WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.040 --> 00:00:07.599 Morning brings aush that fields pressed in amber. Inside the 2 00:00:07.599 --> 00:00:10.759 main gallery, stained glass spills islands of color across the 3 00:00:10.800 --> 00:00:13.560 tab floor, tinting the ranks of display cases with ripples 4 00:00:13.560 --> 00:00:16.839 of topas emerald and violet. At this hour I have 5 00:00:16.879 --> 00:00:18.920 the Victorian we mostly to myself, a dim or and 6 00:00:18.960 --> 00:00:22.079 of shadowed alcoves, gilt ditch nameplates, and the soft electrical 7 00:00:22.120 --> 00:00:26.160 hum of moisture senses touched behind nineteenth century furniture. My job, 8 00:00:26.239 --> 00:00:29.559 as always is to walk its boundaries, tap the alarm panels, 9 00:00:29.640 --> 00:00:31.879 and check every artifact of the practice gaze of someone 10 00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:35.039 for whom surprise is a structural flaw. Today, as light 11 00:00:35.119 --> 00:00:38.759 pulls through the east window, my pen slows over the checkist. There, 12 00:00:38.880 --> 00:00:42.200 three cases from the door, see something jarringly exprissiticlalcrook bird, 13 00:00:42.240 --> 00:00:44.479 the size of a rain perched on a quartz pedestal 14 00:00:44.520 --> 00:00:47.079 behind a glass dome. Its feathers are a lattice of 15 00:00:47.119 --> 00:00:49.640 brass and silver fold work dish patterns too fine for 16 00:00:49.679 --> 00:00:52.000 any hand grinder, the wings layered with bands so thin. 17 00:00:52.039 --> 00:00:54.119 I can see the color of the velvet riser beneath 18 00:00:54.719 --> 00:00:57.119 deep within what looks at first glance like a spring 19 00:00:57.159 --> 00:00:59.520 call suggests a mind bend in intricacy, and a spiral 20 00:00:59.520 --> 00:01:02.200 glint light mercury wins between the gearwork, flexing when I 21 00:01:02.280 --> 00:01:05.000 change my viewing angle. But what truly stops me is 22 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:07.599 the bird's eyes. Trim bees of blue green enamel insists 23 00:01:07.599 --> 00:01:10.040 so perfectly to the catch, but do not reflect the 24 00:01:10.040 --> 00:01:13.280 cold valerie light. I pause for a full breath, tucking 25 00:01:13.319 --> 00:01:17.200 one boot back against the baseboard. This bird is, I think, instantly, 26 00:01:17.239 --> 00:01:20.640 impossibly elaborate for anything loked as nineteenth century local craft. 27 00:01:20.680 --> 00:01:23.040 None of the duftelsmiths could have managed nessa geworck on 28 00:01:23.079 --> 00:01:25.120 the scale, and the precision of the hinges puts at 29 00:01:25.120 --> 00:01:28.640 a good fifty years ahead of anything of catalogt stranger. Still, 30 00:01:28.640 --> 00:01:31.200 I find I cannot recall ever seeing it before. And 31 00:01:31.280 --> 00:01:33.159 I do not mean a big memory. I mean there 32 00:01:33.200 --> 00:01:35.400 is no glancing recollection, no echo of it in my 33 00:01:35.439 --> 00:01:38.439 morning rounds, no hazy image in anyfanturies in calendar or 34 00:01:38.480 --> 00:01:42.400 catalog spread. I should know this object. I should in 35 00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:45.280 fact have been responsible for its record, given my sixteen 36 00:01:45.359 --> 00:01:47.480 years hovering over these lists. But there is only the 37 00:01:47.560 --> 00:01:49.560 kind of blankness that runs up the back of my neck. 38 00:01:50.200 --> 00:01:52.239 I hold my tablet in one hand and scroll the 39 00:01:52.280 --> 00:01:55.280 main inventory. This is the painted weather vane, the miniature 40 00:01:55.319 --> 00:01:57.879 fire engine. The shell in lay draws. But in the 41 00:01:57.879 --> 00:02:00.120 slot where this glass kiss its case fourteen, the line 42 00:02:00.159 --> 00:02:04.200 reads crisply object pending description. Normally at a flag this 43 00:02:04.239 --> 00:02:06.799 anomally long ago perhaps left myself a note to check 44 00:02:06.840 --> 00:02:09.039 at the end of the day. But in this case 45 00:02:09.240 --> 00:02:12.000 even the placeholder is in settling an anonymous pigeon hole 46 00:02:12.039 --> 00:02:14.639 in our most precise look, I turned to the thick 47 00:02:14.639 --> 00:02:17.199 blue accession binder on its marble top stand, flip into 48 00:02:17.199 --> 00:02:19.599 pages for anything with the word bird, any accession new 49 00:02:19.639 --> 00:02:23.840 or overdue. Nothing. What's more, the placard taped inside the case, 50 00:02:24.159 --> 00:02:27.080 artfully lettered in our fountain pen script declares the stone 51 00:02:27.080 --> 00:02:30.599 for a