So, upon looking for clothes to buy online (because I can't find anything worth paying retail anymore) I happened upon a very nice pair of grey sweatpants. I know what you're thinking: "Sweatpants! Just go to Walmart and buy a 30pack for a dollar and be done with it!" But no, You, reader, are misguided. For these sweatpants are equipped with cargo pockets, and back zip pockets, as opposed to your regular pair of sweats that only have the two sloppy and open pockets. It is, of course, the addition of these cargo pockets that make these gems infinitely more valuable than regular sweat pants. In fact, $575.00 is really a bargain if you don't do any math.
Think of all the stuff you could carry in those cargo pockets, while you're just lying around the house either sick or just being lazy. And lets face it, you aren't cleaning the house either, not in five hundred and seventy-five dollar pants. So what would you carry? How about a bottle of Nyquil you could sip on, or an 8oz flask of peppermint schnapps, or an 8oz flask of Nyquil. Because, lets face it, those pants only cover your bottom half, you're going to need a sweatshirt that costs five and a half more benjamins, and since you decided to blow your whole tuition on a gym outfit and don't have enough gas money to get to the gym, you're gonna lie around the house all day staying tanked.
But what if you do make it to the gym, what could you keep in those extra pockets? how about a protein bar, an mp3 player, a water bottle, your wallet, your keys, your cell phone, extra makeup and hair scrunchies, starbucks gift card, loose change, a pocket knife, extra pacifiers if you have a baby you left at home with the Nyquil, coupons for Dolce & Gabbana sweatpants, gum, contact lens case, a kindle, a flashlight, pepper spray, rolodex, and maybe some three hundred dollar sweatbands... Try and jog on the treadmill with all that rumbling around against your legs.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
An Interview with Bill Leeb
Last summer, the ever-prolific and ever-changing Front Line Assembly released “IMPROVISED. ELECTRONIC. DEVICE.,” an album that brings heavy use of guitars back into their sound. At first listen, the guitars may bring to mind 1994′s “Millennium,” but the music also has intense, cold electronic edge reminiscent of earlier Front Line Assembly. In the following phone interview, founder Bill Leeb talks about the lengthy process of making the album, his thoughts on the current state of the music industry, songs he hates to play, and more.
“Jim Nash’s partner passed away this year, meaning the real defining end of Wax Trax! I guess Al was a very good friend of his, so in a way that song was sort of commemorative as well. We dedicated it to the whole Wax Trax! ensemble. We’re all dying off, right?”
“So this particular project just becomes important again. It’s kind of like being a [visual] artist. You try to use all the colors on your palette, sometimes you use more of this one than that one. But I think it all helps keep a good round psyche in your head. I think that most artists are like tortured souls, you know. You need all of it, and it all comes in at the right time and can save you on certain days, and other days it can destroy you. It’s part of the whole complex.”
How did the process of making this album compare to past releases?
“You know, it’s so bizarre. Every time you start a record you have just kind of no concept of where you’re going, and I think your life around you and everything else sort of comes out through the record. If I had to sort of put a finger on it I’d say this is probably a perfect assimilation of everything and anything Front Line Assembly has ever stood for, from day one to now. The sound has evolved, and I think we’ve taken all the best elements and still focused on songwriting. We took over two years to make this thing. We worked on it for 6 months, then put it away for a while, and I was going to get Rhys involved but he got busy. We ended up going down this road with the guys we did over 100 live shows with over the past three years. It ended up being quite a personal record because we toured a lot, going to places like Russia, and during the last tour went to Vienna where I met my dad. There was a lot of stuff to draw from. It just all sort of came together. Even with the mixing, for the first time in 25 years we stepped outside the Greg Reely domain and brought Ken Marshall in, who does all the Skinny Puppy stuff. He mixed half the record. Having Al Jourgensen on the record … it was this whole-encompassing thing that took on a life of its own. If I had to sort of stop music tomorrow, I would say that this would have been the record I would be more than happy to stop with on Front Line Assembly. To me, it’s a really positive note. I didn’t know it was going to take 25 years to get there! [laughs]”How did you come to work with Al? It seemed like you were one of very few people in the genre who hadn’t worked with him before.
“We’d done festivals with them [Ministry], and Michel Balch, who used to be in our band, co-wrote that song ‘Jesus Build My Hotrod’ with Al. And Wax Trax! … we were there from the beginning. So there has always been six degrees of separation. It finally came to a head on this because Jeremy, who is in our band, also toured with another band who opened for Revco last year and he got to become good friends with Al. I guess it was just like the perfect storm and the story that wrote itself.“Jim Nash’s partner passed away this year, meaning the real defining end of Wax Trax! I guess Al was a very good friend of his, so in a way that song was sort of commemorative as well. We dedicated it to the whole Wax Trax! ensemble. We’re all dying off, right?”
Having been involved with so many projects, was there ever a time when you felt that Front Line Assembly was over?
