Signs of the Times
Yesterday, while lunching in the Knox Street area (within the very penumbra of the PC), I noticed a trend in window advertising: the use of quotations and other pithy text. Except that the text isn’t so pithy. For example,
here’s one that says “Live Outdoors.” Why, I ask? Haven’t we spent millennia crawling to a level of comfort on this planet so that 
we don’t have to live outdoors? And why do I need to buy your overpriced products if I’m just going to live outdoors?
And then there’s this one: “The urge for good design is the same as the urge to go on living,” says someone named Harry Bertoia. Harry was
a designer who never spent time hungry or in jail.
Then we have: “An interesting plainness is the most difficult and precious thing to achieve,” from Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Translated 
from the original absurd, this means: “Please buy that plain, plastic chair in the window for $1,345, and be happy about it.” (Yes, that’s really the price).
Placing quotations on the shop windows is a great idea to draw in pedestrian customers. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is also famous for saying ‘God is in the details’, even though he didn’t invent the phrase. This chair is a true classic with its “plainness”. Unfortunately most Dallas folks don’t understand ingenious design. If it’s not obviously accessorized with gilded cherubs and puffy velvet cushions, then it’s not worth their money. Oh, and then there are manly men, who wouldn’t balk at the $1,345 price tag if the chair was made from thick leather with lots of shiny gold studs tacked on the edges.
Oh, please, Gadfly. I also have said, “God is in the details,” although I didn’t invent the phrase.
But maybe you’re right. I’ll ponder your point whilst relaxing on my overstuffed Laz-E-Boy.
Ingenious design, or emperor has no clothes?
What does an interesting plainnes mean anyway? Oh and I think you could probably by that exact chair, if not something better for $13.99 at Target.
EEEEWWW! Laz-E-Boy! I forgot about that brand. That reminds me. Have any of you all visited the Inwood Theater lately? And if so. What do you think about the Love “sad” Sac chairs in the downstair’s theater? I don’t know about you, but my ick meter goes off just thinking about it. From now on, I will wait to see the Inwood’s films once they have moved to a screen upstairs. But what would you expect with Mark Cuban owning the joint? Leather chair with lots of gold studs?
Or studs wearing gold. (Just kidding, Mark).