bird see nineteenth century. That at least is 52 00:02:30.639 --> 00:02:33.599 familiar sounding in shape, if not content. But at the 53 00:02:33.599 --> 00:02:35.919 foot of the silky velvet pillow, a brustplaque the width 54 00:02:35.960 --> 00:02:38.840 of my thumbnail shines under the dome's curve. I angle 55 00:02:38.879 --> 00:02:41.360 my head to read it. They are stamped in clear 56 00:02:41.400 --> 00:02:44.439 micro serf gleams. At Day April eighteenth, twenty twenty seven, 57 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:48.840 I blink once to Day's March sixteenth twenty twenty three, 58 00:02:49.280 --> 00:02:51.680 the ordinarture of the galleries. Their handler takes on a 59 00:02:51.759 --> 00:02:54.360 music box rhythm, as if echoing some whispered invitation to 60 00:02:54.360 --> 00:02:57.319 find the thing I've missed. I feel not alarm, but 61 00:02:57.360 --> 00:02:59.240 the sensation of holding a deep breath, like I've been 62 00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:02.479 to listen at the fresh an open room. Not a crisis, 63 00:03:03.120 --> 00:03:06.120 not even a mystery, not yet more the sense that 64 00:03:06.199 --> 00:03:08.759 maybe this is an old friend wearing an unfamiliar coat, 65 00:03:08.840 --> 00:03:11.400 and I have failed some professional duty to remember our history. 66 00:03:11.960 --> 00:03:14.000 I finished my rounds on not a pilot, recording the 67 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:16.759 temperature swings near the north facing windows, logging a wobbly 68 00:03:16.759 --> 00:03:18.680 foot on the settee in the parlor. My mind half 69 00:03:18.680 --> 00:03:21.919 deathered to inventory, but wholly tangled in the strange, brilliant artifact. 70 00:03:22.599 --> 00:03:24.879 Back at my office, I noted my planner stove for 71 00:03:24.919 --> 00:03:28.000 a bird. Clarify, provemence. I decide to circle back in 72 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:31.000 the evening after closing. After this checking and docent banter, 73 00:03:31.080 --> 00:03:33.319 and the quiet echo of children's sneakers has faded from 74 00:03:33.360 --> 00:03:37.280 the stairwells for now or to a moss prevail, There is, 75 00:03:37.400 --> 00:03:40.280 I tell myself, always time for wonder. After the paperwork 76 00:03:40.319 --> 00:03:43.199 is done outside. The wind paints the eaves with brine. 77 00:03:43.759 --> 00:03:46.159 Dovetail wakes to another day that is on the surface, 78 00:03:46.199 --> 00:03:49.639 blissfully unchanged. The covent and house perches at the edge 79 00:03:49.680 --> 00:03:52.199 of an old wharf road, its triple paned windows silvered 80 00:03:52.240 --> 00:03:54.400 with a century of morning frost, while high drange is 81 00:03:54.439 --> 00:03:57.680 curled run broken stonework in the garden within its walls. 82 00:03:57.719 --> 00:04:00.159 I've learned every twist and fault lined room's elbowed gether 83 00:04:00.199 --> 00:04:03.039 at odd angles, cedar dolintel softened with use, and long 84 00:04:03.080 --> 00:04:06.120 echoing galleries, the funnel wind like an organ. The museum 85 00:04:06.199 --> 00:04:08.960 is both my career and my sanctuary. When people ask 86 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:10.800 me what it's like to be a knockovised, I tell 87 00:04:10.800 --> 00:04:13.319 them it's less like safeguarding treasures and more like tending 88 00:04:13.319 --> 00:04:16.560 a strange, delicate clock. Missing only a handful of ticks 89 00:04:16.560 --> 00:04:19.319 means you lose the tune. Forevor every day a rise 90 00:04:19.360 --> 00:04:21.920 at dawn, take tea beside the sea facing windows, and 91 00:04:21.959 --> 00:04:25.120 on the first through the arched side door. Before eight mornings, 92 00:04:25.160 --> 00:04:28.040 move to the metronome. Artifact checks paperwork, A flick of 93 00:04:28.040 --> 00:04:30.399 the wrist to close strail in from velvet displays gentle 94 00:04:30.399 --> 00:04:32.680 reminders to volunteers not to handle the old snow globe 95 00:04:32.720 --> 00:04:35.720 with bare hands. The Coventon House itself is a maze 96 00:04:35.759 --> 00:04:38.199 of blendid time periods, a federal foy beside an Arts 97 00:04:38.199 --> 00:04:40.560 and Crafts study painted peacock blue, two flights of stairs 98 00:04:40.600 --> 00:04:43.000 knotted at the landing, and lock door's rumor to conceal 99 00:04:43.079 --> 00:04:46.240 nothing more sensational than archival shelving. My boots know the 100 00:04:46.240 --> 00:04:49.360 cracked towels in the service passage without looking. I conduct 101 00:04:49.360 --> 00:04:52.480 private lunchtime tours for myself in loafers, through empty corridor, 102 00:04:52.560 --> 00:04:55.800 smelling of rosewood wax. The cost staff is a patchwork, 103 00:04:55.839 --> 00:04:58.839 but I've come to rely on our tangled chemistry, clawed 104 00:04:58.920 --> 00:05:02.199 our director Breeze, through his mournings, rehearsing media blurbes and 105 00:05:02.240 --> 00:05:05.279 imagining grant proposal stunts, evolving drawing footage of the cupola. 