From Every Angle

A while back, I took out a subscription to a particular country decorating magazine, mostly because they kept emailing me with better and better deals until it finally came out to about $3 an issue—and yes, I mean actual paper magazines, not the online kind. So they started coming in the mail a few months ago, and I’d forgotten how ubiquitous each one of these things can be: every issue features a young couple who hired a designer, a gay couple who didn’t need to hire a designer, recipes I will NEVER make, and the latest in weird decorating trends. I’ve made my peace with the all-white rooms and all-white furniture, the people who never wear shoes, and the copious overuse of figs, but this month’s issue made my skin crawl. Was it full of earwigs? (Fun Fact: When I was very young, my grandmother let me watch an episode of The Twilight Zone—the old black and white version—where a man had an earwig crawl into his ear and it ate through to his brain. I was terrified of earwigs for years, even after I discovered that they’re called earwigs NOT because they crawl into people’s ears, which they never do, but because they infest ears of corn. Still.)  Were all the recipes based on beets and peas? No. It was the newest trend alert: hanging all the artwork on your walls askew. Aside from being the stupidest trend I could possibly think of, even worse than the faux leather wall covering debacle of 2006, I was immediately overcome by intense panic at the mere sight of it. You may remember, particularly because I mention it often and it took up almost a whole chapter of my new book (shameless plug: it’s called What Any Normal Person Would Do, available on Amazon), I have something called Extreme Symmetry Disorder, which normally applies to rugs, but also, in this case, to the artwork on my walls. And while it might seem strange to you, I regularly patrol my house, straightening not only the rugs on my floors but also the artwork on my walls, because while Atlas manages to knock the rugs sideway several times a day, the vibrations of his bounding around also shift the frames of both paintings and photographs, which I am compelled to restore to their proper positions.

And then I had to read this magazine, which featured several different walls of artwork, two of them very much like my own photography-filled breakfast room wall, but instead of them being all delightfully level and perfectly perpendicular to each other, THESE PICTURES HAD BEEN DELIBERATELY KNOCKED ASKEW AS A FASHION STATEMENT.

Who DOES this?! I mean, I can’t be the only person who would go into a house where the pictures are all tilting off into oblivion and have an overwhelming desire to straighten them. Seriously—is this not scraping the bottom of the barrel of decorating trends or what? And what’s next? Should all our rugs be scattered haphazardly around our rooms? Should our objets d’art be randomly grouped in fours and sixes instead of the much more stress-relieving threes and fives? Should the cords on all our lamps face the front where we can SEE THEM?! AM I IN HELL?

At any rate, this issue, according to the latest email exhortation I received, is to be my last, since I have no interest in renewing a subscription to something so ludicrous. I will never cook with beets, I will never decorate in all white, and I especially will NEVER tiltshift my artwork. To quote Captain Jean-Luc Picard, when he was yet again faced with the Borg: “The line must be drawn here!”

In other news, the new literary press is going very well. I have a lot of submissions and I’ve already signed three authors—don’t ask who, because it’s a surprise, at least until I’ve finished editing. But all three are awesome, and their books will be coming out under the DarkWinter Press imprint before the end of the fall. I’m currently in the process of reading more manuscripts to decide on the catalogue for Spring 2024, so if you want to be considered, I’d love to see your work—at least before the end of August, when submissions will be closed until January.

(And now I’m having a mild panic attack because I just realized that one of the candlesticks isn’t straight!)

47 thoughts on “From Every Angle”

