Okay, Just a Few Things...

Hello. Welcome to the Weekend Gene Pool.

Mr. Stephen Dudzik of Olney, Md., writes to ask: “What kind of artwork do you have in your home? Any original prints, paintings, sculptures or finely crafted statement furniture? A George Nakashima table perhaps? Or is it just clumps of dog hair and boots on pedestals?”

I was going to dispense with this question quickly and facetiously, saying that the only really distinctive work of art in my house was this living-room table:

(Apocryphally, it is said to have been owned either by Hermann Goering or Catherine The Great.)

But then I looked around my house and discovered that the subject was not without interest — possibly even troublingly revealing. So here goes. (Your personal Weekend Gene Pool challenge will follow.)

The art at the top of this column is a papier-mache head crafted by a pro to be worn onstage by Rachel, who had a role as a voracious velociraptor in the play “Enron.” She asked for the head in lieu of half her pay, and we had it mounted. The old wooden sign was rescued from a neighborhood liquor store that was throwing it out because customers found it “accusatory.” The electric clock is from 1932, a working souvenir from FDR’s first campaign (“F.D.R Man of the Hour.”) The jar of moonshine is a jar of moonshine.

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This is a disturbing face carved out of ancient driftwood. Purchased at Eastern Market. Artist unknown.

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This is a poster advertising a design-an-unusual sandwich contest in Tropic Magazine in 1987. The artwork, and the flesh-and-bread creation from which it was photographed, are by Marice Cohn Band. I believe the foodstuffs in there cost the magazine $200.

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This is a wall sculpture in our living room by Julien Kreuze, Rachel Manteuffel and me. The empty bottles were recovered and retrieved from a four-square-block area around my house during the years 2018 to 2021. I live in an interesting neighborhood. All but one of the bottles are Cognac D’Usee VSOP, Jay-Z’s brand. It sells for $60, and looks like this when full:

The oval artwork above the couch, by me, is a display of antique clock keys in a 1930s frame made of cellulose. The scale half-shown in the corner tells your fortune, too. It is from a 1950s drugstore.

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This is Barnaby, my dead cat, from this column: “The Price of Living With The Great Himself.” Art by Alex Fine.

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A wall hanging made by me. I refinished the top half of a 1940s-era stained-glass door. To me, it has always looked like a dork-nosed guy with tinted eyeglasses. But Rachel and I just discussed it for the first time today, which is when I learned that she has always thought of it as a man pooping, viewed from behind. The doorknob is brass, about 1890.

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This is from a story in the New York Times on December 24, 1927. It reports the verdict in a murder trial of two Italian-America leftists — Calogero Greco and Donato Carrillo — for allegedly stabbing and shooting two uniformed fascists marching in the Bronx. In tone and substance, the case was similar to the earlier, and more notorious, case of Sacco and Vanzetti.

Both Greco and Carrillo were acquitted. These are the defendants, pictured with their three-man legal team, after the trial. At left is Clarence Darrow. In the center, grinning demonically, is Isaac Shorr, my grandfather.

From things my grandpa intimated many, many years later, I’m pretty sure both guys were guilty.

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And finally, my favorite framed piece:

This will take some explanation. In 2006 and 2007, Rachel was hired to do two pieces of freelance work for The Post. One was for a story in a special edition of the Wapo Magazine devoted to physical appearances, for which she wrote this spectacular piece about her bosom. The other was for an hour’s worth of difficult work: She was one of three reporters assigned to stalk and then surreptitiously interview passersby for my story on Joshua Bell in the subway. In The Post’s internal shorthand for referring to stories, the first was called “Looks” and the second was “Genius.”

Above are her twinned pay stubs for both pieces. They read: “Looks — $1,000. Genius — $100.”

Reminds me of this, of course.

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One more item from my house. It is not yet framed, and not yet hung, because I am not yet sure what to do with it.

The photograph was made on Whitehall Street in downtown Atlanta by a photographer named George N. Barnard. This photo has been masterfully colorized in faded tones.

It is of an abandoned slave market, being guarded at gunpoint by a Union soldier after the fall of Atlanta in 1864. In my view, it is a powerful testament to the cruelty of slavery. Others have seen it differently, and negatively. I understand their position. I imagine a racist might consider it … aspirational.

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Because this is The Weekend Gene Pool, I am also requesting something from you. Namely, send in details of any unusual items you keep displayed in your house, with appropriate background info. (Yes, I did ask this question once before, but this time I am giving you a curated cornucopia of examples from which to be inspired.) Send yours to the button below. Also, any other Questions and Observations.

IMPORTANT: That button will not let you enter any photos. If you want to to so, make sure you send me your email address with your entry — IN THE BODY OF THE ENTRY, and say you have a photo available. If I’d like to see it I will email you back with an address to send the picture to. I will not publish your email.

And now, for today’s Gene Pool Gene Polls.

Gene Pool Gene Poll #2:

And finally, inevitably:

We hereby recommend that you consider upgrading your subscription to “paid,” on a purely mathematical cost-benefit theory endorsed by famous economists such as John Maynard Keynes.

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See you next week.