“I really believe in the saying ‘never say never.’ Nothing is really ever over until you want it to really be over. I find that music itself is such an ambiguous target. Just when you think you might have something, all of a sudden things change and you can feel redundant. Or every time you start a song, you just sort of hope that this is the one that is going to redefine music. Doing these different projects, you kind of do something for a while and then lose your excitement for it in some ways, so you dabble in something else. But then a year or two later, I just feel the urge to just kick some ass again.“So this particular project just becomes important again. It’s kind of like being a [visual] artist. You try to use all the colors on your palette, sometimes you use more of this one than that one. But I think it all helps keep a good round psyche in your head. I think that most artists are like tortured souls, you know. You need all of it, and it all comes in at the right time and can save you on certain days, and other days it can destroy you. It’s part of the whole complex.”
With such a diverse body of work, are there particular things that you’ve gone back and listened to that have surprised you?
“If you put it in that kind of context, I just think that from day one, from Skinny Puppy to now, if you added up all the work that me and both Kevin’s from that band did, and Rhys, it’s quite overwhelming the body of work that we’ve done. Sure, maybe Trent Reznor and Marilyn Manson get bigger sales of some albums, but I think that overall in the genre, all the music, all the production work, that has been created around all of us … if you go to all of those people’s websites and know all the things that they have been involved in, we’ve probably been the four most productive guys in the genre for the past 20 years. It’s overwhelming how much work there is that we’ve been involved with in one way or another. Even the song “Silence” in ’03 was the biggest techno song in the world, and went to #1 in five countries. I don’t like to talk or think about things too much, but if one day we all sat down to write a book about of all it, it would probably be quite compelling, you know, what this group of us from Vancouver started.”Regarding the different musical styles, would you say you have a preference in terms of things like “Silence” vs. less commercial stuff?
“I don’t really know the term ‘commercial music’ – I don’t really know how to make commercial or genre music. You just try to come up with your own ideas, and I think if anything, the singers, like on the Delerium tracks, can make it sound contemporary or mainstream. But as far as our songwriting goes, I’ve always had the rule that if I like it, whatever I’m doing at the time, then that’s what I’m going to work on. I’ve trusted my instincts with that. I think if I actually sat down and contemplated doing something that was going to be mainstream, I’d probably completely fail! [laughs] I think it’s just such a different realm, a world that is actually pretty scary.”With so many different projects over the years, fans are bound to have a particular that they would like to see revisited (for me it would be the style of the 3rd Intermix album). How do you feel about that?
“I don’t feel any sort of real pressure. At the time, that particular thing to me was relevant and I was really interested in it, so it was something I wanted to put myself behind. But now music has changed, times have changed, and I just don’t think that type of thing would be relevant again. It’s just got to come to you, and I hope I have a few more ideas in my head for other things. And actually now more than ever, the fact that the whole music industry pretty much collapsed …. 65% or more people are stealing, downloading free music … it’s kind of pointless to do those projects because your sales will be so small. The amount of time you put into it, would be totally redundant unless you were really going to follow it up. And also, labels back in those days would give you twenty grand to do something because you’re Bill Leeb or you’re Kevin Crompton [Key] and you’d sell X amount. But now, it’s a struggle just to get money for your proven projects that you’ve sold hundreds of thousands of. All that has changed. I guess there’s the other thing where you can just make your own Myspace page for people to come by and download for free to see if they like it, and do some cheesy video for youTube. But it’s hard to sustain yourself like that so you’re going to need to have a full time job to have that kind of approach. It’s a different time now, completely different.”Having written songs about technological and cyperpunk themes over the years, what are your thoughts on the current online world?
“Whether people are Twittering or texting, whatever the hell they’re doing … I don’t think the final chapter has been written on all of this. Where it all ends up, I don’t know. On the one hand you could say ‘well the old days were better in some aspects’ but I guess more people, more demand, as we all keep evolving to want more and need more and be more interactive. Like, speed dating is really popular. You’ve got five minutes with thirty people and you’re supposed to figure out if you’re compatible, whereas people used to take the time to date. I think that music and everything is the same way … when someone comes online, they want to buy one song, put it on their iPod. They have 2,000 other songs on there so they don’t have the time or patience to listen to your entire album. They just want the one track. I guess some artists are just putting three to five songs out there because they know kids with ADD don’t have the attention span to listen to an entire album. That is a by-product, too. It just changes everything. I don’t know, is that good or is it bad? Everyone is in a big rush, right?”Do you think this has shifted the emphasis to live shows, as a means of exposing audiences to your new music as well as making money?
