MEMPHIS FURNITURE

Above, you'll find a room full of Memphis furniture (above) from the 1980s. That was the trendy furniture style of its day, the thing we 80s people all longed to have. Gee, 30 years later some of the pieces look like shag cat toys, and a whole room full of it seems like clutter. Even so, I retain an affection for it. Maybe it's worth examining to see where the movement went wrong.

First, lets talk about what they did right. How do you like these Cliff Sterrett / Picasso-style vaces (above)?  Probably flowers didn't look good in them, but who cares? They look great!

And the iconic bookshelf (above) by Milan designer/Memphis co-founder Ettore Sottsass (yes, that was his real name) was marvelous.  Everybody in the 80s wanted one.

The problem was that, although it looked good as a stand-alone, it didn't integrate into a whole furnished room very well. The fact is that nobody had an idea of what a Memphis-style room should look like.

That's a photo of Sottsass above. Yikes! He doesn't look very happy.

I suspect that the man had enormous problems with production and quality control.  I'm guessing that people who did knock-offs of his ideas made a lot more money than he did.

Some of his studio's designs were misfires (above)...

...and some (above) looked downright uncomfortable. That's okay...nobody bats a thousand. If he'd had more time to iron out the kinks I think Sottsass would would have dominated furniture design well into the late 90s, but time was running out.

Memphis was grounded in 80s rock culture but rock was quickly giving way to hip-hop and that movement had no use for Memphis influences like Matisse and Picasso, Miro and Leger, Klee, Stella, Gris and Mondrian.

Boy, poor Sottsass!

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BTW: A couple of the pictures I posted may not have been of Memphis products per se, but I included them because they were close enough to be relevant.

"POSSESSED": A HALLOWEEN ROMANCE

SYDNEY: "Gertrude, I have to talk to you about something."

GERTRUDE: "Do we have to talk now, Sydney? I'm very tired."

SYDNEY: "Yes, it won't wait, I'm afraid. It's about...Stanley."

GERTRUDE: "Er...Stanley?"

SYDNEY (VO): "Yes. You said he was just a friend, but he was always around."

SYDNEY (VO): "Even so, you said he was a friend, and I believed you."

SYDNEY (VO): "He used my shaver, he wore my pajamas, he ate my breakfast cereal..."

SYDNEY (VO): "...but it was okay, because he was your...friend."

SYDNEY (VO): "Finally he left you for another...'friend.' You couldn't take that so you...well, you know what you did. I got you the best lawyer money could buy, and he got you off. But you weren't finished, were you?" 

SYDNEY (VO): "After Stanley there was Fred."

SYDNEY (VO): "After Fred there was Bill, the muscle guy. You caught both of them cheating. 

SYDNEY (VO): "What you did then...you called an 'adjustment'."

GERTRUDE: "The dirty two-timers. They got what they deserved."

SYDNEY: "Maybe, but keeping you out of jail has almost driven me to the poor house. I'm nearly broke." 

GERTRUDE: "I'm expensive. You know that."

SYDNEY: "There's another word to describe what you are, Gertrude."

SYDNEY: "I think you know what that word is."

GERTRUDE: "You mean, I'm....I'm....."

SYDNEY: "Yes, that's right. You are....."

SYDNEY: "...POSSESSED!!!"

SYDNEY (VO): "Now, with my last few dollars, I'm going to take advantage of this coupon in the newspaper. It's over between us."

GERTRUDE: "Ov...over?"

GERTRUDE: "Did you say, 'over?'"

GERTRUDE: "No man leaves me, Sydney. You of all people should know that."

SYDNEY: "Haw! Put that thing away. We couldn't afford another...adjustment."

GERTRUDE: "Afford? I'll show you, 'afford'."

ON THE FRONT DOOR: A man bursts into the room.

MARVIN: "Sorry to barge in! I'm from the apartment down the hall. I heard a noise and thought you might need help! Say, you're rather easy on the eye. Did anyone ever tell you that?"

 GERTRUDE: "Help? Yes...er...I could use some 'help'."

