Your What the FUCK for 1-3-08

I used to work at a Las Vegas company called Unicahome. It bills itself as a “lifestyle store”, which is basically a store that sells really expensive furniture. Now, many of the products that Unicahome sells are actually pretty nice.

Then again, they’ve also got a lot of stuff like the “Tea Ship Lamp“.

I’m almost certain I saw something like this in a Terry Gilliam movie. 

It looks like the designer, Dietlind Preiss, is heavily influenced by the Explosion-in-a-Low-End-Antique-Store school of design. Either that, or she’s heavily influenced by psylocibin. Either one works, really. 

By the way, the Unicahome site carries a quote from Preiss. Designers love talking about their designs. They’re kind of like celebrities talking about their movies…  and the results are, predictably, the same:

“Technical perfection is important to me. But not the kind you find encapsulated in nondescript machine housing – no, I mean the technical perfection that produces a riot of scintillating visual excitement.”

Well, throwing up ten pounds of jelly beans produces a “riot of scintillating visual excitement”, too. Produces much the same physiological response, as well. But, unlike Priess, I wouldn’t have the artistic insight to then hang the result up on the ceiling.

Or sell the thing for $2,045.

But then, that’s what makes Priess a designer – and me a guy who makes fun of designers.

You get a lot of designs like this at Unicahome. I’m sure it seemed like a good idea… at the time. But things get a little dicey if you try to sell it to anything besides a storefront art museum. I mean, let’s face it: no matter how daring a decorator you are, the only way you’re going to hang something like this in your home is under the influence of a) heavily-armed men or b) powerful narcotics. (Both of which are in ample supply in Nevada, by the way, which is why Unicahome is still in business…)