Apr 11 2008
Steven Spielberg’s Cutting Board
The first thing I need to tell you is that Steven Spielberg fueled my young imagination through a certain character by the name of Indiana Jones. Many a Friday night in elementary school my dear friend Kim and I would stay up much later than our parents would have liked, incessantly watching Indy retrieve the lost ark and solve clues in the grail diary. We turned our Barbie dolls from plastic sexpot into rough and tumble adventurers, pretending her flowered hat was instead a dusty fedora. I harbored dreams of studying archeology even after I learned that skimming under speeding trucks in pursuit of the lost ark was not part of the job.
It has to be said that I am not a collector of memorabilia and do not generally lose my head when it comes to celebrities, unless of course we are talking about Harrison Ford or Julie Andrews. But, Steven Spielberg is an icon of my youth and in some small way the stories he brought to life helped in shaping my generation. So last week when a friend told me that I could buy Mr. Spielberg’s cutting board, I knew I just had to have it.
My friend Janette is an advocate for the non-profit organization The Retreat Inc. that devotes it’s energies to helping victims of domestic violence. As a non-profit organization they have many sources of funding from private donors and events to the charity shop from where my cutting board came. Mr. Spielberg happens to be a huge donor of goods to the charity shop and his items are always in high demand. I happen to know that a few Southwestern style area rugs he donated caused quite a stir a few months back.
For those of you visiting or living in the Hamptons, the shop is closed for remodeling right now, but in a few months it will be open for business. Drop by; you may just leave with Jerry Seinfeld’s rocking horse or Julie Andrews’ chainsaw. If any of you wish to see what the Retreat is all about or even make a donation click here.
Also, If anyone knows or currently is the director Steven Spielberg, it would be awesome to have an autograph on my cutting board.
I’m not currently Steven Spielberg, but I used to be. Does that count?
“You have chosen…wisely.” Is it normal to stare wistfully at a cutting board, re-imagining your imaginative childhood? I cannot wait to stare at Mr. Spielberg’s cutting-board in person at some future date.
If $$ for a cause is the goal, I wonder why he didn’t sign it before donating it…?
Of course, if it is used, it may contain some actual Spielberg DNA! Does he cook/chop/keep his knives OUT of the dishwasher like you do?
Too funny!
It looks like a very nice cutting board. Wonder what it would look like with “Rosebud” painted on it…
Enjoy it!
Whatever happened to your life-size cardboard cutout of Han Solo?
I decided it was time to grow up. Besides, I would wake up and have a minor heart attack thinking someone had broken in.
And call me crazy, but there seems to be a slight Stanley Kubrick quality to that photograph– something about the angle of the board combined with it being set against the stark white background that is reminiscent of the monolith in ‘2001′.
I am glad I was able to keep the cinematic theme going with my staging. We had originally tried to capture the breeze in the sheer curtains, but it just didn’t work. The curtains were too long and the table too high.
You have planted the most wonderful mental image in my head and I’ll be carrying it around with me all day. Julie Andrews with a chainsaw. I love it!
Bordeaux, I’m glad you appreciated that. It gives me a bit of a giggle everytime I think about it.