[lit-ideas] Re: Lessons from Estate Sale-ing
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 5 Dec 2009 15:20:33 -0800
The sad thing about an estate sale, which is what they call round
here the sale of effects from within an abode that goes with either
the death of their owner or his or her passing into a home, the sad
thing about such a sale is that sometimes you encounter a presence
among the effects, characteristics derived or put together from the
sum of all buying decisions, which make you think, "I would have
liked to meet this person." And now it's too late. At such a sale
this week I bought a vacuum cleaner, a reserve or benchwarmer for the
Royal, the Harley Davidson of vacuum cleaners, one of which we
already own. We have the 7.5 amp; this is a ten amp "commercial
version." Well worth twenty bucks to me. I didn't, however, buy the
full dress clan MacDonald kilt and charlie outfit which was for sale
for very cheap, on account of the fact that I already own such an
outfit in my size and clan coloring, but that together with the
manual of military surgery and the cigarette box from the Queen's
coronation, and the Wedgewood Christmas plates, and the Royal Daulton
Beatrix Potter stuff, brought on regret that the owner and I never met.
The good thing about an estate sale, or one among the good things
that are possible from this redistribution of paraphenalia, is that
you can be introduced to terra incognita. I bought volume one of
Russell, "Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India," I
know not why, opened it at home and discovered, "Homer's phrase
'winged words' perhaps recalls the period when the words were
considered as physical entities which actually travelled through the
air from the speaker to the hearer and were called winged because
they went so fast. A Korku clan has the name *lobo* which means a
piece of cloth. But the word *lobo* also signifies 'to leak.' If a
person says a sentence containing the word *lobo* in either
signification before a member of the clan while he is eating, he will
throw away the food before him as it were contaminated and prepare a
meal afresh. Here it is clear that the Korku pays no regard to the
sense but solely to the word or sound.'" To the modern eye, this
reads like Anthropology of 1916, when the paragraph was written, but
to my ear it is also resonant of Monty Python's "mattress" sketch, in
which there are dire consequences if the word "mattress" is uttered
in the hearing of one of the salesmen in the bed department of a
store. What's the point of reporting all this? Something about the
suitability of gifts perhaps? That we are pleased by that which we
are most ready to receive?
An easier point to digest is simply this: I found a new author, Bruce
Marshall. A Scot who was wounded in the First World War, he
converted to Catholicism, and then went to work in Paris as a
chartered accountant. The rest you can read on Wikipedia. So far
I'm only a few pages into, "The World, the Flesh and Father Smith,"
but I've been introduced to a man on a bicycle who is undergoing an
inner struggle in the cold and the wet of Scotland, one that is in
addition to his worldly struggle, namely, is it actually or
currently, under the circumstances, completely worthwhile to pray to
the Blessed Virgin to intercede for the Conversion of Scotland? I
think this is a very funny image-- Graham Greene with wit added. And
then there's the same man thinking about why purgatory is necessary,
"There was purgatory, wherein the weak and the worldly were made
clean, because even the the best of men couldn't hope to go clod-
hopping straight into God's presence after spending a lifetime
talking about umbrellas and colds in the head." The damned, the
saved, and those whose conversation falls so far below the level of
interest required by an omnipotent divinity that additional salon-
style seasoning may be required.
Carry on,
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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