New Age Fruit
In two parts, about being a New Age Fruit, or as one buddy prefers, “Crystal Waving Yahoo.”
When asked, one reader suggested that crystal waving yahoo had better street cred.
I believe New Age Fruit more approximately catches the timbre of the times.
New Age Fruit, part 1
Buddy of mine knows that I am featured practitioner in Austin — at the rock shop. In Austin? Great resource for rocks and minerals, metaphysical, &c. I also knew a wholesaler and jobber or two, and at one point, I mentioned I knew a place that had the quartz crystals and related New Age mineral specimens — advertised — by the pallet. Not really, but it is a warehouse type showroom, less than retail, in San Antonio.
Intrigued, he bugged me until I set up an appointment, and we wandered by to the warehouse.
Then I became intrigued. The two, the merchant and her quarry, my buddy, they went back and forth on minerals, specimens, sources, properties, inherent vibrational fields, and any number of other fuzzy topics. He was shopping; she was selling; everyone was happy.
My buddy did drop a bundle on specimens, the black AMEX might not be a myth, and one piece really caught my attention. For $50, he bought a large, amethyst “cathedral” that was shattered by the shipper, “UPS did that,” she said. My buddy got a great deal. I managed to beg a few shards, lovely purple-tipped quartz crystals, SiO4 (plus or minus), as a finder’s fee. That box was worth the whole trip.
He wound up with maybe a half-dozen boxes filled with rocks and crap. Good stuff, some gemstone grade material, some semi-precious, and it was, relatively speaking, dirt cheap. He was happy. My shop-keeper friend was seriously happy, too. Good, all the way around.
We loaded the crystals into boxes then onto a dolly, and he backs up his truck. SUV. Whatever. With the back door open, we’re standing there, me and my buddy, and the woman is carefully loading the boxes full of rocks.
Couple of the boxes were fifty pounds or more.
I am unsure if anyone else took note, but she was better at packing than we were.
New Age Fruit, part 2
The second part, New Age Fruit, part 2 is harder to explain. Like Austin, most of my adopted home of San Antonio is gentle hills covered with mostly Live Oak. Under the scattered shade, on a tattered piece of asphalt, behind a low and rambling half-abandoned office complex, he, me, were dealing rocks. Sounds bad.
No, it was baggies full of crystal.
Again, sounds bad.
Hot summer afternoon. Belly full of TexMex, sweating lightly like the refined beans, digging around. A construction crew yammering in Mexican and banging hammers paused and looked on, wondering what was happening.
Seriously, looked like an illicit drug deal.
New Age Fruits, dealing metaphysical ephemera, in the parking lot.