38 Comments

Thank you for this article. I love that you put the meeting between Jeanne and Van Gogh into context of the time they met. The tragedy of living so long is that Jeanne outlived all her family.

I realise the oldest things I own are stones - I have earrings with Scottish Cairngorm quartz stones that could be 10,000 years old.

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Really cool, Kate! I'm glad that stretch across time connected with you. It was one of the most important things I wanted to convey today.

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Great post!

I have a copy of "History and Rhymes of the Lost Battalion," a yearbook/memorial for the U.S. 77th Division that was decimated in the Argonne during WWI. It's a fifth printing from 1929. I found it in an antique shop in the Catskills.

I've been collecting research material on WWI in preparation (and procrastination) of writing a fictionalized version of my grandfather's life. He was a German draftee in WWI and later fled the Nazis in 1929.

My current WIP is a bit of a dress rehearsal for what I really want to write.

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My grandfather was born at the very end of WWI. I need to write more about his life.

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I have a HS lab notebook from ca. 1916, some Big Littlebooks from the late 30's and a set of 1941 World Book encyclopedia. The encyclopedia is cool as it gives a flavor of a world now long gone.

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If I was there, I'd be thumbing through those right now (with permission, of course!).

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It's fascinating, like the article on WW II, which was before the US got involved.

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Beautifully written reflection. We had a 200-year-old tree in our garden. My grandmother left a beautiful gift: a 300-year-old rare backgammon set. But when we were kids, we lost several pieces. Memories…

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Wow! Was the backgammon set completely hand-crafted? It must have been, but I wonder what sorts of tools were used. Really neat!

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This exquisite backgammon set holds a special place in my memory. Its craftsmanship was remarkable, handcrafted from dark wood. The pieces, meticulously carved from both dark and white wood, hinted at its rich heritage. I was quite young when I first saw it, so the exact materials elude me, but the board itself seemed almost mystical, adorned with captivating ornaments in its center. This treasured item, as I recall, came from Turkish traders who frequented Western Georgia. It’s believed that my grandmother’s great-grandfather acquired it from them, a testament to its age and the stories it carries

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Super neat! Did you happen to read the piece on the Mechanical Turk I did w/Devansh a while back? Your backgammon set predates the Turk! but it also shows how important games like this were back then.

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Yes I did and really enjoyed it 😊 I still play backgammon and chess with great pleasure with my dad.

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So cool. I grew up playing chess with my dad (he clobbered me every time!), but the game I remember the most is called Nine Men's Morris. It was a game my dad learned about at a craft fair, where other woodworkers would create things to sell. Some of these things were puzzles like tangrams, and board games made of wood.

Nine Men's Morris is somewhere between tic tac toe and chess in complexity, probably leaning toward the more simplistic side, but I really enjoy the game.

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Childhood memories are the best. ☺️ Thanks for sharing this part of your personal journey. I miss the good old days when Dad and I would play dominoes in the evenings. Initially, he would lose just to make me happy but when I mastered board games he was getting “mad” 😃 Omg, your post brought so many beautiful memories...

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I love Van Gogh. His paintings come across as color in motion. They look so real and musical. His life sounds incredible. I envy Jeanne for having seen Gogh in flesh and blood. She was lucky. I used to collect stamps, even having one in the late 19th century. But I will trade it in exchange for seeing Gogh. A great article.

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I have some old stamps too, maybe even a couple from the 19th century as well!

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Great questions. But first: "Van Gogh came into her uncle’s fabric shop to buy some canvas for paintings." ... It never occurred to me until this moment that canvas is a fabric and used to be purchased in fabric stores rather than art supply stores.

I actually am not sure about the oldest things I've owned or seen. Probably need more coffee ... as you may have noticed, I tend to read Substack while just starting to drink my coffee, and I have all kinds of thoughts and curiosities but they aren't fully formed yet :) I don't really have many old things. I live in an apartment that's old by California standards (1906, earthquake year). I have a vintage cocktail book from the early twentieth century. Some mid-century vintage magazines. The stuff my dad made for me out of wood could count - the stuff itself was made within recent decades but the wood comes from trees that fell down in storms so many were probably quite old. Things to think about.

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Tell me a little about the vintage magazines. I remember I had (may still have?) a Life Magazine with Lee Harvey Oswald on the cover. The ads alone were incredible to thumb through.

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The ads are amazing and are the number one reason I'm drawn to these magazines. They say so much about society. Mostly I have old fashion and "women's" magazines. I have found them at thrift stores or yard sales and people knowing I like them have sent them to me. I keep some. I display some. I tear up some for collage art. I gift some.

