Interior Design of the Damned, That 70s 'Ho! Rating Options

[PalePhoenix]

For years (thirty, in fact, so no copyrights apply), two decorating books occupied a special place in my grandmother's home. Until her passing last year, these coffee-table habitués stayed squared to the corners, dust-free, and hermetically sealed in the 'Mausoleum of the Matriarch.' She only wished she could have decked out her abode in such horrifying splendor.

My mother, I suppose, took a stab at this Singularly Seventies Style, though suburban incomes prohibited the purchase of complete rooms, and the life that appeared to come to a crashing halt within. This was the precursor to Pier One, IKEA's wet dream. There was Lucite, and shag, and herds of whatever creature gave naugahyde.

This and the next few entries will bring to you the only thing I love more than grotestque furniture: Making fun of grotesque furniture, since you were big pimpin' if this shizzle was up in your crib. In the spirit of a dull, soulless future--as envisioned by the designers of that Bicentennial Decade--I bring you a visual feast.

I bring you...Roche-Bobois. Be very afraid.



Yes, folks. It begins innocently enough. There are still a few clues here to let you know what you're in for. First off, it would appear the Seventies jet set liked to clutter up every available surface. That's right. If you didn't have your fake Chinese lacquer just swarming with tchotchkes, Zelda Nelson from Apartment 11G clucked disapprovingly and asked how your macramé was coming along.

Another thing to notice: that pleasant, thermonuclear glow from the window. One thing that seems to fix this decade in the collective consciousness--and the millions of photos which documented it--everything seemed to occur in a jaundiced haze, the thinnest whisper of nicotene on every surface, in every pore.

[PalePhoenix]

This tableau of vivants was invariably meant to show off not only the wall unit, but the nightly habits of people who owned it. They drank, they gambled, they wife-swapped, and--more importantly--they totally ignored their little girl in the background. Clearly, there's a tiny wicker chair, spotlit for her use (and second-hand smoke inhalation), but she's gotten out of it. Damn her! If they let her wander too long, she'll find Daddy's 'oregano.'

[PalePhoenix]

Here's a slightly more productive parent-child relationship. Dad's showing Junior his CSN albums, back when Crosby was still on his Starter Liver. Take special note of the items in the lower right. Yep. That's a fondue set, a pretty big one by the looks of it. What Junior doesn't know is that, very soon, Dad's gonna dice him up and dip him into warm, melty cheese. Mmm, modular furniture...

[PalePhoenix]

Well, at least now we know why Dad's entertaining in the Living Room. Last time he visited the study, he wanted to put a gun into his mouth. It's the Den of Depression! Anyone visiting this emotional wasteland is immediately overwhelmed by a desire to smother themselves with that fern.

What's that round thing on the left, you say? Why that's a transistor television! Actually, it's a design that was in the NYC Museum of Modern Art, so it HAD to be cool, right? Right!?

[PalePhoenix]

And the Joy of Sets continues. Every indirect light source has been illuminated for your viewing pleasure. The incense has been lit. Oh, wait. That's not incense. Mommy just dropped her Pall Mall into the shag carpet. Whoops! No more gin for her...



Let's play a game. It's called 'Count the Dead Things.' Now, I don't have a dramatic stance on animals rights, but I don't necessarily approve of offing what one isn't going to eat. But remember, this was a time just before Pet Rocks and way before PETA. In this picture alone I see one taxidermied turtle, the horn of some anonymous ungulate, and--oh, yeah--the rug. WTF. Though I'm betting it probably wasn't real, it would appear one goal of this design sense was to encourage the belief among your guests that you were good with a gun. Where is the rest of Mr. Zebra? We'll soon see...

[PalePhoenix]

They may say Jesus died for your sins, but forty squirrels just died for your comforter. Continuing the morbid motif, it was somehow necessary that you not only trod on your kills, but that you were swaddled in their scraped flesh 24/7. This is THE Bachelor Pad, boys. If you weren't falling-down drunk from too many bottles of Mateus Rosé, that mirrored backboard was a handy place to do lots of cheap blow. Perhaps you got it at Studio 54, from Liza and Halston.

[PalePhoenix]

Ugh. Let's get away from that end of the house for a moment, and see what the kids are up to, shall we? Here's Little Sarah's room. Mom obviously got speedballed on Miltown and Dexamyl, then decided she'd do this place up right. Another hallmark of 70s sensibility--or the glaring lack thereof--was PATTERNS. Omigawd, the PATTERNS! Obviously, Little Sarah is so delighted, she looks like she's about to shit her panties with glee. Rover is a bit more reserved in his appreciation. The look on his face is probably the doggie equivalent of, "Beachballs. Muthafukkin' beachballs. Well, that's it. I'm running away with the bitch next door."

