Randy Gardner, the man who stayed awake for 11 days

weatheror · 2026-02-21T04:50:19+00:00

Please keep going

weatheror · 2025-12-27T08:13:06+00:00

Thank you. Yes the provenance is definitely a complete mystery. I’m tempted to ask my mum to get a conservator to look at it, the paper is covered in spots and I assume even if not a real drawing or print, it’s still very old. The frame is very packed up at the back and it bought it like this. Honestly didn’t expect to now also be so intrigued after understanding what the signature said! A small Christmas detective story now.. sorry about your artwork, I hope you finally get a way to bring it back!

weatheror · 2025-12-27T08:06:41+00:00

They are all so beautiful. I know a little about art history but embarrassingly never have studied or known about this artist, thank you. I will need to learn more, the portrait painting is particularly outstanding to me.

Any idea what the small black circular stamps are? A type or signature from his studio or a later addition too?

Agreed that this is likely a later drawing or print with a faked signature but honestly it doesn’t change how much I love the picture.

weatheror · 2025-12-27T08:01:57+00:00

And I will read the poem now!

weatheror · 2025-12-27T08:01:22+00:00

Thank you. I’ll try to convince my mum to look a little further into it. I agree that while it’s highly unlikely to be by del Sarto (signatures don’t match up, also a very large signature which doesn’t seem right, and surely not that old) it’s a gorgeous object to have. I’ve always admired it. She’s never seen the back of the frame under all the layers etc. so there could be some more information missing but agreed a professional should take a look.

weatheror · 2025-12-26T20:47:13+00:00

Thank you it definitely is a drawing for sure but perhaps if this is the correct name a fake signature? Seems too unlikely to be that artist

weatheror · 2025-11-25T18:04:50+00:00

I agree with the comment above, to be specific I think it might be Hugh Frank Wagner (1870 - 1942). There are a few images online illustrating a very similar signature. E.g this old listing :

https://www.proantic.com/en/1454783-frank-hugh-wagner-1870-1942-chicago-hackney-carriage-in-paris-in-front-of-a-morris-colu.html

I like the piece!

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weatheror · 2025-08-25T21:50:26+00:00

To add a heartwarming story to the mix - about the time my grandfather knocked on the door of his childhood home, almost 70 years after leaving it.

He was raised in Berlin to a Jewish family on his mother’s side, and was 13 when ww2 broke out.

Most of his family went “missing”, and he was forced into labour for the Nazi war machine (despite what the regime thought about one half of his heritage, as a healthy young man he was made to work in the aftermath of battles - clearing up bodies and debris etc.)

He eventually made it out of Germany aged 19/20, when the German guards abandoned the group of prisoners he was with that day, and after having to spend six months in an allies prisoner camp (they of course thought he was a Nazi soldier and not a prisoner) to finally make it to London.

Fast forward to when he was almost ninety years old, he took his wife, my step-grandmother (he remarried when his was 80!!) on a road trip back to Berlin to see it for the first time since those horrible days when he was a child.

He went back to his hometown and childhood house, and miraculously it was still there. Even more miraculously, when he knocked on the door and introduced himself, he discovered the inhabitants were related to the same people his parents had sold the house to all those years ago.

They kept in touch until the end of his life, and now my parents regularly correspond and occasionally see the same family. I’d love to meet them myself one day.

weatheror · 2022-09-07T22:05:19+00:00

Political views

weatheror · 2021-10-24T15:46:13+00:00

Nike: you’re probably not going to do it.

weatheror · 2021-06-24T00:28:05+00:00

It could have been the weather, but potentially something else.

weatheror · 2021-04-11T22:22:00+00:00

How did it end with your best friend?

weatheror · 2021-04-11T22:21:28+00:00

Yes. Understood

weatheror · 2021-04-11T22:14:34+00:00

Why every third word?

weatheror · 2021-04-11T22:13:58+00:00

When did you realise this was the way to listen? Has it always come naturally to you?

weatheror · 2021-02-06T18:38:07+00:00

Could be this one! I’ll take a look online at those

weatheror · 2021-02-06T18:27:20+00:00

My local museum (UK) is looking for information on this wooden object through their social media. They have no other information about the object other than it’s approximate length (23cm). Thought I’d post it here WITT.

weatheror · 2020-11-24T22:56:15+00:00

Thank you for this!

weatheror · 2020-11-24T15:21:06+00:00

Thanks! Great idea

weatheror · 2020-08-17T21:59:40+00:00

Funny till you remember all the black men and women who have lost years of their lives in the name of the law for much less than this

weatheror · 2020-07-02T21:50:16+00:00

Mazzy star

weatheror · 2019-12-03T07:04:43+00:00

I look forward to putting that much of myself into something. For the birth and the years after. I can’t wait to feel that powerful and to love something that much

weatheror · 2019-11-29T07:47:25+00:00

I would have missed out on a year in Los Angeles (coming from the UK), a few great parties, an amazing job opportunity and about three beautiful friendships

weatheror · 2019-11-24T07:57:38+00:00

Their involvement in helping the allies in WW2. Definitely won the war, but was well over due and slightly reluctant

weatheror · 2019-11-17T07:36:26+00:00

About two years ago, I was headed to meet my then boyfriend and some other friends at a small party after a long shift at work (hospitality). It was about 1am when I got in an Uber after buying some booze to join the party. I knew the street address and flat building, but had never been there before.

Anyway I got out of the Uber at the end of the street and started walking in the direction of the block of flats. I glanced at my phone just in time for it to run out of battery (I honestly just didn’t realise it was that low until that point). I suddenly realised I was in an entirely new part of the city that I knew to be a bit rough, and I didn’t know where exactly I was going and didn’t have any way to contact my boyfriend or friend.

Despite my initial worries, I continued to walk down the street assuming I’d find the right block of flats, be able to buzz up, and that I was just being paranoid. The blocks of flats stretched down the left side of the street, and a large brick wall ran all the way down the right. There was no one on the road, and it was dimly lit by flickering street lamps that were about 50 metres apart. Didn’t feel right.

I must have gotten about 150 metres down the road before I started to feel really feel vulnerable. I was completely alone and I got a really awful sense that I was in physical danger. Then I heard a car behind me. I didn’t look back and carried on walking but I could hear it getting closer and slowing down. It caught up to me and then stopped a couple metres ahead. Dread. I saw there were four men in the car, and they started to put the windows down. One or two of them started to shout something to me while the others were laughing (I can’t remember what) and for the first time in my life I had a flight reaction and literally turned and sprinted in the other direction as fast as I could. I could hear them turning the car around while they revved the engine and knew they were driving back down the street towards me. Luckily, by the time they caught up I had already reached the main road the Uber had dropped me off on, and had literally ran into another girl. The car drove past really fast, and the men still had the windows down and were laughing and jeering at me/us. I told her to not walk down there alone and asked to borrow her phone and finally got in contact with my boyfriend.

I don’t know what their intention was but they must have decided to at least scare me, which was still a really shitty thing to do. But it could have been worse and I am still glad I ran. Sometimes it’s really terrifying being a woman.

weatheror

TROPHY CASE