This is so sad, and so true. One PhD later I wish I had a much prettier office to show for my efforts, and yet all has been determined by that one bookshelf bought in 2001.
I bought nicer bookshelves in 2002, there being no IKEA near me, and lo! and behold! My apartment is only marginally full of matching particle board.
I still have the milk crates I bought for my dorm room in 1997, however.
Matching furniture? What are you people, some kind of millionaires?
Mine don't match, but at least they don't match that godforsaken Billy bookshelf.
||
Stuff White People Like: The Wire, again. Despite a credulity-straining (but ridiculously entertaining) arc in the third season, white people insist they love The Wire because of its gritty realism.
Seriously, white people? Third season is awesome, but the main arc isn't exactly real.
P.S. Neither is Omar. Even if he is black, gay, and has a code.
|>
Cala, it's just like Dickens that way. Realism and breathtaking, plot-resolving coincidences; realism and characters that are essentially superheroes or grotesques. It's all in the game, yo.
My divorce preparation suggestion:
Always buy leather furniture.
I have a beautiful non-leather sofa that I spent WAY too much on. But, it doesnt go with anything BR has. So it is useless to me.
Buy leather. Sorry cows.
Our furniture doesn't match, except the sofa and chair hand-me-downs from the 'rents. But then, our aesthetic is a bit more slap-dash than most.
I'll admit to a bookshelf fetish.
Remind me to turn you on sometime with a photo of mine, which are assembled from asparagus and wine crates I nabbed from the restaurant where I used to work. Surprisingly effective.
Also, yes to leather furniture, especially when you have little kids spitting up and spilling on it all the time (I hope the mrh family is reading).
I care a lot what my bookshelves look like in terms of the way the books look in them. The structures themselves I barely notice. And still I bought a shit Ikea desk to match them, which I deeply regret.
Always buy leather furniture.
Bookshelves too?
I just bought us some of these magical little bookshelf things. Now our design unchoice of piles of books is transformed into an actual design choice! I'm most excited about having put one in the bathroom.
Remind me to turn you on sometime with a photo of mine, which are assembled from asparagus and wine crates
Whereas mine are just wine crates.
Because I believe in aesthetic purity.
Those of us who have inherited most of our furniture find that it doesn't tend to match.
You people are all so nouveau riche.
Which is also why ben doesn't wear pants. He's a strange chap to hang around.
And because you don't want your books' pee to smell?
Unpainted wood has a goes-with-practically-anything look, like leather, and it's nice enough that my library, which is entirely lined with shelves, doesn't look like a dorm room. Plus, the ends of a lot of the crates have cool produce-box labels and Bordeaux logos.
The importance of not making crucial color decisions when you're stoned cannot be overstated. My neighbors across the street were away when their house was being painted, and they asked a cousin to come over and check on the job before too much of the color was on; the cousin said it looked just fine, but she would have thought otherwise if she hadn't been stoned out of her gourd. It's just awful, a kind of barn red with just enough magenta to make you turn away.
Whereas mine are just wine crates.
Purity of heart is to build your bookshelves out of just one thing.
5: interestingly, Omar was based on (a couple) real people.
Not gay people, though.
I had the opportunity to give away several of my Ikea bookshelves and am pleased at the chance to start over. A friend had a good idea: Marry a carpenter. Mmmmmm.
Those of us who have inherited most of our furniture find that it doesn't tend to match.
Unfortunately, I inherited most of my furniture from other grad students and random-ass people who were throwing their shit out onto the street. Some day, I'm going to need to get a chair that isn't broken.
Matching, smatching. Garage sales! Consignment stores! Grandparents' hand-me-downs! Slapdash style!
By the time I got to my 30's, I could afford to give away (to starving students & the like) some of the stuff I didn't like and buy (usually used) stuff I did.
24: But in the meantime, you can look down your nose at folks with matching furniture.
Beyond my miserable Ikea office, I am paralyzed when buying furniture by thoughts of universality. What couch can we get that will work is any room any where given the likelihood of repeated moving. It makes for a very bland aesthetic.
27: Listen, the problem wasn't that Gatsby's furniture matched. It was that his books were uncut. We all have that covered.
I'm not sure what color my bookcases are -- I have the servants fetch books from the library when I need to be seen in company with some novel or other.
Hard to look down your nose when you're sitting on the floor for lack of a comfortable chair.
If your company were of the better sort, Gonerill, they wouldn't want to see you with a novel.
Sometimes I have to slum it with grad students, Ben, and they are such terrible poseurs one has to humor them.
You've got to channel TJ Eckleberg, JM, looking down his figurative billboard nose at the ashheaps filled with those of us who shop at Ikea.
all of your furniture purchases for the rest of your adult life will be driven by that one $59 bookcase.
Not good at breaking habits, are you?
max
['They probably have a twelve step group for that.']
Mismatched furniture looks *better*. Also, dinnerware.
Once you have aesthetic realizations like this, life is much easier.