[PalePhoenix]

You didn't believe me about the patterns, did you. Now you will pay! What's the most disturbing thing about this scene, I wonder? Is it the suggestion that the little girl has passed out from that cigar in front of her? Is it the hands-crossed, deathlike pose, as if she was simply flung across the couch like a throwrug? No, for me it's that guy out the patio doors. While the wee lass expires on the Carmen Miranda print, he's playing the saxaphone.

[PalePhoenix]

Now we find out what happened to the rest of Mr. Zebra. Oh, look. He's got Mr. Lion Cub to keep him company. Here we finally see the hunting rifle supposedly responsible for felling these ferocious beasts, and probably for inducing child slaves to weave the wicker. Truth be told, this room looks positively minimalist by the standards of what we've seen so far. I guess there's something about the feng shui of dead things that liberates a homeowner from the need for bric-a-brac.

[PalePhoenix]

If you've enjoyed this little Acid Trip Down Memory Lane, be sure to drop by Lileks.com's 'Institute of Official Cheer,' a similar treatment of old cookbooks and the motels of bygone eras. I swear, my stomach hurts from laughing whenever I visit.



I included this one because it captures a more benign nostalgia than most of the rest. This was a 'listening nook,' or similar area given over to music appreciation, often on what was--for the time--state of the art equipment. Most alive today (18+ of course) would recognize a record player, the reel-to-reel tape deck, and I've even seen those headphones make a brief comeback recently.

The built-in, alphabetized rack is a nice touch and, naturally, while you were kickin' back and groovin' on your tunes, there's basket of apples and a pack of Kent cigarettes. Remember, this catalogue was going for a 'European' aesthetic. Which might explain the art prints on the wall. Very little else does.

[PalePhoenix]

And we're back into the more hellish aspects of the era. Thought you knew shag? Think again. This rug was dreamed up by somebody stoned off his ass on some primo weed, no doubt. Or just someone looking to fuck with those who were. I've heard of 'high pile,' but c'mon... Can you imagine fooling around on that? Something like a cross between fucking on a bale of tobacco, or making it in an orgy of tent caterpillars. Perhaps this was where the Kents came from.

[PalePhoenix]

[shudder] 'My husband's not a big ole queen, but..." But somebody needed to tell him those shoes were fruitier than a cast party for 'A Chorus Line.' Again, the couch has a pattern so busy, last week they lost sight of the Sterns when they sat down. Lorraine Stern was wearing a peasant blouse that too closely matched, you see, and well, that was the end of her.

[PalePhoenix]

In her own home, Lorraine knew better than to upholstor the furniture in too distracting a print. Here she is in the living room, demonstrating that even vertical surfaces weren't safe from the depredations of the Pattern Monster. Yes, she's doing some petit point now, but she's secretly pricking herself with the needle to keep from being driven MAD by her misguided attempt to wicker the walls. She's also doing her best to ignore the the randomly placed Dead Thing over her right shoulder. That's a bleached turtle shell. Hubby nailed it with the elephant gun on their last sojourn to the coast.

[PalePhoenix]

Nothing really said 'Seventies' like The Den. Every male retreat needed two things to make it complete: a sitting arrangement that resulted from the death of no fewer than ten cows, and panelling, LOTS of panelling. In actuality, we're looking at a kind of fraud perpetrated on masculinity for many years. Though The Den of the 50s and 60s had a certain richness, a hard-won veracity, and the permanent funk of apple-flavored pipe tobacco, the 70s were about plastic and cheapness.

That 'leather' is just a bit too shiny, and was almost unquestionably a substance known as naugahyde. The nauga was a creature invented by DuPont, you see, and that panelling--unlike the thick hardwoods of its predecessors--is a veneer. Better yet, it's rosewood-stained pine, but Moustache Guy has a whole crate of Cuban cigars to make himself feel better for lying to his wife about how much all of this crap cost.



More of the nautical thang, but wifey got in here a year ago. Damn her. Once the ferns have a foothold, then come the ficus trees and then, before you know it, frighteningly crispy bonsais make their appearance and your whole Private Penis World is shot to shit.

[PalePhoenix]

What was happening in the kitchens of the time, you wonder? Well, this design house really didn't get in there much. Apparently, neither did Mom. The kids huddled around the fondue pot for warmth in winter when she was too tanked to cook. Here's an example of the 'future' as seen through frightened eyes. This was Planet of the Apes. This was Logan's Run. This was your dinette, done in icy, surgical steel. The only thing you'd be eating here was Soylent Green. And look, there's some now! No, wait. That's Soylent Avocado. It was made from suicidal people.