“It’s just a big myth. People say, ‘Well now if you want to be a band you have to tour.’ Most of the bands I know who are touring, in vans or small buses, are not making any money. They’re just breaking even, but I guess there is this hope that it’s going to happen with them. But most of the bands in Europe who play all the festivals, they all have jobs. Everybody has a job. They take two weeks off for their holiday and they’ll tour. Or they’ll pack up their van for the weekend and go play some big festival, get a few thousand euros for their slot, and go back home. That’s how 90% of the bands exist in Europe. So it’s a total myth. Jeremy is out with 16 Volt and Chem Lab right now, he’s making $15 a day on the per diems and they are kicking in towards the bus. So they’re technically losing money. So again, they’ll be happy at the end of the tour if they can pay all of the bills and the bus and break even. To me, that’s not really a money-making thing, and the amount of CDs they’re going to sell by doing this tour, it’s not really worth it. But if you’re really into it and you want to do it, then you’ve got to do it. It’s a major struggle. There’s that 5% of bands at the top who can actually make some money, but for the rest I think it’s a struggle. But most people don’t feel sorry for musicians, because this industry has been so glorified by people who have had such wild and crazy habits and are so rich and famous. So when people say, ‘Well, these guys are broke’ everyone just says, ‘Well, get a job!’ It is what it is, right?”What made you title the album “Improvised. Electronic. Device”?
“The title to me, I came up with it and at first it would just be for one of the songs. And then I changed it from ‘explosive’ to ‘electronic.’ I thought it was a perfect phrase when you see what’s going on around the world, and that terminology IED. We’re kind of like that in the electronic world – we use our instruments in that aspect – to make things that are challenging and on the edge. I don’t think I could have coined a better phrase. Front Line Assembly has always been like that as well, the whole sort of war theme – on the edge, on the front line. So I just thought it was a perfect title for what we were doing.”Would you ever make an album like this again, with four members contributing?
“I don’t know, nothing ever stays the way it is, everything seems to change and be different. Like I said, it really took a lot for us to do this record. For me, it was the hardest one we ever put together. I don’t know if I could do anything record that takes two years, it just took too much energy. And everybody in the band is doing other things to get by in life and survive. It’s a totally different vibe now. Who knows who is even going to be around a year or two from now? The future seems to be very uncertain to me in all aspects to what we’re doing.”Are you involved with any other projects right now?
“We’ve been putting together a new Delerium album with Jeremy and we have a lot of tracks. But they are way more sort of underground-sounding, more ethereal but tweaky, and I would say even less commercial. I know Nettwerk wanted a new Delerium album for next spring, and I was maybe going to do a few tracks with Rhys as well, but I keep thinking I want to maybe do a Delerium album that is a little less commercial. It might be interesting for a change. I just feel in that kind of mood these days. So that is the other thing I am focusing on.”Sunday, January 1, 2012
So...Now what?
There is so much to this world that seems meaningless. I feel stuck, artistically and secularly. I feel like, I want to create, but I'm always copping out and watching television, or listening to music or being worthless on the internet. Believe it or not this Blog is probably the most useful thing I've done online in months! And it's not even useful at all!!! In fact, it's usefulness level probably peaks out at around 0.003 % usefulness. - Think about it.
So anyway, after I get done being useless, I either go to sleep, go to work (where I continue to be worthless) or go run some useless errands to make sure my life is just comfortable enough to keep being worthless. OR I eat and I usually do that at the same time I'm being worthless- I can multitask! Wow I'm using the words 'useless' and 'worthless' quite a bit. This system has got me too tired most of the time to do anything else on my spare time but cop out and tune in (which is really tuning out). There's got to be a better way! Wont somebody please save me from the Painful Everyday Secular Life that is sucking me dry!!! WAAAAAHHHHH!!!... here's a video
So anyway, after I get done being useless, I either go to sleep, go to work (where I continue to be worthless) or go run some useless errands to make sure my life is just comfortable enough to keep being worthless. OR I eat and I usually do that at the same time I'm being worthless- I can multitask! Wow I'm using the words 'useless' and 'worthless' quite a bit. This system has got me too tired most of the time to do anything else on my spare time but cop out and tune in (which is really tuning out). There's got to be a better way! Wont somebody please save me from the Painful Everyday Secular Life that is sucking me dry!!! WAAAAAHHHHH!!!... here's a video
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
The Dream of the 1490's is alive
so I've decided that hooded capes are a must have in everyone's wardrobe. I mean c'mon a zipline is one thing but riding it with a cape like you're Harry Potter or a Jedi? that's where it's at...
...actually this is extremely lame
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Original Essay By Edgar Allen Poe
The Philosophy of Furniture
In the internal decoration, if not in the external architecture of their residences, the English are supreme. The Italians have but little sentiment beyond marbles and colours. In France, _meliora probant, deteriora _sequuntur - the people are too much a race of gadabouts to maintain those household proprieties of which, indeed, they have a delicate appreciation, or at least the elements of a proper sense. The Chinese and most of the eastern races have a warm but inappropriate fancy. The Scotch are _poor _decorists. The Dutch have, perhaps, an indeterminate idea that a curtain is not a cabbage. In Spain they are _all _curtains - a nation of hangmen. The Russians do not furnish. The Hottentots and Kickapoos are very well in their way. The Yankees alone are preposterous.