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ADVICE TO THE TALL

It's presumptuous but it has to be said: tall people need lessons in being tall. I don't see anybody else stepping up to the plate, so I'll take a crack at teaching it myself.

First off, you talls need to stop slouching and stooping. Stand up straight! Be proud to be tall! Do what Abraham Lincoln did: wear a top hat, be thin, wear stovepipe pants. Emphasize your height, don't de-emphasize it. 

Throw out your oversized furniture and start shopping for tiny furnishings at kids stores. You'll want teeny weeny chairs (above) that require high knees when sitting. 

Kid furniture is the most uncomfortable furniture in the world... even kids hate it. I sympathize, but you need to buy it anyway. 

When looking at something on the ground, always keep the legs straight and bend drastically at the waist. It's a good look for a tall man (above). 

I'll digress to mention something I recently read: namely, that over a hundred years ago there were still some Chinese who had never seen a westerner except in reprints of English cartoons. Since the cartoon characters were all stiff legged (like the one above) lots of these Chinese concluded that Englishmen didn't have knees! Wow! That's the kind of audience every cartoonist craves!

Back on topic: choose friends who are smaller than you. That'll make you seem taller. 

I have a short friend and we get along great. Being the taller person, I help him screw in light bulbs and...

...he helps me find contact lenses.    

That's all I have to say about the tallness per se, but I have something to say about tall TV. Isn't it time that tall people had a TV network of their own? On the Tall Channel the ordinary people of the world would be portrayed as incompetent bunglers...people who can't do anything right. Only the tall detective could put together the clues that break the case.

I suppose pesky small people would horn in and demand a channel of their own.  Well, I understand that. It must be frustrating to live in a world dominated by ordinaries.

Even so, the smalls will just have to wait. 

Tall people have suffered too long. 

KEITH MORRISON: CRIME SHOW KING

Above, that's Keith Morrison, the much imitated narrator of Dateline, a popular TV crime show. I like Keith because his voice is so stylized...he's a modern Vincent Price!

Here's (above) one of Keith's imitators: Bill Hader from Saturday Night Live. 

And here's (above) Keith himself. 

Finally, here's (above) a whole bunch of guys who think they can impersonate Keith Morrison. Holy Cow! One of those scripts isn't half bad! I think I'll write it out...

"Remember that piece of luggage being dragged through the hotel lobby? It looked a lot heavier this time around on the security camera. Certainly...a body couldn't fit in there...unless something was done...to make it...fit.

And where was he going with that? And why all the bleach in the back seat?

Then, talking to your five year-old son who was already suffering from pneumonia to a campsite in the middle of the night in the snow. That seemed...odd.  But not to the District Attorney's office in Miami Dade County. To them...it made perfect sense."

Poetry. Pure poetry!

ROD SERLING'S "PATTERNS"

I just discovered that one of my favorite modern plays...if you can call something from 1955 "modern"... is on YouTube. It's Rod Serling's "Patterns." The theme is fresh and controversial even now, half a century later. It's 55 minutes long, and I recommend watching the whole thing in one sitting.

One more thing: the first three minutes are awkward. That's because it was shot live for TV, without benefit of editing. It's worth persevering through that part because the story quickly gets its legs, and the pacing never flags after that.

THE BEST ARTIST NOBODY EVER HEARD OF

The best American artist, that is. If he's not the best he's surely one of the best. I'm talking about Charles Burchfield (1893 - 1967), a little-known regional painter of the American North East. Maybe nobody knows about him because he liked to paint depressing subjects on depressing days. But is "depressing" really the right word?

Look close at these  pictures and you see that they're actually pretty uplifting. You can tell that honest, hardworking people live in these places. You can see that nature puts on a show every day, even in places like this.

Wow! Don't you want to put on rubber boots and splash around in that?

Haw! This house reminds me of the one the young Jean Sheppard lived in, in the movie "Christmas Story."

Is that a kitchen? It looks like a warm and cozy place to have a meal.

Burchfield is amazing! He finds a bleak spot like this (above), and shows you the beauty in it. He makes it seem like the most important place in the world. I'll bet the kids who hung out here carried memories of scenes like this wherever they went, for the rest of their lives.