There Are More Tears Wept Over Answered Prayers...

 Oh, Ms. Scarlet. 

Ms. Scarlet. Recent polaroid.      

You dear woman.  You made the mistake of wanting to know more about my study projects.

Oh sweetheart....

My early curiosity was sparked by my grandmother and her friends, who yarned the Summers through over jelly glasses of home-made hard cider under the apple trees, telling each other stories of the way things used to be.  I used to run at large among them, and little pitchers have big ears. I could get away with maybe two questions before I was sent off to 'Go play now', so I learned early on to keep my fat yap shut and just listen and mull it all over later.  It began my lifelong love of what's disparagingly called Microhistory - which is the history of the average person.  

All events begin at the middle, kids.

1. Leonardo Da Vinci

I have been in love with DaVinci since I was 13 and saw an exhibit of his designs when it was touring the world.  It was this one. You can turn off the sound and skip ahead to the display models. That's what lit the spark.

Enjoy this southbound view of a northbound Francesco Melzi.    

The fascination was instant, obsessive, and has lasted until this day. The proof is that in searching for the picture above, I was stalled for three days reading about all the recent breakthroughs made in the study of DaVinci and his work.  I spent ten hours in front of the screen and didn't even notice the time go by.

My DaVinci project was my first big, organized 'formal' project; and the study of his life, work and times has lead me on a wonderful tour through the most surprising byways. Everything from flood control to controlling decomposition in a warm climate, from making gesso sottile to designing the world's longest bridge. Along the road I learned how to read Italian, (kinda) was introduced to the famous male prostitutes of Olde Florence...learned how to make cantarella...and you never know when those skills will come in handy. Particularly the cantarella.

This lead to

2. Albrecht Durer and the Northern Renaissance. Well, basically The Renaissance and how inspiration and learning was transmitted back and forth across Europe from the 1300's to 1519. 

And Albrecht Durer. 

Because Albrecht Durer. He breaks my heart.

3, 4, 5.   Oregon History/Portland History/Milwaukie History. 

 Sadly not a joke.     

Every word the truth. 

       

Home of the largest dogwood tree in North America, under which my ass used to get high after a hard day at school.   

...and here it is. This is a cornus nuttalii, folks. Common Dogwood. They don't get any taller than say nine feet.  But this one?  There's a two-story house at the far bottom right of this photo for scale.  We in Milwaukie were all very proud of this glorious tree. 

       

Being my home state, its principal city, and my hometown. Why?  Because my family were original pioneer settlers, and my immediate family used to be the caretakers of the Pioneer Cemetery in Milwaukie. We had the records that helped people locate the graves of their predecessors, and the people who came to our house to consult them told us many interesting stories of the lives and times of their dead, which to little grade school FirstNations was riveting stuff because I was a super weird kid. Much of that early history is history that my father's family helped make. Time and time again I come across the names of relatives, people I've met, places I knew, and the confirmations of stories my grandmother told. And it is absolutely wonderful to me. 

7. Folktales, monsters, ghosts and UFOS and how boojum tales begin and change over time.  

Slenderman is one that really caught my fancy.  I've got this fuckers' NUMBER. Mix Beetlejuice with Jack Skellington and add a whole lotta puberty with access to the internet and Slenderman is what you get. You're welcome.    

My mom got me into this shit without realizing it.  At first I was drug along in the wake of her obsession with all things supernatural, and then I was drug along in the wake of her obsession with all things...more acceptably supernatural. By which I mean Christianity.  I never told her that her angle on those things and mine were wildly divergent, of course. This isn't something that I'm obsessed with (any more) but I do follow it, and have been since the 1970's.

7. Bog Bodies and ancient preserved dead people.  

Kind of...dead, sure, but he seems content.    

I am your source for all things Tollund Man and Utzi.  I actually cried when they found that poor frozen dude, thinking of him all alone up there on the mountaintop for centuries. It still gets to me. From baby mammoths to Ancient Egypt, if it was once a living thing and is now all dried out and crunchy, or leathery and maybe slippery, or gooey, I am THERE.

7.  Old cookbooks, appliances, and kitchen design. 

It all started with the gift of one battered glass measuring cup.

Still got the fucker too.      

This, somehow, gave rise to a kind of frightening obsession with all things Vintage Cooking and Kitchens.

 I was steadily filling my house with everything from old appliances to eggbeaters back in the late 1980s, when we were selling at swap meets. Most prominently I had vintage Foley cooking utensils all displayed on my kitchen walls.  Well over sixty different objects as I recall.  Then I finished collecting the entire Foley catalogue of kitchen gadgets and interest waned. Now I'm back in black and ready to rock, and currently reading-

-The Star Trek Cooking Manual, 1978  (It's fanlore-canon!)
-A Bachelors Cupboard, Containing Crumbs Culled From The Cupboards Of the Great Unwedded
-The Cult Of The Chafing Dish
-The Fireless Cookbook, 1869
-Country Commune Cooking, 1972
-West Oakland Soul Food Cookbook, 1963
-The Web Foot Cookbook, Portland, 1885
-...and, um...five more that I just bought online. 

All at the same time.  And this works for me quite nicely. It's how I approach all my projects.

You see, most people think like this:

A flow chart. If/then, yes/no. Nice. Linear. Logical.

This is how I think:

 

A tumbleweed tornado.  Chaotic, peripatetic, eventually ends up tangled together in a solid mass and catches on fire.      

And I like my tumbleweed tornado. Everything travels along wherever it will, and it all makes unforeseen connections and ends up in fascinating places until finally it becomes a giant shitpile of learning. 

That catches on fire.

So there ya go.  I am a wild and wacky party hero.  Woo baby.

Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno bids you buon giorno.