April 27, 2006

Extremely fussy bedding.

Here's an article about how women are layering their beds with all sorts of fancy pillows and "bed scarves" and other paraphernalia:
"I could go weeks without ever seeing my living room," said Judy Roaman, an art collector and retailer in Manhattan and East Hampton whose bed is as crowded and graphically articulated as the wall of artwork leading into her bedroom. "The bed for me is about having everything around me. We have the takeout on trays, and lollipops and Kleenex and every magazine known to man — and the dog, who has his water bowl on the floor. I hate to tell you this, but the dead dog's ashes are right by the bed, too."

The bed, Ms. Roaman said, warming to her theme, has two lives, "a glamorous, gorgeous day life, where she's made up in the morning, all fluffed with her glammy pillows and her propping pillows and her duvet and her chic little blanket at the bottom — and she's definitely a she — and the nighttime life, where we all jump in."
The least convincing thing in this article is the repeated assertion that an exciting and messy life goes along with a complicated bed system. Do you really think a woman -- they're all women -- who maintains a bed like this is enthusiastic about sticky kids jumping in? Do you really think she lets them bring whole takeout meals on trays into her insanely fancy bed? Does anyone ever actually have sex here or does the whole setup scream sublimation?

30 comments:

SippicanCottage said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ann Althouse said...

There's a ton of comic potential here. I'm picturing someone curling up on the floor next to the bed, because it's just way too much trouble to undo and then put it back together in the morning. Or someone admitting this is just a "show bed" and pulling down a murphy bed somewhere else in the room.

SippicanCottage said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dad Bones said...

The ashes are real.

Ann Althouse said...

"A couch should have a maximum of two pillows, one on each end for use if you want to take a nap."

Describes my office sofa.

Unknown said...

Dale, I was brought up a solid Midwesterner and am anti-pillow, too, unless said pillow has an intrinsic, as opposed to decorative, function. I am waiting until the whole craze fizzles out to buy a new couch, as most all couches now sport these annoyances.

I also think the bathroom enhancement craze is equally weird. Who wants to spend all day in their $40,000 "spa"? It's a toilet!

MadisonMan said...

I love the idea of a HUGE bathtub and a separate steam shower. That's what I'd put in my dream house.

Great, two separate items to clean in the bathroom instead of one. No Thanks.

Ann, the Murphy Bed visual has me chuckling. Thanks.

Maxine Weiss said...

Yeah, well you've never seen otherwise sane, suburban women go on a rampage upon the opening of a Loehmann's white sale.

One of the gals in my book group was telling me that every time Loehmanns in New York has a sale, someone trampled, maimed, or stomped to death. And, it's not hyperbole. New Yorkers will absolutely kill for a bargain!

Some of those sale sheets are really ugly though, so I don't really understand it. Whatever.

Peace, Maxine

Palladian said...

"Or someone admitting this is just a "show bed" and pulling down a murphy bed somewhere else in the room."

When I was a child, we used to occasionally visit a relative who had an elaborate set of living room furniture- sofas, replete with pillows and ruffles, chairs, ottomans- but they were NOT for sitting on. She would drag out some folding chairs from the closet and everyone would sit around on the folding chairs during the visit, glancing occasionally at the upholstered furniture.

I also remember going to a guy's house for some amorous purposes and having to help him remove the beautiful down comforter and linen sheets from his bed and dress it with what he called the "utilitarian bedding". Really put me in the mood, making the bed like that.

For years I didn't have a bed at all, simply a mattress on the floor then a series of cruddy futons. When physical conditions finally made it necessary to get a real bed, I ended up getting a 5000 dollar bed on eBay for next to nothing- it had been in a rich person's guest room and used I think once. For the price of a new mattress I was now sleeping grandly. It was a precarious opportunity to start to turn into one of these crazy bed people (the beautiful sheets made by the bed company start at around 700 dollars and are dry-clean only) but I'm too much of a utilitarian for that. The bed is clothed in irregular sheets from Filene's Basement and is almost never made.

The bed's name is "Nathalie", by the way. I love having a bed with a given name. From the website, the weirdest sentence of the day: "The birth of the bed Nathalie back in 1978 was a memorable occasion." I wonder if it was a natural birth?

Jennifer said...

I love the step by step how-to-make-your-bed-look-ridiculous picture sequence.

I have a friend just like the featured ladies. I have no idea how she ended up married to a soldier. But, she sent the poor guy 300 thread count sheets, a down pillow and a duvet for his sleeping bag when he was in Afghanistan. That went over well.

SippicanCottage said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
SippicanCottage said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jeff with one 'f' said...

These women remind me of Swoosie Kurtz in "True Stories" as Miss Rollings, the Laziest Woman in the World-a woman who never gets out of bed. She has so much money she doesn't have to.

She lies around dressed like EVa Gabor in Green Ares, amid pillows, ruffles, and lap dogs, talking to herself and the tv.

SippicanCottage said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Palladian said...

I see what these beds (especially the picture sequence that Jennifer mentions) are going for- a late French Empire brothel decorated in the quasi-"Moroccan" orientalist taste. Lice optional.

And pets should not be allowed on beds. That's disgusting.

