Precioussssss

Ok, not that exactly. I am thinking about how everyday objects are precious in reality, but we have all been trained not to see them that way. Once upon a time, a bottle was as precious as the milk inside it, a dress was as precious as the paper and box it came in to keep it safe. We kept everything. Just everything. Every spare nail or screw, even, because it meant one less task to do or money to spend.

Somewhere along the way, saving things for reuse was conflated with hoarding, disorganization, being cheap/stingy, and that is a shame. We have fully lost our wonder at the miracle of everyday objects. I got into the mindset at the thrift store yesterday, as I looked at the enormous store and all it had to offer. There were tools that revolutionized a farmer’s workday a hundred years ago next to an impossibly tall pile of slender LED worklights. There were the dumbest kitchen towels I have ever seen in my life, next to a staggering pile of stir fry pans/woks. A pressure cooker that looked like it would almost certainly decorate your ceiling for you – with soup.

We take all of this wonder for granted because we’re supposed to move on to the next thing we want/need. We have been trained on a daily basis that we are here to acquire, not to rest, not to reuse, and definitely not to recycle.

One of the things I think about when making one of my pieces is that it has to be precious, far more precious than the thrift store item it began its life as. Otherwise there is no point. I am by no means trying to get wealthy off this art, and couldn’t anyway, but I want the price to make you stop and think – is it really that important to me? Does it capture something that is so unique that I need to pay this price for it? Every single item is one of a kind – there will never be another one, ever. And I rejoice a little, in thinking that a monster and a human have formed a bond, and that the bond is durable, and that monster won’t end up at the thrift store because someone really came to love it.

I have been reading Lab Girl by Hope Jahren via audiobook, and if you haven’t heard her read her work, get it. Your library should have it, so it won’t cost you anything. But it will bring some wonder back into how you look at the world.

Back to my original point though. I found a lot of good things at the thrift store. Things so I can make my sales table displays taller and more interesting, things to help transport my art to shows, and things that are so silly, so ugly, so broken, that I can’t leave them behind. They have a kernel of greatness in them. Somewhere, way deep in there, they were made by human hands. And if we discount the day to day work that humans hands do, what do we have left?

Updated: I have posted on Patreon about frothing at the mouth with excitement over my latest find, a tavern sign. 😀

A fun time at The Broken Goblet!

This very cool venue for NJ Darkside Market is one of more awesome breweries I’ve seen. They were like if Magic Hat up in Burlington, VT had more space for visitors/tap room, and also had a wicked sense of humor.

I met a lot of really great people while vending, and have to give a shout out to all of them. You made our night! But there is one young DM who bought my small Dread Gazebo, and I promised to share the full story with him, and what better way than to post it here for others as well. It’s a silly bit of old tabletop gaming lore and being made fun of by your besties.

Eric and the Dread Gazebo

In the early seventies, Ed Whitchurch ran “his game”, and one of the participants was Eric Sorenson. Eric plays something like a computer. When he games, he methodically considers each possibility before choosing his preferred option. If given time, he will invariably pick the optimal solution. It has been known to take weeks. He is otherwise, in all respects, a superior gamer. Eric was playing a Neutral Paladin in Ed’s game. He was on some lord’s lands when the following exchange occurred:

ED: You see a well groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you see a gazebo. 
ERIC: A gazebo? What color is it? 
ED: [pause] It’s white, Eric. 
ERIC: How far away is it? 
ED: About 50 yards. 
ERIC: How big is it? 
ED: [pause] It’s about 30 ft across, 15 ft high, with a pointed top. 
ERIC: I use my sword to detect good on it. 
ED: It’s not good, Eric. It’s a gazebo. 
ERIC: [pause] I call out to it. 
ED: It won’t answer. It’s a gazebo. 
ERIC: [pause] I sheathe my sword and draw my bow and arrows. Does it respond in any way? 
ED: No, Eric, it’s a gazebo! 
ERIC: I shoot it with my bow. [roll to hit] What happened? 
ED: There is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it. 
ERIC: [pause] Wasn’t it wounded? 
ED: OF COURSE NOT, ERIC! IT’S A GAZEBO! 
ERIC: [whimper] But that was a +3 arrow! 
ED: It’s a gazebo, Eric, a GAZEBO! If you really want to try to destroy it, you could try to chop it with an axe, I suppose, or you could try to burn it, but I don’t know why anybody would even try. It’s a @#$%!! gazebo! 
ERIC: [long pause. He has no axe or fire spells.] I run away. 
ED: [thoroughly frustrated] It’s too late. You’ve awakened the gazebo. It catches you and eats you. 
ERIC: [reaching for his dice] Maybe I’ll roll up a fire-using mage so I can avenge my Paladin.

At this point, the increasingly amused fellow party members restored a modicum of order by explaining to Eric what a gazebo is. Thus ends the tale of Eric and the Dread Gazebo. It could have been worse; at least the gazebo wasn’t on a grassy gnoll. Thus ends the tale of Eric and the Dread Gazebo. A little vocabulary is a dangerous thing.


The above is Copyright © 1989 by Richard Aronson. Reprinted with permission. The author grants permission to reprint as long as all copyright notices remain with the text.

“Eric and the Gazebo” was written and copyrighted by me in 1986. It was based on an event at a role-playing game, but the addition of several jokes moves it out of journalism, or at least into Docuhumor. Some of the people at the game retold the event, each with their own spin, but I was the one who told it to Lee Gold, editor of the fanzine “Alarums and Excursions,” who insisted I print it up for her. After reprinting in several amateur publications, it leapt to “The Mensa Bulletin.” I then foolishly allowed a reader to reprint it on the internet (who knew from internet in 1989). For many years his was the only interent reprint which even mentioned that there was a copyright on it (thanks, James Chu). Eventually I became a professional game designer for Sierra On-Line and the late lamented “ImagiNation Network” and after having been accused of stealing my own story at a gaming convention I have spend several hours every year protecting my copyright, especially since I incorporated E&tG into a chapter of my as yet unpublished novel. ” – Richard Aronson, Feb 15, 2000

a snarling slobbering Dread Gazebo with one baleful eye and huge sharp teeth glares from the Coffee and Creatures booth.