It Used to be Easy to be Cool

until the internet ruined it.

A golden-haired girl and I, we have a little joke about blogging.  We were riffing on the idea that if you were young and lovely, recently employed at a well-known magazine, lived in New York and owned an Apple computer in 2002, creating a popular blog was ridiculously straightforward.

We made up a hypothetical blog post from this quaint era, and it goes something like this:

"Food-have you heard of it? I discovered it in Brooklyn this weekend!  Do you think you would try food?  Discuss!"

Fast-forward to today and every blogger is an HTML-writing, photoshopping, link embedding, monetizing, branding, logo-designing, networking, non-gluten-eating, nasty green drink-making, tomato-growing, live edge coffee table-owning mo-chine.  Even the newest and most obscure of blogs makes the online presence of major corporations look prehistoric.

To prove how easy blogging used to be, I just came up with six vintage-style blog posts in six seconds!  It was that easy.

2004- "Amy Butler fabric-I want to buy some and make pillows!  Which Amy Butler fabric do you like best?"

2005- "Design Sponge-I discovered it yesterday!  Have you heard of it?  Copy and paste this URL until I Google instructions for creating live links!"

2006- "Bunting-You can hang it over your bed OR your sofa!  Do you have bunting?  You don't?  Why not?"

2007- "I saw a girl on a bike with braids in Brooklyn this weekend!"

2008- "I went to the best wedding this weekend!  The amazing bride and groom used giant balloons and mustaches on a stick in their photos!"

2009- "I discovered that you can drink out of Mason jars!  Would you drink out of a Mason jar?  Here is a link to the instruction on how to drink from a Mason jar!"

I bet you can think of many more!  But now I'm tired, because creating a modern blogpost takes so much energy.  Some day our robotic body-doubles will do it for us, or maybe we will outsource it to India.  The future of blogging is anyone's guess.  I just don't know what I'm going to do with all this unused bunting...

CHAIR TOWN {leather, linen, chrome, wool, and sling!)

Have you noticed that vintage stuff travels in packs?  Some weeks I'm up to my armpits in lamp after beautiful lamp.  Some weeks everything is marble.  This week, the vintage world is trying to tell me to take it easy...by sending me chairs.

I have a pair of these chrome beauties.  Yesterday I designed and sewed up the blue felted wool sling to sleek them up.  The previous upholstery was a huge, thick padded affair done in mauve (or "private parts pink" as I like to call it) RV fabric.  Now they are lithe and sexy, like chrome and wool ballerinas!

I'm not joking-these are SO comfortable!  I am thinking of designing a narrow built-in pillow at the top.  What do you think?

Because they're slings, they don't look deep enough until you sit in them.  Kind of sculptural, no?  I have to iron those suckers, but I couldn't wait to show you!!

This heathered blue wool is my new favorite fabric.  Like soft focus lighting, it makes everything else around it look gorgeous!  It looks SO GOOD with my "trick, it's not a Beni Ourain it's from Pottery Barn" rug.

I also ran like the wind a few days ago to pick up these handsome chrome chairs.

The upholstery has that great, streamlined Mid Century version of tufting.  The color is caramel with a hint of orange?  But not TOO orange.  I understand everything better when put into food terms.  How 'bout you?

These suckers are HEAVY.  Neat-o, thick chrome frames.  I'm thinking Milo Baughman (pronounced Bowman if you're new to the game, Boffman if you're in-the-know, and Boggman if you're a retarded estate sale lady).

I have to verify this, though.  Seriously Baughman, you designed so many chairs.  Help a girl out-make a master list?!

Speaking of Boggman, did you know DWR is reproducing his recliner?  For $2800???  For a less-well-made repro??

Do people buy these things?  I can't imagine why, with beautifully restored originals going for half that!  Now that I mention it, I have one that I'll be listing this evening.  What a coincidence!

This is documented Milo Baughman, but a very unusual piece.  It took me weeks to authenticate because, well, there is like one other one out there.  The arms are really wide, sculptural, solid walnut, and the upholstery is much more substantial than on the more common version.  It's been profesh redone (meaning, not by me) in a nubby off-white material that makes you fall asleep when you touch it, and the mechanics have been cleaned, oiled, and checked for smooth reclinability.  Mmmhmmm,  that's a word.

Furthermore, there is this chair:

It looks like Paul McCobb, but "looks like" is as far as I got in the authentication process.

I had it rebuilt and re-done in a heavy, charcoal grey linen.  It is brand new, but better.  Because it is brand new old, which means it will last for 300 more years.

It pairs well with a sheepskin and an ethnic pillow.  Probably any ethnicity will do.

