Antique Mall p.2
First off, there's this beauty:
This console television was from the 1950s, I believe. The screen was probably 13" from corner to corner. Not totally sure, but it certainly wasn't big. A documentary about "duck and cover" in case of nuclear attack was running on loop, and it was astonishing. Telling little Bobby to duck and cover if a nuclear weapon explodes nearby was one of the most blatant examples of propaganda in U.S. history, because the government knew full well that wasn't going to do a damn thing. Believing a nuclear was was survivable, though, was essential to all kinds of strategic concerns.
Watching that documentary on the same television that people of that era watched it on gave me a chill that took a while to shake off.
I also wondered what Blade Runner would look like on that screen.
Okay, two of your emails today. First, concerning the chain gang, it's Patrick W. weighing in:
Your first guess was right, it's for a miniature railway. There's a label on the box announcing "HO Scale", which is a common scale for model railways (1:87, which means that the little guys should be a bit less than an inch tall). It's half the size of the "0" scale ("half-0"), which was the smallest model railway scale introduced by the German company Märklin around 1900, the idea being that "normal people" could have a model railway in their homes instead of needing a whole castle for that (or at least a large garden). My dad was a life-long model railway enthusiast, and I grew up with lots of tracks, train engines, wagons and stuff at home. And I learned how to build mountainous landscapes using plywood and gauze and how to hide little tracks in them.
Your first guess was right, it's for a miniature railway. There's a label on the box announcing "HO Scale", which is a common scale for model railways (1:87, which means that the little guys should be a bit less than an inch tall). It's half the size of the "0" scale ("half-0"), which was the smallest model railway scale introduced by the German company Märklin around 1900, the idea being that "normal people" could have a model railway in their homes instead of needing a whole castle for that (or at least a large garden). My dad was a life-long model railway enthusiast, and I grew up with lots of tracks, train engines, wagons and stuff at home. And I learned how to build mountainous landscapes using plywood and gauze and how to hide little tracks in them.
That's both excellent information and a wonderful story. Thanks, Patrick.
Next, it's Mark W., who comes to the rescue with the full text of She Sits Amongst the Cabbages:
She sits amongst the cabbages
Quiet and forlorn
She wants a carrot on her hand
But all she sees is corn
Lettuce say a silent prayer
Perhaps they will turnip
With a Justice of the Peas
A proposal on their lip
She will look so radishingly
And they won't miss a beet
They'll say I dew with love so true
And sugarcane so sweet
She blinks, they're gone, a fruitless dream
Tis no one to propose
There's just a lonely scarecrow
Standing in the rows
She cries amongst the cabbages
Which sadly have turned rotten
Her dreams are like her garden now
Lonely and forgotten...
That is first rate. Suck it, Faulkner.
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