Thing weighs an absolute ton, but it came with an annuity

Terestchenko

I suppose I should reconcile myself to the Norman Bates in all of us, when various probates roll around. Sentiment is such an unattractive term, after Miss Austen anatomised it in plain sight, that I think what we'd like to suggest in its place is, courtesy. One doesn't sniff at a legacy, at least in chambers; and to be perfectly honest, one never knows what might turn out to be of interest, now that we blog.

But it's difficult to reckon with the floor-loading demands of all that silver, to say nothing of the crannies and nooks required for the blizzard of objets de vertù which keep getting handed down and handed down, as if nobody had the good sense to enjoy a shadow for a change. 

I did draw a line against Granny's Bugatti, which required a staff of 5 simply to serve it break-fast. Anyone acquainted with Italian carburetion at the best of times, will certainly tell you how foppish it truly was. Chafing dishes at White's couldn't have fed those cylinders.

Yet, when Uncle André's sewing room mannequin came down to me from Mama, I took pity on her remaindermen and hauled it on home. There was, at least, that purse to weigh in its favour.

We haven't discussed Uncle André by name, but he does figure in our development, as when we implored him not to go. I don't really think he sewed at all, but that he needed a space of his own with his mannequin, was thought only reasonable in view of its incongruousness everywhere else. Voilà, a legacy was born - along, by way of mitigation, with some dynamite Bobby Short LP's, and a vacuum tube pre-amplifier for which I drool to this day. Patiently, he watches from our music room, humming lieder to the rain.

Is this even a question of nourishment? The difference between experience and its conduits comes up in probate all the time, as cabriolets, carburetors, chafing dishes, pictures, purses, vacuum tubes, recordings. Everything disperses. 


So much to organise; they've made whole religions about it. But I have been left the sea, and how would it catalogue me? 

ii, iii  Ivan Terestchenko photography

i         Thomas Isermann

iv       Douglas Keating