MY TASTE IN HOME FURNISHING

DINING ROOM TABLE: Fortunately there are lots of good tables on the market, including vintage hardwood tables. If I were buying something new I might look for a thick, heavy, square (with extender), natural wood surface with a clear, not very shiny varnish...something like the one above, if it had legs. I'd change the lamp, though.

For dining room chairs...I can never decide what I like, so I'd have lots of different kinds of wooden chairs at the same table: a Western sheriff chair, a Van Gogh's Bedroom chair, a New England spinster chair, etc. 

LIVING ROOM CHAIRS: Danish Modern, of course. Mike has a couple of these and they look great.  You can get cheap ones made out of fabric and pine, or expensive ones made out of leather and hardwood. I like the cheap ones best because you can abuse them without feeling guilty about it, then replace them in a few years with something new and different.

I think Urban Outfitters is still selling this Danish Modern sofa for $200 on sale. That's a good price, even if it turns out to be a little flimsy. 'Better get your order in fast.

Urban outfitters also sells this Danish rocking chair (above). It's hard to find rocking chairs that rock the way they should. I'd want to try this out before buying it.

Of course, if you're going to have Danish Modern furniture, it would help to have a house like this (above).

Or this (above).

BEDSPREADS AND SHEETS: A nice dark quilt or Indian blanket or Guatemalan spread goes well with modern rooms. In the winter I like a down comforter. The sheets should be of good quality, ironed, and be super white. Good sheets are expensive, so be prepared to lay down some serious dough.

WALL DECORATION:  I'd put up framed art of all kinds and cartoons of course, but also pictures of space. I like the lure of the unknown, and I find it comforting to know that, while the rest of the universe is freezing and barren, that I'm on a warm, verdant world...in some ways a paradise.

DECORATING THE BEDROOM WORKPLACE

I admit that I've been influenced by this photo of photographer Julius Shulman's work place (above). It's an interesting play of horizontals and verticals with the horizontals dominating. Like Shulman, I love to work on big, flat surfaces with a secondary desk behind me. 

Coming off my recollection of Shulman's space, you can see where I would have been appalled by this (above) corner workspace in a bedroom. Even so, that was stupid of me. This guy had a fraction of the space and budget that Shulman had to work with.

I should have been more sympathetic. After all, there are no books on the subject of how to convert half a small bedroom into a workspace. When designers do write about the subject they design for architecturally sophisticated spaces (above) that aren't really all that small, and which require expensive renovation. You have to ask, if the designer can afford all that, why isn't he living in a house with bigger rooms?

Anyway, in the coming months I'll try to put up what I think are acceptable solutions to this design problem. I have one idea that you can use right away. You have a small room? You like Shulman's wide desk area? Well then copy it and sleep in a sleeping bag or futon under the desk. I mean it. Your desk is where you'll come up with the ideas that'll start your career. Isn't that worth a little inconvenience? 

BTW: On a different subject, I think I'll write up a few of the shelf ideas that are on my mind. Let me know if you disagree.

LESSON # 1

Never, ever buy tall, stand alone bookshelves (or tall furniture like the all-in-one desk that started the post). 

You don't want to emphasize verticals in a room, you want to emphasize horizontals. Horizontals imply stability, and make you feel tall. Because they can relate to other horizontals in the room, they can imply movement and dynamic sweep. Verticals on the other hand, make you feel small, and their lines run out of gas as soon as they hit the ceiling. 

If you must buy a tall bookshelf, don't get stuck with an awkward, empty-looking one like the one above. Be sure to buy an extra shelf plank or two. 

Come to think of it, buy more tall bookshelves and bunch them all next to each other. That turns them into a horizontal shape, and that's fine. 

LESSON #2: Do buy low bookshelves, but avoid funky designs like the one above.

For a narrow two tier bookshelf get something simple and elegant like the shelf above. If need be, you can put bracket bookshelves above it.

LESSON #3: BEWARE OF UGLY BLOCK AND PLANK SHELVES.


Block and plank shelves are great, but only if they're low, long, have thick beautiful wooden planks, and minimally obtrusive concrete blocks...in other words, the exact opposite of the one pictured above. The one above seems to exist to show off the 'lovely" concrete blocks, rather than the books.

The bottom shelf should sit no more than three inches above the floor.

LESSON #4: LONG BRACKET SHELVES MAKE A NICE CONTRAST.