106 00:05:05.879 --> 00:05:09.439 He's tall, sparrow thin, notoriously disorganized, and treats the museum 107 00:05:09.519 --> 00:05:11.360 less as a tomb of artifacts than the social pulse 108 00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:13.639 of the town, sometimes cooking me to host gallery Bingo 109 00:05:13.680 --> 00:05:16.759 for sculpture, Durnal Guide, midnight Lanton tours under the haunted cupola. 110 00:05:17.360 --> 00:05:19.680 The actual accounts payable are less likely to be haunted 111 00:05:19.720 --> 00:05:22.519 than more likely to be late, but claudes optimism as irrepressible. 112 00:05:23.120 --> 00:05:26.800 Marisol Dosin and Mirita and town gossip in residence is short, blunt, 113 00:05:26.879 --> 00:05:29.120 with culs gone wholly wide in a year of pandemic stress. 114 00:05:29.759 --> 00:05:31.759 Her gift is an art of a roving imagination that 115 00:05:31.839 --> 00:05:34.439 turns miss laid compasses into relics of smuggle kings or 116 00:05:34.439 --> 00:05:36.800 faded wallpaper curls into the echo of a lost love 117 00:05:37.399 --> 00:05:39.519 when Marisol tells me about the haunted doll in a 118 00:05:39.560 --> 00:05:42.759 Texile room. Although unlucky funerary brooch, it is less for 119 00:05:42.800 --> 00:05:45.639 accuracy and more for the drama. Still, she has an 120 00:05:45.680 --> 00:05:49.720 iron clad memory for object origins. Supposedly, Andre the Restoration 121 00:05:49.839 --> 00:05:52.079 Lee is a wizard with gold leaf, but cannot find 122 00:05:52.120 --> 00:05:54.240 his own screwdriver, even when it is in his vest pocket. 123 00:05:54.839 --> 00:05:57.800 I admire his patience with translucent clues, not so much 124 00:05:57.839 --> 00:06:01.319 with digital asset checklists, which claims to disrupt the worksorr 125 00:06:01.839 --> 00:06:05.000 Andre fashions cust amounts for odd shiped objects and scenes, 126 00:06:05.160 --> 00:06:09.240 paradoxically wholly forgetful of most of the piece's paperwork. Leela, 127 00:06:09.360 --> 00:06:12.040 the Latest to Join, is a college sophomore who volunteers 128 00:06:12.040 --> 00:06:15.000 at the front despertween city bus shifts. She admits to 129 00:06:15.079 --> 00:06:18.040 knowing nothing about regional antiquities, but records every ghost story 130 00:06:18.079 --> 00:06:21.319 with Ernest's attention, writing names on posters and Cully purple ink. 131 00:06:21.920 --> 00:06:24.480 She's never set foot in the locked store room without supervision. 132 00:06:25.040 --> 00:06:28.120 We are collectively guardians of cabinets of oddities, whale oil 133 00:06:28.160 --> 00:06:31.639 lamps from fail fortunes, newspaper fragments, sealed under glass, rings 134 00:06:31.680 --> 00:06:34.600 of keys, a traveler's chesset built a found whalebone, and 135 00:06:34.639 --> 00:06:37.240 a painting of Dovtel's first fairy, always a shade too 136 00:06:37.240 --> 00:06:39.720 bright for its frame. The museum sits at the edge 137 00:06:39.759 --> 00:06:41.720 of things, not just the letter or coastline, but the 138 00:06:41.720 --> 00:06:45.879 border between ordinary and pequilier. Sometimes misplaced letter turns up 139 00:06:45.879 --> 00:06:48.000 in an unexpected wing, or a portrait a peers in 140 00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:50.800 the wrong frame, daubs of paints matched by half a century. 141 00:06:51.360 --> 00:06:53.680 These trivial lapses are as much part of the folklore 142 00:06:53.680 --> 00:06:57.360 as the artifacts themselves. But never, not once have uncountered 143 00:06:57.360 --> 00:06:59.439 a new object so entirely and turned out from our 144 00:06:59.439 --> 00:07:02.040 records and goossible in manufacture and stamp for a date 145 00:07:02.079 --> 00:07:05.319 that hasn't yet been breathed into existence. The gallery where 146 00:07:05.360 --> 00:07:08.600 the clockwork bird Ways is both familiar and suddenly opaque, 147 00:07:09.079 --> 00:07:11.519 folk out wellige e spin in slow motion under glass, 148 00:07:11.600 --> 00:07:13.560 and a lack of violent purchase beside a sail as 149 00:07:13.639 --> 00:07:17.199 Valentine as Shelwick, faded by sunlight. The bird's case lies 150 00:07:17.279 --> 00:07:19.800 not far from a display of miner's knots, just beneath 151 00:07:19.800 --> 00:07:22.120 an air and take no ones managed silence fully in 152 00:07:22.160 --> 00:07:25.000 twenty years, I tell myself there must be a simple 153 00:07:25.040 --> 00:07:27.600 explanation and accession missed by a previous intern, a cleaned 154 00:07:27.600 --> 00:07:31.759 object misunderstood by an outside crew. Museums survive on gentle chaos, 155 00:07:32.319 --> 00:07:35.079 But as each hour passes, the question persists, shimmering in 156 00:07:35.120 --> 00:07:38.040 my peripheral vision. How could something this singular, this beautiful? 