How this happens, it is not difficult to see. We have no aristocracy of blood, and having therefore as a natural, and indeed as an inevitable thing, fashioned for ourselves an aristocracy of dollars, the _display of wealth _has here to take the place and perform the office of the heraldic display in monarchical countries. By a transition readily understood, and which might have been as readily foreseen, we have been brought to merge in simple _show _our notions of taste itself
To speak less abstractly. In England, for example, no mere parade of costly appurtenances would be so likely as with us, to create an impression of the beautiful in respect to the appurtenances themselves - or of taste as regards the proprietor: - this for the reason, first, that wealth is not, in England, the loftiest object of ambition as constituting a nobility; and secondly, that there, the true nobility of blood, confining itself within the strict limits of legitimate taste, rather avoids than affects that mere costliness in which a _parvenu _rivalry may at any time be successfully attempted.
The people _will _imitate the nobles, and the result is a thorough diffusion of the proper feeling. But in America, the coins current being the sole arms of the aristocracy, their display may be said, in general, to be the sole means of the aristocratic distinction; and the populace, looking always upward for models,,are insensibly led to confound the two entirely separate ideas of magnificence and beauty. In short, the cost of an article of furniture has at length come to be, with us, nearly the sole test of its merit in a decorative point of view - and this test, once established, has led the way to many analogous errors, readily traceable to the one primitive folly.
There could be nothing more directly offensive to the eye of an artist than the interior of what is termed in the United States - that is to say, in Appallachia - a well-furnished apartment. Its most usual defect is a want of keeping. We speak of the keeping of a room as we would of the keeping of a picture - for both the picture and the room are amenable to those undeviating principles which regulate all varieties of art; and very nearly the same laws by which we decide on the higher merits of a painting, suffice for decision on the adjustment of a chamber.
A want of keeping is observable sometimes in the character of the several pieces of furniture, but generally in their colours or modes of adaptation to use _Very _often the eye is offended by their inartistic arrangement. Straight lines are too prevalent - too uninterruptedly continued - or clumsily interrupted at right angles. If curved lines occur, they are repeated into unpleasant uniformity. By undue precision, the appearance of many a fine apartment is utterly spoiled.__
Curtains are rarely well disposed, or well chosen in respect to other decorations. With formal furniture, curtains are out of place; and an extensive volume of drapery of any kind is, under any circumstance, irreconcilable with good taste - the proper quantum, as well as the proper adjustment, depending upon the character of the general effect.
Carpets are better understood of late than of ancient days, but we still very frequently err in their patterns and colours. The soul of the apartment is the carpet. From it are deduced not only the hues but the forms of all objects incumbent. A judge at common law may be an ordinary man; a good judge of a carpet _must be _a genius. Yet we have heard discoursing of carpets, with the air "_d'un mouton qui reve," _fellows who should not and who could not be entrusted with the management of their own _moustaches. _Every one knows that a large floor _may _have a covering of large figures, and that a small one must have a covering of small - yet this is not all the knowledge in the world. As regards texture, the Saxony is alone admissible. Brussels is the preterpluperfect tense of fashion, and Turkey is taste in its dying agonies. Touching pattern - a carpet should _not _be bedizzened out like a Riccaree Indian - all red chalk, yellow ochre, and cock's feathers. In brief - distinct grounds, and vivid circular or cycloid figures, _of no meaning, _are here Median laws. The abomination of flowers, or representations of well-known objects of any kind, should not be endured within the limits of Christendom. Indeed, whether on carpets, or curtains, or tapestry, or ottoman coverings, all upholstery of this nature should be rigidly Arabesque. As for those antique floor-cloth & still occasionally seen in the dwellings of the rabble - cloths of huge, sprawling, and radiating devises, stripe-interspersed, and glorious with all hues, among which no ground is intelligible-these are but the wicked invention of a race of time-servers and money-lovers - children of Baal and worshippers of Mammon - Benthams, who, to spare thought and economize fancy, first cruelly invented the Kaleidoscope, and then established joint-stock companies to twirl it by steam.
_ Glare is _a leading error in the philosophy of American household decoration - an error easily recognised as deduced from the perversion of taste just specified., We are violently enamoured of gas and of glass. The former is totally inadmissible within doors. Its harsh and unsteady light offends. No one having both brains and eyes will use it. A mild, or what artists term a cool light, with its consequent warm shadows, will do wonders for even an ill-furnished apartment. Never was a more lovely thought than that of the astral lamp. We mean, of course, the astral lamp proper - the lamp of Argand, with its original plain ground-glass shade, and its tempered and uniform moonlight rays. The cut-glass shade is a weak invention of the enemy. The eagerness with which we have adopted it, partly on account of its _flashiness, _but principally on account of its _greater rest, is _a good commentary on the proposition with which we began. It is not too much to say, that the deliberate employer of a cut-glass shade, is either radically deficient in taste, or blindly subservient to the caprices of fashion. The light proceeding from one of these gaudy abominations is unequal broken, and painful. It alone is sufficient to mar a world of good effect in the furniture subjected to its influence. Female loveliness, in especial, is more than one-half disenchanted beneath its evil eye.
In the matter of glass, generally, we proceed upon false principles. Its leading feature is _glitter - _and in that one word how much of all that is detestable do we express ! Flickering, unquiet lights, are _sometimes _pleasing - to children and idiots always so - but in the embellishment of a room they should be scrupulously avoided. In truth, even strong _steady _lights are inadmissible. The huge and unmeaning glass chandeliers, prism-cut, gas-lighted, and without shade, which dangle in our most fashionable drawing-rooms, may be cited as the quintessence of all that is false in taste or preposterous in folly.
