Shawn: “It’s quiet and peaceful in this emotional nirvana blue…” warbles the chanteuse from Hooverphonic as we enter the confines of this cerulean sanctum. There’s an almost narcotic affect to it, the whole blue-on-blue scheme presumably designed to achieve a zen lull for the occupant. Is our spread-eagled tease actually asleep on that immense doily of a bedspread? Methinks. It would so easy to believe that the kitsch balloon rendering focal point is a highly symbolic epitome of childhood whimsy still alive and well in an uncaring world, but no, I don’t buy it. If slasher movies have taught me anything, then it’s that an item like this is either the motive for a murder spree or the means of identifying the killer. As the room’s linchpin it’s just too forced, too suggestive of some dread that can only be held at bay by the cyan ambiance. There’s an unspoken Marnie-like trauma from childhood lurking here. I sense an ill-fated birthday party staged on a pristine suburban lawn, the unendurable mocking laughter of children in white, a wound-too-tight mother’s castigation, and definitely ponies. But we must never, ever speak about the ponies…

Steve: I understand what happens with bedside tables. They’re small. They sort of give up. And when they do, untold number of bedside-table-suitable items from all the best yard sales start to nestle around the base of them, awaiting a turn on the elevated surface. Some of them will make it, but many, many will not.

Steve: There are some situations in which no amount of cleaning could help remedy a shot, but this is a situation in which no amount of cleaning could matter. I don’t really know anyone who would turn down a nice roll through these particular beer bottles… or whatever.

David: Notice that zig-zagging counter top? That’s quite deliberate. What’s happening here is the end phase of the Metropolitan Church’s Annual Labyrinth walk. Due to bad New York weather the maze event was held indoors. The church elders were forced to have the labyrinth conclude in the rectory kitchen. Who knew Cozmo, the head altar boy would be caught so unaware. What a blessing!

Shawn: There’s a dissonance between decor and sexual persona here that’s troubling. Two competing entities are vying for supremacy and the more dominant will imbibe the weaker. I’m thinking Jo versus Blair on The Facts of Life or that thing that happens when a zygote absorbs its twin in utero, but then it still lives on in spirit and wants to kill like in The Parent Trap. Here we have jock-inspired nudie play up against Flower Power and our Bat Boy is doomed be KOed by his own efflorescent surroundings. The baseball cap, sneaks, and tube socks want to be the focal point, but they’re all undone by the robin’s egg blue table cloth, florid rug, and the crocus yellow draperies with matching throw pillows on the leather couch. My fantasy of scoring with a slutty post-pubescent Charlie Brown is compromised now and I feel a little more dead inside than usual.

David: During the 1920s, after a period of working with more subdued colors, Henri Matisse’s palette once again brightened. As well, his ardor for painting patterned backgrounds took on a new impassioned glee. All that went missing were the nude male models. Always we were stuck with a bare breasted female, usually with some sort of Moroccan turban on her head. Yawn. Naked men just weren’t a part of Matisse’s tableaux, and what a pity. Imagine what he could have done with a specimen like our homeowner featured above. It’s all there for us: the oriental carpet competing aggressively with the Clown Flower-like patterned curtains and pillows. Wait…! That blur of robin’s egg blue tablecloth — blowing in a breeze? A window or door ajar? Spectators watching the spectacle? And why not? So what if Matisse would pass this by, we at Lurid Digs honor the arrangement fully. Of this dreams and art are made. Now excuse me while I help this gentle soul to his bedroom. I’m curious if the curtains really do match the rug.
 

Steve: I don’t think anyone appriciates subtlety any longer. Elegance. The quality of small-ish, less ostentatious furniture. This tiny little recliner, originally designed with a Schnauzer in mind, says, “small furniture can make a big statement,” or perhaps it says, “I may be tiny, but I pack a wallop.”

To the left (to the left) we see everything you own in a box a tiny little card table with a delicate table cloth fit for a princess, and the start of what we must assume is another, matching tiny recliner.

Matching and pares. That’s the theme here: two ferns, two tiny recliners, two tiny tables with two tiny table cloths. In ancient Rome, this would be the the beginning of a seduction ritual which would inevitably lead us to the pleasure to be found from two tiny nipples.

Steve: Lex Mathis began building his media empire when he was only fourteen. An involved and extensive system of cables, monitors, and audio/video data stored on a spectrum of formats including VHS, Beta, and stereophonic audio cassette-tape is what has resulted from more than eight years of constant attention. It is rivaled only by certain branch offices of the Minnesota Public Library System.