Kunstkammer

Spring has been here so long that for those of you who haven't started your annual cleaning, you may as well blame it on the neighbors, dig out a bottle of Perrier-Jouet and relax in an old-fashioned Bohemian-poseur way. It's going to be a long time before you see that floor again. And for good reason.
For those with guests and events to worry about (and by guests, we mean those pesky things that dislike seeing small furry things scuttling about darkened corners of the room) we suggest taking your collection of oddities off the dining room table, and arrange them in some meaningful way.

Both Zed and I have taken the art of arranging clutter to heights previously unknown. Zed's collection of peculiarities from the East may rival a small museum's collection, while I have amassed a rather amusing assortment of dust-covered books and photographs of members of this planet long deceased that serve to delight the eye, and amuse your three year old cousin. (We are fairly certain that he will end up as interesting as Zed and myself, and most likely you dear reader, as taking the time to peruse these postings ensures an intelligent mind as well a unique perspective on the world.)In the off chance you have no interests, and read this in a desperate attempt to find something to delight the eye and amuse the mind, or simply have not had time to Colonialisticlly pillage the goods of foreign nations for your schedule is too full with Dionysian delights or fin-de-siècle melancholia, this is the post for you. In short, a collection of the strange and the bizarre, yet somehow aesthetically pleasing.

I have long been a fan of odd bottles. We had a lovely collection of prohibition-era bottles (alas, empty! prohibition was a difficult time for us all, and the preservation of good vintages of embalming fluid was simply not on our minds. How our values declined then!) however, they simply vanished one morning. So a friendly bottle of Bayer Heroin will have to do. Mind the Surgeon General's warning: pregnant or nursing women, (or even talentless sods who think they can play bass guitar) should avoid using this at all times. Be warned that this product's side effects are much greater than the friendly stomach ulcer.

Big Fish Eat Little Fish byPieter Bruegel the Elder, and Pieter van der Heyden. Etching. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York.) 53.601.14 (58).
http://www.metmuseum.org/home.asp

I have a thing for prints and drawings. And this is probably my favorite. Its all the glory of a Sixteenth Century Netherlandish seaside outing withhalf the effort. And without the pesky sunbathers.

Self Portrait, Salvator Rosa. Oils on Canvas. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York.) 21.105.
Bequest of Mary L. Harrison, 1921
http://www.metmuseum.org/home.asp

Why send a greeting card when you can send a portrait of yourself writing in foreign tongues on a skull? Unlike those horribly tacky Christmas Cards you get every year, you wont ever mourn the day you received it with no check inserted between the sugary-sparkling cardboard folds. No, this is the perfect gift to send by post that will remind the recipient of your feelings for years to come. Additionally, it will liven up any guest room with its charmingly bleak landscape, and mournful figure.

Alas, dear reader, I ramble. Until next time.

D.