Courtney Coumo loves Halloween, even more than Christmas. This past Halloween, she bought a pair of giant, pointy ears and decided to be the Elf That Steals Things That People Lose. But then Hurricane Sandy hit on Oct. 28, "and my plan kind of went to shit," she says. She had come to terms with the idea that there would be no Halloween this time around, but then on Oct. 31, amidst all the hurricane damage, she saw a kid dressed up like Superman, which renewed her Halloween spirit. She put on the ears, walked around her neighborhood, and even went to the Brooklyn Museum, all the while garnering a range of very positive responses. "It was one of the most memorable experiences of my life," she says. "So the lesson is, no matter what the hell happens, just wear the freakin' ears." (Photo by Kirsten Hively)
Coree Spencer began wearing this black hair band on Oct. 3, 2012, which is the day she moved to New York from California. Since then, she's gotten a job, been fired, and suffered from severe depression, but she has always worn the band, either in her hair or on her wrist. She has a box of other hair bands, but she's stayed with this one. "There have been times," she says, "when it felt like this was the only thing holding me together." (Photo by Kirsten Hively)
Sam Baumel acquired this stick in North Carolina in December of 2011. It has spent most of its time since then in his car, where it's occasionally come in handy. One time he used it to fish his keys out from under the seat; another time he used it to poke a hole in the ground "to bury something before crossing the Canadian border." Asked what this something was, he says, "Illegal drugs, which were retrieved 48 hours later." (Photo by Kirsten Hively)
Valerie Bronte and her best friend love the movie Beastmaster, in which Rip Torn wears a ring with an eyeball. The best friend happens to be a jeweler, so she made Valerie this eyeball-ish ring. The unusual thing is that the dark part of the ring is coprolite, which is a fancy term for fossilized dinosaur scat, and the white line running through the center of it is a trilobite, making for a double-fossilized piece of jewelry. (Photo by Kirsten Hively)
In 2008, Nell Constantinople was working on a documentary film in Peru. While there, a shaman convinced her to try the Peruvian ahahuasca process, which is essentially a psychoactive drug trip that supposedly purges demons and leads to spiritual enlightenment -- or, in Nell's case, leads to intense vomiting and extended illness, which she had not expected. As someone said to her at the time, "You clearly had a lot of demons to get rid of." While she was recuperating, the shaman's helper -- an eight-year-old boy -- gave her this lizard toy that his mother had made for him. "He meant it as a comforting tool," she says, "but to me it represents fragility and mortality." (Photo by Kirsten Hively)
These old fraternity calendars belonged to Mary Kathryn Bedlock's father, and date back to the time when he and Mary Kathryn's mother both attended Arkansas State University in the 1960s and ’70s. The women in the photos include friends of her mother and aunt from that period, and Mary Kathryn loves the outfits they were wearing. "The fashions are so relevant, even today," she says. She had considered turning the photos into collages, as part of an art project about family heirlooms, but now she's decided to keep them intact. (Photo by Kirsten Hively)
David Rondinelli came to New York in 2006 and wanted to make new friends. At the suggestion of his brother, he joined a local rugby team -- an unusual choice for David, who was never all that athletic. As it turned out, he not only made new friends but also lost 30 pounds and won this "Most Improved" award in 2008, which he particularly proud of. "I was always a bookworm-ish type," he says, "so it was pretty inspiring to be part of this athletic culture." (Photo by Kirsten Hively)
Nechama Levy is wearing a khata, which is a traditional Buddhist scarf. It was given to her in 2005, after she went for a hike outside a town in northern India and ended up getting lost in the jungle for three days. She eventually found her way back to the town, by which time she'd become something of a local celebrity -- half the town had been out looking for her. When she left the town to move on with her travels, many of the local residents came out to see her off, and they presented her with the scarf. She explains all this goodwill like so: "They didn't want to be known as the place where the American died." (Photo by Kirsten Hively)
Nicole Reber is holding her copy of Lunch Poems by Frank O'Hara. "It's one of my favorite books of poetry, and the book that made me want to be a poet," she says. After talking about the O'Hara for a minute or so, she launched into a reading of one of his poems from the book, "Ave Maria," which is an exhortation for the mothers of America to let their kids go to the movies. (Photo by Kirsten Hively)
We conclude, as usual, with Show & Tell host Paul Lukas -- me. I acquired this copy of the Rolling Stones' 1972 LP, Exile on Main Street, about 30 years ago. In that time, the back cover has developed a bunch of scratches centering around a small indent. This is because I also own a copy of the Stones' 1971 LP, Sticky Fingers, whose cover design featured a real zipper (it was later changed to just a photo of a zipper). Since I shelve my LPs alphabetically by artist and chronologically within artist -- which is really the only way -- these two LPs have always been next to each other, and the Sticky Fingers zipper has gouged a little divot into the Exile cover over the years. Whenever I'm in a used record store, I look at old copies of Exile to see if they have the same scratches, and they often do, which makes me feel connected to the larger subculture of record geeks who file their LPs the same way I do. (Photo by Kirsten Hively)
That's all for this time. Big thanks to all participants, and bonus thanks to Kirsten Hively for the photos and to Heather McCabe for handling the interstitial music. The next installment of Show & Tell will be Wednesday, March 13, 8pm, in the back room at Freddy's. Hope to see you then.
