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Wabi-Sabi-Hobbyists

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Yesterday we had a great discussion about noticing the beauty in things that have a history, whether they are people, books, or old trunks. Jacque sent this photo of a family heirloom – a well-traveled piece that is now her coffee table. You might be able to make out the year “1807” on the side of the trunk, which is the year the Strattons started their journey. I can only guess it’s rather humbling to set your mug of pumpkin spiced organic decaf on a trunk that was once attached to a wagon rolling over the unspoiled prairie. How can you not think, “Oh, the places you’ve been’!

Not that I would ever choose to go back and trudge across the Midwest with Jacque’s relatives. Time travel is a fascinating improbability, and hobbyists are always looking for evidence. The latest craze swirls around this clip taken at the Hollywood premiere of a 1928 Charlie Chaplin film, “Circus”. Because of the position of her hand, some people are convinced the woman who walks behind the stuffed zebra is a time traveler talking on a cell phone.

Cooler heads have suggested she is probably using an ear trumpet. Why rule out the tantalizing possibility that she is talking on her iPhone? Because the cell phone coverage in 1928 was even worse than it is today due to the complete absence of phone towers and the total non existence of any supporting networks and the absolute unavailability of anyone else to talk to. Spoil sports.

I prefer to think she is a time traveler; a nun perhaps, sent there to collect objects that will be tagged for future wabi-sabi status, or to negotiate for the purchase of a Honus Wagner baseball card so it can be trimmed, shellacked, and eventually sold to fund the sister’s ministries to the poor in 2010. Naturally.

If you could travel backwards to any place on Earth at any time in history with the caveat that you had to stay there (although you could take your cell phone), where would you go?

80 thoughts on “Wabi-Sabi-Hobbyists”

  1. Rise and Shine Babooners:

    I never know how to answer this question — it always seems to be the quintessential summer vacation, kid laying in the grass, daydreaming question. I’ve toyed with living in the American Pioneer West, being an American Indian on the prairie, the European Renaissance in Florence, nearly any age in Hawaii. Being a woman at any other time than this one is usually not very attractive. That uncontrolled fertility issue, accompanied by the historically low social status of women over much of recorded time, is a problem for females.

    Cell phones are a problem, too. While convenient in an emergency, they don’t transmit clearly and other people’s habits with them are so irritating! Not my habits, of course. If I took one along, I would use it in emergencies and leave it hidden the rest of the time.

    Meanwhile, Dale, so kind of you to post the picture. I dreamt of my beloved Grandpa Stratton last night and sat on his lap again. A slice of Heaven.

    Last night my son called and informed us he was off to the Colbert/Stewart Million Moderate March in Washington. I can’t wait to hear the stories about that!

    Off to the day.

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    1. Haha, that’s awesome that your son is going to that! I wanted to, but I have absolutely no money or time to fly out there.

      Also, love the coffee table 🙂 My parents have a trunk that my mom’s grandparents used when they came over here from Finland. It’s in their living room and will someday be mine. They also have one that my dad’s grandparents used when they came over from Finland. Slightly different times, so the trunks are vastly different. One is wood, while the other is wood covered in metal. Very interesting.

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  2. Greetings! That is so weird — because it does look exactly like she’s talking on a cell phone. Even the slight pause in her stride to make a point.

    I think I mentioned this before, but I would go back to the 1920’s and be a Flapper Girl. Modern enough for the conveniences, but far enough back to a simpler time. Or ancient Greece at the birthplace of modern theater — but as a rich person so I would have servants to do the rough stuff. Being poor generally sucks no matter what time in history or present you’re in.

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    1. I agree with you , Joanne, its the 1920’s for me too, although my figure wouldn’t take real well to those flapper dresses I think the era would be fun and fascinating. If I had to choose an era only for the fashion, I would love to live in Edwardian times. I think those dresses were gorgeous. And the hats!

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      5. A couple of years ago I saw a snippet in Vogue about a designer named Mr. Pearl who was trying to encourage men to wear decorative corsets.

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  3. It’s the being stuck there that is the problem for me. I’d love to VISIT lots of different times and places. I’d love to be in the lab w/ Marie Curie when she figured out radium. I think being in Africa to hear “Livingstone, I presume” would be fabulous. I’d like to meet William Shakespeare, Chaucer, Hildegard of Bingen, Lucretia Borgia (seriously misunderstood). I’d love being on the plane w/ Amelia Earhart, right up until the castaway on a desert island part.