157 00:07:38.040 --> 00:07:40.759 And how did the room without my knowing? After closing, 158 00:07:40.800 --> 00:07:43.279 when the last echo of children's laughter leaves the stairwell, 159 00:07:43.319 --> 00:07:45.519 I locked my office and retrieved the previous months print 160 00:07:45.519 --> 00:07:48.279 out a thick sheaf of cross reverenced objects, ophpetized by 161 00:07:48.360 --> 00:07:51.720 room case and shelf. I flipped quickly, fingers flicking, and 162 00:07:51.720 --> 00:07:55.680 practiced rhythm. Case fourteen should contain, as always object pending 163 00:07:55.680 --> 00:07:59.000 description beside the rose glass paperwoid. No bird is listed 164 00:07:59.079 --> 00:08:02.519 under any synonym. No clockwork, no mechanical, no ren or lark. 165 00:08:03.199 --> 00:08:06.160 I skimmed the staff duty's lock, the closing checklists for 166 00:08:06.199 --> 00:08:09.360 the past weeks. No scheduled moves, no object arrival, no 167 00:08:09.480 --> 00:08:12.319 maintenance main gallery note in the rotation. This is not 168 00:08:12.399 --> 00:08:15.160 a matter of lost paper or a mislabeled tag. I 169 00:08:15.240 --> 00:08:17.839 paced the length of a corridor, weighing whether to ask 170 00:08:17.879 --> 00:08:21.120 Andrea Claud for even a recollection. It seems paranoid or 171 00:08:21.160 --> 00:08:23.480 prideful to confess I've overlooked a gem like this, though, 172 00:08:23.680 --> 00:08:26.839 really that's all I've trained myself to void. At last. 173 00:08:26.959 --> 00:08:29.120 A spark claw at the coat rat by the west stairwell, 174 00:08:29.160 --> 00:08:31.519 already half way through his third espresso, fussing at his 175 00:08:31.560 --> 00:08:34.240 foam with a mix of glee in destruction. I angle 176 00:08:34.279 --> 00:08:37.759 my voiced casual claude the burden gallery case fourteen, the 177 00:08:37.759 --> 00:08:39.799 silver clock or corn near the east window. Do you 178 00:08:39.840 --> 00:08:43.919 remember when we got that? He beams unsuspicious bo. That 179 00:08:44.080 --> 00:08:46.440 old thing's always been there am long before my time. 180 00:08:46.480 --> 00:08:48.600 The locals adore it. Some say it brings luck when 181 00:08:48.600 --> 00:08:50.399 you leave a penny beside the pedesel should put that 182 00:08:50.440 --> 00:08:52.879 on a cocktail Knakin actually make it the toss stop 183 00:08:53.039 --> 00:08:56.840 real conversation piece. I nod, resisting the urge to colender. 184 00:08:57.519 --> 00:08:59.440 Do you know who accessioned it? I can't find any 185 00:08:59.480 --> 00:09:01.279 lock or form, and it doesn't seem to have a 186 00:09:01.320 --> 00:09:04.639 record number. He shrugs, as that slightly theatrical pause he 187 00:09:04.720 --> 00:09:08.200 uses before dodging paperwork. I assume Marsol would know, not 188 00:09:08.320 --> 00:09:10.720 my era, I'm afraid. Besides, if it's in the room, 189 00:09:10.720 --> 00:09:12.480 it's in the record somewhere. I bet it's in the 190 00:09:12.480 --> 00:09:15.080 donation logs. Those we're a mess after the annex renovations. 191 00:09:15.120 --> 00:09:18.200 You worry too much, Cloud leaves is Scarf whipping after 192 00:09:18.279 --> 00:09:20.360 him half with drafting a treat about hash mystery in 193 00:09:20.399 --> 00:09:23.039 the museum. I turn the phrase over in my mind. 194 00:09:23.720 --> 00:09:25.879 If it was always here, why do you even my 195 00:09:25.879 --> 00:09:29.200 best loves record only a placeholder? The ambiguity sticks like 196 00:09:29.200 --> 00:09:33.240 a splinter's Lot fourteen object pending description. I need pigeon whole, 197 00:09:33.279 --> 00:09:35.720 holding nothing but a question in the most public corner 198 00:09:35.759 --> 00:09:40.320 of the museum. I record my findings, missing accession, contradictory memories, 199 00:09:40.360 --> 00:09:42.480 A future day stamped in brass and not, in fact, 200 00:09:42.519 --> 00:09:45.639 with no visible origin. Every one seems so certain that 201 00:09:45.679 --> 00:09:47.879 the bird belongs here, except for me, who knows of 202 00:09:47.919 --> 00:09:51.399 professional certainty that it absolutely does not. I feel my 203 00:09:51.440 --> 00:09:55.039 curiosity solidifying, gaining muscle. This time, I will not let 204 00:09:55.039 --> 00:09:58.240 the whisper vanish. I plan a private order after closing, 205 00:09:58.399 --> 00:10:00.039 When time seems to slow in the house grows it 206 00:10:00.120 --> 00:10:03.240 is nearly reverent. I want nothing between myself and the truth. 