The rage for _glitter-_because its idea has become as we before observed, confounded with that of magnificence in the abstract-has led us, also, to the exaggerated employment of mirrors. We line our dwellings with great British plates, and then imagine we have done a fine thing. Now the slightest thought will be sufficient to convince any one who has an eye at all, of the ill effect of numerous looking-glasses, and especially of large ones. Regarded apart from its reflection, the mirror presents a continuous, flat, colourless, unrelieved surface, - a thing always and obviously unpleasant. Considered as a reflector, it is potent in producing a monstrous and odious uniformity: and the evil is here aggravated, not in merely direct proportion with the augmentation of its sources, but in a ratio constantly increasing. In fact, a room with four or five mirrors arranged at random, is, for all purposes of artistic show, a room of no shape at all. If we add to this evil, the attendant glitter upon glitter, we have a perfect farrago of discordant and displeasing effects. The veriest bumpkin, on entering an apartment so bedizzened, would be instantly aware of something wrong, although he might be altogether unable to assign a cause for his dissatisfaction. But let the same person be led into a room tastefully furnished, and he would be startled into an exclamation of pleasure and surprise.__
It is an evil growing out of our republican institutions, that here a man of large purse has usually a very little soul which he keeps in it. The corruption of taste is a portion or a pendant of the dollar-manufac sure. As we grow rich, our ideas grow rusty. It is, therefore, not among _our _aristocracy that we must look (if at all, in Appallachia), for the spirituality of a British _boudoir. _But we have seen apartments in the tenure of Americans of moderns [possibly "modest" or "moderate"] means, which, in negative merit at least, might vie with any of the _or-molu'd _cabinets of our friends across the water. Even _now_, there is present to our mind's eye a small and not, ostentatious chamber with whose decorations no fault can be found. The proprietor lies asleep on a sofa - the weather is cool - the time is near midnight: arc will make a sketch of the room during his slumber.
It is oblong - some thirty feet in length and twenty-five in breadth - a shape affording the best(ordinary) opportunities for the adjustment of furniture. It has but one door - by no means a wide one - which is at one end of the parallelogram, and but two windows, which are at the other. These latter are large, reaching down to the floor - have deep recesses - and open on an Italian _veranda. _Their panes are of a crimson-tinted glass, set in rose-wood framings, more massive than usual. They are curtained within the recess, by a thick silver tissue adapted to the shape of the window, and hanging loosely in small volumes. Without the recess are curtains of an exceedingly rich crimson silk, fringed with a deep network of gold, and lined with silver tissue, which is the material of the exterior blind. There are no cornices; but the folds of the whole fabric (which are sharp rather than massive, and have an airy appearance), issue from beneath a broad entablature of rich giltwork, which encircles the room at the junction of the ceiling and walls. The drapery is thrown open also, or closed, by means of a thick rope of gold loosely enveloping it, and resolving itself readily into a knot; no pins or other such devices are apparent. The colours of the curtains and their fringe - the tints of crimson and gold - appear everywhere in profusion, and determine the _character _of the room. The carpet - of Saxony material - is quite half an inch thick, and is of the same crimson ground, relieved simply by the appearance of a gold cord (like that festooning the curtains) slightly relieved above the surface of the _ground, _and thrown upon it in such a manner as to form a succession of short irregular curves - one occasionally overlaying the other. The walls are prepared with a glossy paper of a silver gray tint, spotted with small Arabesque devices of a fainter hue of the prevalent crimson. Many paintings relieve the expanse of paper. These are chiefly landscapes of an imaginative cast-such as the fairy grottoes of Stanfield, or the lake of the Dismal Swamp of Chapman. There are, nevertheless, three or four female heads, of an ethereal beauty-portraits in the manner of Sully. The tone of each picture is warm, but dark. There are no "brilliant effects." _Repose _speaks in all. Not one is of small size. Diminutive paintings give that _spotty _look to a room, which is the blemish of so many a fine work of Art overtouched. The frames are broad but not deep, and richly carved, without being _dulled _or filagreed. They have the whole lustre of burnished gold. They lie flat on the walls, and do not hang off with cords. The designs themselves are often seen to better advantage in this latter position, but the general appearance of the chamber is injured. But one mirror - and this not a very large one - is visible. In shape it is nearly circular - and it is hung so that a reflection of the person can be obtained from it in none of the ordinary sitting-places of the room. Two large low sofas of rosewood and crimson silk, gold-flowered, form the only seats, with the exception of two light conversation chairs, also of rose-wood. There is a pianoforte (rose-wood, also), without cover, and thrown open. An octagonal table, formed altogether of the richest gold-threaded marble, is placed near one of the sofas. This is also without cover - the drapery of the curtains has been thought sufficient.. Four large and gorgeous Sevres vases, in which bloom a profusion of sweet and vivid flowers, occupy the slightly rounded angles of the room. A tall candelabrum, bearing a small antique lamp with highly perfumed oil, is standing near the head of my sleeping friend. Some light and graceful hanging shelves, with golden edges and crimson silk cords with gold tassels, sustain two or three hundred magnificently bound books. Beyond these things, there is no furniture, if we except an Argand lamp, with a plain crimson-tinted ground glass shade, which depends from He lofty vaulted ceiling by a single slender gold chain, and throws a tranquil but magical radiance over all.