    But stuck in any of these places? Not for me. I’m w/ Jacque on the fertility issues and status issues and then there’s the lack of medical knowledge issue. Not to mention I can’t imagine another time being better than the one I’m in with all my friends and family and fellow baboons.

    For any photo buffs, check out the facepage of bing.com today. Fabulous!

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  4. I would want to escape cell phones but I do think that I lived in about the best time there was to live. I would want to travel to various points in time so I could keep Sarah Palin’s parents from ever meeting, and Lady Gaga’s (Who and what is she?), and Bret Favre’s, and a few others.
    Dale, with all his talents, does such a very fine job for us; we are so priviliged. But this week was outstanding, bringing back the Sherpa and adjusting to what bloggers do, etc.. Thanks, Dale.
    Have a good day and weekend and Halloween, all.

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      1. Broken down old English teacher: ruined Hush Puppies of indeterminate color with broken laces; falling-down threadbare tan socks; bare pasty white skinny hairy ankles; baggy faded rusty cords with tissue-thin knees and seat and fly open an inch at the top; broken belt around a bulging middle (not part of the costume); faded hunter green shirt unbuttoned at the navel and one turned up collar and built-up ink stains on the cuffs; wide paisley tie with the narrow end longer than the wide end; rat’s nest unkempt beard and hair; tilted patched glasses; and an abstract and lost but bemused look on the face.

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    2. I *like* the practical application of time travel, Clyde! Especially going back strategically to prevent certain people from meeting (and mating!)

      Somewhere up on Hwy 61 there is a hand-made sign that reads, “STOP BREEDING.”

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  5. Good frosty morning to all,

    We had our first real frost here last night. We’ve had some spotty frost earlier this fall. This the first one that covered everything. Fall is really here.

    I haven’t spent much time thinking about living at a different time in history, but it is tempting to want to live in a different time considering the current bad political climate in which we are living. I don’t want to go too far back in time because there are a lot of things I like about “modern life”. I think it would be interesting to join my Dad growing up with his family that operated several small cheese factories and a small farm in rural Wisconsin.

    Would we stay back in time and not grow up or would we progress through time as we grew older? If I could only pick one year I would pick a year of living in one of the small cheese factories my grandfather owned. If I had to pick a period of time to live in I would like to be born in Holland where my grandfather was born and follow his path as he emigrated to America as a very young man, helped his father homestead, owned and operated a series of small cheese factories and one farm, and then retired to a home in a small Northern Wisconsin town. If I could tag a wabi-sabi item to bring back, it would a chest of drawers that I have been told my grandfather made with hand tools which was lost in a fire.

    I think Tim asked for info on the next performance by the Orange Mighty Trio. They are set to play at the Red Stag Supper Club in Minneapolis on Nov. 17th starting at 9 pm.

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      1. those small cheese factories in wisconsin have always been a favorite of mine. thank you for the reminder about items that you would value. i have my grandmothers desk tucked away in storage somewhere. i am the only one who knows its there and when i died it will go out with the bathwater as just another piece of junk dad collected. i had better find in and bring it to a place of prominence where i can recall the family heritage and timeline that got me here.

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      2. The cheese factories that my grandfather owned did not have electricity and used a wood fired steam engine to turn the shafts and belts that powered the cheese making equipment.

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    2. I loved those old cheese factories. As a youngster, we drove 2 hours to get to our cottage and a wonderful cheese factory was at about the halfway point. So that was a spot to stop, stretch, watch them make the cheese in the huge vats and smell the tanginess in the factory air. My parents would buy fresh cheese and cheese curds. LOVED fresh cheese curds when they’re warm, salty and squeak when you chew them. Awesome!

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      1. My grandfather retired before I was born or soon after. I didn’t see any of the cheese factories he operated. I did visit one that my Uncle operated in a rural part of Wisconsin. My Uncle and his family lived in an apartment above the factory. We sometimes got packages of a special cheese from my Uncle that he made which had caraway seed in it.

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  6. I’m pretty much on the same band wagon of “visit, you bet – stay? maybe not.” I’m fond of my central heating and ability to vote.

