HomeGuest Post: BackGarage Blogger Katherine Raz on Decoratus Absurdum
06. May, 2009 
5 Comments
Thanks to Backgarage blogger Katherine Raz for contributing today’s guest post about my favorite topic Decoratus Absurdum. I love the lead photo of Katherine visiting her grandmother’s final resting place . . . with her grandmother. It perfectly captures the essence of Decoratus Absurdum, which interprets the macabre in often humorous ways.
I signed up to receive Backgarage via email, and I’ve been impressed with Katherine’s unique perspective, quick wit and humorous writing. Plus she’s some kind of Craig’s List savant. If you too have something to say about Decoratus Absurdum, I’d like to hear about it, so please email me at strangeclosets@yahoo.com. And now, please sit still and pay attention to our guest blogger Katherine Raz. Enjoy!
You wouldn’t know it from looking at them, but my parents were totally bizarre. My mom was on the PTA and baked cookies, but she also got a huge kick out of a fake book dust jacket she found with the title 101 Things to do with Human Skin, which she proudly displayed (wrapped around a hardcover copy of The Great Gatsby) in our dining room. And my favorite of our coffee table books growing up was Human Oddities, where I learned the words “elephantitis” and “conjoined.”
We bought a venus fly trap and obsessively fed it flies. We hung spoons from our noses at dinner parties. We owned — and named — mannequins, including Sheila (pictured). My grandmother took me to her own pre-purchased gravesite where we took a now-famous family portrait.
And every year at Christmas my family attended the “tacky party,” hosted by our friends Charlie and Joan. Each guest was encouraged to bring the most tragic and hideous object they could find to exchange in a white elephant. Major categories included: velvet and light-up wall hangings, sex gag gifts and — my personal favorite — shell art.
Continued . . .
Katherine's on the left. I hope her family doesn't see this post.
All this spawned my obsession with dark decor. If it’s slightly off, I’m all for it. And I have my bizarre upbringing to thank for the fact that sideshow art, anatomical drawings, mannequin torsos, and shell art shaped like carnivorous plant life seems perfectly normal to me. So when Tate started writing about Decoratus Absurdum on Strange Closets I thought, “It lives! It has a name!”
On my own site, where I try to maintain a slightly normal appearance, I do weekly Craigslist Roundups — my picks for the best design offerings from the Chicago Craigslist. So I thought I’d do a little D.A.-themed Craigslist Roundup for those Strange Closets readers who don’t actually keep their skeletons in their closets.
Of course Decoratus Absurdum is objective (like Tate says, “I know it when I see it,”), and what offends one might seem tame to another, but I’ve done my best to pick some gems from Craigslist that have a touch of tacky or a hint of horror. Enjoy.
http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/for/1147885790.html
http://chicago.craigslist.org/sox/clt/1151999797.html
http://chicago.craigslist.org/wcl/art/1152731143.html
http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/art/1152134773.html
http://chicago.craigslist.org/wcl/spo/1148850829.html
http://chicago.craigslist.org/nwc/for/1152240084.html
http://chicago.craigslist.org/nch/clt/1148823302.html
Hilarious! I’m so glad to hear that the medical birthday chair is very ‘comfortable’!
I love the creepy stuff as well – might be a holdover from my goth-inspired teen years and I was also glad that you came up with the perfect term for it. Decoratus Absurdum lends creedence to my stainless steel dental practice skulls and other oddities. No longer am I the disturbed person to not be trusted around small children – now I can point to a oevure of design as my inspiration! (In reality I shouldn’t be around small children because I can’t be bothered to watch to make sure they aren’t doing things like sticking keys into power outlets, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.)
Hoo boy, I am so glad there is an actual name. Love the photo with your grandma and the round-up!
WOW!!! That’s all I can say. WOW!!! I love the photo of your grandmother best of all.