"Sweet smoking Jesus, what was the matter with these people?"
Who knows? But we do need to accept the fact that otherwise sensible American housewives who would never grind a quaalude into their morning coffee or sleep with their tennis instructor nevertheless went daft during the 1970s and performed heinous acts of design on unsuspecting homes.
What James Lileks did for dinner with the critically acclaimed classic "The Gallery of Regrettable Food, he now does to the wonderful world of 1970s home interiors. Blazing plaid wallpaper. Vertigo-inducing matching patterns on walls, rugs, chairs, pillows, and blinds. Bathrooms straight out of "2001: A Space Odyssey. The whole '70s shebang. If you think the '80s were dumber than the '70s, either you weren't there or you weren't paying attention.
James Lileks came of age in the 1970s, and for him there was no crueler thing you could inflict upon a person. The music: either sluggish metal, cracker-boogie, or wimpy ballads. Television: camp without the pleasure of knowing it's camp. Politics: the sweaty perfidy of Nixon, the damp uselessness of Ford, the sanctimonious impotence of Carter. The world: nasty. Hair: unspeakable. Architecture: metal-shingled mansard roofs on franchise chicken shops. No oil. No fun. Syphilis and Fonzie.
"Interior Desecrations is the author's revenge on the decade. Using an ungodly collection of the worst of 1970s interior design magazines, books, and pamphlets, he proves without a shadow of a doubt that the '70s were a breathtakingly ugly period. And nowhere was that ugliness and lack of style felt more than in our very homes, virtual breeding grounds for bad taste, manifested in brown, orange, andplaid wallpaper patterns. This is what happens when Dad drinks, Mom floats in a Valium haze, the kids slump down in the den with the bong, and the decorator is left to run amok. It seemed so normal at the time. But this book should cure whatever lingering nostalgia we have.
Exploring all the rooms in the house, Lileks marries the worst of design with the funniest of commentary. His sharp-witted humor, keen eye for detail, and ability to pull the most obscure 1970s references out of his hat make "Interior Desecrations the perfect gift for those of us who languished away the decade watching Sonny and Cher, Donny and Marie, and Chico and the Man down in our rec rooms, sprawled out on the shag carpeting, waiting for it all to mercifully end. For those people born later and who may think it was all made up--it wasn't. Would that it was! The photos in this book are not the product of some cruel designer gone crazy with Photoshop. They're all too real. So adjust your sense of style, color, and taste. . . and beware! You've been warned.
"From the Hardcover edition.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Entryways
You'd have to take care leaving the house through these spaces; the sudden change in taste could give you the bends.
Look. Folks. It's simple. If you have poor taste in decorating, don't go nuts in the entryway. Wait until your guests are inside before you spring something unusual on them. But, you say, doesn't that fabulous statuary look so right over by the door? It's an ancient Belgian God of Fertility or something. You can hang hats on the erection. Or use it for umbrellas! That' s not the point. Most people don't want to encounter this sort of thing right away, if ever. Especially one that's been handpainted in such a unique fashion. Put it in the spare bedroom; it'll keep houseguests from lingering.
One more rule for bad entryways: don't forget a small table with a bowl on top. It serves no use; there's nothing in the drawer; people bump into it when taking off their coats. But there must be a small table with a bowl on top. It's not the law, but it might as well be.
The visual equivalent of granulated glass in your eyes. Looking hurts. Blinking hurts. Rubbing hurts. Blindness, when it comes, is almost a comfort.
It's one of those rooms that almost feels ashamed of itself:
Don't blame me. I had nothing to do with this. I couldn't move. I watched what they did to the kitchen, heard the cupboards scream out as they applied the dots, one by one by one. . . . I knew I was next and there was nothing I could do. It was horrible.
Atrocities like this are partly responsible for the founding, in 1977, of People for the Ethical Treatment of Entryways.
Says the note in the designer's guide that coughed up this picture:"Gigantic patterned wallpaper in a small area is exciting because it breaks all the rules." Well, a flaming pile of pig crap in the foyer breaks all the rules. Smearing goat brains on the walls breaks all the rules. Sometimes rules are there for a reason-such as keeping you from doing this.
"You can be adventurous in little-used areas." You mean little-used areas like the front door? What, did people enter through the chimney and leave through the coal chute?
This is a foyer. This is the first impression. This is how you warn people your taste tends toward interesting colors, such as those found on the buttocks of a rudely shaved monkey.
Of course, one could say the same thing about the Hindenburg disaster.
Living rooms
The name for these parlors-living room-wasn't entirely inaccurate. Something did live there-a fern, perhaps. Some dust mites. A spider. But humans? Rarely. These were showplace rooms, mausoleums where the examples of domestic style were interred. On any given day the sofa and chairs would be sheathed with plastic condoms, lest the fabric be soiled; the drapes drawn lest the hard mean sun suck the color from the cushions. All these rooms needed to complete the picture was Lenin in a glass casket. The people who stuffed their living rooms with this horrid junk would probably have bought plastic covers for the plastic covers, if such a thing had been marketed. Think about it: Your plastic covers keep the fabrics fresh and clean, but what of the covers themselves? Dust, sunlight, pet dander, parakeet psoriasis-why, your plastic covers are depositories of domestic filth. Your friends understand why you keep the covers on when they drop by for a chat; you're saving the sofa for Company. But don't you owe it to friends to give them a surface that's Company fresh? Introducing new Cover Covers, from Dow Corning! No messy polyurethane rolls with DNA-mutating aromas; Cover Covers, which come in a handy spray can, keep covers fresh for centuries to come.
Or you could just rope off the room.
Or you could brick it up and show people pictures.
Laminate the pictures first. You can wipe off the fingerprints.
From the Hardcover edition.
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