    That said, if I could be smart enough to be a student of Albert Einstein’s when he was teaching at Princeton, that would be fun. To be involved in physics and science and to have the opportunity to talk with and learn from Mr. Einstein would be grand. Plus, I’d still have central heat and I could vote. I’d have that whole WWII thing to deal with, but heck, I’d be learning at the feet of one of the greatest intellects of the last century (or maybe ever – y’all can debate that one if you like). Maybe he’d even teach me violin. 🙂 Might have a hard time explaining the Cranberry Lake Jug Band and just what I was humming when I was around campus, though.

    Y’know how yesterday there was a brief mention of Japanese men thinking Madeleine Albright is hot? Well, I kinda have a crush on Einstein. Same thing. He’s got wabi-sabi in spades.

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  7. Pardon me for deviating from the question of the day. I’ve just been thinking of something that I feel compelled to talk about. Yesterday’s discussion was such a delight, partly because it featured that image of the hands of my old friend Marilynn. I feel I owe it to her, to her deceased husband Gene, and to the rest of you to reveal more of the story.

    Marilynn’s husband Gene worked for Ma Bell all his life, earning a pension from that. Marilynn herself had a late-life crisis of religious faith that required her to take courses at the University of MN, where I met her. Late in their lives Marilynn and Gene decided that American society was disintegrating. They felt a responsibility to do their part to work of social unity.

    Gene retired early, taking a small monthly payment. He and Marilynn moved to a site in extreme southeastern Minnesota. They built a primitive home in the side of a hill with a gorgeous view of a valley. That cinder block home had electricity but no running water and no heat except what they got by burning wood. It was an oversized deer shack, in other words.

    By living cheaply, Marilynn and Gene could behave like wealthy folks by supporting charities. They built homes along with Jimmy Carter. They wrote checks to support Amnesty International, various Indian causes, the MN Historical Society and others. I remember asking Marilynn once how many different causes she had written checks to. It was 46, with half a year to go. And that was at a time she was so worried about her own finances that she had trouble shopping for groceries.

    Gene is gone. Marilynn lives in senior citizen housing. She frets over the purchase of a bag of celery for herself, but she still writes checks to some of her “causes.” She remains a passionate reader who reads challenging books criticizing American imperialism, underlining critical passages as if she would be required to pass a test on them. She is bothered, at 87, about taking a space on earth for her soul when she should be gone so younger spirits could flourish.

    That is not just any Bible in my photo. That is not just any hand.

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    2. It’s good to hear about people like Marilynn and Gene. They remind me of the Nearings who wrote about their life in “Living the Good Life”.

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      1. I think it would have been great to be one of the students who worked with the Nearings for a period of time. Maybe when Eliot Coleman was there.

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      2. I didn’t know that students worked with the Nearings. I have heard Eliot Coleman speak and I think he is a great gardener. When I visited my brother in Maine I found out that money is being collected to take care of a mold problem in the house that the Nearings built

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      3. I’ve read everything by them in the SPPL, so it is in there someplace. Some people came just to visit, but some came to live, and were assigned work accordingly. Might be in Helen’s last book, Loving and Leaving the Good Life, which deals with her early biography and Scott’s death.

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      1. Thanks, tim. I met her when we were co-workers at the U of MN in 1967. I later picked her to join my staff when I directed the CLA Martin Luther King program. She’s good people.

        But her back hurts her, so she minimizes time at the computer. I can sum things up for her in my daily letters. It wouldn’t be like her to surf.

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    4. She sounds like an amazing woman. Thanks for passing along that part of her story. I suspected that there was more than just the hand and the bible – and it was a hand resting on, not holding or clutching, the book, which speaks to a different relationship with it, too.

      Thanks, Steve.

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  8. i would like to go back and hang out with the abstract expressioninsts. the guys who in new york in the 50’s formed the group of artists who set up their own rules for what art was supposed to be. willem dekooning, jackson pollock, franz kline, hans hoffman, wassily kandinski, robertmotherwell, barnett newman, marc rothko,
    inspiratinal stuff that only flourished for a little while but these guys all hung in there and kept doing their thing until the end. the problem may have been that once you are pronunced an artinst of note the creative juices have to come form somewhere else. its a different form of angst and emotion that comes when you know the painting you are working on will sell for a million dollars. many of them died from the hard drinking lifestyle that went with being an artist then but it would be inspirational to watch it happen. i’m sure those guys didn’t realize they were in the midst of something so transitory but so lasting at the same time. then as time rolled on in no time it would be the 60,s and i could go watch leonard bernstein and the west side story productions on broadway. it would be a kick to do the 50’s and 60’s over again. i think i would do the 70’s a little differently second time through. wouldn’t it be interesting knowing how everything is going to come out. joesph mccarthy is such a dirt bag, yeha but don’t worry about it it is short lived. russia beat us to space with sputnick oh no, yeah but we will beat them in the end andit does lead to great scientific discoveries. hanging with jesus would be a cool trip. gotta pay attention and enjoy the moment. what was it 3 years he was out there? from the time je was 30 on? i think i would have like to be ther to hang with him form the time he was about 12 or 13. maybe it would be a boring 15 years until the action kicked in but if you have to stay before or after i think i would choose the before to get to know him well rather than bask in the limelight after he was gone. i’m sure matthew mark and luke were cool guys too but i think i would prefer getting to know jc himself. we think we have political crap now, i don’t know if i could hold my tongue well enough to stay out of trouble back then.

