Writing Life

Archive for January, 2010

Today Julie and I went out on the road in search of antiques. We don’t have a lot of money to spend on antiques these days, but we still like to look at them. Our interests are numerous, so we can usually find something to interest us at even the tiniest, least impressive antiques stores (and, by the way, tiny-ness is rarely an indication of an antiques store’s merit; plenty of excellent antique shops, like Nevada City’s Main Street Antiques, aren’t much larger than the average American living room). Among the things we like to collect (or would like to collect, if we had the money) are vintage advertising posters, old clocks, figural bronze, original oil paintings, half dolls, Steiff animals, Maxfield Parrish prints, vintage cast-iron cookware, globes, maps, anything art deco, California tile-top furniture, ocean liner memorabilia, handwritten letters and diaries, Arabiana and Persiana, old books of various genres (travel, exploration, poetry, fiction, history, cooking, biography, etc.), and postcards. Read the rest of this entry »

I spent the day in Arabistan, a book by William Perry Fogg, a 19th Century adventurer and travel writer. The full title is Arabistan, Or The Land of the Arabian Nights. It was published in 1875 in a beautiful cloth-bound edition. I bought my copy recently from a Nevada City antiquarian bookstore. Fogg, according to some reports, was the inspiration for Phileas Fogg, the fictional hero of Jules Verne’s novel Around The World In Eighty Days. Nowadays it’s only the fictional Fogg that anyone remembers, but the factual Fogg was fascinating in his own right. Read the rest of this entry »

My column in the February edition of Inside The City, which arrived in my mail today, deals in part with my longtime fascination with world globes. Below is a sort of prosy narrative poem about the origins of my globe fetish. Read the rest of this entry »

Last night I wrote here about my Uncle Alec, who died on Friday at the age of 68. An hour ago my wife asked me, “What are you going to write about tonight?” “I don’t know,” I answered, “But I hope it’s not another farewell to a deceased relative or friend.” Then I went online and discovered that a friend, of sorts, had just died. Read the rest of this entry »

My mother’s brother Alec died last Friday. He was sixty-eight and died from a combination of colon and liver problems. He was a teenager when I was born. In his youth he was heavily influenced by the 1950s ethos of the leather-clad bikers epitomized by Marlon Brando and James Dean. In the late 60s, when the conventional way to look counter-cultural was to wear long hair, a headband, and a tie-died shirt, Uncle Alec was totally retro, a throwback to the days when Elvis was still the pinnacle of cool. When I was young my Uncle Alec reminded me of both Elvis Presley and James Dean. Well into his 30s, he was still driving a Porsche sports car and wearing leather jackets. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday nights my wife and I can usually be found in front of the television watching The Antiques Roadshow on PBS. The premise of the show is simple: ordinary people bring objects that they believe are old and valuable to a makeshift TV studio where the items are evaluated and appraised by professional antiquarians. Julie and I like watching the show because it teaches us so much about history. But the materialist inside each of us also likes knowing just what the heck all that old stuff is worth in cold hard cash. We almost never miss the show, but tonight we were tempted to do so. Read the rest of this entry »

I bought a globe today. That’s not so unusual. I collect globes. I found this one at a local antiques store. The proprietor was asking $60 for it. I offered him $40. Eventually we agreed upon $45.

Whenever I bring a globe home, I sit down and have a little chat with it. I ask it questions, such as, “Do you recognize the state of Israel?” Or: “Do you identify Hawaii as a state or a territory?” This is how one goes about dating a globe. Of course, I always do a little bit of dating at the antiques store before buying a globe, but not until I bring a it home do I really start trying to nail down its birthday. This isn’t always easy. Globes tend to be coy about their age. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve been married for a long time and think you know everything there is to know about your spouse, take her to an antique mall; she just might surprise you. My wife and I have been married for 29 years, but every time we go antiquing we learn something new about each other. Read the rest of this entry »

My ex-friend Rachel has left Sacramento and moved to Boston. I know this only because a mutual friend of Rachel’s and mine passed the information on to me. For the last two years of her stay in Sacramento, Rachel wasn’t talking to me. Read the rest of this entry »

I have a friend who calls me every single weekday morning at eight. Darrell’s daily call usually lasts anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour. This would be a giant time-suck on my workday except for the fact that I have taught myself how to take the call without actually listening to it. Read the rest of this entry »