Monday Scramble:
Logistics
This was the weekend of Chinese footbaths.
Chinese footbaths? How could footbaths be the solution to an interior design problem? I didn’t even know that Chinese footbaths existed.
That’s why there’s Quatorze. And once we had decided that footbaths would make excellent cache-pots for a table in the window, Quatorze got to work and discovered the right footbaths. They’re celadon. I’ll have more to say about celadon later. I’ve already said most of it, actually, but you don’t want to read about it just now.
Quaere: interior design and logistics — which is the subset of the which? I’m inclined to say that the question of what your place looks like doesn’t come up until you’ve found a way to live, so that organizing your stuff in order to make life convenient (logistics) comes before design. “Stuff,” here, extends far beyond material possessions. It includes such things as “an interest in cooking” and “a fondness for giving dinner parties.”
The protocol:
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What do you want to do?
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What to you need to have in order to do it?
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Where do you put what you need?
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How do you make it look good?
Of course, you have to be a perfect genius to be able to follow this protocol before the age of forty.
***
Back on the job at The Daily Blague. Jean Ruaud’s contributions, I’m sure you’ll agree, can’t be allowed to stop altogether; I must petition him for a regular Letter from Paris. You must urge him to continue as well — you’ll find his address at the bottom of one or two of his entries. It may have been a long week for him, but it was a short and pleasant one for regular readers. We all had a break — everyone except Jean, that is. I’m forever in his debt. Thanks, Jean!
As I contemplate the “design mind”, and read your entry, it occurs to me that each space problem is approached from different angles and the categories in perhaps different order depending on what you’ve got to start with. Your comment about needing to be forty to accomplish this is testimony to the experience factor in being able to flexible enough to juggle all these elements. Committed to paper and list, they are daunting. It is this “design mind” that the new foundation I’m starting with Gregory Clark is looking to discover and foster among young people. It will be a place to exercise and stretch the mental legs that solve problems in non-linear ways.
Separately, a propos of Jean Ruaud, I couldn’t agree more that future posts would be most welcome! In addition to continuing the RJ quality and sensibility during your brownout, his photography was spectacular! Thank you, Jean, for a great week, and for returning us to RJ intact and eager for his insights and ruminations.