A few months ago, in an attempt to perform a smaller version of a “clean sweep” of our house (the pragmatic advice of that one Australian guy employed by TLC continuously rings in our ears) we unearthed an old Ziploc filled with mementos. Finally, after toting this around for years, the time has come to get rid of these stray bits.

This means another of my many exercises in closure through nostalgia.

So, the collected items were dumped into a handy box–

–and then the process begun by pulling them out one by one. These are the first five items pulled.

Before we moved to Florida, we were devotees of the Chicago International Film Festival, taking a special trip south for an extended weekend of gorging on arty films most years. We tried to duplicate that dedication with Orlando’s fine Florida Film Festival. That was tougher when its timing shifted from June to March (that’s a much busier month when it’s a college issuing your paychecks). I think this ticket may be from the first year the fest ran earlier in the spring. The film My Flesh and Blood is a solid documentary about a woman named Susan Tom, who is the adoptive mother to around a dozen children, most of whom are afflicted with terribly debilitating diseases or other grave personal hardships. While generally approving of Tom, the film doesn’t lionize her, allowing for exposure of the pronounced conflicts that arise in the home and giving hints of the ways in which her generosity may be driven somewhat by her own emotional neediness. If I remember correctly, when the HBO Films logo came up at the end of the film, I turned to and expressed gratitude that the cable network was funding projects like this. I have no idea what the accompanying short was.

This coin was procured from a shop in New Orleans. I’m guessing we got it during our first trip to The Crescent City.

This laminated pass corresponds to a day-long festival sponsored briefly in the United States by the beverage that the late Richard Harris referred to as “mother’s milk.” Much of the lineup was devoted to prominent Irish acts, but there was usually room for someone like Lucinda Williams, as well. We went two different years. This would be when we saw Elvis Costello, Van Morrison, and the always thrilling Shane MacGowan. Unfortunately, we also suffered through a set by The Saw Doctors.

We attended this Cubs game exactly eight days before moving from Wisconsin from Florida, which means this ticket is from the last time I was in Wrigley Field. We sat in the bleachers along with noted anti-poverty crusader ccyl. As a side note, the night before we’d all watched the Buffy the Vampire Slayer season five finale “The Gift” together. We discussed it openly, thereby ruining the surprise ending for a nearby fellow bleacher bum who had recorded it the night before. We apologized multiple times across the nine innings.

I’m not even sure how I got this, a promotional pin for Steven Spielberg’s 2000 feature, the realization of a project that Stanly Kubrick developed for years. I’ve certainly accumulated plenty of movie stuff over the years, but this was released well after my days of theater employ and I’m not sure which of my fellow former popcorn slingers might have been still working in the biz at the time. What’s more, I don’t especially like the movie. It’s interesting for the first two-thirds to three-quarters (and includes a sensational Jude Law performance) and then it abandons a great ending of moving hopelessness which posits that faith creates humanity in favor of an extended coda which mixes Kubrick’s existential chilliness and Spielberg’s pushy sentimentality with disastrous results. So, to review, I don’t know how I got this and I don’t know why I kept it. How’s that for an odd beginning to this project?

(Originally posted in “Jelly-Town!”)