apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

There'll always be an England, unless it caves in. If,
like me, you get all tight-lipped when the neighbor's volume dial creeps above
five, there's a useful lesson in this week's Guardian
on tolerance and its limits--and on the dangers of going too far with "home
improvement" projects.

Across the pond in Hackney, East London, William Lyttle has been digging under
his house, and after 40 years, 100 cubic meters of earth, and 40 tonnes of excavated
gravel and junk, he has been politely asked to stop. The council has lined up
a hotel room for the 75-year-old Lyttle and asked that he temporarily decamp
his 20-room Victorian property so that their structural engineers can judge
the full impact of his burrowing, estimated to extend 26 feet deep and radiating
up to 20 meters in all directions.

Though Mr. Lyttle's neighbors have lodged complaints over the years, they wish
him well. According to the Guardian report by Paul Lewis, the view of his neighbors
is: "'We don't wish the man any harm....He's a hard-working man - he just
doesn't use his energy in the right way. Everyone around here just wants to
see the place made safe.'"

"I visit the orchards
of spheres and look at the product,

And look at quintillions ripen'd and look at quintillions green."

--Walt Whitman, "Leaves
of Grass"

August in New York is billed as the time when
the city empties out and everything slows down, but from where I sit (on the
Q train, if I'm lucky enough to get a seat), it's just as crowded and
hectic as ever. This is a busy month at work, but it was hard to summon up the
energy. As my fellow subway rider put it, "That heat just
smacked me in my damn face."

When I was a child, I
talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I
became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

1 Corinthians 13:11 (NIV)

When I was a child, summer was miraculous, a time outside of time. Though the
wait for it was interminable, once arrived, the season seemed endless. From
its midpoint, right about now, it was impossible to see the twin horizons of
school, May's drone and September's fresh pencils. It was all peach ice cream
and Slip N Slides as far as the eye can see.

Continued 
by Piotr Sommer

Nothing will be the same as it was,
even enjoying the same things
won’t be the same. Our sorrows
will differ one from the other and we
will differ one from the other 
     in our worries. 

(full poem)

Is my life simple or not? Recent threads (along with watching Al Gore rock Apple Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth, a film about how nothing will be the same as it was) have got me wondering.

....For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.

For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring
eyes.

For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.

For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.

For he is of the tribe of Tiger.

For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.....

from Christopher Smart's Jubilate
Agno, Fragment
B, lines 695-768

No matter how many declarations you've made, is there something you still need
to be free of? If you're like me, you can take
the cure and still not be entirely well, let go but still feel tied. Like
Thomas Jefferson, you've probably travelled this weekend to escape the "excessive
heats of the city." When your key turns in the lock again, how will
you feel? Is your home a true haven too, or is there something there that holds
you back, that doesn't represent who you are today?

As for me, my home is full of signposts pointing backward: photo albums, letters,
cds I used to love. Some of it's worth keeping, but do I need to carry it all
with me? Will my dear departed Papa Joe forgive me if I jettison the awkward
little table he made by hand? Then, too, there are signposts to the future,
to who'd I'd like to be: the person who's read that book, the one who grills
and juices. Between who I was and will be, have I left enough space for the
present?

This year, between the barbecues
and fireworks and beach trips, let's spend some time getting free. Photo credit: tread

One Train May Hide Another

by Kenneth Koch

In a poem, one line may hide another line,
As at a crossing, one train may hide another train.
That is, if you are waiting to cross
The tracks, wait to do it for one moment at
Least after the first train is gone. And so when you read
Wait until you have read the next line--
Then it is safe to go on reading.

The next line...and an audio clip

Photo credit: mduma21

I'm just back from another trip down South, this time for my dear cousin Russ's wedding in Clemson, SC. You know you're below the "tea line" when you've had three kinds of pork before lunch.

Or, the Short Life of a Small Elephant

In summertime, the inside goes outside. We open our doors and our windows, eat al fresco, expose our skin and, sadly, our darker natures, as Charlie E. soon learned.

Have a simple day.

A whirlwind look at several more ICFF exhibitors. The two-minute video starts with a couple of snaps from the IKEA installation, shows another shot of Tracy Kendall's wallpaper, and then drives by (in order): Mozzee, Matthew Kroeker, black+blum, Environment Furniture, blu dot, Salvor/Areaware, 3form, Danish designers Pernelle Fagerlund, Lisbet Friis, and Carlo Volf, Hulger, and the brilliant Alesina Design.

Miso is to Sushi as Bench is to Design. Those in the
know say that you don't have to order the maguro or unagi
to distinguish a great sushi place from a so-so one: the miso will tell. If
it's perfectly balanced, you know you're in for a treat. If not, all the wasabi
in the world won't make the meal worth your Benjamins. Likewise, how a designer
builds a simple bench will tell you whether or not he's worth his, well, soy
sauce.

So who were the Matsuhisas
of this year's ICFF?

Denyse Schmidt Quilts has been in business for ten years, operating out of the old American Fabrics Company factory in Bridgeport, CT, but seems to have arrived this year at the "sweet spot" where an individual's designs match flush with the market's demands. Denyse's designs seemed to me to sound the tone of this year's ICFF: a chord made up of machine-made modernism, bold color, and the humanism of hand-crafted work.

Once again, the British are out in force at ICFF. Several of these talented young designers are here searching for--and richly deserving of--a U.S. distributor, while a few are already selling direct to consumers online. To my mind, standouts among the Brits include: