The State of Interior Decorating

Sorry I have not written anything recently but finding interesting things to post about have proven to be a difficult task for me this time around. Again, I do not wish to relate what I eat at every meal or when I take showers. Oh! Although Uncle Chris made a fantastic chicken curry last night and now I have the recipe and can't wait to try it some time. You see, Alex and I cook dinner together sometimes so that I can pretend that I am ready to go live in the real world (her too).
I have been meaning to write about this particular discovery for a little bit now. Full credit must go to my friend Krystal for this fantastic find: Edgar Allan Poe's Philosophy of Furniture. Who knew there was such an essay? Perhaps some of my more well read readers (that sounds awkward) have heard of it, but this really isn't the Poe essay your English teacher decides to cover in high school. I can't imagine why not. It certainly has deepened my understanding of Poe and all manner of interior decorating.
First Poe covers many a nationality's ability to decorate. I believe my favorite description is as follows: "The Dutch have, perhaps, an indeterminate idea that a curtain is not a cabbage." Well thank goodness they have such fundamentals down. He is no more kind to the American sense of decorating. We Yankees are no less than "preposterous."
In fact Poe is quite disparaging about the art of interior decorating. We have too many straight lines in our rooms that either continue for far too long or are rudely interrupted by right angles. What curved lines we do attempt only result in confusion and mess. Americans cannot handle any kind of line at all according to Poe.
It is almost difficult to take this essay seriously having read other writings by Poe. He is overly critical of all elements of a room from curtains to lighting to carpet. While I can imagine that he may have been quite judgmental of one's sense of interior decoration, I find it hard to believe that he would deem the state of our rooms so important and so shockingly out of tune as to merit a full essay on the ideal decoration of a room.
This essay is both interesting and adds an unexpected bit of understanding about Edgar Allan Poe. I highly recommend that you take the time to read it, although I cannot say that his idea of a perfect room, which includes much red, silver and gold, is quite my own but this may just be my one gaudy American taste getting in the way.
I hope you have enjoyed this slight broadening of your Poe horizons