Wednesday, April 21, 2010

The Light Of Friendship




You might want to jot this down: if you give a man unfettered access to your lemon cucumber vine, you could get a dead frog sconce out of it.

Dave and I like to visit our local artists hereabouts, and it was on an auspicious day several years ago, visiting Lam Quang at his HiiH studio around the corner where he sculpts light into wax shades, that Dave happened onto the original dead frog sconce. He was thunderstruck, positively rooted to the floor, and pointing. "Must...have..." he droned, fumbling for cash. The item in question was glowing from the walls of the studio, the bulb inside backlighting a sheet of wax with a flattened frog in it. It was a frog rampant: a jubilant amphibian, cut down at the moment of purest joy, one arm outstretched and legs marching. It looked as though it had only just put down its bugle and pennant. Once one was able to get over the obvious fact of its death and recognize that it had been a quick one, at that, it was possible to embrace the sconce. Dave did,with all his heart. Lam was not going to part with it. He was not in the habit of retrieving dead amphibians and this one had been serendipitous. He plain liked it, himself. We left the studio.

Months later, Dave came down the alley bearing a hot pizza and Lam's head swung towards it as though it were true north. He had been shooting hoops. "I'll play you a game for that pizza," he offered. "Play you for your frog sconce," Dave countered. "Deal," said the apparently starving artist, but Dave withdrew the challenge. He did not suck at basketball, and he was well over a foot taller. He was not about to unfairly wax his friend just to score his beloved artwork. I smiled to myself. I haven't seen Lam play, but any time a man my height challenges someone like Dave to a game of basketball, I figure he's got some serious skills. I sensed a hustle. But we shall never know.

This is how a lot of things get done around this neighborhood, and a lot of things get done around this neighborhood. You won't necessarily see much money change hands. There may not be much of that to go around. Gayle, across the alley, benefits from Dave's abilities on a regular basis. Shrubs get whacked back, trees felled, stuff gets taken to the dump, rides to the doctor are provided. At least as often, something comes back across the alley. A large platter of deviled eggs and radishes made it over here one day, unexpectedly, and Dave seemed lit from within. His worship of deviled eggs and radishes knows no bounds, and had only intensified when I informed him that his radish burps smelled like farts. "How did you know?" I asked Gayle, who wiped her hands on her apron and drawled, "I know how to please a man." Man Exhibit A had already drifted away with the platter like a cartoon dog undulating through the air on a sine-wave of pie fumes.

So we have more vegetables and fruit than we are inclined to harvest, and when Lam showed a particular fondness for the lemon cucumbers, we told him to help himself anytime. He came by to graze raspberries and chomp away at the cucumbers. A few seasons may have gone by in this way before he showed up at the back door with a newly created dead frog sconce for Dave. I will not say no frog was harmed, but it was certainly not harmed in the making of the sconce. It had already been thoroughly Buicked and peeled off the pavement. And someone had seen it, and his first thought was: Dave.

I don't know if people do these sorts of things for each other in the gated communities. The houses seem so self-contained and far away from each other, excreting their occupants in metal pellets out the driveway and away. Maybe people aren't so willing to part with stuff. That's what makes them rich.

This is what makes us rich.

32 comments:

  1. I wish someone would think of ME when they see a dead frog.

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  2. You are blissfully, totally, crazy. That's what makes you rich. :)
    The light fitting in the photo above Lam's head is beautiful. Now that I could go for, if it doesn't contain frog!

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  3. I have a serious want on for some of those lamps.

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  4. I think I put a link to the lamps up there.

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  5. I like the lamp, the frog... Well, not so much. But it certainly suggests the decor in this biologist's house! Early American roadside with salting of Victorian era museum...

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  6. When one of my beloved dogs finally trots over the Rainbow Bridge (while chewing on tasty sections of it, naturally), I wonder if I could commission Lam to......nah, too morbid, even for me.

    Friends of ours, after winning a substantial medical malpractice lawsuit, packed up and moved from our friendly, down-to-earth little neighborhood (where the houses are green and the lawns are brown, and everyone on the street knows everyone else), to an upscale enclave one town over (where the houses are brown, and the lawns are green, and no one knows anyone else, but they certainly know everyone elses' business),...and they hate it. All the "neighbors" care about is what model of Mercedes you drive, and what beach in the south of France you'll be vacationing on.

    Maybe I'll get my friends their very own Outdoor Dead Amphibian Sconce. They'd love it. Nothing like giving the occupants of the pellets a cerebral hemorrhage as they drive by and see it.

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  7. I spent my "fifteen minute break for every four hours worked" on Monday watching Western Skinks play in the leaves and on the rocks out in the middle of dag-nabbit nowhere. I didn't know what they were at the time...snakes? No... lizards!... No....sna...no lizard! But now I truly know that they were wall sconces waiting to happen! Herp ID for the win!

