Sometimes I forget how weird the culture of the Seventies was...

...and then things like this bring it all back.

Great Tie Alert

Well played, Lee Hazlewood!

A History of Men's Hairstyles, starring Robert Redford

1847 (Jeremiah Johnson)

1900 (Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid)

1909 (Tell Them Willie Boy is Here)

1945 (The Way We Were)

It's amazing how men of these time periods had the same hairstyles as men from the 1970s!

Good Book Cover/Bad Book Cover

There ya go!

What the hell...?

The Architects of Blah

I can't afford to buy a condo in my neighborhood (or anywhere), but that doesn't stop me from idly, and regularly, checking the Redfin listings in my area zip codes.  I have a few pet buildings where I'd like to live, but since the Seattle market is still in the doldrums, there's not a lot of stuff coming onto the market.  Expanding my circuit a little more, I found this uninspiring place today.

It's dull but serviceable on the outside, but the thing that really kills it for me is this half-hearted attempt to put in a jazzy window.  It's a dumb, pointless octagon, and then it has a dull, dull square mini-blind to cover it.  They should have at least just made it some ersatz stained-glass thing, since it's so pointless as a window.  Or better yet, this window should have been allowed to be its real self--a rectangle.

Happy Friday!

FOULARD: sign of quality

Crabby New Year to you!

Shouty!

Foulard HATES lifestyle manifestos!   Foulard likes people who quietly do exactly want they want to without having to stick it on their wall or share their trite, generic, middle class lifestyle tips with others.

The "manifesto"  above has apparently been circulating on "the internets" for a while.  I've seen a lot of similar things in blogs like Apartment Therapy--people with trendy apartments/condos often have some sort of quaint print on their wall that says something like "LOVE EVERY MOMENT OF LIFE." in an archaic/industrial typeface.  They're really just a reincarnation of this oldie, from the Jonathan Livingston Seagull/Listen to the Warm/Love Is era:

Pros: Not in ALL CAPS
Cons: Looks like it was hand-written by hobbits

I don't have an issue with new year's resolutions, and I really don't have a problem with being self-aware and self-determinitive.  The thing I like most is to be doing what I want to do (while being a nice person, of course).  The thing I hate is anyone telling me what to do or think--and these "prescription for happiness" things do just that.  It's like being hectored by a bullying hippie or someone who's just tumbled out of an EST retreat*.

*or Tom Cruise