From: Janet
Subject: Street Find
Date: April 18, 2010 8:05:28 AM PDT
To: Linda
Hello Linda,
I am impressed with all the neat things you find on the beach. Now hear this: One evening, while Nicole and her family were here during Easter break, Lester made an emergency trip to the supermarket to get a bottle of ketchup (something we do not use) for Max's French fries. About three minutes after he left he returned laden with treasures he had found in a box across the street from our apt. in front of a brownstone. There were 8 beautiful Innuit soapstone sculptures of walruses and seals and whales. Some were mounted on small pegs that had been bored into pieces of bone and caribou antler. Now you have to know that everytime we visit Nicole in Toronto we pass a highend Innuit gallery and I drool over the pieces in the window, all of which are very expensive. So finding these pieces was indeed serendipitous. One of them looks like it could have been made by Brancusi. Also in the cache was a stone, possibly quartz, sculpture of a buffalo (I think) that I presume is southwest Indian. These all are now nicely displayed on one of our dining room bookshelves, right in front of the travel book section.
But that's not all. Two modern and rather funny abstract cows (or maybe pigs?), quite small. These are Lester's favorites. A cudgel! It's a real weapon, a piece of very worn, old looking tree branch about two feet long with a big knotty "ball" on the end. It is now residing in our umbrella strand near the front door to take care of Islamic terrorists who may want to do us harm.
Still more. . .a very dusty old book about World War I that it turns out our son-in-law, Rob, whose academic speciality is WW 1, has been trying to find in out-of-print online sources! And last but not least, something for Max who is crazy about trains: a wooden sign or plaque that has a picture on it of an old fashioned steam engine and passenger car. It's the sort of sign that you see hanging in pubs that try to look olde timey. I am told it is now hanging in his bedroom.
Quite a haul, wouldn't you say? In the past we have found some neat things on the street--an Eames chair and a good semi-antique Windsor chair. . .
(Janet lives in New York City. I begged her to take some photos for me and she sent these two straightaway.)
