Posted in 2010, tagged artifacts, austrian empire, books, designer's tales, душекопание, E-e, identity, life's trifles, me, photos on September 6, 2009 |
2 Comments »

There was something I collected for its own sake, and persistently, for a long time: electrical-mechanical junk. To this day I have a special feeling for broken bells, alarm clocks, old radio coils, telephone speakers and in general for objects derailed, worn out, abandoned, and which are given for the last time a chance to exist, with a pitiful vestige if respectability, at a flee market behind a theater. I went to ours often, a little like a philanthropist visiting a slum[...]. I was a patron of for old spark plugs, and bought dilapidated car magnetos, nuts, utterly useless commutators, fragments of unknown devices, and carried them home and hid them in shoe boxes, in drawers, wherever I could[..]. Had someone asked me, no doubt I would have answered immediately that this thing or that might prove useful in some project – but that was not the whole truth, and I knew it.
(Stanislaw Lem, Highcastle. A remembrance.)
I don’t know is it the influence of that city, of its rich old-cultures-spun fabric, of layers and overlaps, under-the-ground and above- artifacts of generations of lives, but my late father-in-law developed the same ailment. I hear his son now resembles his father, even though in his younger years he was making fun of his father obsession. Just like his own son does, now. Even though I, too, had been laughing, something inside made – still makes -me lust after the lost treasures of his numerous boxes, bundles and drawers, filled with remnants of vintage clocks, rusty locks, opulent keys from disappeared cabinets, bronze door knockers and brass hardware…
[Photo credit: Jonathan G.]
Read Full Post »