ESTATE SALE CONFIDENTIAL: CATACOMBS AND TWILIGHT ZONES

February 19, 2012, by 3 comments

Apropos of the coming Mardi Gras, this weekend was a parade of estate sales, fun sales and sad sales, sales that stank to high heaven, those of low income and high treasure and those of great wealth and insipid taste. From Thursday to Sunday, thirteen sales total, with ESC’s recurring guest star Mike Haeg on Friday, and special guest star Holly Petersen on Saturday. Despite hitting the magic thirteen, I still missed three more. Never, never in my many years of wandering the estate sale circuit have I seen so many sales in a given weekend.

This calls to mind lyrics from the official theme to Estate Sale Confidential, the White Stripes’ “Rag and Bone”, especially the part where Bone (Jack White) politely leaves a home that has rejected him, and begins his journey across what we should consider Detroit.

If you don’t want it, we’ll take it, if you don’t want to give it to us, we’ll keep walking by. We’re not tired, but we got plenty o’ homes we ain’t been to yet, on the Westside, Southwestside, Middle East, rich house, dog house, outhouse, old folks house, house for unwed mothers, halfway homes, catacombs, Twilight Zones…

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ESTATE SALE CONFIDENTIAL: THE CRUELEST MERCHANDISE

February 12, 2012, by No comments yet

A blue velvet, electric owl painting. Need I say more?

“The worst trouble a man can be in, I think, is to have one hope left, and that a hope of something so inherently improbably that he knows deep in his heart it won’t happen… Three feeble gardenias on a vendor’s tray in the rain an hour after curtain time; a cup of fly-specked jelly beans in a shop window: these are the merchant’s last precarious handhold on the window ledge. The cruelest merchandise is a talent for which there is no demand.” –Joseph Liebling, from “People in Trouble”

Estates sales, we might remember, are a business. They’re not merely a group of grieving individuals piling the detritus of the recently deceased on tables and then pocketing cash. As I mentioned last week, there are collectors and antique store dealers plundering this stuff to fill their stores, real and virtual, but let’s not forget that the sales themselves are run by men and women who depend upon their success for their livelihoods.

And there are some weekends where I don’t how the hell they manage. This was one of them.

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WE LIVE, WE DIE, WE DANCE

February 9, 2012, by 1 comment

Pina, 2011. Directed by Wim Wenders, conceived by Wenders and the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch.

There are blessed and brief moments in human history where people gather to form an organic unit–a team, a company, a troupe–that performs wonders.  Often, the individuals didn’t know they’re special; often, they were not special, but thrived in the group, coming fully alive for the first time.

The 1927 New York Yankees. The Founding Fathers. The Mercury Theater performing Caesar, Macbeth, War of the Worlds, and finally, Citizen Kane.  Insert your favorite band here.

We watch, lucky to witness these spectacular convergences. And, oh, to actually be a part of one of these blessed aggregates! But that is too much to ask for, generally. So we must be content to bask in their sun-bright presence.

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ESTATE SALE CONFIDENTIAL: WATCHING THE PARADE GO BY

February 5, 2012, by No comments yet

There are moments in the estate sale biz when you find yourself thoroughly outflanked by the likes of the professional. When you realize that for some people, estate sale carousing is a serious undertaking, it’s a man’s bread-and-butter, it puts the kids through college, pays the mortgage, and keeps one in beer and skittles, etc., etc.

I was surprised as all hell to run into the mother of all collectors’ sales, in Spring Lake Park, and that a rare Friday evening sale, advertising antiques, turned out to have virtually no collectors at all. This was a busy weekend, where we saw virtually every type of sale imaginable–seven total with Mayor Mike Haeg and ESC guest star Holly Petersen, including two collectors’ sales, two shoes off sales, two warehouse sales, and a damnable Craigslist sale that I would beware of in the future. But we came away with a bonanza of sorts.

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ESTATE SALE CONFIDENTIAL: IT’S A MAN’S WORLD…

January 29, 2012, by 6 comments

When you live in a dismal town or suburb, bereft of the internet or cable television, unable to drive and far from any challenging diversion, it must seem like life is a veritable wasteland. Wandering through a pair of sad homes in Bloomington and Richfield with ESC special guest star Andy Sturdevant, we could only shudder at the thought of growing up in a place where stealing your father’s Playboy magazines served as the height of intellectual challenge and teenage rebellion. Andy said he grew up in homes similar to these; my home town is much like Bloomington but not near a city as hip as Minneapolis.

