Wednesday, January 11, 2023

DJ, just play that song

 


Play Misty for Me is on Netflix, now.


Tap "Play," and even if you don't want to watch the whole movie, just let the music and opening credits play -- the song is terrific!  Clint Eastwood drives a fabulous sports car by the ocean.  The letters' font is playful and artistic.


        Yesterday I was writing here about seeing people in TV shows sit on end tables.  It is bizarre, for sure.  Unless there's something I don't know -- maybe everyone is sitting on tables except for me....


I call them end tables; some people call them side tables, or accent tables.  Thinking about interior design made me remember a book called The Decoration of Houses, by Edith Wharton.


An American, Wharton lived from 1862 to 1937.  She is primarily known as a novelist:  her books include The Age of Innocence, Ethan Frome, The Custom of the Country, and The House of Mirth among others.

        She wrote The Decoration of Houses in collaboration with architect Ogden Codman; the book was published in 1897.


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This quest of artistic novelties would be encouraging were it based on the desire for something better, rather than for something merely different.  The tendency to dash from one style to another, without stopping to analyze the intrinsic qualities of any, has defeated the efforts of those who have tried to teach the true principles of furniture-designing by a return to the best models.  


If people will buy the stuff now offered them as Empire, Sheraton or Louis XVI, the manufacturer is not to blame for making it.  It is not the maker but the purchaser who sets the standard; and there will never be any general supply of better furniture until people take time to study the subject, and find out wherein lies the radical unfitness of what now contents them.



Until this golden age arrives the householder who cannot afford to buy old pieces, or to have old models copied by a skilled cabinet-maker, had better restrict himself to the plainest of furniture, relying for the embellishment of his room upon good bookbindings and one or two old porcelain vases for his lamps.



Concerning the difficult question of color, it is safe to say that the fewer the colors used in a room, the more pleasing and restful the result will be.  A multiplicity of colors produces the same effect as a number of voices talking at the same time.  The voices may not be discordant, but continuous chatter is fatiguing in the long run.  

        Each room should speak with but one voice:  it should contain one color, which at once and unmistakably asserts its predominance, in obedience to the rule that where there is a division of parts one part shall visibly prevail over all the others.



To attain this result, it is best to use the same color and, if possible, the same material, for curtains and chair-coverings.  This produces an impression of unity and gives an air of spaciousness to the room.  When the walls are simply panelled in oak or walnut, or are painted in some neutral tones, such as gray and white, the carpet may contrast in color with the curtains and chair-coverings.  

For instance, in an oak-panelled room crimson curtains and chair-coverings may be used with a dull green carpet, or with one of dark blue patterned in subdued tints; or the color-scheme may be reversed, and green hangings and chair-coverings combined with a plain crimson carpet.

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