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  9. If you had lived with Jesus, tim, I’m sure you would have been nailed to the fourth cross that day. You would have gotten in trouble with you mouth, and that is a compliment!

    In the 1970s my former wife and I read a time travel book that just fascinated us. We got extra copies so we could share it with others. My current copy is in New Jersey with a friend. But let me recommend it here, for it is a sensational read. The author is Jack Finney and the book is Time And Again. I hope that I formatted that right for an underline.

    The book conveys the psychological thrill of time travel in a way I’ve not seen duplicated.

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    1. Sounds like a good book. Will have to look it up and maybe recommend it to my “other” book club. We’ve read a few involving time travel and enjoyed them. Bet they’d like this one, too.

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      1. Anna, I invite you to read reviews of the book. It would be a great book club choice. Jack Finney has written something else you probably know, and this might give you a sense for how canny he is about crafting psychologically compelling books. His other big writing credit is the script for the movie: “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” That’s the one where people resemble neighbors so well that you can’t tell if they are aliens or not! Scary movie!

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  10. I’m still pretty infatuated with the idea of going back to the Italian Renaissance, but ancient Greece would be fascinating too. Like most of the women who have posted this morning, I’m seriously conflicted about staying there. I value the right to vote more than I value my cell phone.

    I’d also be interested in turning the clock back to the middle of the 20th century (just yesterday, I know it!) I’d like to do the 50s through the 80s over again – make a few changes along the way… inhale less and study more… ditch the loser boyfriend… If I could just go back to 1977-78, I’d do everything I could to stay at St Olaf – I really would.

    Currently, I’m wishing I could afford to go back to school and take Latin or study ancient Mediterranean civilization. That’s a present-day wish.

    Sometimes hindsight is really 20:20. I’m thinking of yesterday’s discussion. I started working in this office in 1997. The file cabinets are circa 1950, crooked and mismatched. About half of the desks, including my own, are made of quarter sawn oak. Mine is a mammoth, solid, golden, formidable piece of 20th century wabi sabi. Some staff have complained loudly about the 1950s look of the place: the poor lighting; the drafty building; the asbestos tile floor; the heavy, ugly brown block state building appearance, but I have continued to defend it and, after yesterday’s discussion, I will continue to defend it until I’m forced out by the winds of change. Thanks, Baboons!

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    1. Know what you mean. The tile on the basement floor of our church has shuffle board laid into it, the room that was the nursery has a duck and bunny border in just “those” shades of blue, green and pink. We are talking about renovating. I want better lighting and acoustics as much as the next person, but couldn’t we keep the floor?

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  11. Hanging out with Jesus would be interesting, but then, it was pretty much a boys’ club. Perhaps there’s a woman who could go back and convince Jesus to go for a little gender balance in the disciple group, but it would have to be someone far more dynamic and persuasive than I could hope to be. If I went back in time at all, I don’t think I would venture more than thirty years or so. Generations of women fought long and hard for the freedoms I enjoy, and I hold onto them tight with both hands.

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    1. Hanging with Jesus would have been cool, and despite what we see in the current Bible, women probably figured more prominently in the early church than is currently understood. Even though it’s fiction, “The Da Vinci Code” made a point of bringing to light the role women played in the early church, particularly Mary Magdalene (who was NOT a prostitute). There are writings and research which shows evidence of this, but it’s not widely known or acknowledged — Dan Brown based some of the book on this information.

