Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Hanging Around - A Ready-Made Collection (Plus more of my damned story)
Not long ago I was sitting alone in a dark room on an uncomfortable chair, as I am wont to do, wondering what might make me an interesting person, were I ever to become one. I could do something extraordinary, except for the inconvenience of thinking of something extraordinary to do and then the further inconvenience of actually doing it. I could achieve notoriety, but since my present level of notoriety appears to be as notorious as I’m likely to get, and I’m fresh out of ideas to get more notorious that don’t involve me getting out of fuzzy pants and leaving my little apartment, this appears also to be a dead end. I could even possibly become one of the World’s Sexiest People, but this would certainly mean that the word “sexy” had been redefined and the approbation attached thereto would likely ring somewhat hollow. No, it seemed to me, the only way to become interesting was to find something interesting about my sitting-in-an-uncomfortable-chair-in-the-dark self, and convince people it was worth their attention. And then it all made perfect sense.
Hangers.
Maybe it’s not making quite the kind of sense I’d like it to after all, but let me keep digging here and see if I can climb out of this treehouse. Hangers might not strike you as The Epitome of Interestingness (which is, coincidentally, the name of my toegazer band) but they are more interesting than my sorry ass sitting in a hard chair in the dark. Especially when one - me, for example - has such an amazing collection of decorative AND functional hangers already preserved in my special hanger containment zone (or “closet").
Hangers can be so much more than those wire jobbies that got such a bad rap from Mommy Dearest and various other unsavory associations. Even a voluptuously-shaped wooden hanger can be as distant and empty of personality as an underwear model at a Car Show. But once, my children (and surrogates), once, hangers said something. Something enriching and exciting. Something worth saying. Something…
... something Silverwoods! I am having trouble recalling actually shopping here; this surprises me, since I didn’t often shop in places that looked like this while I was growing up, and based on the deep wear-marks on this specimen (collectors have “specimens,” not “random crap lying around their closet floors"), I’ve had this hanger for a damn long time. So this is a good example of a hanger that says something. Unfortunately, it says something boring, in a boring way. Let’s see if we can improve on this. I’m all about setting a low bar, and then braining myself on it.
YES! I am positive that I never shopped here. I have no idea how I got this damn thing. “Milton’s?” This is a place in a part of Philly I would have had to take a train and a llama to reach. I would never have wandered in by happenstance. Especially not from the look of their website, which makes this store seem like it’s the kind of place that just does not cater to the likes of me, in my hard chair in my cold (oh yes, it’s cold too) dark room. And “Milton’s” just sounds like the kind of place that sells clothes I’d get beaten up on the playground for wearing. “Quincy,” too, even though that’s technically a city or a commonwealth or whatever the hell they have in Massachusetts. The only thing on this hanger that doesn’t sound like it would get me beaten up is “Chestnut Hill,” which sounds like a euphemism but a fun one. However: This hanger does have two absolutely critical saving graces: first, it has that cool wiggly-S thing at the top, which is exactly how people used to sign the Declaration of Independence, which happened regularly both in Quincy and Chest Nut Hill back in “the day.” It is a very cool wiggly-S and I wish I could make one even remotely as Wiggly (without losing all the “S"-like qualities, as I typically do). The other saving grace of this hanger is that I own it, so it’s easy to justify having it in my collection. Otherwise I’d have to throw it away and I think it’s still got some quality hanging left in it. Milton builds ‘em to last. They wouldn’t have it any other way in Chesty Nut Hills. I don’t care what they do in Quincy. I’ll see them on the playground after lunch.
Let’s move on.
This place I remember. They had the nicest inseam-measuring guy. No gropes, no prods, it was all professional with those guys, on both sides of the equator. And this seems to be echoed by the cool sophistication of the fellow on their hanger with his hands in his pockets. Whether you are getting an academy award or just look like that Oscar dude, these tailors made you look like you were outlined in solid gold. It’s a serious piece of hangermanship and I’m proud just to be able to look upon it every so often.
