the pottery barn "kids" catalog came yesterday. holiday edition, natch. i haven't got the lifestyle-and-entertaining one yet, i'm surprised to say. but the "kids" edition was so weak i can't even whomp up the rage i usually feel.
this week's rage -- and it's that delicious type of rage, the kind that gives you that powerful thrill in knowing yes, thing are really this horrific, and i could justify far, far more outlandish behavior in response if i wished to go that way -- is directed that what i hear are the REMAKES -- THE REMAKES OF TWO OF THE BEST HORROR FILMS OF ALL TIME (and i make my debt to SMQ known here -- he introduced me to both of these), the wicker man and black christmas.
yes. the wicker man, the greatest scottish-pagan-hippie-horror movie ever -- starring edward woodward AND christopher lee, and featuring a CHILLING faux-donovan soundtrack: being remade by stupid americans. and black christmas, PERFECTION in sorority slasher films, starring keir dullea, margot kidder, andrea martin and olivia hussey -- and directed by the man who directed a christmas story with peter billingsley and darren mc gavin -- that black christmas -- being remade.
that's where my best rage is this week, and i'd have enough left over for pottery barn if they were worth it, but so far, they aren't. nothing's what it used to be, not even pottery barn. certainly not the october-november-december issues of martha stewart living which i still buy every year, and which, so far this year, two out of three, absolutely suck -- do you know what's in the november one? POM-POM CRAFTS.
what do you suppose you'll find if you measure the beta waves of someone who thinks the holidays are the time to break out the pom-poms? didn't martha stewart -- or at least the large staff of artists and designers and professionals whom she continually mistakes for her own brain -- used to be some arbiter of taste, or class, or something?
but again, i'm straying from my weak topic. pottery barn "kids".
once upon a time, well before my buying power years, pottery barn was a very, very uncool little catalog. it was like the lillian vernon catalog. which, i see, in placing that link, has had a little makeover of its own -- but, my point being, that the current incarnation of pottery barn is really a phoenix from the ashes, and i am sure i am not the only one who remembers it.
but -- as great horror movies degrade into anemic remakes... as martha stewart living, at its best full of flaws seems now to be far from "better than ever" as it at least used to provide some modicum of style until the freaking pom-pom turkeys showed up... so pottery barn begins, too, to degrade. pottery barn is... slipping, if the "kids" catalog is any indication. it's starting to look a lot like an OLD pottery barn catalog, decades old, pre-phoenix. junky novelty toys, rampant appliqué and terrycloth, and just about any item that can boast two dimensions is "personalized". names like Max and Natalie and Jack and Dylan and Logan run over wood, fabric, and metal, regardless if a surface design or pattern already exists there or not.
of all the things i never expected -- is this how it ends for pottery barn? not with a bang but with a whimper?
if i want to see something tasteless, i want to see something imaginative and tasteless. and if i want to see something tasteless, i'll watch a holiday-themed slasher film in which margot kidder has a crystal unicorn figurine shoved through her eye -- or whatever it is that happens in that movie -- i don't really remember -- but at least that means i have something to look forward to this holiday season.