Gas lamps, ball gowns, Saturday night
Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody...
but sometimes you can earn a Badge of Honor for just showing up (see previous post!)
My husband has drifted off to bed, casually swooping up MY designated evening reading:
Nicholson Baker's Human Smoke (thanks for that reading tip, Citizen Reader. Now, any tips on wrestling desired book from clinging male companion?)
Left to my own devices, as I sweep and tidy up the house. Sleeping children and pets. Reading husband.
Pondering what kinds of delights await me tomorrow, since we are still moving out of the basement of our old home.
One of the most interesting curiosities discovered last week, while excavating the downtown basement (repository of pre-1850 through early 1980s familial garbage) -- a sad cardboard carton, squashed and accordion-pleated under the weight of many other boxes.
The bottom box had a most intriguing label, in huge black letters: VERY NICE LAMP.
Uh-huh.
I am a jaded cynic of box labels, having found 1960s Ritz Cracker packages stuffed with the dessicated, mummified corpses of mice that died in the early 1970s -- in a box lettered "Christmas Decorations".
My probably-dust addled theory is that the mice died due to the staleness of those promising crackers. The mousies should never have fallen for the box art, exclaiming about the deliciousness of Ritz Crackers. Whenever I see those words, I think "dead mice". Ritz Crackers are a major appetite suppressant for yours truly. Perhaps I should be gluing "Ritz Cracker" labels on all of the cans of nuts in my house?
well, I digress...
Arrgh. I do NOT trust any labels on boxes found in my former home's basement.
The label was intriguing, I give it that... the contents were... horrifyingly sad.
A full-length ball gown or evening gown, for a woman taller and slimmer than me-- red satin, sleeveless, gathered and fitted bodice, full and sweeping skirt. Wound about the "very nice lamp" which turned out to be a hideous Victorian monstrosity.
A vast lace-work of shiny metal (weird coppery color, no oxidation, not golden, was this bronze? brass? some strange alloy?) -- pretty, multi-faceted lead crystal pendants and lozenges bedecked it. Many of the crystals and some of the lozenges fell away as I unwound the ball gown, which was furry with white mold and smelly with blue and black mildews. One side of the metalwork stove in.. it is a defaced and damaged gas lamp. With a weird bit of electrification (from the 1940s or '50s or '60s? a rickety and fragile electrical element has been flimsily mounted onto the big scary gas lamp).
What to do with this valued item?
Into the landfill? Off to Goodwill? Drag to an antiques shop?
NO, good Lord, I am not a profiteer. Not trying to raise gorgeous, filthy eBay lucre from any of this shameful bounty... but I am feeling shamefully wasteful. And maybe this is salvageable? Or if not, perhaps those crystals could be re-energized into some sort of positive being?
What would you do with this strange treasure?
(thanks to Madison Guy, I shall try once again to master basic proficiency of digital camera, some photo-documentation would aid this post immensely -- plus the previous post's medal of honor could be gorgeously displayed).
4 comments:
You really need to add pictures to this post. I would love to see the "very nice lamp".
You would not believe how often the contents of our moving boxes were wrongly and vaguely labeled. My wedding dress is pressed and boxed up very nicely so that I can look at it now and then with out worrying about it getting dirty. The movers slapped paper over it and labeled it "clothing". It took me awhile to figure out what that mysterious package was (I was challenging myself by not opening it to look at it). After all if I were a move I would have put wedding dress on the paper.
Tee hee...
Very "nice" lamp. This is like how I have learned to dread any gifts from my mother-in-law which she feels are "very nice." She's a lovely lady, but we do have different taste. My "very nice" to her is BLAH ("the window shades are nice, dear, but you need a big valance at the top to complete them!") and her "very nice" to me is kitschy ("oh, a heart shaped wooden napkin holder! Just what I always wanted!"). "Very nice" are quite possibly the two most subjective words in the English language.
And wrapped in a ball gown? Wow, what kinds of parties were these people having that gowns were a dime a dozen? Wild stuff, man.
Well, Awesome,
if you were a mover, you would be a lady mover. Who the hell ever heard of a guy saving his wedding suit (for his son to wear?) Nope. They RENT the suckers... or, in my husband's case, wear the suit they also go to funerals in...
I have tried on several occasions to give away my wedding dress but no dice. It is the single most expensive thing I ever BOUGHT for myself, though I now have a few pricier items that I have been gifted with. All of which belong in boxes.
CR, you make me weep with laughter and pained familiarity. My goodness but I do have many disconnects with so many other people about what is lovely... but I frequently and unintentionally piss off all sorts. Must confess to being kind of a secret fan of silly napkin rings and a paper napkin holder which are all shaped like chickens!
But hell no, I do not use them. They are all in the basement, waiting to bedevil my great-grand-daughter-in-law (or her year 2100 equivalent.)
I confess a secret fondness for Victorian horrors. If I had the means, I would decorate my house in Early Lovecraft. Show us the lamp so that I may weep with longing!!!
Post a Comment