don't touch my monkey provenance

This is Stanford’s Mentawai gibbons carving, that Jun Tulius lectured about at De Young last week, and then Gerry Masteller and I convinced him to come to Cantor Museum in Palo Alto, a mere 30 miles away, to see it in person. Before that, Jun had only heard about it from his fellow Mentawai. He is like the Inspector Columbo (Peter Falk tv character) of anthropology, sifting through subtle clues as he talks to people about their work. For instance, he distinguished clues from how far they bent when gesturing as to the height of the piece. He also gleaned something from the fact that the piece, despite the way Stanford displays it, does not stand on its own. He says the piece started as a deer and then became a gibbons – -the wood had its say during the creative process. His main thesis and lament is the way the market puts pressure to augment or embellish the provenance — in this case he is disputing Stanford’s claim, based on what their source told them, that the piece is as old as 1930s or had a ritual purpose. He claims that the piece is from the 1980s and was made for the market. It’s a fantastic piece without trumping up the story, he says and I concur.

I enjoyed, via the magic of cell phones, putting him on even briefly with Kirk Endicott, retired from Dartmouth, my old professor (this was Anthro 1, in winter of 1983). Kirk had some recommendations of who might want to follow Jun’s work, two names he offered. Kirk’s work was on a Peninsular Malaysian group, not too far from Mentawai. Nowadays people know the group of islands, which has 70,000 people, for world class Mavericks-style surfing. You can also find info on their martial arts, which Jun displayed a little for me, although he says his practice blends martial arts, dance and healing.

Also, and this is weird seque, I am still waiting to crack the book I bought myself from Bell’s on my birthday, last month: it is a rare book from 100 years ago and breaks down the racial categories of the time, with weird old plates. And speaking of weird old plates — and now I am drifting back to Americas from Oceana — Russell Hartman of California Academy of Sciences is lecturing March 1 at De Young. Weird old plates means I like the way he has his Maria Martinez black on blacks set as a dinner setting. Those things are worth ten grand apiece, easy.

Thanks to Anna Lessenger of Cantor, Barbara Thompson’s assistant, who fetched us from limbo. We got to Cantor an hour before opening and chutzpah’d our way in, or tried to, because Jun was flying back to Amsterdam. I sent Jun home with a piece of the pueblo which I will otherwise leave nambeless.

cue the theramin for the outro, something equal parts spooky, Bernard Hermanny and surfy, like a minor key twist on Brian Wilson, mixed with Dengue Fever the band…Twilight Zone-y although that is probably organ not theramin…

Personal note to Anna: I hope your flu symptoms dissipated and the Mentawai cure had some beneficial effect, beyond placebo. The world is actually 99 percent wishful thinking, a story (as Brian Swimme says).