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  12. As odd as this sounds, I would like to go back for the Second World War. I realize that there would be hardships and constant fear, but I want to believe that I would be one of those people who help out the war effort. I would like to be a nurse, saving men’s lives. Or a WASP. That would be interesting. Or I could play for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. I believe I could take the ridicule, insults, long bus rides, and hard games. I would just channel all of my anger at the crowd into hitting the ball 🙂 I just want to be a part of America where everyone pitched in and helped, instead of whining about taxes and politicians. That’s all people are going to remember about this era.

    Completely off topic: A few weeks ago, I had mentioned a cartoon set to the song “Danse Macabre.” I finally found it. For those who wanted to see it, here’s the link (I hope this works).

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    1. alanna, i think you can do that stuff now if you want. there are opportunities to help out the troops today
      and professional womans ball.. there has got to be something that would pay as well and live as vagabond a lifestyle as the tom hanks gina, madonna ovie of 15 years ago.
      go for it.

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  13. Maybe I’m the slowest baboon in the woods, but I just figured out that we can click on the avatar pictures to make them larger. No wonder I had trouble making out Jacque’s face in her avatar picture. It isn’t there!

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    3. That exciting gravatar development was long overdue! Until now I thought Steve’s pic was Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey. Sorry Steve. Cute as a button, you were!

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  14. Time to answer the question. I know this will sound crazy, but I think it would be interesting to see what the Depression was like for my grandparents as newlyweds on their own farm. I know it was very tough, but somehow, they made a go of it, and I would really like to see how they did it.

    They built the house I always knew sometime after my dad was born, smack in the middle of the Depression, and turned the old house into the chicken house (we used to give my dad a hard time about having been born in a chicken coop!)

    I would want to be there to tag for future wabi-sabi admiration the built-in ironing board in the kitchen. For some reason, when my dad went off to college (he is the oldest), they marked his height inside the door of that ironing board and it became a family institution. My youngest cousins grew up in that house and continued the tradition (the very youngest must have been in a hurry to grow, as there was a period when she marked her height about once a month).

    Alas, it went up in flames with the rest of the house about 7 years ago.

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    1. You would probably enjoy the book I got from Clyde this summer, “Little Heathens.” It is about growing up on a farm during the Depression, set in northeastern Iowa. I especially enjoyed the “can do” attitude depicted in the book.

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  15. As fun as it sounds to travel back in time, I find the present so challenging and exciting that I can’t imagine wanting to be in any other time in history. It’s a real mixed-bag,
    but I love it! I realize that this question is posed to tickle one’s imagination but for me it
    just reaffirmed how much I value the present. I would, on the other hand, love to have my hard-won wisdom a couple of decades earlier however.

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      1. Thank you! I’m brand new to this forum and already most impressed with the civility, intelligence, and sincerity of these
        posts. I can’t figure out how to post a photo and can only access this site by googling “Trailbaboon”. Lots to learn?

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      3. Hi Crystalbay! Thanks for joining us.
        As far as I know, you can’t post a photo in the comments box, although you can put in a Youtube video and/or a Polldaddy poll. Who knew?
        If you have a photo you’d like to share with the group you can e-mail it to me, as Jacque explained. I usually write a fresh post each morning Monday through Saturday, and am open to suggestions from our readers.

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      4. I took crystalbay’s question (I am curious about that name) to refer to posting a gravatar, you know, have I got it right, the pix next to one’s name.

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      5. If you click on the “subscribe by email to this site” checkbox below the comments entry, you can get a nice email every morning that links to that day’s post. No Googling or bookmarks needed. 🙂 (BTW – a colon followed by an end parenthesis creates the smiley – a semicolon and parens creates the winking smiley.)

        If you’re wondering about the thumbnail images some of us have, that involves signing up for a WordPress account (it’s free) – and then adding what’s called a Gravatar. That all gets done at WordPress.com.

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    2. A hearty baboon welcome to Crystalbay — do come around more often. The actual URL for this site is http://www.daleconnelly.com as far as I know — and that is all I know. Still haven’t figured out pictures, italics, bold, smiley faces, etc., so we’re in good company.

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  17. I’m pleased with such a welcome – thank you. I did upload a photo on WordPress thinking that this would show up as a thumbnail when I post here. It didn’t work, like so much else I try to do. I also tried to email you, Dale, but obviously don’t have the
    right address! “Crystalbay” comes from living in a 100-year old enchanted cottage on Crystal Bay. I didn’t realize until after I registered that you all use your real names. Mine is Nancy, by the way.

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