-THE END- Edgar Allan Poe's essay: Philosophy of Furniture
In the internal decoration, if not in the external architecture of their residences, the English are supreme. The Italians have but little sentiment beyond marbles and colours. In France, _meliora probant, deteriora _sequuntur - the people are too much a race of gadabouts to maintain those household proprieties of which, indeed, they have a delicate appreciation, or at least the elements of a proper sense. The Chinese and most of the eastern races have a warm but inappropriate fancy. The Scotch are _poor _decorists. The Dutch have, perhaps, an indeterminate idea that a curtain is not a cabbage. In Spain they are _all _curtains - a nation of hangmen. The Russians do not furnish. The Hottentots and Kickapoos are very well in their way. The Yankees alone are preposterous.
How this happens, it is not difficult to see. We have no aristocracy of blood, and having therefore as a natural, and indeed as an inevitable thing, fashioned for ourselves an aristocracy of dollars, the _display of wealth _has here to take the place and perform the office of the heraldic display in monarchical countries. By a transition readily understood, and which might have been as readily foreseen, we have been brought to merge in simple _show _our notions of taste itself
To speak less abstractly. In England, for example, no mere parade of costly appurtenances would be so likely as with us, to create an impression of the beautiful in respect to the appurtenances themselves - or of taste as regards the proprietor: - this for the reason, first, that wealth is not, in England, the loftiest object of ambition as constituting a nobility; and secondly, that there, the true nobility of blood, confining itself within the strict limits of legitimate taste, rather avoids than affects that mere costliness in which a _parvenu _rivalry may at any time be successfully attempted.
The people _will _imitate the nobles, and the result is a thorough diffusion of the proper feeling. But in America, the coins current being the sole arms of the aristocracy, their display may be said, in general, to be the sole means of the aristocratic distinction; and the populace, looking always upward for models,,are insensibly led to confound the two entirely separate ideas of magnificence and beauty. In short, the cost of an article of furniture has at length come to be, with us, nearly the sole test of its merit in a decorative point of view - and this test, once established, has led the way to many analogous errors, readily traceable to the one primitive folly.
There could be nothing more directly offensive to the eye of an artist than the interior of what is termed in the United States - that is to say, in Appallachia - a well-furnished apartment. Its most usual defect is a want of keeping. We speak of the keeping of a room as we would of the keeping of a picture - for both the picture and the room are amenable to those undeviating principles which regulate all varieties of art; and very nearly the same laws by which we decide on the higher merits of a painting, suffice for decision on the adjustment of a chamber.
A want of keeping is observable sometimes in the character of the several pieces of furniture, but generally in their colours or modes of adaptation to use _Very _often the eye is offended by their inartistic arrangement. Straight lines are too prevalent - too uninterruptedly continued - or clumsily interrupted at right angles. If curved lines occur, they are repeated into unpleasant uniformity. By undue precision, the appearance of many a fine apartment is utterly spoiled.__
Curtains are rarely well disposed, or well chosen in respect to other decorations. With formal furniture, curtains are out of place; and an extensive volume of drapery of any kind is, under any circumstance, irreconcilable with good taste - the proper quantum, as well as the proper adjustment, depending upon the character of the general effect.
Carpets are better understood of late than of ancient days, but we still very frequently err in their patterns and colours. The soul of the apartment is the carpet. From it are deduced not only the hues but the forms of all objects incumbent. A judge at common law may be an ordinary man; a good judge of a carpet _must be _a genius. Yet we have heard discoursing of carpets, with the air "_d'un mouton qui reve," _fellows who should not and who could not be entrusted with the management of their own _moustaches. _Every one knows that a large floor _may _have a covering of large figures, and that a small one must have a covering of small - yet this is not all the knowledge in the world. As regards texture, the Saxony is alone admissible. Brussels is the preterpluperfect tense of fashion, and Turkey is taste in its dying agonies. Touching pattern - a carpet should _not _be bedizzened out like a Riccaree Indian - all red chalk, yellow ochre, and cock's feathers. In brief - distinct grounds, and vivid circular or cycloid figures, _of no meaning, _are here Median laws. The abomination of flowers, or representations of well-known objects of any kind, should not be endured within the limits of Christendom. Indeed, whether on carpets, or curtains, or tapestry, or ottoman coverings, all upholstery of this nature should be rigidly Arabesque. As for those antique floor-cloth & still occasionally seen in the dwellings of the rabble - cloths of huge, sprawling, and radiating devises, stripe-interspersed, and glorious with all hues, among which no ground is intelligible-these are but the wicked invention of a race of time-servers and money-lovers - children of Baal and worshippers of Mammon - Benthams, who, to spare thought and economize fancy, first cruelly invented the Kaleidoscope, and then established joint-stock companies to twirl it by steam.