Bleached out-looking because Instagram, y'all.

So, one may ask, "Where can I get all these fine sitting devices?"

Well, only the off-white Baughman/Bowman/Boggman recliner will be in the shop tonight.

The others will probably be listed soon, but you can also email (modernhaus@gmail.com), text, Tweet (modernhaus), or Intsagram (modernhaus) message me if you just can't wait.

You probably want to get your hands on my creations now, before I totally blow up.  I'm already super-big in Upstate New York, the gateway to design fame as we all know.

Over and out.

Once...

Dusty photo of Eiffel Tower, 2003

I don't remember anything else about that day.

Deranged by the time change, we probably overslept and then couldn't get a bite of breakfast in any of the old restaurants of the Pigalle. The sturdy husband-and-wife owners would have looked at us sharply and pointed to cold ham and buttered baguette sandwiches, unglamorously piled in plastic wrap on the counter.

If the husband pitied us, he would switch on his great, steaming beast of an espresso machine and bring us an au lait. A few men nursing tiny glasses of late morning wine at the counter would look at us curiously.

The chef was gone...it was not time to eat in Paris. Anyone would know that.

Using flash, film camera, 2003

This day, we probably took the wrong Metro stop again and ended up below the statue of Louis XV instead of above it. We would have hitched our bags up, rounded our shoulders against the climb, and walked in silence, me using the snowy domes and peaks of the Sacre Coeur to navigate.


Perhaps this was also the day I asked the hotel concierge, in perfect French for the first and last time in my life, where was the Opera Garnier, earning me the briefest warmth of an approving smile.


But perhaps this was also the day that I unfolded a shelf of clothes in a boutique and made the clerk grimace; the day a fat waiter told me I would be much more beautiful without my ugly wool hat.

From the window of my hotel, 2003

It was not a good trip in the way you would imagine it would be; two young women in Paris for their first time.

I had picked the wrong traveling companion and things had begun to unravel immediately. She spoke French but refused to.  Refused, in fact, to use a map, learn the name of the street our hotel was on, pick a restaurant, ask for water.

She sulked when, on our third visit to Fuxia for hand rolled pasta with goat cheese and pine nuts, it was me, not her, that the waiter kissed on both cheeks after an animated Frenglish discussion about eggplant vs. aubergine (he was, I think, surprised to find Americans had the capacity for such whimsy regarding the vegetable kingdom).


It could have been any one of these grim and beautiful November days in Paris that we left the Metro deep below street level and had to exit through one of those endless, white subway-tiled corridors. We were alone in the corridor, this being a work day in a working neighborhood. The fluorescent tube lights flickered blue against the white tile, reminding me of an igloo entrance.

Red bag, Eiffel Tower

My red bag was slung cross my body as usual, zipped and resting under my left arm. Somehow I felt the weight of one fingertip more added to my burden. I whirled and caught in my hand the skinny wrist of a very young, very beautiful boy who had the corner of my wallet in his hand.


"Bon!" he congratulated. "Very good, very good!" he praised me in English.


He dropped my wallet, bowed, and then this very young boy who had just been ready to rob me blind, turned my hand over, kissed it tenderly, and ran off. At the end of the tunnel his friend peeked out, laughing.


"Very good!" he yelled one last time, turning to wave. And then he disappeared.


It was not an act of aggression or violence. There was no malevolence. My little thief had, in fact, been the most French; the most charming and proper person I had met in Paris.


I no longer have that friend but I do have that bag, and there is still so much I don't understand about Paris.


Pardon me while I grapple with the fact that BLOGGER HAS CHANGED EVERYTHING OVERNIGHT... I was thinking about the idea of "once-ness" when I wrote this down. You know, those experiences that are so singular and so memorable.  They can't be planned or replicated.   I wrote about another "once" moment here.


.......................................

A Week in Which the Internet Becomes Reality

Heather shares her awesome eye of newt recipe with Bianca, Alex, and Jennie!

I nearly poked her in the face to make sure she was real.

But I didn't. I behaved *pretty* normally when I ran into one of my most long-term "internet relationships" at the thrift store the other day. I was looking down, trying to tame my outrageously overgrown Elvis pompadour with some spit and a prayer, when I heard my name. I turned to see her standing there next to the tie rack, adorable and uncertain. The chaos of the thrift store fell away and I approached as if in a dream. We held hands and spun around in a field somehow and then we braided each other's hair.

No, silly. We didn't do that! We chatted about Mexican blankets for a few minutes like normal thrift store ladies, and then said goodbye.

