Thank you very much for this piece. Coming from a very poor household of Hawaiian heritage, with the strange combo of 1950's turquoise everything, Asian motifs, giant avocado or orange drip-glazed ashtrays overflowing with cigarette detritus, and fiberglass drapes with turquoise and white bamboo patterns, I was actually fortunate to to end up in an altogether different universe of furnishings embracing past and preference. Immensely comforted by the strong embrace of a durable Stickley Settle with which to stack books and oddities, the antique wicker chairs and oriental rugs of mr. husband's art professor uncle, and a few old Asian pieces, we are gratefully and humbly surrounded by art, music, books, all with never having servants or upholsterers. One of the nicest Oriental rugs was dragged off from a man tossing it at the landfill because his new girlfriend didn't like it. I gently suggested that he find a new girlfriend.
Keynes may have thought that in a hundred years’ time mankind - or, rather, peoples in Western countries- would have solved the problem of scarcity and could devote themselves to higher pursuits (Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren). However, it is clear that for himself and his friends he thought that only inherently costly things (because of Baumol’s cost disease) would do:
It is important, therefore, that we should live in rooms and on chairs built to our measure by the most skilled upholsterers.
Not to mention the servants that should attend to these rarefied interiors.
Thank you very much for this piece. Coming from a very poor household of Hawaiian heritage, with the strange combo of 1950's turquoise everything, Asian motifs, giant avocado or orange drip-glazed ashtrays overflowing with cigarette detritus, and fiberglass drapes with turquoise and white bamboo patterns, I was actually fortunate to to end up in an altogether different universe of furnishings embracing past and preference. Immensely comforted by the strong embrace of a durable Stickley Settle with which to stack books and oddities, the antique wicker chairs and oriental rugs of mr. husband's art professor uncle, and a few old Asian pieces, we are gratefully and humbly surrounded by art, music, books, all with never having servants or upholsterers. One of the nicest Oriental rugs was dragged off from a man tossing it at the landfill because his new girlfriend didn't like it. I gently suggested that he find a new girlfriend.
PS. I love your offerings, mr. Tooze.
Keynes may have thought that in a hundred years’ time mankind - or, rather, peoples in Western countries- would have solved the problem of scarcity and could devote themselves to higher pursuits (Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren). However, it is clear that for himself and his friends he thought that only inherently costly things (because of Baumol’s cost disease) would do:
It is important, therefore, that we should live in rooms and on chairs built to our measure by the most skilled upholsterers.
Not to mention the servants that should attend to these rarefied interiors.