  2. As I was reading this the TV was on in the background and I heard someone say, and this is absolutely true*, “Restaurants were ranked number one in Accounting Magazine’s ‘Riskiest Businesses’ issue. That was their last issue before they folded, actually. Magazines are also very risky.” It was funny because, like you, I thought this “askew” idea was scraping the bottom of the design barrel, and the sides as well. That barrel, by the way, looked just fine before all that scraping. This was clearly someone struggling to come up with an idea. And those pictures don’t even look askew enough to make it look deliberate. It just looks like there was a mild earthquake in that barn where they set up their ping-pong table. If they’re going to have the idea they should commit to it–have the pictures at a thirty to forty-five degree angle.
    That’s what I imagine the gay couple would say. Then the gay couple would say, “Also this is a terrible idea! We have nothing against straight things and we’ll prove it with neat and orderly picture hanging!”
    I also think that if you have charming antique photos of sports teams and school classes the polite thing to do is not make those people with their excellent posture all look like they’re leaning.
    *It was an episode of Parks & Recreation.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • I think my favourite picture of all the ones on my “wall of people I don’t know “ is the bottom left, the “Women of the Moose Fancy Drill Team of 1933”, mostly because they all look miserable and very unfancy!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  3. Some of the trends that come along are so stupid, it defies any explanation or reason. Design is up to your taste, at least that’s what I believe. But I’m like you, I draw the line at uneven wall art or decor of any sort. It’s an abomination for someone that has any kind of taste, lol. I’m excited you’ve found a couple of authors for your new literary press! I can’t wait to see who they are.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  4. Yes–that art-slightly-askew-on-the-wall trend would drive me nuts. Soon, they’ll have us cooking with beets, smearing it onto portrait paper, framing it, and hanging it portrait-side first into the wall. You were right to get rid of that pesky magazine. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  5. I’ve given up on all of these modern trends, though purposely causing artwork to be off-level is a new one to me. My wife can confirm that every month or so, I go around the house with a bubble level and straighten all the artwork.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  6. This blog speaks to me in several ways:
    1) From the guy who uses a level when hanging things, I am similarly appalled by this ridiculous trend. What has this world come to?!?
    2) I don’t know if you remember this, Suzanne, but I recall a time when I came into work at BCI to find that English Department members had “reorganized” my desk. I played it off like it was funny, but I felt rage. Sooo much rage.
    3) Earwigs have always kinda made my skin crawl, too. For me, it was The Wrath of Khan. Those WEREN’T earwigs, but the similarities are close enough to make me twitch whenever I find one taking shelter under my garage door opener cover.
    4) Jean-Luc quotation! Love TNG! I just started watching Picard yesterday, and a Star Trek reference is always appreciated!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • I’m so happy you love the JLP reference and that I’m not the only one who hates earwigs. I vaguely remember them “re-organizing” your desk–it was a thing with that crew. They confiscated a case of diet coke that belonged to another staff member and relegated me to the science office. But I had nothing to do with any of those shenanigans–I found all of that appalling, as would anyone who values symmetry and order!

      Like

      Reply

  9. I was telling my wife, Sue, that I’d just finished your latest anthology (5 star review to Amazon submitted) & reminded her that you 2 are quite similar (tea-towel usage & many other things). I just read this blog entry out to her & she agreed that she is your kindred spirit.
    Re the country magazine: we have a very useful phrase in the UK for that kind of thing: “absolute bollocks”. 🤣

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • It’s always amazing that any time I worry that I’m the only person who worries about things like this, there’s always someone else who makes me feel absolutely normal! And thank you so much for the review!❤️

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  13. I was going to say – this magazine subscription sounds dreadful. I’m with you on this – things need to be hung straight and yes you’re going to have to do something about that candle 😀

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  14. A much needed laugh, thank you!  I am just like that, a tablecloth a bit longer on one side, etc?  I can’t leave it alone.  My oldest grandson can’t to visit with his six mo old daughter and just looked around and said,  “everything’s so neat!”  I live alone, I don’t have an excuse for it not to be!  That haphazard look on walls just looks lazy to me.

    Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPad

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  16. My pictures on my walls are all slightly crocked, Suzanne, but not on purpose. Maybe that’s even worse than purposeful crookedness. And since I read your book, I understand how you like things orderly. I’ll bet that candlestick is now straight as an arrow! 🙂 🙂 Great news that your foray into publishing is going so well!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  17. -giggles- I like certain things ‘au naturel’ – like flower arrangements, but rugs and pictures have to line up for me as well. And I do not have a single white wall in my entire house! Or white furniture. Ugly, ugly, ugly. 😦

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  19. Yes, #1 the “earwig” thing was about Africa as I remember and I was paralyzed with a fear of ever going to Africa. Yes, #2 the magazine thing, Geesh, a friend talked me into signing up. It was impossible to stop the magazine from arriving and the continued deals after stopping the subscription. It took letter after to letter and months before it stopped coming. And guess what happened? My new address got into their hands and they sent me yet another “We miss you”. And yes the glossy magazine was ridiculous. Yes, #3 on the rug and picture thing! Bugs the heck out of me. LOL

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment