quote:

As a millennial who graduated from college in 2010, in the lingering wake of the financial crisis, the cultural critic Kyle Chayka haltingly admits to being a minimalist, but only “by default.”

When he began writing “The Longing for Less,” he was put off by how minimalism had become commodified — a smug cure-all that countered late-capitalist malaise with self-help books by Marie Kondo and seasonal pilgrimages to The Container Store. His own minimalism was a consequence of living as an underpaid writer in New York: No basements and no closets meant no storage space for stuff.

But those two kinds of minimalism — sleek lifestyle branding and enforced austerity — don’t quite convey the enormousness of the subject Chayka explores in this slender book. Delving into art, architecture, music and philosophy, he wants to learn why the idea of “less is more” keeps resurfacing. He sees it as a shadow to material progress, a reaction to abundance, a manifestation of civilization’s discontents. He remembers growing up in a three-story house with a two-car garage in rural Connecticut and feeling mildly oppressed by “detritus scattered at random all over the place.”

The book itself is like an exercise in decluttering, as Chayka cycles through different ideas in order to find those he wants to keep. An inevitable section on Kondo doesn’t find much to commend in her approach, deeming it a force for homogeneity and, like comparable books in the genre, “an exercise in banality.” For Chayka, Kondo’s method clearly doesn’t spark joy.

More generative for him are the examples of artists who became known as Minimalists even as they disavowed the term. Experiencing their work sharpens his senses; in place of the dull hum of overstimulation, Chayka gains a heightened existential awareness. Walter De Maria’s “The New York Earth Room,” a pile of loose soil that takes up the expanse of a second-floor loft in SoHo, evokes vivid memories of the woods near Chayka’s childhood home. Donald Judd’s aluminum boxes in Marfa, Tex., suggest an “absolute freedom” that the author finds “implacable, aggressive and intimidating.” Chayka is moved when he considers how Agnes Martin created her ghostly grid paintings by paying assiduous attention to each and every line, repeating her actions over and over again, a process as mindful as prayer.

But the vulgarity of the real world keeps threatening to intrude. “Art becomes retail surprisingly quickly,” Chayka writes of Marfa, where Judd’s work turned the remote town into a place where upscale tourists can easily procure a vegan sandwich or a glass of rosé. Driving on the highway nearby, Chayka gets waved through an immigration checkpoint; his Marfa trip in 2018 coincided with the first reports that border guards a mere 60 miles away were separating migrant parents from their children.

President Trump, with his steaks and his golf courses and his gilded rooms, is like the anti-minimalist: opulent, ostentatious, overwhelming. Chayka, who mentions Trump at several points in the book, hopes minimalism might provide an antidote or a balm. He compares an exhibit of Martin’s paintings to a “visual spa treatment” after the November 2016 election; he recalls how the new administration’s “reckless enthusiasm” made him want to hide. “I had subconsciously started wearing all-gray clothing,” Chayka writes, as if he were trying to blend into the city’s unnatural landscape of concrete and steel.

What’s most striking about Chayka’s minimalist gestures is how frail they seem next to the larger upheavals that are taking place. And he knows this. Discussing the renunciatory philosophy of the Stoics and Henry David Thoreau, he discerns “a strategy of avoidance, especially in moments when society feels chaotic or catastrophic.” There’s a strain of this in contemporary lifestyle minimalism, which offers self-protection and retreat: “Your bedroom might be cleaner, but the world stays bad.”

The minimalism that Chayka seeks encourages not an escape from the world but a deeper engagement with it. In John Cage’s “4′33″,” silence is “radical and revolutionary,” forcing the audience to pause and actively listen to its surroundings. (When it was first performed in 1952, the setting was an old barn in the woods; the sounds of silence included rustling leaves and drizzling rain.) The music of Julius Eastman presents a kind of ecstatic minimalism — a bid to achieve, as the composer put it, “what I am to the fullest: Black to the fullest, a musician to the fullest, a homosexual to the fullest.” In the 1930s, the Japanese novelist Junichiro Tanizaki wrote “In Praise of Shadows,” noticing in darkness “a pregnancy of tiny particles like fine ashes, each particle luminous as a rainbow.”

Chayka’s journey ends in a rock garden in Kyoto, where serene contemplation contends with jostling visitors. “What I saw,” he writes, “was dramatic simplicity side by side with unruly life.” Reconciliation in a setting like this seems possible. But what happens when life isn’t just “unruly” but something more overwhelming and sinister? Can you reconcile the “dramatic simplicity” of a Donald Judd sculpture with children in cages? Should you even try?

It’s an irreducible tension that’s never quite resolved, because resolution would be beside the point. “The Longing for Less” generates more questions than it answers — which is only appropriate, considering that the “deeper minimalism” Chayka pursues is more about vulnerability than control.

This vulnerability is an inextricable element of the human condition, even if the wealthiest Americans have the resources to erect fortresses around themselves — not necessarily of objects but of infrastructure, building personal safety nets while their fellow citizens scramble to make do. “Up through the 20th century, material accumulation and stability made sense as forms of security,” Chayka writes. “Little of this feels true today.” Tangible goods now cost exceedingly less, and intangible “forms of security” cost exceedingly more.

After all, it’s unlikely that the tchotchkes or the new TV set will toss you into financial straits; it’s the college tuition that will put you into crushing debt, the very real possibility you’ll outlive your meager retirement account, or the medical treatment not covered by insurance. Reading Chayka’s book put me in mind of a longing for less stuff, and a longing for more support.

Youth Decay posted:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/561-Broadway-APT-11A-New-York-NY-10012/2067800181_zpid/

actionjackson posted:

gonna do a separate post so I can paste the text as it's behind a paywall. I started reading this and it's a pretty interesting book! Gets at what I'm feeling, which is that the basic principle of minimalism (decluttering (especially when you are able to donate unused items to someone in need), reducing consumption (both what you buy, and the conspicuous type), being more conscientious about what you buy) is good, but "minimalism" in the last 5-10 years, like everything else, has become heavily commodified. The real problem (imo) is capitalism, and a society that values people by what they own.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/21/books/review-longing-for-less-minimalism-kyle-chayka.html

Alris posted:

God I adore the outside building detail. Would this be classified as Art Nouveau? Is there a reason more of this stuff hasn't survived? Or don't you see it as much because it wasn't as fashionable back in the day compared to elsewhere in the world?

Youth Decay posted:

The guy who came up with the "have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or feel to be beautiful" quote was William Morris, prominent socialist and patriarch of the English Arts & Crafts movement, which in turn inspired the movement in America. A&C/Craftsman design is simultaneously simplified in form and decorative in finish. One of the pillars of the movement was that the working class need and deserve to have beauty in their lives.

Youth Decay posted:

Brawnfire posted:

Could I suggest key words "wrought iron" for the queue?

Youth Decay posted:

The Zillow search term of the day is "nod"


https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/610-Madison-Ave-Cape-Charles-VA-23310/114676942_zpid/ " Remodeled by a craftsman with a nod to the nautical"

Youth Decay posted:

Too many results, can you narrow it down further?

Flipperwaldt posted:

I kinda like the light fixture, like it's somewhat ingenious if you want a ceiling thing you can relocate where you want at will.

Youth Decay posted:

look I can't help the fact that wood is a readily-available, easy to work with, versatile, renewable material with mechanical and thermal properties ideally suited to residential construction and furniture

Youth Decay posted:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/419-E-Oakwood-Dr-Barrington-IL-60010/4858153_zpid/ "features organic materials with a nod to Scandinavian design""

complementary colors y'all

Sirotan posted:

I don't know how they manipulated these photos but I spent the longest time staring at them trying to figure out if all the furniture and décor was real or CG. If you told me the the photo of the basement with the pool table was a render I would completely believe you.

Magic Hate Ball posted:

I only collect trapezoidal paintings.

Youth Decay posted:

The Zillow search term of the day is "wrought iron railing"

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5316-Calumet-Ave-La-Jolla-CA-92037/52515699_zpid/

Youth Decay posted:

^^I'm glad you got rid of the old ugly wood stain but I dislike the new color (or lack thereof)

actionjackson posted:

My interior suggested that I not have more than three colors/tones due to the smaller size

Youth Decay posted:

The Zillow search term of the day is "Parisian". Apparently nobody can agree on what aesthetic that implies...

quote:

She finds most of her examples by sifting through listings around the country, narrowing her searches with keywords like “indoor pool,” “castle” or “unique.”

“Every listing that is truly crazy uses the word ‘unique,’” she said.

Youth Decay posted:

Your interior designer is wrong

Youth Decay posted:

actionjackson posted:

My interior suggested that I not have more than three colors/tones due to the smaller size and also have the cabinets be a brighter color since there is no natural light. The three are blue (with gray undertone) gray white. That plus brown is the palette for my whole place. Not sure what else you could even do there.

Phil Moscowitz posted:

I think it looks great.

actionjackson posted:

I'd be interested (yes really) to see what color you think would go on those cabinets that would work, keeping in mind again the wall color which is SW 6242 bracing blue

I don't like any of the following colors: red, yellow, orange, purple

Youth Decay posted:

A pale yellow would have been my choice, or a very pale pink, even a cream. Light pastels work best in bathrooms imo. I am not saying you have to go crazy with colors, I just categorically hate the trend of making everything gray or gray-toned.

actionjackson posted:

Youth Decay posted:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/50-Conklin-Hill-Rd-Marlboro-NY-12547/305097607_zpid/ mine mine mine, I'm 5'2 so I'd totally fit

Anne Whateley posted:

I don't mind white in general but I do think this

looks entertainingly fridgelike