A Chair Was There

A little background before I play with a poem or story.

One of my projects this summer--between official retirement date and date of probable move to unfamiliar but more familial territory--is to catalog my belongings and appraise the praiseworthy. Not sure how to go about the latter, but an opportunity came up for free appraisals at the local community center. I asked whether furniture could be included and was assured I could bring in my step-grandmother's rocking chair.

Easier said than done. The runners on the rocker dragged their feet out the door, into my car, out of my car, and up the walk to more doors of the community center. Inside, items other people brought in were lined up on long tables, and the audience and item-owners settled in for two hours of storytelling and value-guessing.

Market value, we were reminded, is what someone will pay for something. Insurance value is what it would cost you to replace something.

One of the themes that emerged in the antiques appraiser's narrative is that today's market is down from what it was about 10 years ago (recession notwithstanding). Reason: Millennials. That's right. If millennials never heard of your celebrity portrait or autograph (not even Shirley Temple?) it's not worth much. If millennials would rather go to IKEA and put together their own chairs, rocking or not, they won't want to buy your used junk (aka, their great-grandmother's Victorian rocking chair).

For two hours we learned a bit about metals (jewelry and coins), pictures, porcelains, and what-not and how to tell what's valuable and what's not. Mine was the only piece of furniture up for evaluation, and I was afraid after all that time (the session ran well over the appointed time; people had lots of stories about their stuff) I wouldn't even learn the approximate date of Grandma's chair. But finally the appraiser got around to it.

I knew the chair's dark brown stain wasn't its original. When I'd seen it in Grandma's house (Eugene, Ore.), it was stained antique white to match the needlepoint. But clearly the needlepoint wasn't original either, and that's the second thing the appraiser remarked on. (The first thing he said is "Brown is down." Dang those millennials and their open-concept light and airy aesthetic!) The wood around the needlepoint in the seat shows markings of a previous seat covering, which he said was likely cane.

At any rate, it's likely Grandma or whoever she received the chair from thought they had better ideas than the original designer. My mother apparently liked her own idea of brown (more natural) more than the antique white. I've not touched it since receiving it from my mother so many decades ago that I don't even remember now how I got it in this apartment. Stubborn runners!

Since my very first sighting of the chair was in the mid-1970s, I really had no idea of its true age or even whether it was a mass market manufactured imitation of Something Fine. The appraiser had no hesitation dating the piece to 1880-1890. He also had no hesitation valuing it, at auction, at less than $50. (I didn't feel bad; other than the diamond jewelry brought in and a unique World War II silk pocket map, not many of the valuables were valued very much.)

Lots of things have sentimental value, which means they'll stay in the family or among old friends for longer than the IKEA chairs will last. This chair has been promised to my niece, who can decide its value based on her own aesthetic. Meantime, I have stories to get back to. This chair has seen some places I don't know about yet. It'll see a few more. Time to time travel.

Love, hosaa
hopefully not just sitting around

Insensitivity Reader

A couple of weeks ago at Bethesda's Writer's Center I listened in on a panel discussion on "Autism through a Literary Lens." This was the first time I'd heard of using "sensitivity readers" (Google it yourself) as a way to keep one's writing from offending groups one isn't a part of. I don't want to offend people. Of course not. I want my writing to be perceived as crappy on its own lack of literary merit.

My brain traveled back in time to a nonsense poim called "Armadillo's Song" that I wrote in college and reproduced on this blog a half a dozen years ago or so. I've invited said brain to discuss the matter with an (imagined) insensitivity reader.

Reader: So, why did you write a poem about a ghetto?

Brain: It rhymed with "meadow."

Reader: Why did you write a poem about a meadow?

Brain: It rhymed with "ghetto."

Reader: Why did you write a poem about a meadow and a ghetto?

Brain: Because "oasis" and "desert" don't rhyme.

Reader: Can you talk about using the name "Walter Mitty"? Another author's invention?

Brain: He lived in a "city" and was "giddy."

Reader: Were you aware that the title "Armadillo's Song" is co-opted from Native American culture?

Brain: Coinky-dink. Why do you say "Native American" instead of "Indigenous"? I'm a little behind.

Reader (thumbing though Google search results): Correction, it's from Bolivian folklore.

Brain: I forgive you.

Reader: I didn't ask you to.

Brain: Well, as long as you feel bad.

Reader: That's your whole problem, you just want me to feel bad. Oh, wait....

Labors of Love

Two shows within a week's time invite comparisons: A Doll's House, Part 2 (DH2) at Round House (temporarily quartered at the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Lansburgh venue) and Love's Labor's Lost (LLL) comfortably nestled in the library-within-the-library at Folger. [Note: Spoilers within.]

Holly Twyford and Craig Wallace in A Doll's House, Part 2. Round House Theatre via Facebook.

Love's Labor's Lost set designed by Lee Savage for Folger Theatre

Both stories conclude that love is harder than it looks, no matter how agile your language skills are. Language requires communication skills, which are broader than the leaps over furniture Nora (Holly Twyford) effects in her abandoned Doll House. (Here, I go by the Signet Classics paperback edition, which eschews punctuation and possessiveness in titling Ibsen's play A Doll House rather than the more common A Doll's House. Signet also eschewed the hyphen in Moby Dick. What can I say.)

What the stories demonstrate is that true love requires respect, and respect comes from (and with) honest communication. Nora and Torvald traveled that road (with injuries) after Ibsen's story ends and Lucas Hnath's continuation completes. And Shakespeare broke the rules of Comedy by bringing this revelation about honesty and respect to his heroes and heroines without joining them in a four-way wedding at the end of the story (or five if you count Don Armado and Jaquenetta, which you should). I almost want to see Love's Labor's Lost, Part 2 after the four principal couples reunite a year and a day hence to see if respect conquers all after all. It didn't in Nora and Torvald's case.

As for the theater-going experience, I saw both shows in matinee mode, which I've been told doesn't bring out the best in either performers or audiences. I've always disagreed with that and have rarely been disappointed. I'm far more awake in matinees than evening performances, and I've never discerned a lack of energy in matinee performers.

That said, I'll say I appreciated DH2 but loved LLL. For some reason, I was expecting more comedy (though not necessarily Comedy) from DH2 than was there. As a modern take on Ibsen that wasn't reflected in the set (a broken home), the production added language (vernacular; i.e., vocabulary; i.e., dirty words) I didn't expect and didn't appreciate. It wasn't clever, to my mind and sensibility. 

The DH2 set was devoid of a home's warmth, which I suspect was the point but made for a somewhat lifeless experience. On the other hand, this allowed the focus to be on the character's speeches, which indeed were speeches rather than dialogue (mutually respectful communication). 

In contrast, the LLL set, a sumptuous library (with a hidden bar behind the books), provided an idealized world for would-be academics showing off their erudition and sophistication. 

For both DH2 and LLL, the delight is in the performances. I am in awe of actors, and the direction guided their performances to perfection. Round House is always full of favorites, and the cast of four--Twyford, Craig Wallace (Torvald), Nancy Robinette (housekeeper Anne Marie), and Kathryn Tkel (Nora and Torvald's daughter Emmy) all are RHT alumni. I always look forward to actors I consider familiar friends. Over at LLL, that familiar friend was Eric Hissom as the ridiculous Don Armado (I'm reminded of the Adolpho character in The Drowsy Chaperone). Other standouts in the cast were Zachary Fine as a virile yet ultimately humble Berowne and Megan Graves as an adorably impish Mote.

Love, hosaa

Respect's labor's found