Mismatched furniture looks dinnerware? I'm not sure I trust you on this one, rob.
I'd put down that spoon, Sifu. I think rob's kids have been sitting in it.
I actually look forward to the day when I have a complete set of mismatched dinnerware. At the moment, we've got a faux-mismatched set of Ikea plates, which I like the colors of but have learned are made of some kind of extra-porous ceramic or something, such that they get WAY TOO HOT in the microwave. Also, they chip easily.
I've actually been fantasizing lately about replacing our "everyday" plates with melamine. Would that really be so wrong? We have "nice" china that matches and was a wedding present and everything, for "special occasions."
about replacing our "everyday" plates with melamine. Would that really be so wrong?
Not at all. That way you can have put a melamine plate down for the cat, with melamine catfood on top of it.
Seriously, B, just start using your "nice" china more often. They glue back together pretty well, and there's no rule that says you have to microwave food on the same plate you serve it in. Also, a lot of china is microwaveable. Ok, not porcelaine, but nobody actually has porcelaine.
Gatsby's books were uncut?
Knew just when to stop.
I agree that mismatched furniture looks better. But only when it's purposely mismatched. Cultivating stylishly mismatched furniture often requires more financial and time investment than just buying another whateverthehell from IKEA in birch finish.
Mismatched furniture looks dinnerware? I'm not sure I trust you on this one, rob.
Mismatched furniture looks dinnerware than matched furniture, but no furniture at all is the dinnestware.
It's possible that our nice stuff isn't porcelain, but it does have gold something or other on it such that it sparked the one time I put it in the mwave.
Anyhoo, the real reason I don't use it more often right now is that most of it it still hasn't been unpacked from our last move. That and the "it glues back together pretty well" theory works just fine if you don't have a small child. Plus I already have a hard enough time making sure Mr. B. doesn't put the good knives and anodized aluminum cookware in the damn washing machine....
42: for god's sakes, though, if anything doesn't belong in the microwave it's Porcelaine.
Plus I already have a hard enough time making sure Mr. B. doesn't put the good knives and anodized aluminum cookware in the damn washing machine....
That's just a trick so that eventually you'll stop wanting him to do any dishes at all.
I already have a hard enough time making sure Mr. B. doesn't put the good knives and anodized aluminum cookware in the damn washing machine...
Have you tried explaining the difference between washing machines and dishwashers?
We used china every day in my family, with fancy china (my grandmother's) for special occasions. Still do, and the wee ones (my nieces and nephews and second cousins and whatnot) are pretty damned good with it. I think there has been only one child-related fancy china accident since I was born. The glassware has had to be replaced a fair amount, though.
I've outsmarted him; I wash the knives myself, and I've tied strips of torn cloth to the lids and handles of all the good pots and pans. He knows better than to put *cloth* in the dishwasher, anyway.
Christ, my spelling is getting worse and worse. Stupid internets and its infectious stupid spelling.
49: Ha ha. Actually both laundry and kitchen are his primary domestic chores. Come to think of it, how come he gets to use machines while I have to do shit like clean the mouse cage *by hand*, hmm?
50: Well, that's impressive. I'm still not gonna use the good stuff for everyday, though, if only b/c I'm sure as shit not washing *that* by hand.
I've tied strips of torn cloth to the lids and handles of all the good pots and pans
If it is anodized aluminum that you are worried about couldn't you just go with the rule that black things don't go in the dishwasher? Bonus, also works for cast iron.
My parents were loudly judgmental about owning stuff that didn't get used, but I don't need to be: go on with your bad melamine self, if you want to!
Realism and breathtaking, plot-resolving coincidences; realism and characters that are essentially superheroes or grotesques.
Oh, I get that. It's brilliant and it actually makes me care about the characters, and that's saying a lot for me. It's the oh, so real. Some of it, but the cool shit is straight mythology.
Mismatched furniture looks dinnerware?
Clearly you have outsmarted me here. I, however, am commenting Becks-style, and will proceed in the same vein as before.
You got your moral order, and your aesthetic order, and while anyone is perfectly right to complain that reality fails to live up to the moral order, the fact is that everything is always just right aesthetically.
So today I was helping my 5 year old paint flowers and stars on her bedroom wall. She had a stencil and was pretty good at using it. I tried to touch up some of the mistakes she made, and she quickly imitated me, using the brush to make corrections to her stencils free hand.
My wife came in and saw Caroline painting on the walls and howled. "What are you doing! Ack! You aren't fixing anything, you are making it worse. Don't sit while you are doing this, stand up. Don't drip."
No really, she was doing great. Relax.
56: I think the oh, so real often gets applied to the depiction of a city qua city, in which vector it actually is quite remarkably accurate.
Friday I failed to gain entrance to a panel discussion with David Simon and Sudhir Venkatesh, on the subject of the Wire's depiction of an American city. Also, my various bosses seem to think it's a pretty good portrayal of their field(s).
couldn't you just go with the rule that black things don't go in the dishwasher?
Yeah, that would like require one to pay attention to color.
