My favorite items at the market...

...were the antique pétanque boules (bocce balls).

Me too! And everybody else too. We all marveled. They were odd things to pick out amid a house full of such odd things. Most far more expensive more exotic than these. These balls seemed like folk art. All of it did really, but the other stuff is folk art from Africa, pre-columbian folk art, the whole house in Aspen has an animal theme to it, and not regular animals, those will not do, all exotic animals, apparent right from the start, gigantic turtle shells real ones, leaning against an entry wall like shields discarded before entering the home. Not that big a place. But big enough to offer a twenty foot window facing Ajax Mountain, and a wall of that height with three antelope heads with their decidedly unAmerican horns mounted such way up there as if enjoying the view. The kind of objects all around that certainly must be illegal to own. I could go on because we studied the place in some detail marveling at the illegalities throughout and marveling too at what connections it must take to get such things into the country. Turns out, director of MOMA whispers experiencing d. i. v. o. r. c. e., the place was part of the settlement, and more of the all of the same, all of it repeated in a shop in the town, none of it illegal as we were imagining.

The bocce balls were different from other things, among the most innocent I suppose, they appeared to be wooden with short stubby tacks hammered in, rather expertly, forming unique patterns on each, sometimes geometric, sometimes swirls, sometimes numbers, sometimes heavy round brads, sometimes heavy square, all different shape heads on the brads, all heavy, nothing you could pick up from a Home Depot.

Very much like this, except in a wooden basket, in the kitchen, as if an afterthought, junk lying around, more carelessly handled than this, as a basket of fruit except it's all nails.

The balls we handled (titter) were different colors (titter) and all hammered nearly flat to the surface. How they manage to not mess up the spacing is beyond me. They probably figure it out by marking a wooden ball with dots. All this, I think, so you have your own personal ball for a game. 

An ancient game. Pdf. 

Is that cool or what? Each one a lethal weapon in it own right. A bit sad, all that trouble to identify your own playing ball and it ends up being somebody's kitchen decoration.