telophase | Monstrosity!

Today's book is the 1958 edition of Homemaking for Teen-Agers, Book 2. Book 1 was yesterday, and turns out to be aimed at middle schoolers. This one is for high schoolers.

It starts with an in-depth discussion of interior decorating, because ensuring that all us Middle America drones have excellently designed rooms is essential to the success of the American Dream. At least that's what I read between the lines.

I don't have a camera here so I can't show you the page that has pictures of two different sofas - one boringly normal and the other interestingly avant-garde* - and the text which heaps bile upon the avant-garde one. Which, by the way, I saw several variants of last year when shopping for a loveseat.

Can you tell at a glance which of the two davenports shown above is in good taste? Your study of good design in upholstered chairs should help you to do wthis without difficulty. If you are not sure, you might say to yourself, "Which davenport would I rather see in my living room day after day?" Certainly you would tire of the one with the awkward shape and the bulging curves. The slanted legs under this monstrosity seem hardly able to bear the weight above. This odd-looking davenport seems to have been designed with extra seats where the arms are usually located. It would be a very strange sight indeed to see people across the front and all the way around the corners. Some of them would have nothing to lean against but each other.

Ironically, the one they hated is the sort of style now lauded as an example of good Fifties design.

They are also missing the point of the sofa, and the audience to which it appeals: stylish people with lots of money who redo their house every few years, and who throw cocktail parties at which people perch on the edges of furniture while drinking their Harvey Wallbangers before staggering out into the dark with someone else' spouse**. I admit that it's not of the best for lounging around watching TV, which is why my current loveseat (this one, in black) does not resemble it.

The photos they use tend to show furniture arranged around the walls of a space, such that anyone sitting on the sofa will have to shout to be heard across the room by the person on the chair.*** Fireplaces are meant to be enjoyed from afar, not up close according to these pictures.

* It looks very much like this without the arms. And tufted, if "tufted" in furniture means what I think it does.

** I may be making that up a bit.

*** That may also be another personal pet peeve. I have a sheer hatred of furniture ringing the walls, leaving a blank empty space in the middle of the room suitable for a dance floor, but not for facilitating conversation.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

My sister's couch is a black thing that vaguely resembles an amoeba. It is so incredibly soothing and comfortable that people have been known to sit down in it and leave hours later than they intended, sometimes after a nap, because it just sends sleep vibes at you. I wish I had a bed with similar properties. (We sleep on a futon.)

I had friends in college who had the Taco Couch. So named because anyone who slept on it would, over the course of the night, be slowly but inevitably swallowed as they rolled into the crack between the cushions, and the cushions gently folded around them, hiding them from view.

1) I approve of your couch.

2) I never understood the dance-floor thing, either, but maybe if you're supposed to circulate? I mean, if you take the 'modern' living room to be a small version of say, a Royal Court, where the importantest people are sitting and everyone else sort of circulates, I suppose it's entirely possible that it could be a good thing?

3) If the people I know who were alive in the fifties are right, the couch that looks 'avant garde' was never in style. But then, who really remembers?

If I were hosting a party of the sort where there are more guests than seats, or of the sort where the guests are under ten and likely to play on the floor, I'd push the furniture to the edges of the room during the party. But for everyday living, I prefer being able to see the television* or the person to who I am talking.

It may have been in style with architects and designers, as opposed to real people. :D

*

myrialux solves the problem by buying a bigger television.

It's possible to have a party with more guests than seats? I've had 20+ people before, but we just whip out folding chairs and stools and stuff.

Well, I've thrown many a room party in con hotel rooms where there are far more guests than seats. ;) but yes! There are people who hold parties where you are expected to stand up and circulate and talk to each other and balance your martini glass and canapes at the same time!

I think it's the sort of thing to which you wear a cocktail dress.

I remember all the rooms in all my friends' houses being done that way, with everything up against the wall as if expecting a firing squad to drop by. I have the impression that one big reason for that way of arranging furniture was to make it easier to vacuum daily with your underpowered Hoover. :P

I wish I had stolen a copy of the home ec textbook they were just phasing out when I was in middle school -- at the time it was about 15-20 years old, solidly late-50s-early-60s in outlook, and pretty hilarious even in the middle 1970s.

I remember in particular a section on personal grooming and hairstyling that cautioned even young girls to wear girdles to avoid betraying the fact that buttocks come in pairs (not their wording). And they had a page of different face shapes with sample "flattering" hairstyles. For girls with square jaws, it was imperative to cover that up somehow, because... and this IS their wording, which for obvious reasons has stayed with me for three decades: "You want to look feminine, not as if you could easily take care of yourself!"

My grandparents' den had the couch and two chairs against two walls, the TV in a space built into another wall, and another chair way in the far corner. It left a big path across the room, but there was one door at one corner and one door at another corner, so it looked like there was this giant corridor diagonally across the room.

Yeesh! I haven't run across anything quite that sexist in most of these (well, large hats aside). This one was quite impressive in pointing out that OF COURSE someone should be at home at all times if there are small children in the family, but also that a woman might actually want to work. And have you considered a career in home economics? There are so many things you can do with a career in home economics! Here are a lot of pictures of women with careers in home economics!

And there was one photo captioned "Home economic teachers demonstrating how to care for a sick person," or some such, with four or five of them performing various tasks around the room ... and, except for hair color, they all look exactly alike. It's creepier and creepier the more you look at it.

Edited 2009-05-12 22:42 (UTC)

" Your study of good design in upholstered chairs should help you to do wthis without difficulty."

That sentence alone sends me stumbling to my chaise longue in the grip of powerful ennui.

I'm reasonably certain that stylish people NEVER host or attend

cocktail parties at which people perch on the edges of furniture while drinking their Harvey Wallbangers before staggering out into the dark with someone else' spouse**.

Such a party simply demands *rum* drinks, after all.

The only reason I have all my furniture against the walls in my bedroom is that the room is too tiny to do otherwise. *g*

Monstrosity!

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