I love bracket shelves (above). They're light and airy-looking, like a Caulder mobile that you can put books on. When you remove the shelves they'll leave an impression on the wall, requiring paint and Spackle That's okay, they're worth the trouble. They also need to be firmly anchored to studs behind the wall, otherwise they'll only be able to hold light books.

Avoid the heavy look of the shelves above. I like the beatnik/Caulder variety of bracket shelf: black brackets and natural wood with only one coat of clear varnish, so the grain shows through. They're best when they're long and continuous, almost from wall to wall.

LESSON #5: Artsy shelves are fine, if you have room for them.


They're pricey, though. This (above) is the famous Memphis bookshelf from the 80s. It's a favorite of Auralynn's.

Jo Jo: My apology for my overly harsh crit of your tall bookshelf the other day!

HOW DO WE REALLY DIE?

Here's a creepy thought. It came from a dream I had when I was in Texas a few weeks ago. It's just a fantasy, but it takes on an eerie plausibility when you look at the graphics I've marshaled here. I'll discuss these pictures in a minute, but first...the dream.

I'll start with a question: what if humans were immortal? I don't mean some time in the future, as in science fiction, or in the afterlife or in reincarnation...I mean physically immortal right now. What if, unbeknown to us, we've always been immortal ever since we first walked the earth? What if none of us dies a natural death. What if we have to be killed, otherwise our cells would continue to divide indefinitely? What if every human who has ever lived was........murdered?

It's a scary thought. It implies a murderer, someone who thins the flock. Those could be  devils or space aliens. It could be a race of Morlocks, as in H. G. Wells' The Time Machine. It could be quasi-supernatural thugs who enjoy killing for its own sake, and who have a vulture-like ability to detect physical and mental weakness. My dream was about the latter.

I dreamed that I was in a parking lot, looking for my car when I noticed a couple of thugs heading my way. I was the target, no doubt about it, and there was no doubt the thugs had a murderous intent: it was broad daylight and the lot was full of shoppers, but the men savagely pushed them aside as if they were rag dolls. I ran into a nearby supermarket and the thugs ran after me. Inside they tore up the market in order to get at me. I managed to stay one step ahead, but I was getting tired and the thugs seemed to have infinite energy. At that point I woke up.

Lying in the dark with my eyes open and my heart pounding, my half-conscious mind filled in the rest of the story. After I escaped, the joking thugs walked out of the market, confident that they would get me in the next encounter. Previously frightened patrons took on blank expressions then dutifully tidied up the market. After that they went about their business, completely unaware that anything scary had just happened. They had total amnesia about it.

 I remember thinking, "So that's what death is like." In front of witnesses you're violently killed by thugs who then arrange the corpse so it appears that you died a natural death. The witnesses clean up then, with no memory of the killing, resume their normal lives...until some time in the future when their turn comes. Scary, huh?

Okay, it was just a nightmare, something we all get now and then....but as I was assembling the pictures for this post I began to notice that most of them seemed to confirm the premise of my dream. Almost all of them had a common theme: that death comes not to the fatally sick, but rather to ordinary, healthy people who are minding their own business. It's as if there was a consensus of artists and sculptors of the past that death was murder, something that's done to you with malevolent intent. Look at the pictures. Do you see what I mean?

BEAUTIFUL SANTORINI

INT. CARL'S JR. BURGER RESTAURANT:

AURALYNN: "Hi Eddie!"

EDDIE (VO): Auralynn! Hi! Hey, you're not gonna take a swing at me again, are ya'?"

AURALYNN: "Oh, I was just kidding when I did that. I didn't hurt you did I?"

EDDIE (VO): No, no, I'm fine. Hey, can I interest you in a burger? It's grilled to perfection and comes with tomato, onions and leafy lettuce. A tasty flavor treat...whaddaya say?"

AURALYNN (VO): No thanks. I'm not, er...into Carl's burgers."

AURALYNN: "Say, what are those pictures on the wall?"

EDDIE (VO): "I dunno. 'Just restaurant art."

AURALYNN (VO): "Wait a minute. Those are pictures of Santorini, one of the Greek islands! That town is beautiful. Oh, I'd give anything to go there."

EDDIE (VO): "Yeeeeeah....but look at that hill. What if you walked all the way down to the bottom then realized you left your wallet in your room?"

AURALYNN: "Well, you'd have to climb back up again. You 'gotta make some sacrifices if you want to live in a beautiful place."

EDDIE (VO): "Yeah, but...yikes! Those stairs look dangerous. What if you fell?"

AURALYNN: "Dangerous? Hmmm...hey, Eddie...what if someone was murdered there?"

