edieb's Profile

I agree with Seaside--Warhol and countless others have already confronted the way in which American violence is packaged and made palatable, even beautiful (just like Marilyn or Coke or Campbell's Soup). Almost 50 years later, then, perhaps what's now "all too familiar and commonplace"--all too comfortable and comforting, even--is less violent imagery than the idea that these sorts of juxtapositions (needlepoint and assassination!) cause us to question our relationship to violence.

Can I live in your kitchen?

Tasteless design for a good cause undermines the good cause.

It looks like vaguely aesthetic bird shit.

There are boobs and there are asses. I think the author of this post is a little of each.

No, it's not snotty to insist a blog be written properly, it's really more petty. And I'm not sure accidentally switching "are" for "our"--a dumb but common enough mistake-- constitutes the height of impropriety, but I'm glad to know that some of my fellow AT-ers are so easily scandalized. I'll be sure not to pull an its/it's mix-up and make someone go postal.

In real news, I love the sofa, and am anxious to hear how others spot clean their velvet upholstery.

This has nothing to do with Wal-Mart or the desk, but: I have that exact chair! I bought it at a university surplus store 10 years ago, and love it.

Yes, please!

I love it! There's nothing "contrived" (or, rather, nothing especially contrived) about seeking out objects specifically to display--don't most of us do this all the time? It's pretty rare that a collection of anything--artwork, pottery, books, vintage swimsuits, whatever--just falls into our hands without any effort on our part.

What I've learned from these recurring AT posts about books: people who keep their books are insecure bourgeois posers who don't really read and don't understand what they do read. (Or, god forbid, they read books twice! Imagine!) Even worse, they hoard their precious books and refuse to share with the downtrodden masses and their starving children (whose book ownership, if only possible, would, in a startling reversal of value, somehow represent authenticity itself). Oh yeah, and they're killing the environment by not "recycling" Lolita. And did I mention their cluttery design aesthetic?

On the other hand, those who don't keep books are cold, unfeeling creeps who watch too much TV in hopes of finding the soul they're missing in the latest episode of, say, A Shot of Love. They claim to read and pass along their books, but everyone knows this is code for "I can't remember the last time I read a novel." If they did own books, they would arrange them by color (which proves their lack of a soul) or buy them by the yard to fill an otherwise empty built-in.

I could go on and on. But as someone who has employed some of the rhetoric above in past comments about AT's books posts, I ask: can't we all just agree that some people read books and some people don't, some people re-read books and some people don't, some people keep books and some people don't, some people buy books and some people get them at the library, and none of these people has any inherent claim to aesthetic or ethical superiority?