March 4, 2009
These have been floating around my parents’ house for as long as I can remember, by the dozens, it seems. There’s a pair serving as a keyfob, another set tied to a Christmas ornament, it seems, and various bells clinking around amidst their never-ending and unintentional collection of heavy little objects. I’d guess they came […]
Filed under: Adornment, Fetish, Instrument, My father's HLOs | Comments (0)
March 2, 2009
I should be smarter. I should be able to classify and categorize based on Google findings if nothing else. But this one eludes me. Dad sent it along, and it seems to be machine-turned brass from India – maybe even with spiritual or religious symbolic significance. But I’ll be damned if I can figure out […]
Filed under: Art, Ephemera, Fetish, My father's HLOs, symbol | Comments (0)
February 19, 2009
Once upon a time, his paint was perfect. You can see it on his good side – the bright and chipper eye facing the lucky shamrock dangling from his left jowls – that look that says fortune will smile on us both if you keep me close. Flip to the other side – the stem of […]
Filed under: Artifact, Ephemera, Fetish, Miniature, My father's HLOs, symbol | Comments (0)
February 13, 2009
It’s rare that an object straddles the razor-fine line between art and camp, between craft and kitsch. Yet here is a little man of bronze, made to recline in the cup of a water-pocked stone. His blobby countenance, his Giacomettian proportions keep him from being a thing of manufactured cuteness and maybe lend him a […]
Filed under: Art, Facsimile, My father's HLOs | Comments (0)
February 9, 2009
This conflicted fellow was cast in pot-metal and chromed in cheap silver probably more than 100 years ago. His top-hat is a jigger, his feet end in a spoon, the better to mix you a nice drink and present you with a little moral dilemma in the bargain: Do you spoon something into your drink, […]
Filed under: Artifact, Ephemera, Facsimile, My father's HLOs, Objet, Tool | Comments (2)
February 8, 2009
If there’s a story behind this creature, my father will have to supply it. It arrived in a box of things he offered for photography, and it suggests nothing but a happy life aquatic, swimming through the dust in a drawer and surviving on pencil shavings until he’s required to dance on his tail, chatter […]
Filed under: Facsimile, Miniature, My father's HLOs, Objet, Toy | Comments (0)
February 5, 2009
This looks like an ice core taken from the frozen surface of a lake the size of a desktop. It’s actually chunk of Plexiglas that Dad sliced off of a 3/4-inch-diameter rod he had kicking around somewhere in the basement. He was kind enough to mail it to me along with his other HLOs, which […]
Filed under: Jetsam, My father's HLOs | Comments (1)
February 4, 2009
A cunning little paper box limned with cetaceans – cheerful dolphins, a playful sperm whale, a … what could possibly be the apt adjective for a narwhal? From the previously mentioned collection of Dad.
Filed under: Art, Ephemera, My father's HLOs, Tool | Comments (2)