[PalePhoenix]

Frankly, I'm amazed my generation made it past 1980 without more events like Columbine. Look at this Teen Bedroom Set. Just look at it. Did it take you more than a second or two to find The Teen? He looks angry. Not an expression you'd see in an IKEA catalogue, is it. Everyone in one of those is blissed; our lad here looks pissed.



I'd be pretty annoyed too if Mom and Dad gave me a featureless cell to cower in. Notice how the bed is centered in the room, a coffin-like bier. Do you see a rock poster? A cable-knit sweater on the floor? No, of course not. This space was intended to be just as sterile as the harsh slant of light illuminating our youth. I'll bet he's writing a poem about which parent he'll kill first.

[PalePhoenix]

I'm not sure if it's just by sheer random chance how this shot was posed. It's possible the person in the chair is on the phone (not likely, no cordless technology) or having a drag on her cig, but I'm going to presume she's just got a gun to her head. She's sitting on plastic and pine, taking in the pre-fab cabinets clustered with useless items too numerous to mention. Hell, she's even got Neil Armstrong's head on a shelf. She's probably looking through the tinted glass, into his cold, dead eyes and thinking, "I'll be with you soon."

[circle6]

One of my favorite memories of the seventies was how nearly everyone seemed compelled to raise dozens of tropical plants indoors, regardless of their space or available light resources. Many homes resembled drought-plagued regions, with stunted, blighted plants hanging on desperately, in spite of the piles of cigarette butts deposited in their potting containers. (I also know a few friends who experimented with the numbing effects of Dracaena.)

But I must point out that while what Pale has exhibited is indeed quite accurate for the upper-middle class homes of the time in the U.S. (and probably Europe), for lower-middle or middle-class homes, there were different demons at play:

-- weathered barn wood paneling, applied diagonally;

-- string art (ships, clowns, and panther themes were common);

-- "smoked" glass lamp globes and shades;

-- multi-toned shag carpeting (which, when installed came with its own rake to raise the nap);

-- Kliban cat art;

-- jute or hemp macrame plant hangers that stretched floor to ceiling, often with faux turquoise beads worked into the design;

-- oversized macrame wall art or weavings of any kind (while often natural jute was used, orange, yellow, or red was common, as were themes using owls);

-- oversized pairs of brightly-glazed or brass "ginger-jar" lamps with knife-pleated shades;

-- "Haitian" cotton upholstered pieces that were impossible to clean;

-- "rustic" living room sets made of 2 X 6s, deep-stained and notched or singed and coated with a quarter-inch of high-gloss polyurethane (the backs and seats were often a shiny polyester velveteen with nostalgic prints).

God, the horror.

[PalePhoenix]

Why, Circle6, so kind of you to beg for more! Wait, what's that you say, you can't stand another minute before you gouge your eyes out with a grapefruit spoon? I'm sorry, I can't hear you with that Otter Pop in your mouth.

Go to your room!



Yes, boys 'n' gurls, it's a brand new edition of IDOTD, just for Chimère. Let's return to the Abode of Yesterday, shall we? We can start again in the bedrooms of our youth. In this case, our Youth is fresh from his failed audition for 'ZOOM.' Looking sullen and somewhat bewildered, they've nonetheless given him a bit of method acting for this set piece: "You're making a model. You like planes. The glue is getting you so high, you think you're in the clouds."

Because this varnished plywood abomination pre-dated Transformers, this kid has no idea that in about fifteen seconds, this whole kit is going to start sliding in and collapsing on itself until it's the size of a VW Bug. Unfortunately, our Youth will by that time be located in four different, cedar-scented drawers.

[PalePhoenix]

"Modularity" was a new buzzword. While it meant that even the curved and otherwise useless corner of your dungeon could be converted into a sassy, backlit wall unit, another term was clearly forgotten: "Functionality." Semi-transparent, amber dovecotes and cubbies meant tchotchkes could now become even more shrouded in plastic. Your obelisks of orange and yellow lead crystal were now NOTHING compared to Mystery Objects 1 thru 97. You had a rich internal world, to which your decor now attested.

And if your friends aren't barking their shins on the mini-bar or taking in a deftly concealed, Lucite "Marilyn" that would have even made Warhol retch, they can scrape off the first few layers of nicotine and find out just who you are.

