HomeA note about sofas
30. Aug, 2009 
5 Comments
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It’s a good day to be a Francophile because in this post, I explore the link between the sofa, the bidet and universal health care (yep, I’m going there). Plus! I’ll show you a 1988 GQ cover featuring Thirtysomething’s Peter Horton and Ken Olin that I still can’t look at without turning red with embarrassment. Keep reading to find out why – only here on Strange Closets, a design blog about people.
As difficult as it might be to imagine a living room sans sofa, according to Joan DeJean’s new book “The Age of Comfort: When Paris Discovered Casual — And the Modern Home Began, ” the ultra-comfy furniture piece was once the topic of great debate.
DeJean tells the New York Times that as late as the 1780′s, the English were still calling sofas sinful while the Parisians were putting them in every conceivable room, including the bathroom (which I love almost as much desks in a dining room). But look what their sofa love got them? Bingo. The French Revolution. Use your noggins folks, sofas lead to revolution, which, as the French experience illustrates, leads to socialism, which leads to what? Some say death paneling, which already looks dated.
Plus, who knows? Maybe offering people their choice of private or government insurance will lead to the government closing hospitals, maybe even the hospital nearest you – Boo! While the salvage lover in me can’t wait for the shuttered hospitals’ inventory to show up at Architectural Artifacts, I get so angry when I imagine a common Andersonville yuppie using a life-saving machine as a mildly radioactive coffee table.
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Set of glass eyeballs from Agent Gallery
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But back to the great sofa debate, the more relevant question is how and why were sofas the symbol for the cultural gulf that existed between the two powers in the eighteenth century? And do those cultural differences exist still today? It appears so. A recent study found the French spend more time eating and sleeping than anybody in the world, which offers yet more evidence that socialism significantly reduces quality of life (despite what happiness studies say).
When I visited Paris (bon jour monsieur!), I saw the real face of socialism, and it wasn’t pretty. By day, the cafes were bustling with people not working but lounging and chatting; by night, the streets were alive with giggles and kisses – all on MY dime (technically their dime).
Perhaps the sofa doesn’t just symbolize eighteenth century British/French cultural differences but also that of present day differences between the United States and Europe, best illustrated by the universal health care debate, a national conversation going back to FDR. Still it’s being rammed down our throats awfully fast, isn’t it?
I do favor the National Haircut System, especially if more regular trims means hair like Peter Horton or Ken Olin, as seen in this GQ cover. If you like your current haircut provider, you can keep them. **
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While the health care debate has produced Jerry Springer-style town hall meetings, it pales in comparison to the great bidet debate. Newsweek reports that Japanese company Toto is planning a major, uh, push for the (French invented) bidet onto the U.S. market. For those who aren’t familiar with bidets, I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but that that was no drinking fountain.
Wickipedia defines the French invention as: “a low-mounted plumbing fixture or type of sink intended for washing the genitalia, inner buttocks, and anus.” Newsweek writer Andrew Romano cites a survey showing half of toilet papers users have, (gag) “fecal contamination.”
First, yuck. Second, no wonder our health care costs so much. Third, something stinks about the Newsweek piece, which is obviously propaganda designed to prime the media pump for the bidet’s big American splash. If the French weren’t so fresh and brainwashed, they’d surely confirm that the bidet has a more nefarious purpose, as a tool to humiliate and prepare people to be dominated by their system with its excessive holiday benefits and health care handouts. Make your own decision about universal health care, but I support reform opposition if for no other reason than I promise you’ll get bored of socialism. If you thought the couch potato was bad, wait until you see the bidet potato.
So shove your bidets you know where, and please monsieur, do keep your “happiness index” (but we’re keeping the sofas, which we absolutely adore. Merci!). Maybe I’m wearing rose colored glasses, but I believe the American system always delivers the best results. By culling the sick and the weak, capitalism produces the strongest companies with the best ideas, and that’s why I believe the free market is best suited to solve the health care mess it created.
I just hope I don’t get sick.
Urban Remains
A vignette staged by a future Open House star.
Urban Remains
Urban Remains
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Urban Remains medicine cabinet
* * Speaking of a National Haircut System, when I was, oh god, I must have been fourteen (I remember this event as if I were ten or eleven), I took that GQ cover to my barber and requested she cut my hair, which was much shorter than even Ken Olin’s, like Peter Horton’s. Frustrated, she sent me along my way to grow my hair out. So unprofessional!
Hi, Tate, I’m going to have to rant and do my best to refute most of your arguments here (I’m not going near the bidet issue with a ten-foot scrub brush!).
I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but if my country (Canada) didn’t have a universal health care system, you and I would never have met, because I would have died in 1991 from a severe flare-up of an illness of my reproductive system. The surgery to correct that problem in your country would have cost more than my entire year’s income at that time. As it was a “recurring condition,” the health management organization through which I MIGHT have had health insurance would have disallowed the claim for the costs, which I probably still would have had to pay upfront, anyway. So, no Pesky Editor for you. Therefore, be grateful Canada has universal health care.
Topic B: On a completely unrelated note, I love sofas, too. My mom and I have a ginormous one in our living room, nearly seven feet long. It’s light and easy to move due to a tubular steel frame, rather than hardwood. We just recushion and reupholster it periodically to keep it serviceable. And yes, I sleep on it quite often. Blissfully, happily and restfully.
Topic C: “revolution leads to socialism”? Huh?? Try telling that one to some guys named Patrick Henry, Ethan Allen, and George Washington…
Topic D: Last but not least, socialism DOES contribute to a better quality of life: I defy you to find me ten people in the USA or anywhere who DON’T enjoy eating and sleeping!
There, I’m done my rant for the day. The Pesky Editor will visit you separately in a few minutes.
Sent with affection and respect, really and truly.
I think Tate was using the Stephen Colbert approach to blogging in this post. I read it, like I do many of his spoutings, to mean the exact opposite of what he wrote.
Thanks Jan! That’s exactly how I read it too. That’s funny Tate!
Carol, I love your comments so much. Thank you! From one swan to another, the post was really meant to just prompt questions, and if it’s making fun of anything, it’s the arguments being used against the various health care bills in the works. Now is certainly the time to fix the problem, but I’ve heard more fear mongering than actual solutions, so that was my main point.
Also, I find sleeping to be rather boring in theory, and if I were awake during the activity, I’d find any way to avoid it. But as I’m unconscious, I’m not going to spend too much time fighting it. Eating’s OK, but it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
Hold on Jon. Let’s not get carried away.