Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

[Flex Mentallo]

I can never be sure of course, but knowing that the Croats were staunch allies of the Nazis, and the only country trusted by them to run its own concentration camps, where hundreds of thousands of Serbs and Bosnian Muslims were slaughtered, it is not too fanciful to think that maybe this was a last stronghold hold of the Chetniks, as the Croatian Nazis were known.

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

And in another distant echo, I thought of the Berghoff, where Hitler had entertained the little girl....

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Itself destroyed by the allies...

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Just like this chalet. Like the Muslim library, like Sarajevo itself.

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

And I thought about the way in which we are shaped by our experiences, in much the same way that Tarkovsky shows us in Nostalghia.

 

 

 

The candle is still burning, but I have yet to reach the farther shore.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Nigel Osborne returned to his university in Glasgow. Bobby founded ATI, which now works with traumatised children all over the world, from China to South Africa. And me? I founded an organisation as well, but that was sometime later, and nothing to do with Yugoslavia, War Child, or ATI.

 

But after my return to London, I created my own version of one of the children’s shrines, comprised of found objects and things people had given me along the way. A rusty nail from the burnt out library, a crude whistle hand carved by a boy from the camp, a pack of cigarettes given to me by an art student in Sarajevo, Hitler's postcard, a wallet purchased in the old city, bottles of iodine and olive oil from the alpine chalet, my blue card, a ghastly post card from Hrastnik... and so on..

 

It has travelled with me, down the years…. Not as a work of art but as an act of remembrance...

 

[Flex Mentallo]

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

[Flex Mentallo]

[Flex Mentallo]

[Flex Mentallo]

[Pat Calhoun]

can't be the final chapter...

 

While Michael is resting up (an assumption- but I know those mini-essays are mighty tiring- took me a few days to work up to starting this one…) I’ll try to carry on the spirit of the thread a bit. February 1st was the start of my fifth year as a weird figurine collector, and I thought a little “who he is and how he came to be” might be fun…

The story has several beginnings. So, in chronological order… My Dad was an old Navy WWII hero (got 4 stars- was chief supply officer for the Pacific fleet) and while stationed down near New Zealand, met and fell in love with a beautiful young Army nurse. At some point they bought a little jade tiki. Some years later they produced young Pat, who (truncating a bit) became fascinated by said piece of Greenstone…

 

 

The thin inch and a half dangle opened up weird worlds for me with a magic strong and sure. But then funnybooks came along, and they too stoked my sense of wonder in a big way, and could be gotten at the corner drugstore without going halfway around the world to New Caledonia. And indeed it was books that provided the second leg of the triangular lure of figurines. There is a sweet little subgenre of tales that begin in some old curio shop where a like-(to me!)-minded soul goes searching for something that will transport him…

 

Here’s CAS:

 

Ubbo-Sathla by Clark Ashton Smith

 

For Ubbo-Sathla is the source and the end. Before the coming of Zhothaqquah or Yok-Zothoth or Kthulhut from the stars, Ubbo-Sathla dwelt in the steaming fens of the newmade Earth: a mass without head or members, spawning the grey, formless efts of the prime and the grisly prototypes of terrene life . . . And all earthly life, it is told, shall go back at last through the great circle of time to Ubbo-Sathla. —The Book of Eibon.

 

Paul Tregardis found the milky crystal in a litter of oddments from many lands and eras. He had entered the shop of the curio-dealer through an aimless impulse, with no particular object in mind, other than the idle distraction of eyeing and fingering a miscellany of far-gathered things. Looking desultorily about, his attention had been drawn by a dull glimmering on one of the tables; and he had extricated the queer orb-like stone from its shadowy, crowded position between an ugly little Aztec idol, the fossil egg of a dinornis, and an obscene fetich of black wood from the Niger.

The thing was about the size of a small orange and was slightly flattened at the ends, like a planet at its poles. It puzzled Tregardis, for it was not like an ordinary crystal, being cloudy and changeable, with an intermittent glowing in its heart, as if it were alternately illumed and darkened from within. Holding it to the wintry window, he studied it for awhile without being able to determine the secret of this singular and regular alternation. His puzzlement was soon complicated by a dawning sense of vague and irrecognizable familiarity, as if he had seen the thing before under circumstances that were now wholly forgotten.

