28 March 2010

The melancholy housefly: Italian furniture, Italian humor


Another recent find on Twitter is CLABfordesign. CLAB is the brainchild of Umberto Dattola, an accountant turned carpenter in Bescia, Lombardia. CLAB stands for creative lab and it's Umberto's description of the inspiration behind this piece of furniture that sold me on his entire enterprise.
On a hot and humid day, a fly flew into my car. At first I did not notice it, but after it started annoying me, I tried to kill it in every possible way. Since I could not kill the fly, and it was not safe to keep driving without concentrating, I decided to stop and let it out. I parked the car near the shore of a lake.

It was a wonderful day: the sun was warm and the previous night’s rain had cleared the sky. As I opened the door, I felt the light and the clean air come into my car. I got out to enjoy the place and the day.
  
The fly seemed to be feeling as happy as me. It flew quickly over the beach, dived towards the water, then suddenly veered to avoid it. It then started swerving among the tree branches and drawing circles in the air. I watched it in amazement.

After about twenty minutes, the fly began to slow down and, soon afterwards, it stopped to watch the lake, just as if it had been struck by melancholy. I wondered what could make a fly melancholic. Could it be some kind of sickness for places, friends, or family? Does a fly actually have a family? Finally, it flew towards my car again.

When I opened the car door, it got back in, so I decided to take it back to the place it came from. On the way home, the fly kept quiet and never disturbed me again.
I'm sold on this bench by virtue of that narrative alone. Check out the rest of CLABfordesign's offerings on their website and follow Umberto on Twitter!



2 comments:

  1. Hi there!

    Thank you for writing about Clab4design.We appreciate it very much.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My pleasure Umberto, thanks for checking in.

    ReplyDelete

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