I was idly binge-watching home improvement shows when I thought I’d finally found nerdvana. It was a fairly typical offering: homeowner in crisis contacts a team of designers who make over all or part of a "space" and then rain contemporary flair, efficiency and wit down on said homeowner. Everyone cries and hugs at the end.
In this episode the design team was rescuing a family from a bad basement and part of the solution checked all my boxes in my all-time dream home/secret super villain lair: an office accessed by a hidden bookcase door. I was wondering just how I could get me one of those (with bonus points for a ladder that runs on rails around the shelves) when the stylist finished it off, and me in the process, by (and this is where I need you to sit down because I don’t want anyone to get hurt) placing all the books on the shelves with their spines to the wall, for what he called "a sleek look."
Oh, I’ll give you a sleek look alright, Decorator Man. And don’t expect a hug from me on your way out the door.
It’s been suggested that decorating shows are styling like this to avoid showing titles on screen, but this is an actual decorating thing. Seems that if you’re going for a "neutral, pared-down vibe" all those crazy book colors will cause your home to descend into anarchy.
I’ve heard of form over function but I’ve never heard of function taking form out behind a library and shredding it like a pile of Barnes & Noble receipts. In all my research on this trend nowhere does anyone address how, when you’ve got the house to yourself, time to kill and a fresh pan of popcorn, you’re going to find a good story to curl up with if you can’t see the title.
This is ridiculous, of course. Everyone knows that you organize your books by genre, and then alphabetically by author, and then if you really want to have a good time you put together a database of all your books so you know which room and bookcase they’re in and then you can keep track of who borrowed them and did I just say that out loud?
Books have been taking it in the bindings for centuries: when Gutenberg blew up the book industry with the printing press, everyone predicted the ruin of society, now that all those fancy ideas were flooding the marketplace. Since then fascists have burned them and foolish people are still trying to ban them.
You know what they say: First they came for the book jackets; then they came for the content.
But now we’re taking this to a new, insane level. I’ve known for years that you can buy books purely for decorating purposes, priced literally by the foot. After we permitted the librarian’s nose under the card catalog "tent" as it were, one organizing show is now proposing we organize books by color, and then another organizer cautioned that I should only have about 30 books. You mean, on my nightstand?
You realize, of course, that now we are literally judging a book, not just by, but FOR its cover? It’s like finding the love of your life and then tossing them aside because they don’t coordinate with your sweater.
No, this is the sign of the impending fall of civilization, which was described in a book but you’ll never be able to find it because you turned the spine around to the wall to match your pared down, neutral vibe.
Elizabeth Evans is a local mother, wife, daughter, sister, former stay-at-home mom, former work-outside-the-home mom, former work-at-home mom and a human resources consultant.
