Herbarium, botanical art print black Comforter, Microfiber Polyester Queen; “Stoned at the Nail Salon;” Up-zoning.
Here’s Week 2 of my own private version of the new New Yorker’s “Take Three” column where one of their writers summarizes three current personal obsessions. These are my current obsessions:
1) Despite the global horror show and the national shit show, it’s been a slow week for me personally; one that never seems to have actually started. I blame that on Obsession No. 1: My new 88” by 88” (queen) Black Herbarium vintage inspired botanical art print Comforter / Microfiber Polyester.
I bought it from Society 6, the online market where independent artists sell their goods on demand. It’s where I also got my Creature of the Black Lagoon shower curtain a few years ago. For months, I’ve had my hopes set on a new duvet (or comforter? or quilt? or bed cover?); I couldn’t quite get the search term right. I’ve always just called the cozy, thick top blanket a “pizza sheet.”
Specifically, I wanted a masculine pattern—dark colors? stripes?—but simultaneously, I didn’t want it to be glum nor American Psycho macho. I wasn’t finding anything on sites like Nordstrom, so I ventured over to Society 6, and they had the exact type of pattern I was looking for. Now I know what I meant by a “masculine” pattern: I meant a night forest, like a Nathaniel Hawthorne short story. This one was desinged by an artist named Iz Ptica.
Bonus: They were serious about the “microfiber polyester” technology; this comforter seems to combine low-grade electric blanket warmth with feathery ease. And even though my previous comforter was queen size, this one means it, providing endless cover for your feet. It arrived last Saturday, and I’ve been staying in ever since, forgoing my usual evenings out, and just chilling in bed instead. And going to sleep early.
2) It took practicing Lorde’s melancholy ballad “Stoned at the Nail Salon” on the piano to knock Smokey Robinson & the Miracles’ “You’ve Really Got a Hold On Me” from the No. 1 spot on my personal music chart.
For weeks, I couldn’t get enough of practicing the 1962 Smokey Robinson hit; it was on last week’s obsession list. I’d been rehearsing it day after day throughout September and October until I decided this week it was time to hone another tune, lest I drive my neighbors crazy. I picked this aching Lorde ode to wistful self indulgence, which I first learned to play this Spring. It’s the second single off her remote (in a late-period Prince kind of way) 2021 LP, Solar Power. I’m stoned on this song.
My favorite lyric the first time around was her teenagers-in love-during-dystopia line: “We'd go dancin' all over the landmines under our town.” But this time, I’m swept up in this: “Spend all the evenings you can with the people who raised you/‘cause all the times they will change, it'll all come around.” These lines cap the song’s shift from the key of D to its relative minor, b—a move that cycles things down, almost impossibly, to an even more dolorous vibe—before rescuing it with a strain of hope.
3) My up-zone zealotry is at peak YIMBY this week. It’s because I’m currently reading M. Nolan Gray’s zoning abolition treatise Arbitrary Lines—from which I learned that up-zone doesn’t just mean more height, but means liberalizing the whole building envelope for more apartments.
My up-zone fervor was matched by two encouraging recent New York Times articles— ”California Slams San Francisco for ‘Egregious’ Barriers to Housing Construction” and “New York City Has a Bold Plan to Fix Its Housing Crisis. Will It Work?” — that seem to indicate up-zones are the zeitgeist coast to coast.
I will say: I wish the NYC plan didn't restrict the big buildup to areas that are already dense. But this note was a pleasant surprise: "One component would also make it easier to build smaller apartments, like for single-room occupancy, that could be relatively cheap to rent."