Photo by Jeffrey Lau
I've probably published this photo before here, but what better way to talk about history and my love of objects that conjure it for me than a lovely black-and-white photo? People my age remember when the world was still something we viewed through photos as largely black-and-white.
Color photographs are among those many relatively recent developments in this sped-up age.
Lately, as I wander around my smallish (by American standards) home, I have been struck by what is available here. My entire history on this planet screams out to me from every shelf, closet, and long-forgotten box.
Others are present as well. Here are the dishes my Mother bought in Japantown a long time ago, in the '70s. There is the beginning of a fanciful novel my Father wrote out long hand. Here are yellowed clips of articles I wrote in college, and photos of my first wife when we were both so young -- and then, of course -- of our three children, at all stages of their development.
It was a long, rich marriage -- almost 20 years -- so the artifacts are abundant, the stories complex, and the record never exactly set straight.
Thanks primarily to our culture's tendency to focus on how things end, "divorce" or "breakup" always seems to be the final word. When I think of my love relationships, including my two marriages, I think the "first word" is by far the more interesting story.
Then. there are my many collections. Since this is the NHL's playoff season, the quest for the Stanley Cup, all of my Canadian genes are in turmoil, as my beloved Detroit Red Wings struggle to regain lost glory against the local heroes -- the San Jose Sharks, for whom I have yet to develop any sort of loyalty.
If you look closely at these cards, you will see the greatest of all great hockey players. No, not Wayne Gretsky, but Gordie Howe. No debate about that among those who know.
Then, we come to my lifelong preoccupation with stamps. I started collecting them as a child when I was confined to bed for months by illness (rheumatic fever)...Recently, I ordered this three-pack of stamps from the'30s, hoping to stimulate the imagination of the little curly-haired guy pictured at the top of this post.
Stamp collecting is the kind of hobby Robert Louis Stevenson would have appreciated. My lovely friend, recently completely absent from my life, Francesca Vietor, once did one of the kindest things anyone who understands my true quandaries has ever done for me. She organized my massive but chaotic stamp collection into groups of countries and times.
Unfortunately, so far none of my children have shown that they have the habit, so Francesca's work still sits in a box in my closet, neglected for now, but never forgotten.
And then we have this beauty.
Thanks to my former colleague Cate Corcoran, who left it behind a plant one day for me to recover, this lovely trophy from 1997 is the only Webby I (we) ever won, to my knowledge. It was for an bygone era's effort -- The Netizen -- the first, and apparently the best, daily political website, part of the HotWired family of sites we launched in 1994-1996, culminating in Wired News. Most awards don't mean much to me (journalists give each other WAY too many awards, IMHO) but this one does matter.We did well, that small team on Third Street in the middle of the last decade of the last century.
That's what artifacts are all about. Remembering what you have had in your life. I've had a lot and in that, I am blessed.
-30-
2 comments:
Reading your post I was struck by a couple of things. The black and white photography is an evocative issue. I am old enough to still remember seeing a lot more black and white images, especially given the fact that B/W televisions were still common in Britain in my childhood.
Colour, in my younger memory tended to mean, this is something you must pay attention to, or this is something worth seeing in its full glory, or simply just .... wow!. Perhaps it also speaks of the time when you had to do more with more limited palettes. The modern media world is blessed by seemingly limitless palettes, but the attention of the creator and the viewer is less focused and may be less appreciative, or able to discern easily when something really matters.
In regards to objects I can fully appreciate the sensibilities you mention. Having moved a lot myself, I don't have much in way of collected artifacts to express or say something about my life. I truly struck me how much these little material focii can mean when I recently returned to Australia after several years living in the UK.
Some friends had kept some things I had either given them or ask them to hold on to for me. Some of these were books, in one case it was a old portable CD player. Told by my best friend this thing, which has lived in his kitchen since my departure was actually mine, my first reaction was to disown it. I did not recognise it, I did remember it.
Gradually I came to recall it, and
suddenly found myself making contact with a whole host of memories and experiences centred around this unremarkable object, nothing special or aesthetic, mostly plastic and and same as a million other units to spew forth from the factory that made it. Nevertheless, I had bought it at a particular time and place, I had spent many hours listening to, and being inspired by music it played while I wrote. The room it sat in, the smell and space and light of it abruptly returned to me.
Needless to say I did not expect something so mundane to have so great an impact upon me, but it did.
Thank you for your kind and thoughtful comments! I really appreciate any and all feedback; your comments contain the voice of an extremely sensitive and well-informed person living a parallel life. I am happy to be in your (virtual) company.
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