207 00:10:03.279 --> 00:10:06.759 By silence, cloves and patience. To night, the room feels 208 00:10:06.759 --> 00:10:09.960 stretched and strangely alive. After hours, the hush is denser, 209 00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:12.679 as if the museum itself is listening. I punch in 210 00:10:12.720 --> 00:10:15.080 the code, slip on nitrol gloves, and bring a new 211 00:10:15.159 --> 00:10:18.159 law brook. I start at the mahogany display case, neurst 212 00:10:18.240 --> 00:10:21.120 the stairs, itemising every visible object and checking the alarm 213 00:10:21.159 --> 00:10:23.840 tape at each window, locked for tampering. One by one, 214 00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:26.960 artifacts render their histories, brass instruments, a mother of pearl 215 00:10:27.000 --> 00:10:29.960 POCKETNYE for battered map. At last, I returned to the 216 00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:33.279 klalkcork bird's case. It takes both hands to gently left 217 00:10:33.320 --> 00:10:35.799 the dome. The air inside has a tang ozon in 218 00:10:35.799 --> 00:10:38.960 the ghosts of old oil. The bird is astonishing up close. 219 00:10:39.200 --> 00:10:41.000 Each bob on its right wing is a strand of 220 00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:45.080 filigree sowder marks, invisible even with my portable loop. Where 221 00:10:45.080 --> 00:10:47.360 I expect springs and anchors. In the mechanism, there is 222 00:10:47.360 --> 00:10:49.519 insured a shimmer, a coil of fluxus, as though it 223 00:10:49.600 --> 00:10:53.120 breathese I document each angle with a careful photograph, making 224 00:10:53.159 --> 00:10:55.240 sure the plock out is legible. In at least two shots. 225 00:10:55.879 --> 00:10:58.320 The seraphon dips in the tail of the R, slightly 226 00:10:58.360 --> 00:11:01.679 inconsistent with our contemporary label. I glanced twice at the 227 00:11:01.759 --> 00:11:04.799 date again, April eighteenth, twenty twenty seven. There is no 228 00:11:04.879 --> 00:11:08.279 mistaking it. I tried to examine the internal workings, but 229 00:11:08.360 --> 00:11:11.159 conventional tool seam useless. A backplate doesn't reveal itself to 230 00:11:11.240 --> 00:11:14.320 ordinary screws or seams. At the base is a spiral, 231 00:11:14.559 --> 00:11:16.960 not wound, but laid with a faint, oblessed shemoor, akin 232 00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:19.519 to modern flex circuitry than anything the eighteen eighties local 233 00:11:19.559 --> 00:11:23.480 machinists were design Here, the anachronism widens. I cannot account 234 00:11:23.559 --> 00:11:26.440 with any logic for the combination of historical techniques, something 235 00:11:26.519 --> 00:11:28.440 not merely ahead of its err but out of phase 236 00:11:28.480 --> 00:11:30.960 with it. It is not restored. There are no teltal 237 00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:34.600 till marks, no evidence of repair. One wing is slightly 238 00:11:34.639 --> 00:11:36.759 moil lifted in this morning, as though the bird has 239 00:11:36.799 --> 00:11:40.039 been disturbed. I scanned for signs of tappering, no prints, 240 00:11:40.200 --> 00:11:43.559 no velvets, much by recent hands. Yet beneath the perch 241 00:11:43.639 --> 00:11:45.960 feet the plush is cuffed in curve ribbles, worn not 242 00:11:46.039 --> 00:11:48.919 by careless jossal but by hundreds of repeated, deliberate movements. 