Posts from — December 2007

Edward M. Tashjian says that every time he’s faced with having to find a name for a new furniture line he wants “to quit and find a new career,” reports Julie Scelfo in The New York Times (12/27/07). He says that coming up with a name “that’s descriptive and engaging — not to mention hasn’t already been used, isn’t completely banal and meets the approval of the rest of the management team — is a nearly impossible task.” Edward is vice-president of marketing for Century Furniture, and he and his team “spent more than three months conducting focus groups, researching consumer data and combing thesauruses before introducing a collection that became available to consumers earlier this year …”

After all that, the name they came up with was “New Traditional.” As Edward explains: “The words ‘classic’ and ‘traditional’ are emotionally charged words and mean different things to different people … Twenty to thirty percent of our customers say they want traditional furniture but they don’t want their grandma’s or their parent’s look. They want it to be fresher and contemporized so that it’s their own. They want it to have some kind of classic feel, but they want it to be slightly different.” Finding the perfect name for the perfect balance of old and new does indeed seem to be the essential conundrum for furniture marketers.

At American Leather, the solution was to name three categories: “Boutique Traditional,” “Clean Transitional” and “Modern Contemporary.” At Bernhardt Furniture Company, the exercise involved “lifestyle-type names.” Their solution: Arlington (referring to the Chicago neighborhoods, not the national cemetery). Edward Tashjian finds it all so very philosophical: “One of the greatest paradoxes of this human condition we live in is people have these conflicting desires: first to belong to a group, and second to be unique. And these two things fight with each other and that happens with furnishings, too,” he says. Meanwhile, designer Jonathan Adler calls his latest style, “Neo-Neo Classicism.” He explains: “I could keep neo-ing but I think neo-neo is a good expression of it.” ~ Tim Manners, editor

“You would think that the contemporary, hip art world is ahead of the curve on this … and it’s not — yet,” said Marisa Olsen, commenting on the rise of internet-based art in a Wall Street Journal piece by Andrew LaVallee (12/19/07). Marisa likes to search Google Images for things like “headphones, radios and other devices” and then draw what she finds. “They’re like sketchbooks,” says Paddy Johnson, an art blogger who likes to link “to videos, photos and other digital ephemera” she finds. “Your ability to spot the best stuff speaks to your eye as an artist … The better your quoting ability, the better artist you seem to be.”

Guthrie Lonergan says he finds the “boringness” of blogs interesting as fodder for his art. In one of his pieces, “Internet Group Shot,” he created a collage “from dozens of group portraits,” to show “how people adopt the same huddle when they’re saying ‘cheese.’” In another of his pieces, “MySpace Intro Playlist,” Guthrie “strung together … the self-made videos that young people post to their personal pages … to show how teenagers tend to act similarly and say the same things when they’re introducing themselves.” He comments: “There are defaults in our culture … MySpace doesn’t set up something for you to create an introduction video, but kind of like a telephone answering machine, you assume a certain kind of voice and say certain things.”

Marcin Ramocki created “Blogger Skins,” where “he Googled a handful of bloggers who write about art, then assembled a virtual mosaic of the images that resulted.” He says the result “reflects the popularity of different images.” Paul Slocum’s work, “Time-Lapse Homepage,” which “chronicles the evolution of a single personal page’s look.” He explains: “Art is just going to be what’s going on in the world around you. It makes sense to do work around this thing that’s changing our life so much.” Another of his pieces is “a functioning replica of MySpace’s login page. “I was interested in how you go to these pages all the time that are constantly in flux, changing all the things they show you,” he says. ~ Tim Manners, editor

“Nothing broadcasts the presence of ripe, digestible fruit as effectively as the aroma of fermentation,” writes Natalie Angier in The New York Times (12/11/07). “Every year, the average American adult,” she reports, “drinks the equivalent of 38 six-packs of beer, a dozen bottles of wine and two quarts of distilled spirits …” Sounds rather serious, although “39 other nations outdrink us, the list topped by Luxembourg, where residents manage to ingest roughly 284 bottles of beer and 88 bottles of wine annually,” according to W.H.O. Not surprisingly, given its dark days and many celebrations, December is “peak ethanol month.”

But, whatever the time of year, it’s not just humans who like to imbibe. As Patrick McGovern of the University of Pennsylvania notes: “From fruit flies to elephants, if you give them a source of alcohol and sugar, they love it.” Especially Syrian hamsters, known among researchers as “the Andy Capp of the animal kingdom.” Howard B. Moss, a researcher, says that it all goes back to survival — they gather fruit in the summer, store it underground, and then find it in winter by sniffing it out. “They’ve developed a preference for the taste and smell of fruit that’s turned,” says Dr. Moss.

Survival and alcohol also are linked for humans. “Not only is alcohol a mild antiseptic, but the process of brewing alcoholic beverages often requires that the liquid be boiled or subjected to similarly sterilizing treatments.” Says Dr. McGovern: “It’s possible that people who drank fermented beverages tended to live longer and reproduce more than did their teetotaling peers.” Historically, the safest place for a drink was often the tavern. Fortunately, say researchers, “if we humans are congenitally inclined to drink, we are designed to do so only in moderation.” As Natalie Angier advises, “the dose makes the poison, so as you savor the season, take it one sip at a time.” ~ Tim Manners, editor

The problem with fruitcake, it seems, is the fruit — but Brother Joseph Reisch, "the chief fruitcake maker" at a Trappist monastery, has a solution for that, reports Susan Warren in The Wall Street Journal (12/22/07). "The rummier the yummier," says Brother Reisch of the Assumption Abbey. He still uses candied fruit in his fruitcakes, but only after soaking it in burgundy wine. "When the cakes come out of the oven, the monks use a syringe to inject each with rum in eight places." As Brother Reisch puts it, "Basically, you’re getting a lot of profound remedial additive." Before Assumption Abbey started making fruit cakes, it produced concrete blocks. "Around here we like to say ‘If you liked our concrete blocks, you’ll love our fruitcakes," says Brother Reisch.