He appealed to the curio-dealer, a dwarfish Hebrew with an air of dusty antiquity, who gave the impression of being lost to commercial considerations in some web of cabbalistic revery.

"Can you tell me anything about this?"

The dealer gave an indescribable, simultaneous shrug of his shoulders and his eye-brows.

"It is very old—palaeogean, one might say. I cannot tell you much, for little is known. A geologist found it in Greenland, beneath glacial ice, in the Miocene strata. Who knows? It may have belonged to some sorcerer of primeval Thule. Greenland was a warm, fertile region, beneath the sun of Miocene times. No doubt it is a magic crystal; and a man might behold strange visions in its heart, if he looked long enough."

 

(link to story http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/224/ubbo-sathla ).

 

And here’s from a superb yarn in Mystic #31, drawn by the incredible Robert Q Sale… (was one of the first books I bought upon PCH restart in early ‘90s- convinced me to forge ahead!)

 

 

 

In other ways the story begins on 9/11/01- what I saw didn’t make sense, and I realized I lacked the knowledge base needed to put it together. So I embarked upon a do-it-yourself political science and history course. This isn’t so much about what really happened as it is about my seeing- once I gained some understanding and tried to share- how sometimes even the most wonderful words would be insufficient. As a writer and book collector of long years- no longer a spring chicken- it hurt me that even the finest carefully-chosen volley of words would bounce harmlessly off the thick (and cleverly-constructed I’ll admit) walls of conditioning and denial. My only comfort at that point was a nurturing silence.

Thus it was, without my even knowing it, that the eloquent silence of figurines became a siren song. My 57th birthday was January 27, 2009, a time when it occurs to me to do something for myself. I had always wanted to collect figurines but never knew where to find them. The little light bulb (Helper?) went off over my head as I realized that the web had helped me source scarce books with its wide net and that online could be the happy hunting grounds… The triangle was complete.

 

soon:

 

the little temple lion in front middle was first piece bought locally 2/1/09, and the ‘Bighead’ perched on the bolt behind it was first ebay netsuke.

 

Dr Death broods over a group on top of a comics & pulps bookcase.

 

every possible space is utilized…

 

As I started buying and getting into it more and more the Japanese mini-sculptures- approx 1-1/2” ivory/wood/antler/etc with the best being from late 18C & early-mid 19C- called netsuke began to dominate. They have much beauty and awesome narrative power and one pays dearly to put them on one’s shelf.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a newbie- Tekkai Sennin (sennin = wizard) can exhale his soul for astral travel: origin of Mini-Me? Late18-early 19C ivory.

 

Edited February 13, 2013 by pcalhoun

[mrmyst]

Very cool Pat! Those figurines are very compelling...Thank you for sharing! (and your kitty is adorable)

[Pat Calhoun]

 

Tupilak is the national weirdski of Greenland - carved from reindeer antler.

[mrmyst]

...and your articles in the old CBM were must-reads for me back in those days of yore. I miss those days of yore!

[Pat Calhoun]

me too - but I'm happy to see you guys have taken the handoff and carried PCH forward. As Jimbo said: the forum's kinda like CBM (but I don't get paid!)...

[Pat Calhoun]

Bakemono is a ghost in old Japan that- desperate to rematerialize- often finds itself stuck inside an inanimate object... (is under Shelly's sig in Dr Death pic)

 

 

 

[Pat Calhoun]

Zuni fetish - 1-1/2" black marble with turquoise eyes

 

[Pat Calhoun]

I'm tagging on an encore in hopes that I'll inspire Alanna to 'feed us more'... C'mon space gurl!

 

couple of stoners from Shanghai

 

Mexican silver and stone pendant

 

feeling the serendipity within

[BOOT]

 

And here’s from a superb yarn in Mystic #31, drawn by the incredible Robert Q Sale… (was one of the first books I bought upon PCH restart in early ‘90s- convinced me to forge ahead!)

 

 

 

Do you happen to have the rest of this story? I'd love to see the ending of this tale! I'm a big RQ Sale fan, too. Thanks, Pat!