Angry out-of-touch man rant:
One of the delightful caveats of owning a home built in the early 1920s is the complete lack of overhead lighting. Every room is exquisitely dark... just the way I like it. (Plus it's a lovely excuse to buy a ton of ornate antique brass swing arm floor lamps with marble bases and ornamental fringe shades.)
But it's a ***** to read in the dark, so I need a good bedside table reading lamp. My wife said, "let's pop into Target. Never hurts to look."
Words fail me here. The sight I beheld in Target's lighting aisle was one of indescribable despondence. Where I'd expected to see lamps I was instead stupified by a pile of garishly new, geometric, gaunt, angular, repulsive, plastic grotesque abortions of design aesthetic. (Okay, so perhaps words don't fail me
entirely.)
Where was the porcelain? Where were the ornamental brass filigree bases? The hand-crafted silk scallop fringed shades? Am I to understand that these plastic horrors are what light the homes of the everyman?
I made a hasty exit and vowed never to return. Instead, I visited the owners of each of the city's antique dealers and put the word out to contact me should any quality lamps surface in the resale or estate markets in the coming months.
I also mentioned that I was in the market for an antique 1900s cast iron cooking stove and an 1830s style end table like this Jonathan Charles piece from their Buckingham Collection -
A table like this will be perfect for the Tantalus I've commissioned.
Lesson learned: Stay the hell out of Target.