Thursday, May 11, 2006

Common, Uncommon Objects

On South Congress in Austin, Texas, there is a running theme.

Uncommon Objects


Objects deemed uncommon (as in the name of one of the stores, pictured above) are really the most common objects you could find: the body, dolls, celebrities, religious imagery. It's only the context in which they are presented that makes them appear uncommon. A nearby store, Rue's Antiques, carries the same theme:

Marilyn I

Face

Chicken and the Egg

Outside, dolls and mannequins rule the road:

Sun in eyes III

Sun in eyes I

Mannequins



Hey, is this Kate Bush?

Dark-haired mannequin

Inside the Uncommon Objects store, this is might be where cliche Hollywood serial killers do their shopping...

Doll

...or perhaps the store is a blueprint of the fragmented infantile sexuality:

Child Clown


The entire shopping area is consumed with the past. Old dolls, dead celebrities, dark views of childhood. The only reference to the future is a piece of scripture about one's inevitable demise:

Psalm 23


Let's escape from this street and all its themes. Let's go away to this cafe down the street, where everything is outside, in the sun:

Jo's Cafe

8 Comments:

Blogger SippicanCottage said...

We have spies in Texas now. Excellent...

5:01 PM  
Blogger Maxine Weiss said...

Jo's Cafe: Why is girlfriend sitting at a table alone? Her only company is a laptop, when there's three other gentleman....who AREN'T trying to pick her up.

Who wants to guess why girlfriend is failing to attract those three gentlmen?

Very obvious reason, and has nothing to do with the laptop.

Peace, Maxine

8:10 PM  
Blogger Maxine Weiss said...

Does the guy way off to the left.....where the helmet is....have his legs crossed at the knee? Tsk Tsk.

Back to girlfriend. She's got great posture. Proper sitting ettiquette. The way to sit. She's got a good body---proportioned well. Not too fat, not too thin. But there are two, possibly three mistakes, and they are biggies....that she's making (and it has nothing to do with her being engrossed on the laptop---that's a good thing)........big blunders....which are causing the gentlemen species to ignore her.

Spot the flaws....and very easily changed too.

Peace, Maxine

8:19 PM  
Blogger Jennifer said...

Maxine: Girlfriend is wearing headphones. She obviously doesn't want to be approached.

9:38 PM  
Blogger Chris Althouse Cohen said...

What would girlfriend think if she knew we were scrutinizing her posture online?

1:02 AM  
Blogger goesh said...

The big nose with the glasses is my favorite.

12:50 PM  
Blogger Maxine Weiss said...

Girlfriend should have thought of that before she goes out in public, and chooses a chair front and center.

She's posturing. She's preening. Front and Center. Your eye goes to her first. Everyone else is background.

The classic statuesque brunette, commanding attention.

All right fine. Like I always say, don't have an open house if ya ain't got nothin' to show.

She's got somepin' to show. She needs better footware and hoisery, and those bangs need to be swept off the face, for a more dramatic look.

She wants attention. Trust me, she wouldn't have chosen that seat, and positioned herself in such a manner, if she weren't holding court, and we, the audience are her subjects.

Well, get some good pumps and hairdo, to punctuate the ensemble, and she'll see a lot more action then she's getting in the photo.

Peace, Maxine

7:14 PM  
Blogger Chris Althouse Cohen said...

Maxine: Interesting that you see her as front and center. Actually, if you were looking at the cafe from the street, she would seem to be off to the side. If you were looking at her from the part of the cafe where you order drinks, etc., she would seem to be towards the back. Says something about photography, I think, since it's a pretty long shot and you should be able to get an idea of the spatial relationships. Perhaps my choice of camera position emphasized her because I had been looking at her. Why? Because she had taken the only outlet in the whole outdoor cafe, and I wanted to hookup and blog.

10:51 PM  

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