Strange Closets

In his essay You Say You Want a Devolution in the January issue of Vanity Fair, Kurt Anderson wonders if America’s days of cultural innovation are behind us, noting that although “the world has become radically and profoundly new,” thanks to e-mail, mobile phones and other technological advancements, the world’s appearance has changed very little since the [...]

Recently I’ve been kind of obsessed with Lindsey Adelman Studios and their fantastic lighting collection. If you don’t have 15 big ones to drop on one of their custom chandeliers, Lindsey Adelman Studio has posted detailed instructions for several fixtures on their website. Best of all, the parts needed to construct the stylish pieces can be [...]

In March, I read Joshua Foer’s new book Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything. Ironically, I remember very few of the many fascinating tidbits about memory that Foer reveals in his book, but that’s not so surprising as Foer contends that our memory has gone downhill since we gave up on our [...]

Top photo: The dining room in my Edgewater Glen apartment. Bottom photo: The family room in my friend JB’s Highland Park home, which I’ve photographed twice, the first time a couple of years ago for a Strange Closets Open House and the second time earlier this year for the North Shore magazine Make It Better. ↓ [...]

Prediction: By 2025, we’ll download our interiors at iTunes, Elle Decor’s website and a multitude of tablet apps, and redecorating an entire home will cost a yet to be determined but relatively low number ending in 99 cents. The market for $25,000 rugs will evaporate overnight when people realize they can no longer discern the [...]

Historical fiction isn’t my favorite genre, but I love Downton Abbey, which was created by Julian Fellowes, who also wrote the screenplay for the 2001 Robert Altman film Gosford Park. Both films explore class and changing social mores in early twentieth century England. The show originally aired as a 10-part series in England (it has [...]

I popped into Roost last night, and owner Danny Malone told me about a great vintage shop in Columbus, Ohio called The Attic that’s rather oddly connected to a restaurant called Basil Thai, both owned by antique enthusiast Rhome Ruanphae. Top earning drug dealers (illegal or pharmaceutical) know not to use the product, but antique dealers [...]