243 00:11:49.600 --> 00:11:51.840 I photographed the pattern. It's as if the bird had, 244 00:11:51.919 --> 00:11:55.320 at intervals, been tested in every possible stance. The rest 245 00:11:55.360 --> 00:11:59.320 of the gallery is determinately ordinary cases of commemorative spoons 246 00:12:00.039 --> 00:12:02.960 framed to back of cards, a walnut light box with 247 00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:06.039 a well documented local chain of custody. I pour over 248 00:12:06.080 --> 00:12:08.440 the digital oka. If the staff photo from last December's 249 00:12:08.480 --> 00:12:10.679 Donor Gale is blowed in the case's direction, the only 250 00:12:10.759 --> 00:12:14.159 visible artifact is the chrome lantist left. Older photos are 251 00:12:14.159 --> 00:12:17.559 the same blockages, awkward camera ankles. Nowhere is the bird 252 00:12:17.559 --> 00:12:20.240 plainly caught on film. I cross a silent building to 253 00:12:20.279 --> 00:12:22.679 the staff lounge and catch Maarsol winding her scarf up, 254 00:12:22.799 --> 00:12:25.519 prepping for the cold walk home. I keep my tongue 255 00:12:25.600 --> 00:12:28.639 casual ever heard any stories about that selve o'clock rook 256 00:12:28.679 --> 00:12:31.600 bird in the main gallery. Her eyes crinkle pleased to 257 00:12:31.639 --> 00:12:34.759 be asked, of course, used to terrify the skull field 258 00:12:34.799 --> 00:12:36.320 trips told them it was made from the bones of 259 00:12:36.360 --> 00:12:38.600 john sailors, or that it sang on foggy nights if 260 00:12:38.600 --> 00:12:40.759 a storm was coming, always good for a creek or two, 261 00:12:40.840 --> 00:12:43.039 that things older than my grandmother's salt box beIN. In 262 00:12:43.080 --> 00:12:47.000 that case, since what the early nineteen hundreds? I test 263 00:12:47.039 --> 00:12:49.840 her on details. Did she ever see it move? Remember 264 00:12:49.840 --> 00:12:53.559 who built it? She frowns, wavers, then launches into testing 265 00:12:53.639 --> 00:12:55.600 story involving a clockwick a loss at sea in a 266 00:12:55.639 --> 00:12:57.879 festival where the belt was parided on a velvet pillow. 267 00:12:58.360 --> 00:13:00.559 But her date shifts with each sentence. Won once nineteen 268 00:13:00.600 --> 00:13:03.320 o four, then suddenly during the war, maybe the nineteen 269 00:13:03.320 --> 00:13:05.919 forties or even earlier. Some cyed bird was here before 270 00:13:05.919 --> 00:13:08.759 we got electricity. I priy as gently as I can, 271 00:13:08.960 --> 00:13:11.639 but Marisol is done with my line of questioning. She 272 00:13:11.720 --> 00:13:14.399 waves me off, says, you always care more about dates 273 00:13:14.399 --> 00:13:17.360 than about stories. Maybe that's not the point. She leaves. 274 00:13:17.440 --> 00:13:21.080 Keisjangle in. I fall into another round of research, combing 275 00:13:21.120 --> 00:13:24.919 through old exhibition catalogs, accession binders. Even my predecessoried it's 276 00:13:24.919 --> 00:13:27.759 hand typed inventories going back to the early nineteen seventies. 277 00:13:28.399 --> 00:13:31.399 There is never any record, no mention in opening daybro sures, 278 00:13:31.399 --> 00:13:34.840 no acquisition report, nothing in the foundation's annual budgets. The 279 00:13:34.879 --> 00:13:38.559 bird in oar cavil terms does not exist. That night, 280 00:13:38.559 --> 00:13:41.639 I log my otivations, I add a new habit photograph 281 00:13:41.639 --> 00:13:44.279 in the bird's posture before leaving, measuring wing and head 282 00:13:44.320 --> 00:13:47.360 angles with makeshift protractors, I set up a cheap time 283 00:13:47.440 --> 00:13:50.720 lapse camera. The next morning, before the doors open, I 284 00:13:50.799 --> 00:13:53.840 return print outs in hand. The bird's pose has changed, 285 00:13:53.840 --> 00:13:56.240 almost imperceptibly, its head now angled as though I'm the 286 00:13:56.240 --> 00:13:59.639 farthest lane of glass, tail feathers slightly fanned. The scuff 287 00:13:59.639 --> 00:14:01.720 pattern on the velvet is more pronounced, as if the 288 00:14:01.720 --> 00:14:04.639 bird is pivoted forty degrees in place. This is, and 289 00:14:04.720 --> 00:14:08.080 must admit, more playful than sinister. There's no sense of muss, 290 00:14:08.200 --> 00:14:10.399 only a secret rhythm, as if the bird responds to 291 00:14:10.440 --> 00:14:13.279 a game I cannot see. Each day it postures a 292 00:14:13.320 --> 00:14:16.200 new answer each night. My measurements and photos accumulate in 293 00:14:16.200 --> 00:14:19.159 an encourt to drive in a ragged notebook where rischell grows. 294 00:14:19.200 --> 00:14:23.519 Precise photograph document Compare the scuff marks, deepening, curved tracks, 295 00:14:23.879 --> 00:14:26.720 never overlapping, beautifully consistent with the weight and balance of 296 00:14:26.759 --> 00:14:29.720 the bird. By the third morning, even the volunteer who 297 00:14:29.799 --> 00:14:32.000 cleans the glass cases comments on the new pos but 298 00:14:32.039 --> 00:14:34.320 only in the same bland tone as moving a salt cellar. 