Tchotchkes
A lonely childhood, maybe, finds me predisposed to bonding with inanimate objects. It was summer in Massachusetts. I’d been sick. Everyone went to the zoo without me … I’ll stop there. What’s more likely is my reluctance to photograph actual people, owing to an expectation of aggression and violence from strangers, or growing up in Massachusetts. Portraits of the living don’t come easily to me, too jumpy and eager to please. But while tchotchkes aren’t people, they are made by them, and carry spirits, if only in traces—smirks, blushes, crow’s feet, a certain glint.
Many of these images were taken during the lockdown, a context that occured to me only later. What independent, family businesses remain in New York — mostly in Little Italy, Chinatown, and other such districts — often have tremendous window displays, either of seasonal tableaus, general merchandise, or a totally non-commercial, commemorative relic. Many shoe repair shops, for example, display replica dolls of the store owner, clutching a plush hammer in one hand with the other hand plunged into a felt boot. After lockdown’s initial dead-bodies-in-Ryder-moving-trucks period of fear and isolation subsided, my friend Tom and I would walk up and down Manhattan, taking photos while drinking coffees and nips, and the closed-down shops — some suspended in time to March 2020 — were some of the only places to see some form of an unmasked face. I’m not sure that was a motivating impetus for these, but it’s something to note anyway.
I think marionettes are underrated and should have a comeback. But then you meet a puppeteer and think, wait a minute maybe not. Have you seen The Double Life of Veronique? Beautiful marionette plotline in that one. While I love Charlie Kuafman, I found Anomalisa lacking … what I don’t know. Humanity? Mister Rogers has always made me feel deeply sad and lonely. When I saw the exhibit of the show’s actual set in Pittsburgh this summer I was going to cry, but not in a good way. I was always more of a Pee Wee guy. I remember watching Big Adventure alone as a kid (home from school sick) and turning to tell someone how funny it was when he gives Francis and his dad the trick gum, but no one was there. It’s possible that was the instigating moment of “self” for me, that I was, not alone, but separate, which is to say, alone. A loner? A rebel? It’s notable that I saw Pee Wee’s bike on the same trip to Pittsburgh. It’s in the Bicycle Museum. Instead of wanting to cry, I wanted to brush the tiger-loudspeaker’s teeth with my index finger. Mister Rogers radiates consolation. Pee Wee wakes up and his blanket rolls away like a window shade. Even his bunny slippers are alive. He radiates celebration and absurdity. The age-old Sartre vs. Camus.
All of these photos were taken in low-light situations (window boxes, thrift stores), with a Minolta camera and 400 speed color film, so the lens was all the way open at 1.4 with a shutter speed of 60 or 125, producing those terrific backgrounds and the soft focus intimacy. The frog and dog picnic I love because it reminds me of certain of Ursula Gullow’s paintings. I’m grateful to my cameras for the access they have given me to the world of images like this one, mysterious even to me who “made it,” although truly I found it — the tchotchke maker, the store worker, the window, the light, the camera, the film made it.