Fatale Abstraction

Incredible story I heard from an involved party tonight. Absolutely true.

Jerry Jones owned (owns?) the Dallas Cowboys football team and was expecting an exalted houseguest in the form of one George H.W. Bush, former U.S. president. Of course he's got scores of Oompa-loompas on staff bustling about and readying his palatial manse for the visit, when he calls up a Dallas sculptor to commision a poured stone base for an enormous heavy sculpture, demanding it be done overnight, as the visit was happening in 2 days and it would take one day to set up the sculpture. The artist quoted $500, and the man countered with a take-it-or-leave-it offer of $250. The artist agreed.

This enormous plinth for the glass sculpture was completed just as the workers were clearing away all the boxes and detritus from the major work that had been going on in and around the house.

Come to find out, the boxes full of the pieces of the $180,000 Dale Chihuly glass sculpture had been out on the verandah, but were now nowhere to be found.

The men clearing away the mess were questioned. Did they see the boxes? Well, yes, they threw them in the pile with the rest of the garbage.

Everyone was pulled off every other detail on the property and the employees scrambled to pull the boxes of the fragile glass pieces from the bottom of the garbage pile.

With the exception of one tiny 1 inch nick, all the glass pieces were pristine and unblemished by their airborne trips to the trash pile. The sculpture was assembled and nary a blemish was to be seen, to the relief of everyone.

When the base sculptor received the check in the mail, he noticed that rather than the promised $250, the check was made out in the amount of $249.61-- the employee of JJ who issued the check deducted the amount of the postage stamp. ???!!!

Anyway, sometime later the artist ran into the Jerry Jones contact and he mentioned with mirth the inexact amount of the check.

The embarrassed J.J. minion reached in his pocket, scrambling to give the guy the .39. The sculptor said not to bother - that he didn't even cash the check, but instead kept it on the wall of his office to prove his story.

The Jerry Jones employee laughed, relieved that the ripped-off local artisan wasn't pissed off. I suspect he was also relieved that he saved an additional $249.61. That should make the boss happy.

Oh, over at photonomad's marvelous Phoenix daily blog http://fotografiaphoenix.blogspot.com he has posted images of Phoenix' superb Good Samaritan Hospital. This is where my grandmother was cared for after less competent care elsewhere. I'm not bringing this up to be a downer, on the contrary: Good Sam and its staff of doctors and nurses administered the kindest, most dedicated care possible to my beloved gran. I'll be eternally grateful for the gentle way they cared for her and the comfort they were able to give her, bless them all.