Significant Objects: Porcelain Scooter

Listen to the Song "Figurines" by Teddy Blanks, with Patrick Albertson on Guitar

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Significant Objects is a much-discussed experiment conducted by Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker. Their hypothesis: if a talented writer invents a story about a thrift-store object, that object will acquire not merely subjective but objective value — on eBay. How better to test this hypothesis than via a week-long collaboration with Design Observer? The fourth of five stories is by Teddy Blanks; it has also been posted to Significant Objects, and the object itself is for sale here on eBay.

Porcelain Scooter

"Figurines"

All those years we were married,
You, the beloved host of a daytime talk show
I'd stay home with the children
arranging your figurines for display

Now I stare at the mantle
Fixed on a small white porcelain motor scooter
Remembering how you told me
You wanted to ride a real one someday

Studio B, and all the lights
Flashing lowly in your metered dreams
TVs have taken flight
Leaving your objects rusting away

Three straight days of headline news
Your memorial, it was deeply moving
All the stars call to tell me
"She was the queen of daytime TV"

But I'm stuck here with your boxes, baby
Just like it was on the day you left here
you took off on your scooter,
leaving the porcelain one to me

Were you asleep? Was it too dark
when you swerved across the boulevard,
and all the braking cars,
crashing directly into a tree?

Walked right up to an ambush
They were just standing there like a ticking task force,
sisters reading your diary,
combing the wreckage, taping the scene

Camouflaged in the background,
I'm just a footnote in the life of a fallen legend,
father of her two children,
keeping her archives ordered and clean

Studio B, and all the lights
Flashing lowly in your metered dreams
and all that's left in sight
is your collection of figurines

Comments (1) | JUMP TO MOST RECENT COMMENT >>

Thanks for the nice writeup!

Sally blog
01.11.10 at 03:33

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Teddy Blanks is a part of CHIPS, an NYC-based design studio, and former senior designer at Winterhouse Studio. He is a contributor to the online film magazine, Not Coming To A Theater Near You, and a singer-songwriter, whose EP, "Complications," was released in June 2009.
More Bio >>

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DESIGN OBSERVER JOBS

MORE BY Teddy Blanks

08.18.09: Figurines
10.31.08: A Year of Political Banner Ads
04.25.08: Errol Morris's Problem With Photography
09.01.07: Olia Lialina & Relics of the Lost Web
04.28.07: Small Potatoes
More by Teddy Blanks >>

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