Like Getting Lots of Different Candies

Sue Canada, Bob Canada’s widow, buried Bob’s ashes on Sunday October 21. According to this Kane County Chronicle report, later that day the family noticed Jesus’s face stained “in a patch of damaged bark on a maple tree” in the front yard. Everyone in the family agrees that the image wasn’t there the day before. In the words of daughter-in-law Jackie Flynn: “I never thought we would be those kind of people with Jesus in the tree.” But apparently they are. The family very much links the appearance to the burial of the ashes, though the article spends most of its time consulting various experts.

Rev. Akan Simon of St. Patrick Catholic Church says: “If you look at the picture, it does appear to be the face of Jesus . . . I do not believe in accidents or coincidence. This affirms my Catholic faith that death is not the final answer. It is not the end. Death is a transition to another life, but the bonds we forge in this life do not end.”

Rev. Stephen Bevans of the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago adds: “You don’t ‘prove’ things like life after death or the existence of God; you believe them on good evidence, but you still believe in them . . . You have to be sensitive to people’s faith. And Catholics believe that God does use the things of creation to manifest God’s self to us.”

The Canada homestead has been on the market for over a year, so real estate agent (and niece) Tina Flynn gets her say, too: “It’s fine. Most likely it would help . . . I don’t see it hurting the sale at all.” Must be those sub-prime mortgage rates.

Moving right along – I have noticed that when I relay these happenings to you, I have spent less and less time discussing the image in question. I suppose that the image matters very little in terms of accuracy, or even specific visual details. What materializes around the objects is what’s of interest.



Take the Virgin Mary pebble in New Zealand. After weeding out a few phony bids the auction did not meet the $30,000 reserve, so Lisa-Marie Corlet will not be parting with her pebble, word of which has traveled far and wide, like so many of these stories. Now, it needs to be said that hoaxes aside, the high, valid bid on the pebble was $27,000, but that wasn’t enough. For a beach pebble. According to this Stuff.co.nz report, Corlet said, “I’ll take a break and move on to eBay.” The auction was taking place on a New Zealand equivalent of eBay; most of their auctions typically get about 650 visits, while this one attracted 180,000. Cortlet may be able to get more internet traffic on eBay, but if you read my first post about this, you know why I don’t think she’ll get the money she is looking for. If she does, however, it won’t be the first time I’ve been wrong about something.



And finally, if a high-profile internet auction doesn’t prove it, here is yet another example of how these objects are transformed into events, which become history, and heritage. It comes from Time Out New York, from my favorite section, “Public eye.” I am many things, but a fashion maven ain’t one of ‘em, making my mild addiction to this weekly show-and-tell humorous in that it usually spurs some rolling of the eyes and a snide comment about vapid consumerism. But this week the presumably gregarious columnist Kate Lowstein funnels her subject’s wanderlust, which has shuttled her through “about 80 countries,” into . . . the Nun Bun!



Yes, the self-proclaimed “gypsy girl” who hawks clothes on Astor Place here in New York four months of the year mentions working in Calcutta for Mother Theresa. Lowenstein quips back, “Really? Did she look like the cinnamon bun?” The gypsy laughs; she gets it, and answers: “That thing does look just like her! She was kind of shriveled and raisiny.”

Don’t know about the Nun Bun? Check out my book, Madonna of the Toast. Thing is, I bet you do know about the Nun Bun, most people do. It’s a famous pastry that was robbed one Christmas morning a couple of years ago.

People may not know the names of their Congressional representatives, or understand fully photosynthesis, but the Nun Bun can be batted about in spur of the moment conversation between two complete strangers (and though I have never met either of these women, I am willing to bet that they are two very different people). Point is, we know about the Nun Bun, and Diana Duyser’s Virgin Mary grilled cheese. The ones you don’t know about, I guess I try to let you know. Why? Because it’s worth paying attention. Because the stories don’t end, and they aren’t really about objects carrying the images of iconographic forms and faces. They are about us, no matter what we see . . .