She was smaller and skinnier in real life, just like celebrities are. Joel McHale was on our flight to Kauai last week and he couldn't have been more than 120 pounds. Seriously, he was EMACIATED (and p.s. he totally initiated a conversation with my husband but I was like, hey this book I'm reading upside-down is way more interesting and I'm not even listening to you!)

This pretty much set the tone for the rest of the weekend, because on Saturday I was invited to a gathering of bloggers/small business owners, some of whom I've "known" for quite some time without ever meeting.

I drove with Erin and although we've never met in person, it was as if we were picking up the thread of a conversation that had just been briefly interrupted. I love, LOVE Erin's thoughtful, academic writing style and wish I could be as clear-thinking, direct, and simple in my approach to blogging as she is.

We parked down the street and downed a few shots from my hip flask of Bach Rescue Remedy (I'm just kidding, only I did this) which proved completely useless against my most special talent, social anxiety. I spent the rest of the evening willing myself NOT TO SAY ANYTHING SUPER INAPPROPRIATE, which must have worked because some of the ladies are still talking to me!

There are two major things I took away from the evening:

1) If you want to grow your blog or business or change anything about your life, make yourself uncomfortable and put yourself out there. Go take a class or host an event yourself. You can only go so far in life alone in a room with a computer screen. We are social creatures and we need the creative stimulation of others in order to move forward. Alone with our thoughts, we just get stuck!

2) Women are super heroes . Guys are ok for some things, but ladies are awesome. We get a bad rap for being "catty" or jealous or whatever (gee, I wonder who's responsible for that stereotype!), but in my experience we thrive on helping one another succeed and will even put aside our own interests to do this. The organizers, Alexis and Jules (who came and set up despite having food poisoning!), testify to this.

Attending this event reminded me of how starved I am for some good female energy in my "all-dude-all-the-time" life! So many generous women came up to me or contacted me via email later to discuss certain aspects of what I had said, give advice and feedback, or just be generally encouraging and supportive.

I felt the love, ladies. I felt the love, and I want you to feel it too. But not in a gross way.

The weekend is coming! The weekend is coming! Plus Room With a View recaps!

I'm so excited. I scored tickets to the stage version of E.M. Forster's A Room With a View tonight!

I'm going with my best cousin Jess, with whom I watched the movie version every weekend for about six straight years, at midnight, so we could swoon in private. And. I know it by heart. Which could be a problem if the actors don't.

Opening scene:

Lucy Honeychurch throws open the windows in her Italian pensione and pouts, "But I thought we were to have a view of the Arno!"

But she says it "AHHH-no" and is impossibly adorable. I want to be impossibly adorable. I am not British, so this is impossible.



Enter George, who is a crazy hunk.




And he plays with his food! But he's kind of crazy. The food question mark means he's really deep, which plays to my 13-year old presumption that handsome British guys dressed in all white who run amok on the lawns of great estates are deep (later proved wrong by experience).





Lucy plays Beethoven and gets all melodramatic on her piano, but mother doesn't like it when she plays that modern Beethoven, because it makes her "peevish".


Which is pretty funny to me at the time, because I PLAYED BEETHOVEN REAL LOUD AND GOT ALL MELODRAMATIC ON MY PIANO!! And my mom was like, could you please play something a little more....restful??!! Beethoven was the original rebel music!





Anyhow, Italy happens! And we know what that means: sexy time in lavender fields!





I don't know what makes you think this is my favorite part.





Later there's a fat, naked Mr. Beebe, which makes my mom think the movie is pornographic. Thus the watching at my cousin's house (where things are so lax they have sugar cereal, Barbie dolls, and cable!)





There's a skinny, gruesome Cecil, who is Lucy's "intended". He's gross and farts dust!





George tells Lucy that Cecil is "the sort who can't love anyone, least of all a woman".


And she's like, oh dude you just blew my mind!


So she conducts a little experiment and asks Cecil to kiss her. He obliges by banging his spectacles against her face and rubbing his waxed mustache on her, and thus Lucy knows George is right about him. Bad kisser, doesn't play with his food, never ran naked with Mr. Beebe. Sayonara sucka!





Lucy dumps Cecil. Cecil goes all cross-eyed, has a tuberculosis attack, and goes off to pin butterflies in the library.

No, I don't know where he goes because all I care about is Lucy is GOING TO GET WITH GEORGE!





The story has a pretty satisfactory resolution. No one dies, they end up in Italy, and their passionate necking is sanctioned by church and state, and thus my mom, for they are now man and wife.

I am free to observe their passionate wedded bliss. If only I could get Mr. Beebe out of my mind.