EDDIE (VO): "Murdered?? You've gotta be kidding."

AURALYNN (VO): "No, look at the pictures. Cliffs and precipices everywhere. If an evil person wanted you dead...well, all it would take is a push."

EDDIE (VO): "Naaaaaaaw! Evil people don't go to places like Santorini."

AURALYNN: "Sure they do. They must. Here, I'll look it up on the internet."

EDDIE (VO): "And while you do that, I'll do justice to the rest of this delicious burger."

AURALYNN: "Okay, here it is. August 4, 2008: a chef in one of those fancy island restaurants went berserk and beheaded his girlfriend. When the police came up he threw the dripping, bloody head into their car, hijacked it, and ran over two doctors while he was trying to make his getaway."

AURALYNN: "What are you doing? Are you throwing that burger away? Why? I thought you were hungry!"

EDDIE (VO): "(Gulp!) I don't feel so good..."

CARICATURE LESSONS BY THE MASTERS

If you're interested in caricature then this post should boost you up into hog heaven. It's a chance to study three brilliant caricatures almost side by side with similar photos of the live subject,which in this case is.......me.

This first one (above) is by John Kricfalusi.  

Here's (above) the caricature face, close up.  I have an ugly black pancreas clinging to the back of my head, a shovel nose, not even the semblance of a chin, dog ears, and big hairy warts.

Here's (above) the real me. No shovel nose but...I hate to admit it....the caricature looks more like me than the photo. Geez! It's spooky how a drawing can beat photography at this sort of thing. 

Here's (above) a caricature by Mike Fontanelli. The back of the head is so big that it needs a brace. The forehead is almost non-existent.

Here's (above) the proof that I have a forehead and, c'mon.....the back of the head isn't all that large. Sigh! Even so, I have to admit that Mike nailed me. A good caricature can take big liberties.

Above, another one by John. John has a theory that the best caricatures always provoke a "Yooooou f---er!" response from the subject. That's definitely how I felt, when I wasn't laughing. At least he gave me some male assets. 

Haw! I'm guessing that the tiny cup and straw (above0 was influenced by the way my kid used to draw me. I love the soft, leathery upper lip, which is weighted down by buck teeth.

Now I ask you...do I (above) have a leathery lip? Hmmmmm....maybe I do. Anybody out there have some lip starch?

SECRET LIVES OF THE GREAT AUTHORS

If you know someone who's in the hospital, or who's about to take a long flight somewhere, you could do worse than give them one of the books you see here. Nothing relieves boredom like gossip, and no gossip is more satisfying than gossip about the writers and artists who are held up as good examples to the rest of us.

I'm in a funk right now...no special reason, it just happens once in a while...and I'm reading "Secret Lives of Great Writers" to cheer myself up. I'm happy to report that it's working. Knowing that J.D. Salinger drank his own urine, and that Sylvia Plath had bi-polar disorder somehow makes me feel better, why I don't know.

Plath sounds like a monster. Her father was vilified in her famous poem "Daddy," but there's no evidence that he was anything worse than a little distant. He was a respected professor and etymologist, and author of a book called "Bumblebees and Their Ways." He died when Sylvia was only eight. She was so broken up over it at the time that she vowed never to speak to God again.

The story of how she met her husband, the poet Ted Hughes, is hilarious. Plath says she met him at a student party. Ted was a swaggering, macho-kind of guy and after only a few minutes of conversation he kissed her on the mouth and ripped off her hair band in a savage display of desire. Poor Ted was probably feeling good about himself at that point, but little did he know that he had one of the world's foremost man-haters in his arms.  She liked him well enough, but not to be outdone, she "bit him long and hard on the cheek, and when we came out of the room, blood was running down his face." Their stormy marriage miraculously lasted seven years.

T. S. Elliot is described as a prankster who made liberal use of whoopee cushions and exploding cigars. Tolkien was a famously bad driver who frequently drove in the wrong direction on one-way streets. He'd attempt to ram other vehicles and believed that you could "Charge 'em and they scatter."

Toward the end of his life Sartre recanted virtually the entire foundation of his philosophy.  He said, " I talked about it [despair] because it was being talked about; it was fashionable.....I've never experienced despair, nor seen it as a quality that could be mine." De Beauvoir disavowed her old lover's admission, calling it "the senile act of a turncoat."

Emily Dickinson was so reclusive that she forced doctors to examine her from behind a closed door. William Burroughs shot his wife while playing a game of William Tell.

Is all this true? I don't know, but these stories are making me well again.