Carry Me Back

by Seth Apter

As you probably know, I'm a very loyal reader of Seth's The Altered Page.

Not only does he share with us readers his stunning works of collage and paint genius, he also showcases and honors other artists, and has become a leader in collaborative projects. He has so many fantastic ideas for projects we can all contribute to. A testament to this fact is here. Oh, and here. Oh! and here. And now he's come up with something he aptly calls Buried Treasure, which event occurs tomorrow, July 16th. But I'm posting a bit early...

For this one, the assignment is to paw through all of my blog posts and find one or several of my favorite ones, and repost it/them.

Is this wonderful, or WHAT? Now, I can visit all the contributors and see what they themselves consider their best. Visit Seth, and look through his listing of contributing blog artists. We all have posts which reflect a time or a consciousness which we remember more than others. And sometimes, even if I am not clearly conscious, I still remember them! So, with no further ado, here are two favorites of my almost 350 posts to date.

RECRUITING

My nephew Logan was over at our shotgun shack one day and saw this:

An altered cigar box I made in a class at Zinnia.

And he said, how did you do that? And I said, I'll show you some time

He went right home that day and asked his next-door neighbor, who smokes cigars, for a cigar box.

Well... yesterday, Logan had a free day, and he came over and we made his first altered cigar box. I set up the work table with paints and brushes, paper, gluesticks, stickers, bits of found objects to attach, and Mod Podge (registered trademark). We had a sandwich and started in on the project.

At first, Logan did what just about all of us did, he just sat there. He was afraid to mess up the box. He didn't want to ruin anything. I asked him what he was going to use the box for. He didn't know. Maybe to put important cards in. I said, okay, you may want to first decide what parts of the box you really want to keep, and what parts you don't want. He said, well, I don't know.

So I reached over and ripped off part of the label. Part of it wouldn't come off, so I got out the craft knife (without mentioning the brand, I'll say is rhymes with defacto), and started to coax the stubborn part of the label off. Logan loves the knife thing. He has, according to him, 27 knives--oh, but he forgot about his Scrimshaw knife, that's 28.

Seeing the glint in his eye, I said, now you want to think about what part of the box you want to remove and what part looks neat and you want to save. Once you remove the stuff that won't work, you can make the box your own.

At that point, all bets were off. Logan knew exactly what he wanted. He wanted a cigar box that looked like a safebox which had been tampered with and then burned and then blown up in a pirate-type raid of some kind.

And I said, well, of course. Duh.

And the finished product:

We liked how the chalk work he did on the paper tears created a rusted kind of effect. I'm just sorry I didn't realize ahead of time that we'd need chalk and a butane lighter.

Next up: Logan buys a torch.

I LOVE HALLOWEEN!

And don't tell me I'm not a punk. Oh, yah. I'm a punk. Chris the punk, from Kansas City, Missouri, legendary Town O' Punks.

Oh, by the way, did you know that I don't know where Wisconsin is in relation to Texas? Sure, I kind of know it's north.

Anyway, here's what happened. And it doesn't have to do with Wisconsin, Texas, or Kansas City. Or, north. What it has to do with is knowing an adventure when I hear it.

Several weeks ago

(you should probably take a sit-down),

I discovered that if I wanted to, I could send dirt through the mail and get away with it. Okay, sure, I didn't find this out right away. I found it out after first sending out some dryer lint without meaning to. Then, I packed bubble wrap around something I was mailing and, little did I know, there was grass on my hand and it got into the bubble wrap. Soon afterward, I'd been mud wrestling immediately before a trip to the post office, and neglected to wash thoroughly in all my crevasses, so some of the dried mud clung to the packing tape before the clerk grabbed the package, labeled, 'HANDLE WITH CARE', and flung it through the curtain onto the conveyor belt located several feet behind the counter.

After some horror-filled waiting periods, I realized that I was apparently not going to get in trouble for sending 'organic materials' via USPS. What a relief!

And, oddly, what a feeling of freedom.

Whereupon began my search for a new challenge. I asked myself, 'Can my luck hold out?' How could I make this new euphoria last? How, indeed, might I actually increase it?

Then, quite by accident, and while surfing my favorite porn sites, I saw this.

It was PERFECT!! Did you see? Did you see that two of the targets are right in my area?

(Well, not really my 'area', but close by.)

So, this morning at 6:30, Cathie and I leapt into the car and drove out to Culver City, and then Rancho Palos Verdes, embarking on a campaign of terror which can best be documented in pictures.

Holy Cross Cemetery, resting place of, among other greats, Mr. Bela Lugosi.




Lugosi's grave marker. I did not place the coins there, but I understand their presence means someone had been there before us:









Someone who shall remain nameless, picking up a little of what Bela was laying down.



Charles Bukowski's grave marker at Green Hills Memorial Park (for those who have never read this poet and fiction writer, he was an even bigger punk than I am):














And, apparently... she-who-must-not-be-named can't stop digging around.