This one is easy. I obviously have this hanger because I did so much business with the Crandall-McWhozits and Somebody company at some point well before I was born. In fact, rigorous Googling reveals to me that this company apparently did cleaning of furniture and rugs for hotels in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - where my father was born and raised, and where my paternal grandpappy lived till he was in his 80s, which, ironically, was in the 70s. I guess he had his hotel furniture cleaned there and they returned it to him on this hanger. No wonder people consider this particular kind of hanger so valuable nowadays. Also noteworthy: the fun wavy metal thing they use to stick it together. You just don’t see wavy metal wood-sticker-togethers like that much anymore. Unless you’re me, and you can just check one out every time you visit your closet. But even then, don’t overdo it. Pacing is everything.
This has been a favorite of mine since my mom took me shopping at the huge Sears store on Laurel Canyon back when I thought anything at the huge Sears on Laurel Canyon could possibly be cool. I think a denim jacket came on this hanger, but really, it matters not - the hanger was really the important thing; the jacket was just an excuse. Look at the graphics on this, man! The businesslike Copperplate across the bottom, setting a secure foundation for the overstuffed, cloud-filled lettering above it, exuberant and dot-hyphenated - all surmounted by the hemisphere of the heavens, even with stars, bedad, each painstakingly depicted in all its twinkly glory by underappreciated hanger artisans laboring in underground hanger factories.... I won’t forget you, valiant hanger artist. Mainly because this hanger rocks. Unless you put it away gently. Ba-BAM!
This is the final hanger in my collection. All the remaining ones are boring-ass blankfaced wood or skinny-ass undifferentiated wire. But this one, though it contains both wire and wood, is clearly different from all the others. I purloined it from the abandoned cube of an ex-co-worker who retired some months back, leaving in his glad wake a variety of desk accouterments and one mother-old hanger. This is the simplest design in my collection and actually is a bit hard on the clothes, but back when phone numbers had only two digits, maybe people were shaped a little differently. It’s called evolution, folks. You can see the changes in the hangers as time went on; obviously this reflects our own physiogonomic evolution. It’s all there in Lamarck. Stop questioning me.
Oh, and one final note: more of my self-indulgent chanukah story is in the extended entry. If you click through, the terrorists will be 25% less likely to win within the next month. Don’t tempt fate.
The Dreydelmaker - part the third
Dov turned back to the miracle table and saw that several more men had gathered there. The toss was to him - the pot went around for the new players to ante. The kitty stood at nearly 30 zloty now. That’s enough to make it worth divulging himself as a player of caliber. Till now he’d just been another schlemeil with a dreydel. After this throw, he suspected he’d be seen in a slightly different light. Fair enough, he resolved, lofting his pony into the well with an economical flick of his wrist. The time, it seemed, was now.
The dreydel landed with a short hop and spun rigidly, sliding across the smooth disk into a side wall. It felt almost too early to reap this harvest, he thought, even as the attendant called out “Hey!” and the crowd sighed and groaned and surged a little. The kitty went to the attendant, who parceled out 14 zloty to Dov. As Dov slipped them into his sack, a new player tipped in and anted up, throwing a shin. Shins and Nuns went around the table, each shin kicking in two more zloty, each nun leaving the increasingly fat kitty untouched, and four or five new players at the table added fresh ante to the pot in the hopes of cashiering it. None succeeded, and by the time the throw came back to Dov, the kitty was at 22. Twenty-two would do, Dov decided as he pulled his dreydel from his pocket and fired a toss with a crispness at odds with his appearances. the pony leaped into the well and spun harmonically for a few moments before skidding over and clattering down. Dov did not lean forward to see the fall for himself, but let the call come to him like an echo awaited for a lifetime: “Gimmel.”
It was a solid take, not even taking his two prior victories into account. The crowd at the table was frustrated and disappointed, but even they had to admit, this scarecrow of a man had played one magnificent game of Miracle. Of course, having done so, no one would dare to stand his game again tonight. He’d have to move on, if he wanted to keep playing.And he didn’t just want to keep playing, he felt that to do anything else would be to resist a phenomenon much greater than himself, something tantamount to denying an eternal truth - so he moved further into the barn and sidled up to one of the Dagesh rigs.