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I have a few comic books from the 50s, too! The comic ads are awesome.

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To begin, i love Van Gogh's paintings, and i have several here in my office. My favorite is his "Bedroom in Arles." One of my favorite musicians is Michael Franks, and he wrote a lovely song called "In The Yellow House." It's the story of Van Gogh and his friend Paul Gauguin. Van Gogh may have been an arsehole at times, but he was also very likely suffering from mental illness with no treatment at the time. So, he chose absinthe, alcohol, and a firearm.

I was amazed at the story of Ms. Calment, such a force of nature in her own right!

Regarding old stuff... i have a chair from my maternal grandfather, Harry Doss, that was built in the 1950s. The style is called a "cockfighter's chair" or a "gambler's chair." It's all i have to remember of him as he died when i was 5 years old. I cherish his memory and that chair keeps him in my heart.

I have a leather jacket my Mom gave me for Christmas in 1984, right after i graduated from college. The jacket is faded and raggedy, but i still wear it. A friend complimented my jacket just last weekend, and that's why it remains a favorite.

Thanks, Andrew, for this thoughtful piece!

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I remember those paintings! Any updates since I was there last, maybe 1.5 years ago? Which reminds me: we probably should meet for lunch again soon!

That leather jacket... I have a jacket with a history, too, but not quite as far back as that one (1993, I think?). That chair sounds awesome!

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Yes, we should lunch again at Cafe Zata! In the near future!

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I visited a Glyptotek in Copenhagen, one of three in the world, and saw some Egyptian artifacts, stones full of hieroglyphs and ancient imagery. I was touched by it, by these signs from the past carved in stone, messages from one civilisation (old) to another (new), standing the test of time.

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Jurgen, I very much understand this feeling.

I visited the Vatican a few years back with my partner, and we went outside into the garden. We were struck by a black stone statue, and asked about it. Turns out, it was more than 4000 years old, and it was right there in the open, outside. We were walking up and touching it. A kid even jumped up on its back before someone shooed them away!

Felt like a glimpse back into the distant past for a minute there.

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The oldest thing I own is one of my first stuffed animals. Tuffy Mouse. He's only a couple of years younger than me.

The oldest thing I've seen is probably my oldest memory, which is the moon landing. I was about 2 month shy of three.

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Now that's a cool first memory! Mine was of a bee sting. Trade?

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I have a collection of Neanderthal genes that are probably over 100,000 years old. I've climbed Mount Monadnock in southern New Hampshire, which I think is about 400 million years old. Of things made by humans, Stonehenge.

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I mean, technically I have hydrogen atoms inside me that are 13.7 billion years old, give or take! Good callout on the Neanderthal genes, though.

I would love to visit Stonehenge. It's on a very long bucket list.

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Great article. Really interesting.

Do you ever watch Ancient Aliens?

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I don't. My view is that while there are likely some excellent observations made, there's far too much chaff to go with the wheat. I can't always tell what's made-up nonsense without spending a lot of time (which I don't have) doing deep dives, so I tend to navigate toward more proven, conventional history by respected scholars and academics. Hope this makes sense!

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Totally makes sense. I watch, but take everything with a grain of salt. Some things definitely seem more believable than others. I am always interested in the actual artifacts, carvings, and monuments that can actually be dated, like Stonehenge and Easter Island.

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And, to be clear: I don't think there's anything at all with that approach! for me, I just have other things I'm interested in that don't raise my doubt hackles quite so much, so that's where I spend my time. As long as your mind is growing and you're having fun, I'm happy!

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I guess the oldest are some antique decorative plates and glasses from my grandparents on my father's side. They just be 19th century or so.

Also, a bunch of cassette tapes with Tupac's and Coolio's music. Almost as ancient.

For a sense of perspective, this Kurzgesagt video is fun: https://youtu.be/S7TUe5w6RHo

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Nice, saved for later! I've seen tons of videos like this. I'm sure you've watched Bill Wurtz's shorter version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuCn8ux2gbs

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I haven't actually, but now I will!

The Kurzgesagt one is not intended to be watched in a focused way, just to have in the background, but the gimmick is that a fixed amount of time passes every second: about 1 million years. So it just gives you a sense of time on a scale we're not used to thinking about. Fascinating.

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I like it. I'll watch it around bedtime, so I can wrap my head around that before sleeping. Those sorts of analogies are helpful.

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