I've always loved vintage bric-a-brac, not necessarily antiques, but ordinary objects that lived a life before and retain within their creases and cracks the patina of times and people long since gone: art deco lamps still casting shadows from their past; ceramic teacups into which someone's soul once was poured; mid-century love-seats Beatnik girls fell asleep upon at parties they weren't invited to; coverless coffee table books, of course, and scratchy vinyl recordings of phantom orchestras and crooners; not to mention sepia-tinted old souvenir maps of Florida featuring no reference to Orlando.
But what do with all this junk? I suppose there's the secret hope that the art deco lamp might have a magical connection with Aladdin, that perhaps the teacup will turn out to be valuable fine china hand-painted by Edward Hopper, that the love seat came from the Hollywood home of James Dean, that such dusty ephemera will ultimately be worth a small fortune if sold at auction. Unlikely, obviously. These objects, whatever their provenance, are merely the archives of our consumer society. Bits and pieces of yesterday saved from the scrapheap by a vague apprehension that even inanimate things have feelings. You are mine now, teacup, will you love me?
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