The mark was a wooden plank set into the earthen floor, as long as a man is tall. Ten paces away was the target,a burnished disk as wide as a man’s leg is long, painted in bright, thick concentric rings. Between the two lay vacant space awaiting either chaos or greatness. Miracle was a game for lucky men, but Dagesh was a game of skill.
Dov traversed the barn to reach the furthest-off rig, approached the attendant and put in his name for a match. He kept his voice low but a handful of followers had trailed him from the Miracle tables and they craned to overhear; a few heard, passed the man’s name back to a friend or two. Meantime the pitchers were lining up at the mark, all facing the target and gauging their throws, eyes distant, fingers twitching. One rocked slightly; one davened. It was a motley crew up there; a stubby man at the far end was the favorite but Dov didn’t like the way his lip was sweating, preferring instead the chances of a stout old man with a quick smile. The broker signalled that the books were closed, but not before Dov had placed a wager or two of his own, as well.
“Ponies ready!,” the attendant called, and all five men brought forth their dreydels. Two were garish monstrosities; one was a crude hardwood toy. The favorite had a roughly-carved top, painted white with gold letters; it looked like it had seen the Hippodrome before. The old man’s dreydel was a curious, stubby number with a short spindle. It appeared ungainly, like some seabirds do on dry land. But his fingers held it lightly and Dov felt that it might soon take flight before his eyes.
“Hold! Throw!” The incantation elicited a group response as all five men pitched their ponies at once. The trajectory was, generally, lofty - the one man who threw too straight saw his pony land first only to skid right off the target. The other four fell on a more downward path and tended to stay closer to where they landed. Two, however, landed off the rig and on the floor, to the shame of the pitchers and the apparent frustration of several bettors. The favorite landed on the target but near the outer edge. The old man’s chubby pelican of a pony landed last, seeming to float down through the air to come to a gentle touch-down quite near the center mark, where it stood spinning for a moment or two before toppling over. The old man had won; three ponies had flown the rig altogether. Dov had placed winning bets on both these aspects of the outcome. The odds against doing so were high; his ____ zloty wagered were returning to him sevenfold, and while he tried to mask the extent of his winnings, some in the assembly were too shrewd not to notice what he’d accomplished.
It was therefore to Dov’s relief that he was among the next five called to the marker. He didn’t have to try to look poor, but he did want to blunt any expectation that winners would keep winning so he let a toe push through a hole in his boot and let his shoulders shlump. He got the broker to take a few more of his bets, discreetly, and then assumed his place at the marker - the far outside position, his toss the farthest from the target but the least encumbered by the other pitchers. To his left stood stood his four competitors: one in dirty homespun, two in cheap linen, and two in velvet and silk. One of these, immediately beside him, he had heard laughing at him earlier; the man’s disenchantment was palpable at being thrust again together with guttertrash in such a visible setting. In his heart Dov felt badly for him, out with his wealthy friends to win the world; how distasteful must it be to him to be confronted even here by Dov’s gaunt poverty? Well, be he was indictment or mere inconvenience, Dov was what he was, so he squared up next to him at the mark and pulled the dark shining pony from his sack once again.
Each man held his dreydel in his own way; Dov held his as it told him to hold it at any given moment - which at this moment was upside-down, the spindle rising up like a flower’s stem into into his cupped hand. “Hold!” Some pitchers had been swinging their arms or shaking out their fingers; they all stopped and held. “Throw!” Five ponies sailed again through the air, all arcing high, all converging on the same goal. Two landed heavily and bounced right off; two landed lightly and regained footing toward the red zone of the target.
Dov had thrown his pony with an audible snap of his fingers, without reversing it back to its normal heads-up orientation. It flew upside-down high up into the dark of the barn’s upper reaches, coming down on its spindle like a rain funnel. It hopped a little but really didn’t bounce or move from where it landed, crux tauntingly uppermost, defying gravity even in its fall and twirl, square on the black spot in the exact center of the target. There was no question but that Dov had fallen most fairly and the crowd groaned in appreciation of the artistry of his throw as much as with frustration at having bet against him. Such a throw was a fluke, of course, but after all, they had witnessed it.