There but for the grace of God…

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THE NEUROTIC TIGER: HERE COMES THE PRINCE

January 26, 2012, by 1 comment

By now everyone who reads my baseball stuff knows that the Detroit Tigers, my Detroit Fucking Tigers, went crazy and signed the affable and corpulent Prince Fielder. As a Tiger fan, I have seen a couple weeks of emotional roller-coaster riding: a few weeks ago, catcher/DH (really DH) Victor Martinez wrecks his knee and is out for the season, so that means, naturally, that the season is over in January (this is how the neuroses work.) Then, suddenly, Detroit grabs Prince Fielder from Milwaukee to the tune of 214 million dollars for nine long years. Immediately, it appears that the Tigers have the World Series locked up. Congrats to us, we are the champions.

Of course, now that the dust has settled and we’ve all calmed down a bit, maybe we can take a look at this situation for what it really is, and maybe get a bit excited, but not too excited. After all, Prince is just one player.

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ESTATE SALE CONFIDENTIAL: TAXI DRIVERS AND WIDOWS

January 22, 2012, by 2 comments

This taxi driver used to Walk for Mankind...

Who likes to shop? I sure don’t. Clothes shopping, shoe shopping, and, cripes almighty, shopping for towels or linens of any sort drives me up a wall. A set of sheets costs a hundred dollars. Do you know how many books you can buy for a hundred bucks?

Ah, but therein exists yet another blessed joy of estate sale-ing. You can buy most of your clothes (no underwear or sox, natch), your linens, and especially your Goddam sheets at estate sales and get the benefit of wandering through the lives of your fellow citizens. You get your product and you get a story. That beats the Mall of America, every time.

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ESTATE SALE CONFIDENTIAL: MINI-CONFEDERATES, A HAG, AND THE CHAMPIONS OF ISRAEL

January 16, 2012, by No comments yet

Moshe Dayan watches over us as we sleep.

Do you ever wonder what strange little secrets will emerge when you die? Death may come quickly, too quickly to tie up those loose ends or toss the dirty magazines squirreled away in the cedar chest. But even when death arrives with the speed of a donkey cart, that’s when infirmity and indifference grip the body and soul, and you simply don’t care who finds what on the mantle, by the bed, or in the sock drawer.

I was thinking about this as I plumbed a digger’s sale with my friend, Mike Haeg, last Friday. Between a bizarre Thursday sale, a couple on Friday with the Mayor, and the usual Saturday circuit with my wife, Janice, I hit six sales total (and numerous thrift stores, not to mention the finest hot beef sandwich I’ve ever stuffed down my throat.) It was even-Steven across the board, two each of clean sales, digger sales, and a couple in-between. But there wasn’t a lot to show for it other than a good time.

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ESTATE SALE CONFIDENTIAL: THE SHARPSHOOTERS OF EDINA

January 8, 2012, by 1 comment

Suits, skulls, knives, ivory. Life magazines, hobo biographies, wife-swapping novels, cookbooks. 50s pinups, maps, Ansel Adams’ originals, a 3-D image of Mao Tse Tung. Never used food processors, broken record players, balls and bats and backgammon sets.

What do all of these have in common? They’ve all been found at estate sales, man.

Every weekend, my wife and I pile into the Honda and drive all over the Twin Cities, classified ads in hand, looking for estate sales. Being a teacher and an underemployed novelist means that we don’t have tons of money, so estate sales help us buy things–like a new Kitchen Aid food processor–for at least a fifth of their value. As I look around my house, I notice that many of the things I own–from the books on the shelves to the fancy plates to the clothes on my back–are from estate sales. Yes, that means I’m probably wearing the clothes of the dead.

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A YEAR IN THE SILVER: MY TOP TEN MOVIE MOMENTS

January 2, 2012, by No comments yet

The end of every year sends movie critics scrambling to play the list game. You know, where we comb through that year’s titles for the privilege of allowing a select few a spot on on our “Top Ten” list. Those lists serve as a way of telling people “I love this movie!” as well as signaling our superiority by keeping certain flicks off . Because a guy who made exactly zero dollars on his film writing should be able to lord over Terrence Malick now and again, right?

I have a top ten list, but there’s a heavenly top fifty out there, all the great movies I know I missed this year simply because I didn’t have the time or the thing never made it to Minneapolis. This troubles me. So instead of the usual top ten, I’m going to make the list very personal, and reflect on my favorite moments watching movies, old or new. This is much different from the ten best of the year–for instance, R. Alverson’s masterful New Jerusalem, which I picked as my favorite movie of 2011, isn’t here, since I saw it on DVD, at home, by myself. The moment was memorable only because of the film (though you’ll see I have a DVD I watched alone as well.) This list serves as a sort-of thank you letter to the gods of cinema, to the people who made these events happen, to the good folks with whom I saw the movies in question, and perhaps it will inspire readers to think back on their happiest moments at the cinema this year.

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