My parents were loudly judgmental about owning stuff that didn't get used
Yeah, so was I until it started to become extremely clear that the antique rockers are really getting the shit torn out of them by being used every day, and that Grandma's nice couch isn't gonna last that long what with all the crap PK spills on it. Not that I've gotten around to buying everyday sitting furniture so that the good antique parlor shit can be relegated to occasional "company" use yet, but I'm actually getting kind of upset about the rockers.
59.1: he doesn't see color, B. Oh, sure, make that the problem.
the fact is that everything is always just right aesthetically.
While I am sorely tempted to say that given that I have always liked Rob very much, I would like to agree with him on this, it is not true: sometimes people just have terrible aesthetic sense. But it has nothing to do with mismatching.
the fact is that everything is always just right aesthetically.
This I also am not buying. Sometimes, things are the ugly.
Rob's kind of a hippie, people. You have to allow him to be one with the aesthetic universe.
IKEA is the Old Navy of furniture.
I find it doesn't really matter if my home is aesthetically pleasing because I spend so much time in it I no longer see any of my own stuff. I suppose if I had a bigger place I actually wanted to invite guests into I'd care more.
64: that's mean. IKEA is much cooler than Old Navy. Also those young, pan-racial couples furnishing their first homes! Delightful.
Everything is beautiful, in its own way. Props to rob for the good parenting, even if his devil-may-care attitude to aesthetics is unfathomable.
IKEA is the Old Navy of furniture.
Nah. Target is the Old Navy of furniture.
Old Navy totally does not suck for what it is, folks. Whereas Ikea's *furniture* (as distinct from stuff like rugs or wastebaskets or rubber items or what have you) is pretty cheap stuff that wears out and/or breaks quickly.
I can't speak to the quality of Target's furniture, I'm afraid. I do buy tablecloths there. But Old Navy totally has better kids clothes.
A few years ago I was led to believe, quite persistently, that Old Navy had a product called performance fleece. I think its main selling point was its ability to give everyone extremely annoying voices.
71 is right. A tissue of lies, like some flimsy Old Navy garment.
Nah. Target is the Old Navy of furniture.
Target is the Target of both clothes and furniture. But Ikea is the Old Navy of clothes.
When I had an apartment into which I could place bookshelves, the shelves matched neither each other nor the existing (university provided) furnishings. It was fine.
I'll keep nailing it, too, because that's how I roll.
I also don't think I bought any bookshelves as a teenager. I was a late bloomer.
For want of a nail the bookshelf was lost.
I've only seen the first two seasons of the Wire, but I wonder if the awesomeness of Omar runs away from his creators. I suspect he was intended to be a more realistic character, but Michael K. Williams makes him seem so much larger-than-life that they can't help themselves.
As far as I can tell, when people use the word "realism" in film and literary and art criticism, they mean something that is related to, but not equivalent to, "verisimilitude."
79: nope.
78: this is why you make your bookshelf using wire helices.
81: Really? He was always intended to be a superhero?
82: I think, yeah. Or at least, this is the way the real-world model points.
Rob is a Bodhisattva who is trying to help you achieve moksha, and you're complaining. Typical. Enjoy your next lives as cockroaches, bitches!
Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I've never actually bought bookshelves.
79: Not to spoil anything, but the implacable Omar limping along the streets like Captain Ahab in season 5 is just awesome. What a great character.
I continue to disagree on the Ikea/Old Navy comparison. When one buys furniture, one expects it to last for a couple-few years, at least. When one buys an $8 tshirt, it's TOTALLY FINE if it becomes a rag in three months.
84 funny. And really, I would have agreed. But holy crap, my roommate (who otherwise makes gorgeous sculptures) has a terrible sense when it comes to cramming furniture all around and putting the wrong plant on the wrong stand in the totally wrong place. I'm not kidding, it's pretty much intolerable. And I'm not fancy about things.
I did buy some gorgeous bookshelves at Pottery Barn, for which I will totally not apologize. They are lovely.
If you get furniture the natural colors of the materials it's made of (wood, stone, metal, glass), it will all pretty much go together. Save the jazzy colors for vases, paintings, and other accent pieces you can change at will.
86: I wouldn't defend the comparison, but the Ikea furniture we've gotten is sturdy if otherwise unremarkable.
There's hope for you yet, parsimon. Maybe you can come back as a songbird. B, on the other hand, will probably have to come back as two cockroaches to make up for 88.
They were a wedding present.
And anyway, cockroaches are much more durable than songbirds. Just like my solid ash pottery barn bookshelves are much more durable than ikea crap.
I got a cast-iron dutch oven at Target, and it hasn't fallen apart yet.
I'd sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a parsimon.
I think our cast iron dutch oven was either left behind by the owner of our last house, or else Mr. B. got it at a thrift store or something. Anyway, the point is that cast iron is indestructible and you should get it as cheaply as possible.
