Saturday, May 26, 2012

Meaningful interior design?

I have been reading Veranda today, the latest issue. 

The houses look like nobody lives in them.  The photos and interior designs are just so you can fill the photo with your own presence, I guess.  But they look so impersonal, in many cases like everything was bought and not gathered through a life. Even the antiques are mostly bought stuff. 

I feel like real families have a mish-mash of things that means something to them, but in these houses, do the pieces mean something or do they just look good together?  Because some of it looks fantastic, sure.  But does it have deeper meaning and emotional value on personal level? Or are these photos of these rooms like still-life paintings. 



I like houses that are charming, where the people have left their mark with the selection of things and furniture.  A kind of assemblage of personal experiences and interests that only living life and being curious about it can bring, not something you buy in a store.  Some of my favorite houses are very different from each other, but they are all alive, you can feel the presence of the owner.  I often feel like that is missing from these articles in these types of magazines.  It is too clinically clean, too perfect, too impersonal.  But my question is, do the photo designers do this on person so you can put yourself in the room in the picture?  So you can dream about YOU having that place, that it is available and unoccupied by someone else?  I don't know, what do you think?

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

All kinds of stuff

What about a sizzling bacon scented candle? At Think geek they have them, along with electronic firefly in a jar and a credit card lightbulb! Check it out!

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Stamp of the Day: Then and Now

Then: Phone booth.  Now: iPhone

Then: Printed maps. Now: GPS.

Then: Ice boxes.  Now: Refrigerators

Then: Black and white TVs.  Now: Flat-screen TV.

Then: LPs and record players.  Now: iPods.

The technological development during the last 50 years is featured on these Australian stamps.  I can write a million words on this, about its pros and cons, but that will have to wait.  In the meantime, I'd like to point out that phones used to function without having to have batteries or being plugged into an electrical outlet, maps work when the power is out, and I don't think anybody would like an icebox in their regular kitchen.

It is a gloomy, rainy day in New Jersey...

....but when I close my eye I see the sun sparkles on the sea in Sweden during a sunny April spring day...

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Bacon bits and pieces on the internet

Oh, hi again everybody!

Life is going on as usual, and some new and old things on the internet...

knit bacon (yes!) and hamburgers [Core 77]

others make fantastic art out of subway maps [Core 77]

or octopi out of sausages,

make food out of the throw-away parts (which reminds me of the one time my grandfather tried to make porridge out of potato peels, not a success, and I was retold the story as a little kid by my mom) [NY Times]

some whiskey needs special fungi... great science story [WIRED]

and as usual, Shorpy manages to find the best end photos.

PS.  This is post 2050 on this blog.  That is a good number too, as is 44 and 33. Right LA?