Does anyone else, when reading these New York Times lifestyle pieces about the prodigal lifestyles of the feckless Manhattan bourgeois, get a fleeting and fuzzy, though discernible, fantasy image of leading one of these people, through a haze of jeers and the strains of La Marseillaise, towards a familiar structure in the public square? You chase the terrible thought away as soon as it arises and yet it's so... compelling.

Maxine Weiss said...

Palladian: A used bed? That's disgusting. You don't know who's been on it, or who's done what. There's no way I know of to boil a mattress

I like the water beds of the 1970s for a bad back.

I would love a separate soaking tub. I would definitely get some use out of it. I love bathtubs and bath rituals. The Romans were the great bathers of all time.

Peace, Maxine

reader_iam said...

I have often read books in the bath--the old clawfoot in the 2nd bath and the small (no room for big) Jacuzzi one in the main one. (It has multiple shower heads to.) So does my husband. The kid's too young to allow him to take a book there, but he sure does love "shooting the rapids" with his toy boats.

Some day, I'd love a big one--but since that would involve moving, it's not too likely any time soon.

I love excellent sheets and real down comforters/pillow--but not a whole bunch of frou-frout or excessive decorative stuff. I'm way to lazy to have to "arrange" my bed style every day.

Less but Quality is the motto.

chuck b. said...

(My s.o. just put us through a bitch of a $40k, three-month bathroom remodel to separate the tub from the shower. He had better goddam well use that fucking tub, that's all I have to say. When he pisses me off, I'm going to say, "You need to go take a bath, right now!")

When I was younger, I used to love taking drugs and laying on the bed all day. That was back during the futon-on-the-floor years. Light some incense, put on some Cocteau Twins. This was mostly a rainy day thing.

My first apartment when I was 19 had a Murphy Bed. It felt v. glamorous to have a Murphy Bed and I put myself through the trouble of making the bed and putting it away every day. For about a month. Then it just sat down all the time.

And finally, as an insomniac, I was advised (pre-Ambien) not to use my bed for anything besides sleeping or sex. I never knew about the scientific basis for that prescription, but it made intuitive sense and I still live by it.

SippicanCottage said...

Reader- The clawfoot tub makes an excellent soaking tub because it is made from cast iron. It holds the heat, and its hard enamel coating feels hard and clean under yer bottome.

A big plastic tub sucks. And if there's anything less relaxing than a plastic tub with jets with a motor underneath that sounds like a partially muffled harley, I haven't seen it.

And women do read in the tub quite frequently. They tell me so all the time.

Catalogs.

Freeman Hunt said...

I don't even make my regular bed. If I had a fussy bed, it would be reduced to a regular bed with dozens of pillows scattered all over the floor. Not very glamorous.

As for tubs: My house was built around 1980, and one of the bathrooms is tiled, both floor and walls, with a big jet tub (iron? steel? It's made of some type of metal.) on one side. I use the tub all the time, but not the jets. They are loud and annoying. I like tubs that are deep enough that one can be entirely immersed the water.

Freeman Hunt said...

One of my friends was dismayed because her husband was working on his laptop while in the bathtub. He'd set the laptop on the toilet seat and type away.

My husband almost did that once! He was walking down the hall, and I said, "Where are you going with that extension cord and that towel?" "To use my laptop while I take a bath." "That's a bad idea."

Laptop and bathtub should not mix.

XWL said...

Waterproof erotica for your bathtime reading needs.

(this Rubber Ducky would be a perfect companion)

As far as frou-frou beds, anyone who invests that much time and lucre into their bedding most likely wouldn't dream of letting anyone exchange bodily fluids near such a bed.

As far as NYTimes penchant for these Manhattan freak show articles, do these freaks not know they are freaks?

SippicanCottage said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
reader_iam said...

Catalogs? Not in my case.

Maybe it's just the women YOU know, Sippican.

Ann Althouse said...

Wow, 45 comments on bedding! I'm going to assume you really missed me as I made my way to Boston.

SippicanCottage said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
reader_iam said...

Sip: I wouldn't read too much into it; I was doing two things at once so typed that response in one-handed, and it's easier to do caps one-handed than type in html code that way.

reader_iam said...

Wow, 45 comments on bedding! I'm going to assume you really missed me as I made my way to Boston.

I really wanted to riff on the old chestnut joke that popped into my head when I read this ... but thought better of it.

Good luck tomorrow.

Unknown said...

"For you bathers out there: it doesn't bother you that you're soaking in your own dirty water? *shudder*"

So true. I once knew a young French exchange student, handsome as all get out, who couldn't understand why women didn't respond to him. Answer: he stunk! But I couldn't figure out how to say that diplomatically. As we all know, this is due to their fabled bathing habits, not their showering habits.

Maxine Weiss said...

---You'all don't know the proper way to make a bed: Hospital corners

and I take it none of you have your sheets pressed with the crease down the middle before making up the bed.

It wasn't just the Romans, the Jewish Mikvah is a religious law. I think it's once a week. Israel now had co-ed Mikvahs.....can't imagine what sort of antics go on when the genders are mixed: kind of a religious Plato's Retreat?

Peace, Maxine