The IKEA stuff that we do have has held up pretty well so far; it's not meant to last twenty years, but if it gets us three or four then one day I'll be a real adult and buy real furniture. I don't think anyone could argue that IKEA would be preferable to solid ash furniture, but it's definitely a step above the extreme low-end stuff.
I think the oh, so real often gets applied to the depiction of a city qua city, in which vector it actually is quite remarkably accurate.
I'd buy that, aside from Omar and a couple of the arcs. Everything feels real, in that no one feels like a caricature, but what do I know? I'd know if Simon were writing about grad programs or university politics whether he had the facts down.
Oh, and when I was learning German 17 years ago, I remember the teacher writing that it was joked that IKEA stood for 'Idioten kaufen eben alles.' I get the sense they've improved over time.
Was it here where there was a link to some enraged Finnish argument about hwo racist it is that Ikea uses Swedish names for its super nice stuff, Danish for its moderate everyday goods, and Finish for it's real crap?
98.last: this was the problem with season 5, per a lot of press people.
100: Sadly that turned out to be false.
and Finish for it's real crap?
Don't you have a Ph.D in English?
And this is not to say we did not just have a fun evening giggling (the arc is entertaining as hell) through the mid-part of season 3, or that it doesn't suck that Netflix will take a few more days to get me the next DVD and ineedtoknowwhathappens.
I'm not a fan of Old Navy. I found their stuff wears okay, but looks like hell on me, at least, after a few washings.
I bought some jeans from Old Navy that started to rip at the crotch after three months. I'm still wearing them, though, because I am Enlightened.
I did buy some gorgeous bookshelves at Pottery Barn, for which I will totally not apologize.
What exactly would you be apologizing for? (I can see several different possibilities, I'm just not sure which one you have in mind.)
Me, I'm still trying to figure out where I'm going to put this. Sadly it doesn't really go with the rest of our furniture.
Also, IKEA at least used to make some stuff that would last forever. I still have a chair I bought in college (12-13 years ago) from there that's structurally as good as the day I brought it home. (The zipper that holds the top cover on has gotten a little beat up, but it's not really noticeable.)
105: it would go swell in my room.
105: god, those are so awesome.
107: It'd clash with your bookshelves. Sorry.
108: We have one of those in the mothers' room at work. It used to be an awesome place to just go and chill if I was feeling crummy, but then they put up a sign reiterating that the room was for nursing mothers only. Damn pervs in other offices ruining the fun for everyone.
I don't understand 105. Someone gave you such a gift? Or you bought it but can't get a handle on the feng shui? Either way, I'll take it off your hands if that would help.
106: IKEA furniture from the mid-90s and before has recently become collectible, with a growing used market. At a party a few months ago I observed a vintage modern dealer discreetly tipping over the host's IKEA furniture to check out the tags and the fasteners.
106: Yes, they are quite variable. I have some bookcases from almost 20 years ago that are doing fine, the system for putting them together was ingenious and they have been successfully deployed in a variety of different configurations. (I can't recall their name, do not look like any of the current ones, one drawback is I do not really like their look.) Very next thing I bought from IKEA , a child's dresser, constantly fell apart and we returned it.
110: I should have been more specific: I haven't actually bought it yet, in large part because it really really really doesn't go with anything else in our house (and because we have no room for it). But it will be mine. Oh, it will be mine.
Don't you have a Ph.D in English?
Yeah, and I still sometimes do the it's/its thing. It's horrifying.
their stuff wears okay, but looks like hell on me, at least, after a few washings.
It kind of does me too, but again, for $8? Considering that I'm a stay-home mom and I volunteer in my kid's classroom? There are definitely days--many of them!--when i do not give a shit.
What exactly would you be apologizing for?
Just, god. Pottery Barn. It's so middlebrow yuppie. But I SWEAR we looked for MONTHS and couldn't even find a place that sold bookshelves, like, at ALL.
This was Omaha in 1992, mind you. Anyhoo, we saw the ash bookshelves at PB in Chicago and I was like BOOKSHELVES! SOLID WOOD! FINALLY! WANT! And so Mr. B. gave them to me when we got married.
It kind of does me too, but again, for $8?
Who does you? For eight dollars, no shit?
Anyhoo, we saw the ash bookshelves at PB in Chicago and I was like BOOKSHELVES! SOLID WOOD! FINALLY! WANT!
If you ever feel the need for more solid wood bookshelves, you can always make a trip up here and pick some up at Fenton MacLaren. You'll have to finish them yourselves, but that's not hard and they're CHEAP. Bombproof construction, too.
it really really really doesn't go with anything else in our house
What? How is that possible? I'm being serious, really. It's a pretty basic modern classic, blah blah. I can't see it "not going with" pretty much anything.
Okay, Ikea book shelves, as long as they're not the rickety thin white veneer ones, aren't *too* bad. The drawer sliders in all their dressers are crap, though. And virtually anything that has a corner on it will have the veneer peel off, and their upholstered furniture is all just an *inch or two* too shallow front to back plus the upholstering is kinda meh and will push through to the wood underneath in a couple years, (which is why so many of their sofas have very thick cushions, though that doesn't help the shallowness problem). Basically, anything that has manufactured components (springs, runners) is garbage. Yer basic screw-two-pieces-of-wood-together blocks, okay, fine, in an ugly pressboard kind of way that I hope you don't mind chipped veneer.