Boo!

I Stand Corrected

Just yesterday I posited that Lisa-Marie Corlet would never come close to selling her Virgin Mary pebble for the $50,000 asking price. Read below for my reasoning, which I do stand by, though in this instance reason has gone out the window. Since yesterday, this online auction seems to be taking on Diana Duyser monetary proportions. Yesterday (or perhaps it was today, or tomorrow – I’ve never been able to understand the time zones in that part of the world) someone entered a $50,000 bid, but it turned out to be a hoax. Now, a new auction is on and runs until Wednesday. According to this new article from Stuff.co.nz, the auction has “attracted nearly 10,000 viewers and 28 bids, the highest for $26,600.” View the auction here.

Yes, we’re talking about a pebble found on a beach, folks, but Corlet knew that people would be willing to pay. With a week to go, I suppose the bidding could really soar, but we’ll have to wait and see how high. Time will also tell us how firm Corlet’s declaration about taking no less than $50,000 remains. She clearly believes in her mission, however, so maybe she’ll get the money she wants, or a whole lot more. I will definitely be keeping an eye on this.

I’d also like to say hi to any folks reading from New Zealand. In light of this story, Reuben Schwarz, writing for one of the Stuff.co.nz blogs, gave me a shout-out, naming this one of his favorite sites. Thanks Reuben!

Please, readers from all corners of the globe, leave some comments. Rant, rave, be witty or critical, share some stories. There’s no shortage of ways in which these phenomena can be deciphered, and I’m open to all thoughts.

Kiwi Mary Pebble

From the east coast of New Zealand’s South Island comes a pebble bearing the likeness of the Virgin Mary. According to this report from Stuff.co.nz , Lisa-Marie Corlet found this stone on Kaikoura's South Beach last year.



Since then, Corlet has had “an awesome run of luck,” which I guess has ended, because now she is trying to sell the stone on TradeMe.co.nz, for 50,000 New Zealand Dollars (approximately $37,775).

Sound steep? It is, no matter what kind of money you spend, and doubtless this accounts for why the item has yet to receive any bids. Corlet stands by her asking price, however, saying that she won’t part with it for any less, making the inevitable allusion to Diana Duyser’s famous $28,000 eBay windfall for her Virgin Mary grilled cheese.

What most people don’t seem to realize when they try to sell a random object emblazoned with an iconographic shape, justifying the asking price by citing Duyser’s sale, is the fact that all of the largest sums of money paid out for these items were from the coffers of Goldenpalace.com, an online casino. At the time, they were spending large amounts of money on these publicity stunts so they could, presumably, make HUGE amounts of money through their website. When President Bush signed the Safe Port Act in October 2006, however, online gambling was effectively shut down in the United States; tacked onto this act was an amendment that prohibited transactions between banks and online gaming websites. Guess what? Goldenpalace.com hasn’t spent a dime in the US since then (much to the dismay of Duyser).

Will anyone now spend tens of thousands of dollars for a Jesus tree, Buddha frying pan or Mary mattress stain? It’s not impossible, but I don’t think it will happen like it used to, unless the law changes. People like Lisa-Marie Corlet should learn this and reassess their financial expectations. I do believe many people would be interested in having an object like Corlet’s, for a reasonable price, commensurate to what you would pay for any bauble.

There may not be big bucks to be made on these cultural signposts, but the media gaze will forever draw the public’s attention to them, and there is value in that. For the true believers, these events bolster faith. In neighborhoods, all of the attention seems to inspire community sensibilities. Naysayers and agnostics, fear not, as these stories provide you with ample ammunition to let fly your diatribes and acerbic one-liners.

And as for me, Madonna of the Toast will soldier on, encouraging one and all to consider these events as they exist on the surface and between the lines, because the fact that so many of us know about them makes them important, no matter what you see.