jplee's Profile

Actually, when the free promo first was advertised many months ago I registered online for them to send me one. It never arrived. Pointless x2.

Just before I graduated from college, I made a piñata with paper mâché -- out of all the drafts of my final thesis, the drafts on which my academic advisers had written awful, nasty, soul-crushing criticisms. I filled the piñata with about $10 worth of random goodies I'd found at the Dollar Store -- packages of mini-chocolates, pens, hideously ugly kitschy plastic jewelry, even a spatula. Then, we beat the hell out of that thing, symbolically destroying that negative feedback from evil professors. So cathartic! I was totally ready for graduation once I got that out of my system...

(They had so traumatized me that I couldn't write anything useful for the entire year after I graduated. Joke's on them: I've been a successful journalist for years now, and my first book is coming out in the fall.)

this would be a great gift for my nephew

This is flat-out idiotic, and VERY bad advice for any woman in the position to consider buying.

Home ownership is the primary base of wealth in this country. People who do not own homes are far more likely to end up with severe economic problems then people who do (owning is not a panacea against problems, of course, but statistically home ownership is how the majority of people in this country accumulate wealth). Women are paid less than men for equal work, women bear the brunt of expenses for child care and elder care. So if women can possibly own homes, that will have far greater positive impact on their health - and their ability to, say, pay for health insurance - than what they weigh. And emphasizing weight loss as a good result of renting is a sexist way to advocate a systemic increase in the wealth gap.

Thanks for the comments/advice.

For those of you who have actually seen this lamp in person, there's a metal fixture for the lamp that fits through the paper shade -- will other lanterns or shades that aren't from Ikea fit? If not, suggestions?

pseudodesigns - I'm not sure I can picture what you're talking about in terms of cutting/finishing a paper lantern?

And, can anyone suggest a Big Dipper-style drum shade that would work on the Regolit base?

Quiltmaster: amen! (I'd also add: Ebay, Craigslist and local thrift stores are great for tight budget decor.)

"Again your point is not valid for Desgin Mags at all. The mag in question is a design mag, so your comment makes no sense in this context. Is your point valid for news mags? Maybe, but that is a comment for another blog."

DJS, I haven't studies design mags enough to know about the statistical breakdown, so no, I'm not making any claims about the marginalization of women in almost every category of media (writers, news subjects, profile subjects, producers, editors/managers, and the like).

Which I said, now *twice.*

But yes, my point is absolutely relevant to this blog. As I have now said twice, the marginalization of women in most areas of media should not be replicated in a design magazine. Grace described Aparetmento as featuring "mostly men." I find that troubling, because a magazine should not feature "mostly women" or "mostly men" - there should be a relatively equitable spectrum of subjects (unless the magazine is clearly a niche magazine for women, or for men, or for youth, etc.).

If you and others are right that other shelter mags over-represent women (unlike most other areas of media), then those magazines would do better by including more men. But a magazine that features stories about real people living in real apartments shouldn't feature "mostly men." It should feature a relatively equitable number of men and women who have interesting personal stories, and profile them within their unique homes.

Basically, DJS, all I'm saying is that the majority of media leave women out of the picture most of the time. If you're right and shelter mags don't usually have that problem, they shouldn't start now.

This is AMAZING. I love it. Love it. Want to try to replicate it... add another to my craigslist diy luck wish list...

"...stories about the people--mostly men--who live there."

You've just described one of the biggest problems with most mainstream newspapers and magazines -- outside of the damned fashion sections, women are rarely if ever featured (well, unless you look for them as crime victims, or starlets).

As if, what: women don't enjoy design (and aren't the major consumers of design products)?

Annoying that a new shelter title would replicate old invisibilities and hierarchies. Makes Domino's folding even more sad.

I signed up for a sample of IdeaPaint when AT first posted about it, but two months later I still haven't received the sample. I got an email or something about how they were running behind and instead of sending a sample of the actual paint, they'd send a piece of cardboard coated with the paint -- which is annoying, because I don't want a piece of cardboard, I want to test how the paint is to work with, how it covers, how it spreads, etc.

Regardless, even the lame cardboard hasn't arrived either.

Don't mean to whine about something free, and I'm certainly willing to wait for their production capacity to catch up with the demand for their offer. But it'd be nice if they gave out the samples as promised so that we can see if it really is going to work as described, rather than a piece of cardboard that we can't do much with.

Mostly, I just want to see if it would work for a small project I'm considering: thought bubbles in my media room, over each multimedia piece (bubble over TV, over radio, over computer, etc.)