Their kitchen stuff, surprisingly, is not half bad, though. If you ever have to remodel a kitchen, do the work yourself and use Ikea cupboards and counters, I'm completely not shitting you.
113: Oh, in that case, congratulations -- prospectively.
Just, god. Pottery Barn. It's so middlebrow yuppie.
Feh. Pottery Barn has some really nice stuff. Sure, it gets a little cloying when people furnish their entire houses from there, but it gets a little cloying when people furnish their entire houses from *any* single retailer.
I plan to furnish my first real home with an assortment of crates and barrels.
117: Thanks, but I can get wood bookshelves down here, first of all, and second of all, um, those? Are kind of blah.
Anyway, next time we move I swear will be into a house we buy, and I'm just building in bookshelves, dammit.
118: All of the rest of our furniture is fabric, and of much more recent vintage. It wouldn't be as jarring as putting it into a house furnished all in, say, Shaker furniture, but it'd really look out of place. Something like this would fit much better. (I found the perfect chair in Austin, but unfortunately it was a special order and the store would only ship stuff they had in stock.)
120: Okay, but you have to consider that it actually is true that most of my furniture was either my grandmother's or was purchased second-hand somewhere because I thought it was a really fabulous piece for a surprisingly decent price (I got a couple nice things just before mid-century modern became ridiculously popular).
Plus, when we first started buying furniture, it was in Omaha. Basically I am inclined to think that "furniture stores," as a genre, sell overpriced ugly crap.
Thanks, but I can get wood bookshelves down here, first of all, and second of all, um, those? Are kind of blah.
See if I try to help you avoid the shame of buying Pottery Barn in the future, then.
(And yeah, they're not flashy, but once finished they're not ugly, and besides we were looking for bookshelves that would kind of fade into the background.)
123: You are an idiot. Putting that into an all-shaker house would be fine. Having a single leather/wood piece is fine. Don't be silly.
"Christ, my spelling is getting worse and worse. Stupid internets and its infectious stupid spelling."
I knew I'd become fluent in English for real was when I started making the same stupid grammar and spelling mistakes native speakers do. I never made any mistakes when I was 13.
You are an idiot.
You do say the sweetest things, B.
125: Heh. Well, most bookshelves kind of fade into the background, which is why you can get away with veneer ones pretty easily. I also rather like the cinderblock/board look myself, truly. But yeah, the ash ones are really pretty oiled wood, and have a scrolled base and a clean simple cornice on top. I heart them.
I'm not going to tell you how long it took me to come up with the word "cornice."
I actually dithered about whether or not I could call you an idiot, and decided you could handle it, Josh. You should be flattered.
You should be flattered.
You mean it's like what I told my friend's new gf this evening when she said I was mean? "Only to people I respect. Everybody else doesn't rate the effort."
(Besides, it's not like I'm going to be offended to be called an idiot by someone who thinks it's okay to mix mid-century modern with Shaker.)
I plan to furnish my first real home with an assortment of crates and barrels.
I'm going to move my family into a barn furnished only with pottery.
Mid-century modern is clean and unfroufrou, shaker is clean and unfroufrou. Shit, if anything the problem would be too monolithic an aesthetic (or words to that effect).
I'm going to move my family into a barn furnished only with pottery.
That's a really bad idea.
Come to think of it, part of my issue with pottery barn might also be the word "barn." Which is just a terrible word to use in the name of a retail establishment, imo. Moo: the customer is a cow.
Mid-century modern is clean and unfroufrou, shaker is clean and unfroufrou.
You really think this would look right next to this? My head go splodey just trying to picture it.
135: Kind of like Radio Shack. Who wants to buy a radio, let alone from a shack?
Any remaining Shakers would likely dispute that the Eames chair has any place in their interiors. Plush leather, molded plywood, die-cast aluminum? Horrors. Plus, how would you hang it up?
135, 137: Contrast that with the high quality image enjoyed by White Castle.
Josh, you need to see this.
I think you could totally do that chair and that sofa in the same room, yes.
137: The Shakers are all dead. Why? Because they didn't believe in sex. I mean, they did a really nice job with furniture and all, but I'm gonna assume that anyone who doesn't believe in sex isn't really the *best* person to go to for an opinion about upholstered furniture.
For want of a nail the bookshelf was lost.
s/b "For want of a camlock fastener the bookshelf was lost."
The Eames recliner is a specially obtrusive piece of furniture. It would look appalling in our living room, for sure, even though many other Eames chairs wouldn't.
part of my issue with pottery barn might also be the word "barn." Which is just a terrible word to use in the name of a retail establishment, imo. Moo: the customer is a cow.
