The Jewellery District

It is down Broadway, I think maybe from 5th to 10th, I'm not quite sure. But I was down there, wandering as I do, inspired in part by a reprint of an old whitebordered "linen" postcard, showing a color view of Broadway, looking south from 8th Street. It looks different now, but not so much as one might think.

The stores on the street itself are usually small, and display great fistfuls of neck chains, of all descriptions, hanging against the shop windows. I stopped in one business little wider than my arm span to buy a silver watch chain for my pocket watch. The gentleman had more than a few, all mounted on yellowing slips of cardboard, printed in blue with descriptions of the item so fastened. Amidst the detritus of relentlessly forgettable factory-stamped bagatelles was a single cuff bracelet. Tarnished silver, almost long enough to serve as armour, and showing the subtle signs of age and having been crafted for purposes not involving Westerners. I asked about it, the gentleman was evasive, I let the matter drop.

That was the only interesting item I saw in the Jewellery District as I went up the street. I was alittle surprised at just how disappointed I was by what I saw. Everything I saw in the windows was utterly ordinary stuff. Really, really, ordinary factory product. One window after another. A few strands of ill-nacred-pearls did not help. Later I wondered if the whole area really is like that. I'm hoping that I just did not know something essential about the place. I'm not expecting it to live up to the stories people tell of visiting the Tuscon Gem Show, but I am wanting it to be more than this.

I had to skip stopping in at Clifton's Cafeteria to eavesdrop in order to catch my train home.

American Clocks & Fountain Pen shop

Well how cool is this! The second hand came loose on my pocketwatch so I take in to American Clock in Claremont, where I always go, and the gentleman whose father started the business, fixes my watch handily. We get talking about things, and their repair, and somehow we get onto the environmental soundness of fountain pens, and I mention having FINALLY visited the mad fabulousness that is the Fountain Pen Shop in I think Monrovia. (Well if you like fountain pens.)

Well it turns out his business used to be right in the same building on the same floor as the Fountain Pen Shop! "On 5 th St, between Hill and Broadway." Go figure. I told him about my recent visits to the area. Someone else came in just then, so we could not continue the conversation, but I look forward to asking him about what it was like.

I've read an article about the history of the Fountain Pen Shop. It is less than one hundred years old, by a bit, and yet it was the FIRST shop of its sort in Los Angeles (it moved out to Monrovia in recent years.) I can hardly credit that a pen repair place did not exist in the city until well after the start of the 20th century.

This interests me too, how at one time these two businesses, both about items of "hand jewellery," were so close together. Both have survived, both are about items that have endured despite being largely displaced. This is something I am wondering about technology--the stuff we don't especially consider as we use it seems to be what is "of the moment" and the stuff we do think about and seek out may be more "vintage." There is some thing about intentionality here, consciousness. Questions we will have to ask more often--about what we use, how we use it, what is involved in our using it. Clothing styles, especially women's clothing styles, have changed to not consider the use of pocket watches, and modern papers don't take fountain pen ink so well as a rule. (The watch guy and I had spoken about a possible revival of pocketwatches, as carpal tunnel syndrome spreads. Some new ink makers are formulating inks to work on modern papers. I *believe* Noodler's has one that REALLY protects against identity theft.) Once an idea arises it hardly goes away completely.

Just Lusting

I discovered the Stanley London website. Oh my goodness gracious....

Sextants, telescopes, compasses, various optics and navigational helps, a few pocket watches, a heavy antiqued brass chain for a pocket item--compass or a watch. Lots of handsome functional brass and steel items. I desire most of them fiercely.

Now you know I have a perfectly funtional compass and a pocketwatch. Oh, but, but, but. I'm thinking that going steampunk would be a good style decision to support my wearing a bush jacket of peculiar design to accomodate all the little telescopes and compasses, and watches and whatever else, each fastened with its own handsome chain, (would I end up looking like a Victorian gentleman-gangbanger, with all the chains? Well not if I wear a skirt....) and the fountain pens each with different colored inks, and the collection of Moleskines (feh, yeah, the ones magically altered to take fountain pen ink! Feh.) Then my discreetly handsome leather knapsack can hold my colored pencils, and watchsprings and gluestick, and little stainless steel coffee thermos, and my Sigg water bottle, and a nice snack packed in a tiffin....

Well, truth to tell, I can do alot of this already, and I am well-supplied for places to visit once this well-provisioned. Sorta a grown-up Dora the Explorer I suspect....

How to Get Divine Energy Into the World

I'm not sure I know, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with knowing where you are, when you are there. I carry around a cheap old compass on a chain, and the abandoned pocketwatch my beloved inheirited from a long-ago roommate. Both items are useful, literally and symbolically. Which I guess makes them liturgical-- the material and the spiritual are so completely suffussed into eachother.



Well what are your thoughts?