299 00:14:34.960 --> 00:14:37.919 No one is alarmed. I run more research. Search the 300 00:14:38.039 --> 00:14:41.039 entire event calendar for April eighteen, twenty twenty seven, in 301 00:14:41.080 --> 00:14:45.279 all museum proposals blank. Consider if the dates that could 302 00:14:45.279 --> 00:14:48.679 permeed the numbers, find nothing that fits. Even the front 303 00:14:48.720 --> 00:14:51.200 on the placard is subtly anomalous, clean but with a 304 00:14:51.240 --> 00:14:53.799 slight serre of calm, never used in our official signage. 305 00:14:54.320 --> 00:14:57.399 Every effort to track the anomaly breed more questions. A 306 00:14:57.559 --> 00:15:00.279 visitor overheard in the gallery describes the bird as having 307 00:15:00.320 --> 00:15:02.080 sun for her as a child, but in her story 308 00:15:02.120 --> 00:15:04.759 the bird is blue, dipped with silver eyes, and always 309 00:15:04.759 --> 00:15:06.919 displayed in the window alk of not this case, not 310 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:10.480 this pose. The longer our work, the less solid anything 311 00:15:10.480 --> 00:15:13.399 about the bird orrit history becomes a week of this. 312 00:15:14.240 --> 00:15:17.000 Each day a new twist, a gentle prod against order. 313 00:15:17.600 --> 00:15:20.919 Another pose, another misrecord, Another bright morning where the impossible 314 00:15:20.960 --> 00:15:22.440 sits at the heart of the gallery of comm as 315 00:15:22.440 --> 00:15:25.159 a secret and plain sight. On a rare lunch break, 316 00:15:25.320 --> 00:15:27.840 I share coffee with Andrea out on the plaza, sheltering 317 00:15:27.879 --> 00:15:31.120 from the wind behind a sagging hyghdranger. He wipes varnish 318 00:15:31.120 --> 00:15:33.320 from his hands with the rag, scowling at the clouds. 319 00:15:34.039 --> 00:15:36.279 Ye ever work on the stone through a bird? I 320 00:15:36.360 --> 00:15:40.320 ask him. He smiles fondly. Oh, shure, years ago. Must 321 00:15:40.360 --> 00:15:42.200 have been the late nineties. Gilded the peak for that 322 00:15:42.240 --> 00:15:44.919 spring festival. Just after the window ledge cracked. The gold 323 00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:47.480 leaf wouldn't adhere at first, something odd about the base metal. 324 00:15:47.559 --> 00:15:49.440 Some kind of alley had to borrow tools from hire 325 00:15:49.440 --> 00:15:51.600 and tape that altens without by the river. He knew 326 00:15:51.639 --> 00:15:54.960 every trick for mechanical birds, all brass and bone. I 327 00:15:55.080 --> 00:15:58.159 freeze the name is wrong. I've read every artisan list 328 00:15:58.200 --> 00:16:00.480 in the county, and there has never been a high iarrantate. 329 00:16:01.200 --> 00:16:03.759 Andrea is certain, though he goes so far as to 330 00:16:03.759 --> 00:16:06.399 dig out an old restoration lock, thus sticky and yellowed. 331 00:16:06.440 --> 00:16:09.679 His own handwritten looping in blue ink. April nineteen eighty 332 00:16:09.679 --> 00:16:12.360 two h take consults on stone through a bird, reguilding 333 00:16:12.440 --> 00:16:16.080 prepared pinion added lacquer, bird returned to case, teeth perfectly aligned. 334 00:16:16.679 --> 00:16:19.519 I read the entry three times. I've never seen this 335 00:16:19.600 --> 00:16:22.639 look before, nor for that matter, did I think Andrea 336 00:16:22.679 --> 00:16:25.159 was even on staff in nineteen eighty two. Now the 337 00:16:25.240 --> 00:16:28.799 territory is shifting beneath my feet. Memory itself runs thick 338 00:16:28.840 --> 00:16:32.120 and unreliable. Where did the lock come from? Did I 339 00:16:32.159 --> 00:16:34.919 misfellow s binder? The cover is scuffed to match its 340 00:16:34.919 --> 00:16:37.960 apparent age, but the papers feel is subtlely new. Even 341 00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:40.320 my instincts, finally tuned to forgeries and fixed, tell me 342 00:16:40.360 --> 00:16:42.639 nothing except I am face to face with an impossibility. 343 00:16:43.320 --> 00:16:45.559 The more I probe, the more evidence rushes up to answer. 344 00:16:46.120 --> 00:16:48.279 I dig in the archives and unearth a pasted up 345 00:16:48.279 --> 00:16:52.000 newspaper Clipping Spring Festival features prize winning clockwork Bird nineteen 346 00:16:52.080 --> 00:16:55.360 o four. It lists parade in contest for mechanical marvels 347 00:16:55.399 --> 00:16:57.840 and includes a blurry photograph of children holding a bird 348 00:16:57.879 --> 00:17:01.440 shaped trophy aloft. The clipping fox and Brittle has never 349 00:17:01.519 --> 00:17:04.839 before been cataloged with our ephemeric collection. A check provens 350 00:17:04.839 --> 00:17:06.960 it should have been logged, but there is no existing note, 351 00:17:06.960 --> 00:17:10.440 no barcode yak here. It is the art fact made physical. 