[PalePhoenix]

Lucite wasn't playin' around. If they didn't bind up at least 15% of the world's fossil fuel supplies between 1968 and 1982, they weren't doing their jobs. Yes, the 70s were a much-heralded period for gas lines (Odd & Even Numbered Plate Day!)--and they all would have fainted dead away at the sight of today's costs per gallon--plastic was enjoying a Renaissance unlike it had seen since Tupperware first hit the market two decades earlier.

Here's where a significant portion of those petroleum distillates went. Ugly tables on casters. Yes, everything had to be on muthafukkin' casters. You never really wanted to move that turntable across the room, but you could if the mood struck you. And no, that's not the Death Star in miniature there in the lower right panel. It's yet another liquor stash. Drink enough, and you'll start believing the coil lamp in the panel above is about to lunge out and bite you.

[PalePhoenix]

Sue me, but this may be the most tasteful arrangement yet. Rosewood veneers were classy, dammit. If we pardon the Brady-fied bannister in the background and the overstuffed Nauga couple set much too far apart for your "indoor voice," only the lightly psychedelic wallpaper in the background is begging to be replaced. As Circle6 warned, there was a fetish for cats, here borne out by a ceramic leopard near the center of the frame. Nice kitty.

If you look to the extreme upper left, you'll perhaps catch a glimpse of the motivation for these visions of loveliness.

[PalePhoenix]

I'm feeling hungry. Let's venture back toward the derelict kitchen for a moment, but we'll make another stop in the dining room along the way. Why look, it's Uncle Mark and Aunt Susan, enjoying a private moment. They've been dying to prepare a five course meal, but they can't find "The Joy of Cooking" anywhere. Which one of these blasted drawers is it in?

"I give up, honey," says Uncle Mark.
"Let's make a murder suicide pact, dear," says Aunt Susan.
"I haven't eaten in days, my love," says Uncle Mark.
"I can't find our wok," says Aunt Susan.

And with that, dwarfed by blond wood cabinets large enough to conceal a dozen Viet Cong, they repair to the kitchen proper, in search of sharp things...

[PalePhoenix]

Exeunt Mark and Susan, but let's linger for a moment and consider a livelier alternative to the Dining Room of Desperation we've just seen. Well, there's the damn wok. And gee, don't those chairs look comfy. Considering that even a fairly well-to-do family would be stuck with this set for a few years at the very least, that meant planting your poor ass in one of those crates at every meal. You can almost imagine Laurence Olivier leaning you back and asking, "Is it safe?"

[PalePhoenix]

It's clear we'll never get sustenance in this house, so why don't we just go to sleep? Wave to the nice man in the den on our way to bed. Oh...my...god, what...IS...he...doing!?

[PalePhoenix]

Ah, safe at last. Or are we? I think the photographer here got his motivation all wrong. He's thinking, "I'm a child-eating ogre, and if I lurk here behind this hideous wicker chaise where only the little girl can see me, her eyes will dart wildly in my direction in an attempt to warn her oblivious parents!"

The bed's low, the quilt's high. It's Bizarro World! Mom and Dad will quaff their Smirnoff-laced OJ and give their french-braided darling her first taste of caffeine. She may well run in terror, but there'll be no solace for her today...

[PalePhoenix]

Bedrooms were clearly dangerous places to be for a ten-year stretch in America. One might venture in, never to return quite the same. As we remarked with our first teen collection, the private sanctum was a hothouse of incipient sociopathy. And when you're inducting your Junior Chamber of Commerce into the annals of psychotic behavior, you have to start young.

Here, the twins have developed their own private language. The dog understands. He's been burying their kills for a month now.

[PalePhoenix]

Ew. Just ew.

[PalePhoenix]

Oh, good lord. The dots! The DOTS! Criminy, it's like the whole room has the measles or the chicken pox. Perhaps that's the malady Mommy in ministering to right now. Though Daughter Dearest may have swiped her fashion sense from the Laura Ingall's Catalogue, I get the impression this is Single Mom's room, and she's just visiting. It doesn't have that 'girly touch' which was not so often 'touched' as 'smeared on with a trowel.' Of course, it also doesn't have the stigma of being Single Mommy in 1973.

She's got a scrip for lithium and Daddy's out with his Administrative Professional...y'kno, back when we could still call her his "secretary."

[PalePhoenix]

And here's Dad's new pad. Granted, his--koff, koff--secretary's evidently in charge of the buying frenzy at Roche-Bobois. This room is neither masculine nor feminine. What it IS is a woefully neutered diorama that Yul Brenner threw up in. Oh, and just for Circle6, check out that brass pussy on the nightstand.

No wonder the neighbors are begging them to shut the damn drapes.