Fleur has a friend who works at PB who gets the employee discount for her. I have concluded that, at 60% of the retail price, PB is a good value for the money. At rack rates, not so much.
Fleur is near the end of a multi-year program to replace/hide/dispose of any remnants of the furnishings of my bachelor apartment. It started subtley at first--a vase here, an etching there--but after we were wed, she abandoned all restraint. I came home one day to find that she had donated my marble-top cafe table to a jumble sale for the animal shelter. Then went the leather couch, the leather easy chair, the Ikea bed linens, until scarcely a remnant remains.
And that remnant consists, as near as I can tell, of two Ikea cutting boards and three Ikea bookshelves. Thus does it come full circle.
I was asleep, not boycotting, but sexuality, interior decorating, and tableware are the three topics in the world least worth talking about. If I'd been awake I would have trolled the thread properly. You people are lost without me.
I seem to be the only person here who's read Foucault's History of Sexuality, so let me summarize it for you: everything you think about sexuality is wrong. Especially if you're PGD.
But trying to get it right will just make things worse, so just shut up. Sexuality is impossibly boobytrapped, an enormous multileveled liars paradox that will take centuries to untangle; or an enormous, firmly planted ladder that can't be kicked away. Russell and Wittgenstein were wise to avoid the topic in their serious work. (Russell would have been wise to avoid it in his pop work too.)
And tableware and furniture are almost as bad.
Our house was on a house tour last year.
Desperate for people not to laugh at our house when they came through, we spent money to try to upgrade things. (Ok, it needed to happen anyway, but this was a good excuse.)
We actually found decent things at decent prices at PB, Crate & Barrel, and Restoration Hardware.
Unfortunately, we went and saw the other houses on the tour. Seeing the other houses, we suddenly felt very common again.
We did have a very nice flower arrangement.
Off topic, but MLK was 5'6" tall. It's inaccurate and offensive to say that he stood tall. Sort of like saying that he was almost white.
Hey, I have two questions for the lawyers here. Please help me out, LB and others:
(1) A knows that his roommate B has a weak heart condition. A sneaks up behind B and pops a paper bag, intending for the loud noise to give B a fatal heart attack. This in fact transpires exactly as A planned. Is A guilty of murder, even though he didn't touch B and popping a paper bag is a legal act? If so, is it purely A's murderous intent that transforms otherwise legal conduct into criminal conduct?
(2) Once again, A knows that his roommate B has a weak heart condition, but this time, A pops the paper bag just for fun, without knowing B was in the next room and could easily hear the noise. Assume A is found to have breached a duty of care to B, because he knew about B's weak heart and knew it was possible that B was within hearing distance when he popped the bag. What tort has A committed? Does it have a specific name, or is it just called "negligence"?
Thanks!
Who are you planning to kill, GB?
Sounds pretty serious, GB. Nobody here knows anything about Japanese law. The Japanese think of practical jokes and other goofiness differently than we do. I suggest seppuku. But a sort of funny, jokey seppuku consonant with the nature of the offense. Maybe clown costume seppuku, for example.
No one at present. My wife is studying for the NY bar exam.
So, Emerson, it's NY law, not Japanese. Somewhat embarrasingly, I am at a loss to answer the questions despite my own law degree. Not practicing (or, indeed, even thinking about) law for ten years will do that to you.
Damn.
If you decide on clown seppuku anyway, could you Youtube it for us?
Dammit, where is LB when you need her?
Come to think of it, part of my issue with pottery barn might also be the word "barn."
Don't buy furniture from the Furniture Barn, then.
Also, why do they call it "Design Within Reach" when I can't afford anything they sell?
Have any of the NYers gone to Muji? Is their stuff better, worse, or the same as Ikea?
The Soho Muji doesn't have very much furniture. It's more home accessories: umbrella stands and luggage and duvets and trash cans and cd holders and knife blocks and that sort of stuff, plus clothes. They're about the same quality level as similar things at Ikea, I'd say, though I haven't tested any of the larger ticket items myself. The aesthetic is good and they seem less inclined than Ikea to offer things that are actually disposable but in disguise as durable goods. Either it will be obviously made of actual cardboard or it will be pretty sturdy. I have some pleasant Muji office supplies and Snark has a pretty nice bright blue sweater.
The furniture at IKEA seems kind of hit and miss, but I was looking at their kitchens the other day, and they seemed like a pretty good deal, even with the cost of having them do the install.
DO NOT GET Ikea kitchen cabinets, at least the lower-end ones. They suck ass. The doors sag on their hinges. All is ashes and despair. Perhaps the more expensive ones are better.
Really? I was looking at the display kitchens, and they seemed solid. Now I am wary though.
After a little googling and some common sense, I am guessing that 147.1 would be murder, because A intentionally committed an act that he knew would cause the death of B in that particular situation -- even if in other circumstances, the same sort of act would be perfectly harmless.
As for 147.2, I'm going with simple "negligence" as the tort.
If I'm wrong and my wife fails the bar exam, I'm holding all of you responsible. Especially Emerson.
