them as something we enjoyed. But we cannot really remember them. We cannot remember their burst, their glory. Their complex trajectories overload our senses. Fireworks must be seen. Experienced. That is why we all leave our TV sets and drive through the gloaming dusk on country roads unused most of the year, converging en masse upon the metal bleachers at the county fairgrounds. We come to see them return. Fireworks are like Unicorns. Or Phoenixes. No, like Chinese Dragons. They are huge. Powerful. Majestic.
The first goes up, weakly. Like a herald, it announces the coming of powerful forces. Gold sparks trail behind, and then the burst! Ahhh. Another! Two, three at a time! Then higher up, and to the right a regal bloom unfolds. It traces a shape in the sky for us as if on a blackboard. But not as we would do it. We would draw a circle. Effortlessly it draws a sphere. Clearly a higher being. It burns blue. Then red. Then the surprise of green spreads farther and farther outwards, nearly touching more than our sense of wonder.
The bestiary of fireworks has grown since I was a boy. Once they were only great pompons in the sky. Now they take on many exotic shapes.
“Jellyfish!” squeals a boy.
“Weeping Willowww!” croons a girl.
Others appear. Comets. Bouquets and butterflies. Coneflowers and Chrysanthemums. Still stranger ones appear. A heart within a heart. The planet Saturn. Snaking Medusae. Then comes the Beehive.
The Beehive is the strangest of all. It starts as an orange blob of sparks. Then it erupts into a buzzing frenzy. Bees careen madly, twisting in the sky. Chasing, spiraling. Anthropomorphism takes over. The “bees” make us smile. Their chaos is so natural they must somehow be alive.
On the ground, children cavort like primitives, their movements expressed to coax the next up, or to share in its splendor. Their arms uplift and spread like flowers. The fireworks respond.
“You are such a dork,” an embarrassed older sister hisses.
“Git outta the road!” a grandmother yells.
But the children have come to worship the dragons.
Small white flashes signal the oncoming report!, which rolls across the onlookers with a concussive punch to the chest. The exotics are broken up by the loping spheres. They need no gimmicks to entertain. The spheres move across the sky like titans striding the festivities, changing colors like chameleons.
Sometimes a flash erupts, and you can see the ghost of the previous flash, its skeleton of bluish smoke already moved aside. Down wind. Off stage. Forgotten.
While the Solstice marks the middle of summer astronomically, July 4th marks it (at least for Americans) in our collective consciousnesses. Summer is officially half over. The days are already getting shorter. August will arrive and the leaves will hang heavy with green blackness. At three, the cooling afternoon will chill you out of the pool. Get up! Get off the couch! Live! Live! LIVE! Or this summer will move on without us. Down wind. Off stage. Forgotten.
Here are the top 5 myths about the Fourth of July from the History News Network, via Disinfo.com. Happy Independence Day from the Mercuriosity Shop!
It occurs to me that one need not buy the “Collected Works of Shakespeare” if one has some paper, a typewriter, and the right monkey.
It has finally arrived! I have been paying it off for a year. It’s called “Every Girl Should Have A Unicorn”. If you didn’t notice, it is a Seuss. Yes, yes, as in Theodor Seuss Geisel, AKA Dr.Seuss, of “The Cat in the Hat” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” fame. He created many works of art never before seen by the majority of the public. They are being released as “The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss”, which has a kind of arcane, kabbalistic quality to it, don’t you think? This particular piece may be one of Seuss’s only nudes (see bottom, right).
I have discovered recently that I enjoy Indian food. One of my favorite dishes is called Butter Chicken. If Homer Simpson was a man-of-the-world and not a moronic buffoon, instead of drooling over donuts he would instead warble “Butter Chicken.” Hindus believe that the soul reincarnates, evolving through many births until all karmas have been resolved, and in the step before moksha (where spiritual knowledge and liberation from the cycle of rebirth) is attained, one reincarnates into Butter Chicken.