_ Glare is _a leading error in the philosophy of American household decoration - an error easily recognised as deduced from the perversion of taste just specified., We are violently enamoured of gas and of glass. The former is totally inadmissible within doors. Its harsh and unsteady light offends. No one having both brains and eyes will use it. A mild, or what artists term a cool light, with its consequent warm shadows, will do wonders for even an ill-furnished apartment. Never was a more lovely thought than that of the astral lamp. We mean, of course, the astral lamp proper - the lamp of Argand, with its original plain ground-glass shade, and its tempered and uniform moonlight rays. The cut-glass shade is a weak invention of the enemy. The eagerness with which we have adopted it, partly on account of its _flashiness, _but principally on account of its _greater rest, is _a good commentary on the proposition with which we began. It is not too much to say, that the deliberate employer of a cut-glass shade, is either radically deficient in taste, or blindly subservient to the caprices of fashion. The light proceeding from one of these gaudy abominations is unequal broken, and painful. It alone is sufficient to mar a world of good effect in the furniture subjected to its influence. Female loveliness, in especial, is more than one-half disenchanted beneath its evil eye.
In the matter of glass, generally, we proceed upon false principles. Its leading feature is _glitter - _and in that one word how much of all that is detestable do we express ! Flickering, unquiet lights, are _sometimes _pleasing - to children and idiots always so - but in the embellishment of a room they should be scrupulously avoided. In truth, even strong _steady _lights are inadmissible. The huge and unmeaning glass chandeliers, prism-cut, gas-lighted, and without shade, which dangle in our most fashionable drawing-rooms, may be cited as the quintessence of all that is false in taste or preposterous in folly.
The rage for _glitter-_because its idea has become as we before observed, confounded with that of magnificence in the abstract-has led us, also, to the exaggerated employment of mirrors. We line our dwellings with great British plates, and then imagine we have done a fine thing. Now the slightest thought will be sufficient to convince any one who has an eye at all, of the ill effect of numerous looking-glasses, and especially of large ones. Regarded apart from its reflection, the mirror presents a continuous, flat, colourless, unrelieved surface, - a thing always and obviously unpleasant. Considered as a reflector, it is potent in producing a monstrous and odious uniformity: and the evil is here aggravated, not in merely direct proportion with the augmentation of its sources, but in a ratio constantly increasing. In fact, a room with four or five mirrors arranged at random, is, for all purposes of artistic show, a room of no shape at all. If we add to this evil, the attendant glitter upon glitter, we have a perfect farrago of discordant and displeasing effects. The veriest bumpkin, on entering an apartment so bedizzened, would be instantly aware of something wrong, although he might be altogether unable to assign a cause for his dissatisfaction. But let the same person be led into a room tastefully furnished, and he would be startled into an exclamation of pleasure and surprise.__
It is an evil growing out of our republican institutions, that here a man of large purse has usually a very little soul which he keeps in it. The corruption of taste is a portion or a pendant of the dollar-manufac sure. As we grow rich, our ideas grow rusty. It is, therefore, not among _our _aristocracy that we must look (if at all, in Appallachia), for the spirituality of a British _boudoir. _But we have seen apartments in the tenure of Americans of moderns [possibly "modest" or "moderate"] means, which, in negative merit at least, might vie with any of the _or-molu'd _cabinets of our friends across the water. Even _now_, there is present to our mind's eye a small and not, ostentatious chamber with whose decorations no fault can be found. The proprietor lies asleep on a sofa - the weather is cool - the time is near midnight: arc will make a sketch of the room during his slumber.