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  8. Awesome! I love decorating with light. My daughter lives on NE 22nd off Alberta, we will DEFINITELY visit the gallery on our next trip up from Corvallis. I gotta see that gallery!!

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  9. Charming story - neighbors getting along with and helping out neighbors. (Is that legal???) We do it here in the country, too! And once a year my son and friends go frog-gigging. Perhaps I'll go into the sconce bidness too! (Nah, probably not!) And, that Gayle does know her men - my husband would drool over radishes and deviled eggs too (who knew!!!)

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  10. What a fabulous story. I wish I lived in such a neighborhood! I don't live in a neighborhood at all...just a wide expanse of coutry. I love the barter system though!

    ♥Spot

    PS~ I also love that sconce!!

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  11. I love your neighborhood (and your philosophy on life). I should check with you before any future moves to see if anything is available next door...ya never know where this vagabond might end up. Enjoy that frog!

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  12. Now there is a frog who understands how easy it *isn't*, being green...

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  13. Bruce: you probably have a velociraptor sconce. Don't you.
    Lisa: I endorse the drive-by cerebral hemorrhaging!
    Robert: pop down the alley. You'll probably recognize our place.
    Deb: FROG-GIGGING? Not the same thing at ALL!
    Spot: a lot of what people want in country living is also here in NE Portland, I think. 'Cept the space.
    Reb: we own the house next door. Just ask.
    Lynn: It isn't always easy, is it? We can provide highway escort service. You and me.

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  14. Love love it! One of the best parts about having an unruly vegetable garden is giving away the harvest. I don't have as many neighbors to share mine with, but I do have a nice work community that every summer starts poking around about my squashes and tomatoes and peppers, and are we going to make salsa again this year? And another similarity: I live in Austin where we love our Mexican free-tail bats. Well, our office has our own special bat: a baby that somehow got in the building and was smashed in the jam of a third-floor office door. Still there, at least 7 years later, flat and dried and somehow mummified. It's legendary.

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  15. Ahh, the truly ensconced frog, settled securely where the fattest flies are sure to congregate.

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  16. No, people don't do these things in gated communities. They just try to get better cars and wives and children than their neighbors and leave it at that. No deviled eggs, no frog lamps. Rarely even any conversation. It's a little sad, I think.

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  17. I used to have exactly that kind of neighborhood. Missing it still.

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  18. I suspect that wherever Murr goes, neighbors like Gayle and Lam will follow...curious-do the radishes go into the deviled eggs or do they chaperone alongside..to serve as an aside or accompaniment...inquiring minds...

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  19. You're too informative by half. I didn't know what this sconce thing was until the end. I also learned from elsewhere that it can be a military fortification.

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  20. Anvil: well that would explain the word "ensconced." And why more things than light bulbs can be ensconced.
    Dreamfarmgirl: Dave has a Salsa Garden!
    Ronda: great point about the flies. What would suit a dead frog better than dead moths?
    MikeWJ: All our neighbors have better cars and children than we do.
    Pamela: the radishes are attractively arranged to the side. I never realized that was how you please a man. Seems a lot harder to pull off than what I was thinking, though.

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  21. Actually really entertaining writing works pretty well too, but that's even more work. :-)

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  22. I want to move next to you. Will you accept me as a neighbor.

    Regarding your comment on my blog -- yes, this blog format is best of all. It is straight forward, easy to read the words, pleasing to the eye, and you don't have to go through hoops to adorn it with weird stuff to make it attractive. Besides, if you are like me, you wouldn't know how to change it even if you wanted to.

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  23. We've got a vacancy across the street. Previous tenants were drug dealers, but we won't discriminate if you have another occupation.

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  24. What a wonderful neighborhood.

    We've lived in a gated community for going on seven years, and I don't know one single person. Or frog.

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  25. I had a perfectly good ossified freeze-dried frog that I found under the White Pine that I put aside -- outside -- for just such an art project. Unfortunately, a raccoon decided it would make a better snack. Not even deviled eggs and lemon cucumbers could bring it back.

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  26. I had a perfectly good ossified freeze-dried frog that I found under the White Pine that I put aside -- outside -- for just such an art project. Unfortunately, a raccoon decided it would make a better snack. Not even deviled eggs and lemon cucumbers could bring it back.

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  27. We've got a vacancy across the street. Previous tenants were drug dealers, but we won't discriminate if you have another occupation.

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  28. I suspect that wherever Murr goes, neighbors like Gayle and Lam will follow...curious-do the radishes go into the deviled eggs or do they chaperone alongside..to serve as an aside or accompaniment...inquiring minds...

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  29. I used to have exactly that kind of neighborhood. Missing it still.

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  30. Ahh, the truly ensconced frog, settled securely where the fattest flies are sure to congregate.

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  31. I love your neighborhood (and your philosophy on life). I should check with you before any future moves to see if anything is available next door...ya never know where this vagabond might end up. Enjoy that frog!

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  32. Actually really entertaining writing works pretty well too, but that's even more work. :-)

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