A Shirt with a Very Unusual Backstory

A gift I gave to a now-deceased friend 30 years ago is up for purchase in a digital estate sale, which raises some interesting questions. Plus a new Inconspicuous News Roundup, and more.

The things I’ve written about here at Inconspicuous Consumption over the past year or so have included vintage artifacts (including vintage clothing), collections, music, estate sales, and receiving a very special gift from a friend nine months after his death and 28 years after it was supposed to have been sent to me. All of those tropes have now bizarrely converged, as a T-shirt that I gave to that same now-deceased friend 30 years ago has been listed for purchase in something akin to a digital estate sale.

Let’s start here: As you may recall, earlier this year I wrote about how I had received a personalized copy of a rare album by the Chicago noise-rock band Shellac, which was fronted by the punk iconoclast Steve Albini. The album had been made in 1997 as a gift to the band’s friends, but a bunch of copies, including mine, were never mailed out to their intended recipients until after Albini’s 2024 death from a heart attack. Receiving my copy after Steve’s death — and less than a year after I’d published a long, wide-ranging interview with him — was powerful and moving, like a getting a gift from beyond the grave.

Now Albini has sent me another posthumous signal flare. The story begins in 1995 (or maybe late ’94?), when I went to see Shellac play a show in Manhattan. I’m pretty sure it was at a now-defunct venue called the Thread Waxing Space. I had learned that Albini was a fan of the zine I was publishing at the time, Beer Frame: The Journal of Inconspicuous Consumption (I no longer recall if someone had told me this, or if Albini had mentioned the zine in something he’d written, or what), so I brought along a Beer Frame T-shirt and hoped to give it to him as a way of introducing myself.

I made sure I was near the stage for Shellac’s set. During a break between songs, I yelled up to Albini and tossed the shirt up onto the stage. He picked it up, looked at it, and then immediately strode to the lip of the stage and reached down to shake my hand. That’s how we “met.” (Two years later he’d end up writing the foreword for my book.)

I hadn’t thought about that night for many years. But I was reminded of it last Friday, when a few people alerted me to a new listing on Steve Albini’s Closet, a website that was launched a few months ago to sell off Steve’s huge trove of belongings — essentially an online estate sale. Each item comes with a certificate of authenticity, and the proceeds go to Steve’s estate. New listings are added each Friday, and this past Friday’s listings included one for a certain T-shirt. (At the time of this article’s publication, the shirt had not yet been sold.)

This is how the listing originally looked. After I became aware of its existence, I contacted the site administrator and told him the story behind the shirt, which he then added to the item description. (Screen shot from stevealbiniscloset.com)

Steve never mail-ordered a T-shirt from me (I would remember if he had), and the shirts weren’t available through any other channels. So this shirt is almost certainly the one I tossed onstage to him 30 years ago. It’s amazing that he took it with him on the rest of that Shellac tour, brought it home to Chicago, and kept it for three decades. It’s listed in “EX” condition, which initially led me to assume that it was never worn, but the site’s administrator has assured me that “the shirt was worn, just well taken care of.”

Good story, right? It’s amazing how Steve’s death continues to reverberate in unexpected ways.

A few friends who spotted the online listing on Friday got in touch to let me know about it. All of them said something along the lines of, “I figure you’ll want to buy this, right?” But I have no interest in doing that — not because of the $100 price tag (which does seem a bit ridiculous), but because this is one of those instances where the backstory and the memory feel more important than the object, at least for me. It’s been fun to remember that night at the Thread Waxing Space, and to write about it here. That’s enough for me; I don’t need the actual shirt.

But the shirt could be perfect for somebody else! I know there are plenty of people out there who were fans of both Shellac and Beer Frame, and I’d like to think that at least one of them — maybe someone reading this post! — might get a kick out of owning an item connected to both of those projects.

I feel like this development also raises some intriguing questions about celebrity, fandom, provenance, value, and probably a few other things. I don’t think there are any “right” or “wrong” answers to those questions — just interesting things to ponder. If you have any thoughts on that, feel free to share them in the comments.

Stick Figures in Peril, Continued

My recent survey of stick figures in peril continues to inspire reader submissions. First up is Karl Reinsch, who took these two shots in 2008:

(Photo by Karl Reinsch)

(Photo by Karl Reinsch)

In addition, reader Susan Herder sent this photo, which she took during a 2010 trip to Ireland:

(Photo by Susan Herder)

Keep ’em coming, people!

Inconspicuous News Roundup

(Screen shots from Google Street View, compiled by Andrew Anderson)

• The hand-rendered signs shown above, all located in and around Detroit, were clearly done by the same sign painter, whose work can be seen on dozens of storefronts around the Motor City. A Michigan photographer named Andrew Anderson decided to track him down, resulting in this fantastic Twitter thread. Highly recommended! (Big thanks to Matthew LaMagna, Jeffrey Link, and David Raglin)

• Here’s an admirably obsessive project: a crowdsourced map of everywhere you can shoot pool in NYC. Over 400 venues are currently listed, including one in a bodega basement, one in the VIP room of a Wall Street spa, and one in a Serbian-Romanian social club where you can still smoke. More info on the project’s Instagram page.

• If you like trompe l’oeil art, you’ll enjoy this photo of reader Elena Elms standing on what is, despite appearances, a flat work of art:

(Photo courtesy of Elena Elms)

• Remember my post from last year about “Return to Sender” symbols? Reader Tony McCosham spotted a good one at the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library in Indianapolis:

(Photo by Tony McCosham)

• Remember my post a few months ago about the old-fashioned yellow wooden tool called a shoe paddle, which is used by NYC subway workers to remove items from the electrified third rail? I saw a conductor with one in his booth yesterday. First time I’ve ever seen one in the wild! Check it out:

I know it kinda looks like a diagonal stripe on his shirt, or maybe a sash, but I assure you it’s actually a shoe paddle.

• Finally, while not truly inconspicuous, I can’t resist sharing this photo of my boy cat, Waffles, striking an uncharacteristically dignified pose the other day. He looks like he should have a pipe, brandy, and smoking jacket:

Paul Lukas has been obsessing over the inconspicuous for most of his life, and has been writing about those obsessions for more than 30 years. You can contact him here.