It is oblong - some thirty feet in length and twenty-five in breadth - a shape affording the best(ordinary) opportunities for the adjustment of furniture. It has but one door - by no means a wide one - which is at one end of the parallelogram, and but two windows, which are at the other. These latter are large, reaching down to the floor - have deep recesses - and open on an Italian _veranda. _Their panes are of a crimson-tinted glass, set in rose-wood framings, more massive than usual. They are curtained within the recess, by a thick silver tissue adapted to the shape of the window, and hanging loosely in small volumes. Without the recess are curtains of an exceedingly rich crimson silk, fringed with a deep network of gold, and lined with silver tissue, which is the material of the exterior blind. There are no cornices; but the folds of the whole fabric (which are sharp rather than massive, and have an airy appearance), issue from beneath a broad entablature of rich giltwork, which encircles the room at the junction of the ceiling and walls. The drapery is thrown open also, or closed, by means of a thick rope of gold loosely enveloping it, and resolving itself readily into a knot; no pins or other such devices are apparent. The colours of the curtains and their fringe - the tints of crimson and gold - appear everywhere in profusion, and determine the _character _of the room. The carpet - of Saxony material - is quite half an inch thick, and is of the same crimson ground, relieved simply by the appearance of a gold cord (like that festooning the curtains) slightly relieved above the surface of the _ground, _and thrown upon it in such a manner as to form a succession of short irregular curves - one occasionally overlaying the other. The walls are prepared with a glossy paper of a silver gray tint, spotted with small Arabesque devices of a fainter hue of the prevalent crimson. Many paintings relieve the expanse of paper. These are chiefly landscapes of an imaginative cast-such as the fairy grottoes of Stanfield, or the lake of the Dismal Swamp of Chapman. There are, nevertheless, three or four female heads, of an ethereal beauty-portraits in the manner of Sully. The tone of each picture is warm, but dark. There are no "brilliant effects." _Repose _speaks in all. Not one is of small size. Diminutive paintings give that _spotty _look to a room, which is the blemish of so many a fine work of Art overtouched. The frames are broad but not deep, and richly carved, without being _dulled _or filagreed. They have the whole lustre of burnished gold. They lie flat on the walls, and do not hang off with cords. The designs themselves are often seen to better advantage in this latter position, but the general appearance of the chamber is injured. But one mirror - and this not a very large one - is visible. In shape it is nearly circular - and it is hung so that a reflection of the person can be obtained from it in none of the ordinary sitting-places of the room. Two large low sofas of rosewood and crimson silk, gold-flowered, form the only seats, with the exception of two light conversation chairs, also of rose-wood. There is a pianoforte (rose-wood, also), without cover, and thrown open. An octagonal table, formed altogether of the richest gold-threaded marble, is placed near one of the sofas. This is also without cover - the drapery of the curtains has been thought sufficient.. Four large and gorgeous Sevres vases, in which bloom a profusion of sweet and vivid flowers, occupy the slightly rounded angles of the room. A tall candelabrum, bearing a small antique lamp with highly perfumed oil, is standing near the head of my sleeping friend. Some light and graceful hanging shelves, with golden edges and crimson silk cords with gold tassels, sustain two or three hundred magnificently bound books. Beyond these things, there is no furniture, if we except an Argand lamp, with a plain crimson-tinted ground glass shade, which depends from He lofty vaulted ceiling by a single slender gold chain, and throws a tranquil but magical radiance over all.
-THE END- Edgar Allan Poe's essay: Philosophy of Furniture
Sunday, October 2, 2011
1.21 Giga whats?!!!
We were having a discussion on time travel. The thing is, can we really say that time is relative? Are we in a position to truly come to these conclusions? And what really is the conventional wisdom about time and it's correlation to physical elements (light, atoms, space, gravity). After all time is an intangible concept, an idea. The passage of which is not truly felt, but imagined. So good at imagining the passage of time we have become, because, we practice. Everyday we think about what amount of time has come to pass and the time that will pass from now to a future event. We're always asking what time it is. And we schedule everything according to a set time. I do not have to go into detail about how the earth rotates around the sun every 365 1/4 days and winter and summer and calanders and such. -Yes, these things, these physical changes (which happen on a definite routine set at regular intervals) have shaped our concept of time and helped us to set schedules and seasons and such.
So we imagine the passage of time because we are used to seeing these changes every day, every year. The argument I want to make however, is that just because these changes happen at a different rate in different spots of the universe doesn't mean that time can somehow be altered. Can one really move forward in time? That would mean violating the principles of cause and effect. I don't know... Just a thought... I could be totally wrong.
So we imagine the passage of time because we are used to seeing these changes every day, every year. The argument I want to make however, is that just because these changes happen at a different rate in different spots of the universe doesn't mean that time can somehow be altered. Can one really move forward in time? That would mean violating the principles of cause and effect. I don't know... Just a thought... I could be totally wrong.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
OH GREAT COFFEE!
On a particularly slow afternoon one Tuesday I was at work. I was going through my usual effort to convince coworkers and superiors that I was “hard at work” (filing, making copies, lowering my brow at the computer monitor, to pretend I’m looking at something other than facebook) when it began to rain.
Although the rain was short lived, it gave me an epiphany…Coffee…Indeed; I was a bloke slouching on a barstool behind the front desk of a small golf resort during the off season in one of the quietest places on earth – Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida. I knew then, as the lobby traffic and phone calls slowed down to a supreme halt and then slipped off the face of the earth, that only a cup of this tremendous beverage, this colossal fusion of hot water and ground coffee beans, this this PERFECTION, was the one thing to get me through the second half of my shift. Consequently I called the kitchen and requested a Cup O Joe – black, of course. It was brought to me in a small to go cup with a lid on it.
http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/archives/2009/Mar/
http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/archives/2009/Mar/
As I bust off the lid like a kid scrambling through green slime on Double Dare, the warm aroma of fresh coffee filled my nostrils. I sobered at once, instantly feeling grounded, capable, knowledgeable, happy to be alive one more day. This distinctive brew brought to mind working mornings in concierge being up with the early meetings crowd. It recalled going to Conventions and Pikes Perk. It reminded me of friends, and how important they are. The significance of conversation with people who make conversation enjoyable over a warm cup of coffee or tea is one to tamper with.
So yes, let’s celebrate this beautiful luxury in human culture called coffee.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)