Not to be outdone, "the monks at Our Lady of Guadalupe monastery prefer a stiffer additive … 120-proof brandy." Like a lot of other post-modern fruitcake makers, the monks "scrupulously avoid anything with citron." No green fruit. It used to be that the whole point of the cake was the red and green candied cherries and whatnot. "It was Christmassy," notes Hayden Crawford of the Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana Texas, one of America’s biggest fruitcake makers. They’ve been making fruitcakes since 1896, but five years ago started marketing them under different names, such as Texas Pecan Cake, Pecan Coffee Cake and White Chocolate Macademia Cheesecake. All because of "this trend of fruitcake as a pejorative in American culture," says Hayden.

At one time, fresh candied fruit "was considered a delicacy reserved for special occasions." That was back when fruit was candled "as a way to preserve the harvest in the days before refrigeration," using "a simple process of boiling the fruit in sugary syrup, then using food dyes to add color." But of course "commercial processing" put an end to all that, and the fruitcake’s formerly "festive charm became an emblem of culinary atrocity." It’s a rather sorry fate for a confection that dates back "to the Middle Ages when, after harvest, dried fruits and nuts were baked with just enough batter to hold the mix together. Fruitcake lore holds that the Crusaders packed it for their long journey to the Holy land." Rumor has it that the very same cake is still being enjoyed somewhere in Wisconsin. ~ Tim Manners, editor

A newly-designed development plan for Governors Island will make a virtue of its isolation, report Nicolai Ouroussoff and Robin Pogrebin in The New York Times (12/20/07). As an abandoned military base, sitting ten miles off the tip of Manhattan, New York City officials were concerned that the 172-acre island couldn’t attract “enough visitors to make it economically sustaining.” That was the challenge put to five design teams — to create “a park that was compelling enough to prompt visitors to get on the ferry.” Or, as Leslie Koch, president of the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation put it, “What can you do in this park that you can’t do anywhere else?”

The winning answer, led by Dutch design team West 8, was to transform “much of the flat, sober island … into green space. That includes a two-mile promenade at the water’s edge, a new park on the southern flat expanse of landfill — where abandoned Coast Guard buildings are to be demolished — and an improved park in the island’s northern historic district.” Rubble from the destroyed buildings will be used to create “an artificial mountain range,” creating “a skyline of sorts visible from the city, and frame vistas of the Statue of Liberty and the Verranzano-Narrows Bridge” (renderings here).

But the really big idea here is to create a backdrop, an environment, "a standard of quality design" and avoid overdevelopment. "You kind of set the stage with the park," says Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff. The plan is to develop the Governors Island "in slow, incremental steps" versus simply handing the place over to developers. Architect Jerry van Eyck says the main idea was to avoid ending up "with Disney and casinos." This initial phase is expected to cost $400 million and take five years to complete. In the meantime, Leslie Koch plans a "free bicycle program"for next summer, in hopes of persuading New Yorkers to acquaint themselves with the island’s "haunting beauty." ~ Tim Manners, editor

They used to be “committed vegetarians” but now they are publishing Meatpaper, a quarterly magazine that’s all about getting in touch with our inner carnivore, reports Oliver Schwaner-Albright in The New York Times (12/19/07). “Responsible meat eating could hold its own as a philosophical position with people who are vegetarian,” says Amy Standen, who co-publishes Meatpaper with her friend, Sasha Wizansky. “Meatpaper is about every way of looking at meat. I think of it as a magazine that’s just as intended for vegetarians as it is for meat eaters.” Adds Sasha: “It’s about their response to meat … and there are so many ways of responding to meat.”

In Meatpaper, those ways include “a deliberation on whether the Bible bans blood sausage, a photo essay on found meat, a married couple discussing cannibalism.” There’s only one recipe in the current issue, but maybe that’s a good thing. It’s called Captain Beef Heart, a recipe for grilled beef heart salad. Sasha and Amy say it’s all about the “fleischgeist, or spirit of meat.” Says Sasha: “We get e-mails from people who say, ‘We’re trying to get more in touch with our animal ethic — my friends and I are going in on a whole pig, and we’re going to learn all the traditional ways to process it.” Adds Amy: “I don’t know why, but our version of back-to-the-land is culinary.”

Their version is certainly adventuresome: “So far I haven’t met the meat I wouldn’t eat,” says Sasha. “What could that be?” asked Amy. “Some organ? We ate duck testicles a few weeks ago … They were very tasty.” Sasha agreed: “They were mild … Like unassuming little sausages.” Easy for them to say. So far, the magazine has a circulation of just 3,200 and distribution through a handful of retailers. But Amy and Sasha seem to be having fun promoting it via meat parties where people dare each other to try things. They even invite vegans to join them, but at their own peril: “We find over and over again that bacon is the conversion meat,” says Amy. “Bacon is how vegetarians change their minds.” Tofu anyone? ~ Tim Manners, editor