His pony still spun, stock still on its head, almost humming as Dov stepped forward to claim his victory by retrieving his winning throw. A stranger, indigent and unprepossessing, the odds against him had been five-to-one. His winnings came to fourteen hundred zloty, a wealthy man’s income, a serious sum. It was growing to be too much to move around with him, and he had to seek out a banker to manage the physical bulk of his new fortune for him. He’d clearly worn out his welcome at Dagesh as well as at Miracle, but he could still probably do all right with a few rounds of Chelm before the opening of Methuselah.
The Sampson pits were heating up by now, with ponies in three weight classes sent down into the shallow rings to smash each other to ground - last top standing the winner. The crack of dreydels colliding, battling each other for primacy in round after round… Dov knew he couldn’t abandon his sweet pony to the cruel vicissitudes of such confrontations, and feared it might even hurt his chances at the big game later - might poison odds against him prematurely, might even damage his beautiful handiwork. Sampson was crude, a mere brawl generating the excitement that violence always generates, but it held no interest for Dov. Brute force was not what had bought him to the Hippodrome. His advantage was elsewhere. So he just watched the pot rise and fall a few times, hoping to allow any recollection of his prior successes to fade from brandy-soaked memories. Some men wouldn’t forget, he knew, but they’d keep their own counsel for whatever advantage it gained them.
After some certain time had passed, Dov moved, casually but deliberately, over to a Chelm table. There he stood watching as seven men threw their ponies at once, to the raucous accompaniment of howls of encouragement and derogation. Seven ponies spun, expending their energy, falling one by one as fate might dictate: two gimmels, two nuns, three heys. A few spectators had bet three hays and collected three-for-two on the odds; one had bet two pair and a trey and cleaned up at seven-to-three. Dov took his time, watched the players, watched their game. He figured he could get three or four bets down before giving up any anonymity he might still wish to retain for the main event later in the evening, so he’d limit himself to two games only. Chelm was neither quite a game of skill nor yet one of chance; a canny player could find accomodating odds for such myriad outcomes that the right bet could quickly turn a stake into a fortune. He cradled his pony in his hand as he watched the hubbub around the table; it calmed his thoughts and sharpened his vision for telltale details. The fat man opposite him threw too hard; the men flanking him, not hard enough. That bright blue pony - it veered widdershins. After watching three rounds, Dov felt pretty much at home in Chelm. He strolled behind the crowd to the wager-takers’ bench, laid a double wager against his banker’s marker (confirmed from across the barn by a nod from the banker himself) - and after a few more moments of general commotion, the attendant closed betting and called for the throw.
For seven men to throw seven four-faced tops that land with four on one face and three on another is a rare occurrence - the payoff on quad shins and trey heys was ten-to-one. Dov had bet _______ zloty. He was the only one to have wagered so accurately or heavily in this game, and held back from collecting his winnings till the little winners had snatched up their handfuls of coins. For Dov, the banker had to come over to settle his account with another marker. “Why don’t you try a little smile?,” the banker asked him, handing over a new note. “You’re cleaning the place out!”
Dov glanced at him, blue eyes dubious. “The night is young,” he said, “and it’s a work-night.” With this, he took the marker reflecting his new-won fortune and walked slowly around the periphery of the gaming tables to the Methuselah courses. Twenty-three names had already been accepted for the evening’s rounds. Dov paid his thousand-zloty course fee and made it twenty-four, leaving room for another dozen to follow him. As he made his way back to another Chelm table, he felt the eyes of several savvy wagerers following him, taking note of his actions, tracking his movements. Some had been on his trail since his first Miracle wins, and some were hearing just now of him, third- or fourth-hand by rumor and vague description. But mostly, he was still just a face in the crowd, undistinguished, weaving his patchy way through the smoky crowd to a fresh Chelm table, watching quietly, placing a wager - this time, six Hays - and gathering back up his winnings of eight-to-one on a _____ zloty bet. His cunning had not yet failed him, but now it was nearly midnight and nearing time to begin the tournament that had really brought him to the Hippodrome in the first place. All till now had been prelude. He’d earned his credibility and paid his dues. Now he cleared his mind for the games to begin in earnest.