I've heard that the high-end Ikea cabinets are fine, but the low-end ones end up looking cheap. I thought it was just my lack of handiness, but no, our landlord installed very similar (though not Ikea) ones in our current place and they also end up looking cheap. The screws just don't stay embedded properly in the particleboard, so the doors sag. You can tighten them back up, but entropy always wins.
157:
I agree with rfts. Stay away from IKea's "wood" furniture.
The screws just don't stay embedded properly in the particleboard
Ah, that's a good point. Run away, run away!
159: I'm just a philosopher, but I think the paper bag popping would be treated like any other murder: you need intent to kill, or intent to cause serious bodily harm (and sometimes reckless indifference can count, too.) The paper bag is just a red herring; murdering someone with a gun isn't murder because discharging a firearm is illegal, and murdering someone by throwing a radio into the bathtub where they're sitting in the water isn't not murder because there is no law against putting radios in bathwater. So I think the paper bag bit is just a distraction.
You'd have trouble proving intent, though. How often do we really know that a sudden noise can kill someone? The paper bag is a trolley car.
Also, why do they call it "Design Within Reach" when I can't afford anything they sell?
yes! I live near them, in a kind of furniture gulch area, so I see the sign often - at first it was annoying, now it's turned funny for me.
Am trying to go the diy route as much as possible with furniture now, anyway, or the hardware store route - inspired by the Gropius house in Lincoln. Though we will see if a used but very clean shrimp net really is good as a semi-transparent curtain or not...
The screws just don't stay embedded properly in the particleboard
This reminds me vividly of an afternoon at my ex-boyfriend's apartment. He was putting together an under-sink cabinet from IKEA, and it required enough bitching and moaning and cursing that I retreated to a corner with a book. Then he threw aside the little allen-wrench thing that comes with IKEA sets, plugged in his electric drill, and started drilling support screws every which way into the cabinet. Making it entirely impossible to break down and reassemble if he were to move, of course.
Clearly "Design Within Reach" is a pun on Gropius. Design Within Grope.
165: The way GB set it up, it says we can assume intent. So I did. (The full answer I would think is yes, it is murder, but no, it is not solely the intent that does it, because we also need the actual bit where B dies or else it's just an intention that didn't do anything.)
The Trojan Horse was made of three kinds of wood: abies (fir), pineus (pine), and acernus (maple). Four, if you think robor is used to mean oak, and not wood in general. Or maybe three if you think Sinon is lying when he says maple. Or maybe just then two.
My friend Emily had an apartment full of Wassily chairs and pony chaises. I was jealous. She got them from her parents (an architect and an interior designer) when they sold their house and moved to a condo in Boca.
I'm just a philosopher.
I once took a course co-taught be a prominent philosopher, a prominent law professor, and a prominent scientist. The course objective was to impart something about the different approaches to thinking taken by philosophy, law and science. My main takeaway was that the worst insult you could throw at a philosopher was "unoriginal interpretation", and at a lawyer, "novel interpretation".
"Weiner Werkstätte" would be such a great name for a hot dog stand.
171: I'm just a caveman, but I remember missing that course because I had to take Pragmatism or something.
147, 159: if these are hypothetical multistate bar exam questions (which is what they read like), then I'd say yes, in the first, you've got the actus and the mens for common-law murder; instrumentality should be irrelevant.
The second is only negligence if the roommate has a heart attack (or other injury) caused by the noise, which you don't mention. In addition to duty/breach, you need injury and proximate cause for negligence. So if you just left out that detail, then yes, it's negligence; otherwise, it's not a tort at all, despite breach of duty. It doesn't fit the elements of any other common-law tort, I don't think (by the terms of the question, it can't be an intentional tort).
Making it entirely impossible to break down and reassemble if he were to move, of course.
My experience has been that the particleboard IKEA stuff is flimsy enough, especially around the joints where the clever little metal and plastic pieces hold it together, that it can't really withstand being broken down and reassembled anyway. Especially in the case where you have to tap a plastic peg into a hole. Once that peg comes out, it's never going to stick in there tight again. And if you move it all as one piece it tends to get loose and bunged up at the corners anyway.
This is obviously less true of the simpler designs like bookshelves. But once you realize that you're probably not going to be able to successfully move most IKEA particleboard pieces, they begin to look like less of a bargain.
IKEA does have some solid wood stuff, some of which is pretty decent for the price.
Probably the paper-bag trolley car diversion was thrown in to weed out anybody with a reality sense.
What's with all the hating on IKEA, people? I have two beds, two dressers, a dining room table and a side-board from IKEA, all of which I am exceedingly happy with. The drawers and hinges seem to work just fine. There's, admittedly, a part of the table that seems misaligned -- but the Ugly Naked Guy assembled it with my ex-best-friend's husband, so I am happy to assume the fault lies there and not with IKEA...
Also, slip covers do wonders for making mismatched hand-me-down furniture match.
Di, I've missed you. And your blog. I've missed both of you.