352 00:17:11.079 --> 00:17:13.720 Near by at the coat rack, two elderly visitors chad 353 00:17:13.759 --> 00:17:16.920 in high excited tones. One insists to the other, Oh, 354 00:17:17.039 --> 00:17:19.799 my grandmother remembered seeing the original clockwork bird of golden 355 00:17:19.880 --> 00:17:22.160 with sapphires in the eyes, perched on a wooden stand 356 00:17:22.200 --> 00:17:23.799 in the old West parlor. She said it was the 357 00:17:23.839 --> 00:17:28.039 gem of Covington House. The other visitor disagrees. No, my 358 00:17:28.079 --> 00:17:30.119 brother wrote a poem about the silver bird that chirped. 359 00:17:30.160 --> 00:17:32.160 They had it on the roof during the hurricane. That's 360 00:17:32.200 --> 00:17:34.640 always been there, just moved from room to room. I 361 00:17:34.720 --> 00:17:37.279 begin mapping these narratives, making a float out of date's 362 00:17:37.279 --> 00:17:41.000 eye colors and display locations, sketching arrows between clashing accounts. 363 00:17:41.720 --> 00:17:44.799 With every comparison, the story's fork and diverge, each new 364 00:17:44.880 --> 00:17:49.720 story contradicting the last. The paradox spirals wider, even iyowitesses disagree, 365 00:17:49.839 --> 00:17:52.440 Even the fox dissolve at the margin. The shape of 366 00:17:52.440 --> 00:17:54.559 the bird, the color of the feathers, the location. Each 367 00:17:54.599 --> 00:17:58.240 memory travels decades, then flickers into something new. Something about 368 00:17:58.279 --> 00:18:00.359 this feels less like a simple gap and more tissue 369 00:18:00.400 --> 00:18:03.000 of living story, curling around the objects of trying to 370 00:18:03.039 --> 00:18:06.160 rapid in plausible origins. I stop asking when the bird 371 00:18:06.240 --> 00:18:09.359 arrived and start asking why does every narrative, memory, and 372 00:18:09.359 --> 00:18:11.759 even the physical evidence itself seem to bend and multiply 373 00:18:11.839 --> 00:18:15.200 around this one art fact. The question stings not with dread, 374 00:18:15.279 --> 00:18:18.359 but with a luminous wonder. Museums are supposed to preserve, 375 00:18:18.480 --> 00:18:21.240 stories are supposed to settle with time. Yet before me 376 00:18:21.319 --> 00:18:24.599 now is the swhirl of a living past, kaleidoscopic improvisational, 377 00:18:24.640 --> 00:18:27.119 a present that rewrites itself each time the bird's story 378 00:18:27.160 --> 00:18:29.960 is told. What exactly is the stone for a bird? 379 00:18:30.039 --> 00:18:33.279 If not merely the sum of its captured moments. One Friday, 380 00:18:33.359 --> 00:18:35.960 I arrive early for an event planning meeting. In the 381 00:18:36.039 --> 00:18:39.359 history alcove, stacked between two illustrated town directories, I find 382 00:18:39.400 --> 00:18:42.240 a faded black and white photograph I've never seen. This 383 00:18:42.359 --> 00:18:45.279 scene is achingly familiar. The Covington has garden, sun bleached 384 00:18:45.279 --> 00:18:49.359 and wild car nineteen ten. Children play in Pinafores a 385 00:18:49.400 --> 00:18:51.680 man in a boat to hat stroms of banjo. But 386 00:18:51.759 --> 00:18:54.240 there above the portmantel poised in profile on a coulted 387 00:18:54.279 --> 00:18:58.000 map perchase the clockwork bird. Its feathers gleam even in sepiat, 388 00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:00.400 the beaklifted as though about to sing. I take the 389 00:19:00.400 --> 00:19:03.720 photograph to the staff desk check its provenance. The reverse 390 00:19:03.720 --> 00:19:07.240 is stumped to Covington House Archives, nineteen fifty four, a 391 00:19:07.279 --> 00:19:10.119 side drawer. I locate the corresponding glass plate negative h 392 00:19:10.160 --> 00:19:13.599 to the expected color, brittle than touched corners. Both feel 393 00:19:13.640 --> 00:19:15.720 as real as any art fact in the museum, as 394 00:19:15.759 --> 00:19:17.519 though they had aged in a trunquet at knowing they 395 00:19:17.519 --> 00:19:20.400 had never been seen. I show the photo to Marisol, 396 00:19:20.480 --> 00:19:22.279 who holds it at arms lean for a moment, then 397 00:19:22.319 --> 00:19:25.480 knots oh, how Fanny, I think I curated at Spring 398 00:19:25.519 --> 00:19:27.720 Show with that bird in the seventies, not this photo, 399 00:19:27.839 --> 00:19:31.720 but yes, yes, she grows animated sketching memories of an 400 00:19:31.720 --> 00:19:35.680 exhibit school toys a diremma with miniature mechanical birds. Yet 401 00:19:35.680 --> 00:19:38.200