Di and ogged took breaks about the same time. Interesting.
How come nobody likes chopped liver?
I love chopped liver, M/tch.
No one has pointed out the absurdity of 89:
f you get furniture the natural colors of the materials it's made of (wood, stone, metal, glass), it will all pretty much go together.
If I could afford furniture made out of those materials and not particleboard crap, decorating would be a lot easier.
178: Aw, thanks AWB! I miss me and my blog, too, sometimes...
179: Though this fits better in the thread below, I just have to point out that ogged has previously outed himself here as a Trevian and my father would never forgive me were I to ever get entangled somehow with a Trevian.
180: I like chopped liver, very much.
I've got my eye on a sweet chest of drawers at a local bookstore which I fear is going out of business. 50% off!
Which store? (Actually, if it's not in Berkeley, I probably don't have any attachment to it.)
180: Vegetarians?
175: This is pretty much true of (nearly) all consumer particle board stuff. You can reassemble if you are careful at both ends, and you can fix up the post holes with white glue and sawdust or whatever if need be. The metal lock things are better off, but yeah, they aren't really meant to come apart a much of times.
You can get much stronger stuff, but it's mostly office supply. Which is good in the sense that you get book cases that don't bend under the actual weight of books, etc. But the only way to make pressboard strong is to make it dense. So you can have strong, utilitarian looking shelves for cheap, but they weigh a ton (fun to move!)
I have the Ikea Vestby in both my apartments. Not bad for corrugated plastic, but you've got to open the drawers pretty gingerly.
182: decorating with onions is never easy.
my father would never forgive me were I to ever get entangled somehow with a Trevian
Some of us endure such things for love. (Although mine would never call himself a "Trevian." He'll admit to having attended the high school, but identifying with their team name not so much.)
I love chopped liver, M/tch.
I like chopped liver, very much.
Awwww, I love you guys too.
180: Vegetarians?
Only the kind who decide that because they've chosen to not eat meat, they must then aver that it doesn't taste good, is disgusting, etc.
Apparently people from the town of Trier are Trevians. Marx was from Trier, I think. I can't imagine he has too many friends in Wilmette, Winnetka, or Kenilworth.
187: You have two apartments? That explains why you can't afford wood/stone/metal/glass furniture.
191.last: good point, that doesn't follow. For that matter I know a fair number of vegetarians/local eaters/etc. who would never claim the stuff they refuse to eat universally tastes bad or whatever (though some judgements are made, surely)
193: Furniture of plastic and cardboard, for the sake of european living! No really, I've always got a subletter in the one I'm not currently occupying. Doesn't cost me any more than the hassle.
Also, why do they call it "Design Within Reach" when I can't afford anything they sell?
Because you can get it in the store, and you don't have to have it special-ordered by an architect or interior designer. Seriously. It's a connections thing, not a price thing.
I have four Billy bookshelves all in a row. Any crappy thing, repeated enough, starts to look good. Also, they are white, up against my "old pickup blue" (think Tiffany with less green) walls.
I also have a very handsome desk, of twenties-looking vintage, with a typewriter pull-down cabinet and everything where I stow my printer. Beautiful, but it is killing me, and I still haven't figured out how to type without injury. So there may be more IKEA in my future. Or perhaps the chair is the thing.
For that matter I know a fair number of vegetarians/local eaters/etc. who would never claim the stuff they refuse to eat universally tastes bad or whatever (though some judgements are made, surely)
That's the camp I fall into. As for judgments, I will aver that although I refuse to eat particleboard for moral reasons, I also think it tastes horrible.
197: agreed!
Come to think of it, I'd say the judgemental ones correllate to foodies, not vegetarians.
You know, Mai Tai, I bet that isn't true. Mmm, foie gras-fattened foodie liver pate.
You have to know how to cook them right.
201-204: An allegory for our future, desperate fights for the low-hanging fruit.
Googling foie gras is fascinating. Pro and con advocates are locked in a bitter struggle for pagerank, with no clear victor.
In the future, they'll grow ginormous goose livers in a vat, under high pressure.
You know what pisses me off about the arguments over foie gras? The huge number of hypocritical asshats arguing against it on the basis of `cruelty' while simultaneously accepting the far greater excesses of their daily food supply.
208: that uses too much energy. They'll grow them miles underground.
Mmm, foie gras-fattened foodie liver pate.
AKA "foo gras".
Thanks to everyone who weighed in on my paper bag murder/tort hypo. Each of you has contributed a little bit toward bringing another lawyer into the world.
Ha! My Billy bookcases have been struck and re-formed several times and yet manage to remain in perfect condition to hold books. All 21 of them. In various finishes. Tho' I must admit that the drawers of the Offspring's dresser did crumble under the onslaught of far-too-many-clothes jammed into far-too-small a space. That and the case of paper.
The nice thing about Billies, other than their ability to fade into the wall, is that I don't feel guilty about screwing them to the said walls, lest we have another Big Earthquake in LALALand. And they don't fight with the other furniture for attention.
