It's 2011 and I'm back

I'm back after a hiatus that took a little longer to get out of my system than I thought it would. After posting daily for two-and-a-half years I thought it was high time for a bit of a break. I needed to prove to myself that the world wouldn't end if I took off for a little bit. Obviously, the world didn't end.

I'm going to go back to blogging daily so long as the spirit's moving me to do so and when I don't feel like writing a blog post I'm not going to. That's one of my New Year's goals for this year. It's also a survival scheme. I have a travel schedule coming up that makes my head spin if I think about it too much (four major trade shows! Eight cities! Four countries! Three-and-a-half weeks!). Blogging every day while all that's going on is not something I'm willing to take on. I'll be checking in form my exotic ports of call on a very regular basis of course, and there will be times when this blog goes blank for a day or two while I'm traveling. Bear with me.

Being away reminded me that I love this blog more than just about anything and it also reminded me of the difference between a commitment and an obligation. Thanks for sticking around gang.

Happy new year video

I'm not quite back yet but I like this video.




Local, aspiring filmmaker Kyle Kien makes videos of life in these parts and I like them. Here's his time lapse review of holiday stuff from Thanksgiving 'til last night's fireworks. You may need to be from here to appreciate his work but I think he captures enough humanity to make the appeal pretty universal. In any case, his videos remind me why I like living here. It's been getting harder and harder to remember those reasons lately so thanks Kyle.

Happy New Year!

I like both of these old covers.

I'm still on my blogging break and I'll be back in full swing next week. Have a terrific New Year's Eve and thanks for a spectacular 2010 at K&RD!

The ghosts of Christmas variety shows past

It's Christmas Eve. I don't know if it's your thing or not but it's sure mine. This is my favorite day of the year, my favorite night of the year to be specific. So before I take off for a couple of days to ring in my Christmas Eve, I want to thank all of you guys for another terrific year. This little blog thing has brought so many great people into my life and they've brought so much good stuff with them it gets overwhelming to think about.

So as we get ready to show 2010 the door and usher in 2011 I want to wish all of you the very best for the coming year.

2010's been a feast on one hand and a famine on the other. Whattya say we all work on having there be more feast and less famine in 2011?

And although it's great to look forward to what's next, Christmas is always a good excuse to look back too. I'm not one to entertain a whole lot of nostalgia, it never seems like a productive use of time. However there are some exceptions. Most people get all excited every year when the Grinch comes on TV. Or how about A Charlie Brown Christmas? For other people it's all about A Year Without a Santa Claus. The Christmas stuff I remember so fondly never makes it back onto TVland or ABC Family.

I'm talking about Christmas variety shows of course. They're the ignored art form from the days of network only TV. Well thank heavens for YouTube. Even now, despite all of my classical longings, it's not Christmas in my house until I break out the Andy Williams.

Andy Williams defined Christmas for me as a kid. Everybody was nice, sung well and wore sweaters. What more could you ask for really?






And of course, Andy Williams discovered the Osmond Brothers. The addition of the Osmonds to Andy's Christmas specials ratcheted up the treacle levels to near-cavity-inducing levels but it was a lot of fun anyhow.






The Osmonds took their early fame and turned it into an entertainment moguldom that should make the Brittanys and the GaGas squirm with discomfort. These people were an entertainment machine. One of the neighbor kids and I used to ask each other all the time "Who would you want to be adopted by, the Osmonds or the Jacksons (of Jackson Five fame)?" I would always pick the Jacksons. Even then, at nine or ten, all that forced happiness made me uncomfortable. It was sure fun to watch though.





Once everybody figured out that there was money to be made in TV variety shows, Christmas specials in particular, the floodgates opened and everybody got in on the act. Watch, if you dare, this clip from Sonny and Cher. Count the B-list celebrities.





Variety shows always made for strange bedfellows. Whether it was Charo and Señor Wences chewing scenery with Donnie and Marie or Ruth Buzzi hamming it up on the Flip Wilson show, variety shows brought together the weird and the wonderful and everybody ended up singing. In the next clip, the has-been and desperate meet the new and eager in an orgy of self-promotion at any cost.





Though variety shows as a rung on the career ladder peaked in the mid-70s, the genre lived on as a vehicle for selling records as evidenced by this gem from the early '80s. I'm dedicating this to my great friends Brandon and Kevin who abandoned me and the glories of Christmas in St. Pete for the sordid bacchanal of New Orleans a couple of years ago. The memory of their drunken renditions of Hard Candy Christmas, sung a capella on my sofa every year, sustain me through hard times.





Finally, I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when John Denver's agent sobered him up and explained that they were going to save his career by having him sing with puppets on TV.





It worked.

So have a great Christmas one and all. If Christmas isn't your thing, enjoy having the movie theaters all to yourselves this weekend. I'm going to take a couple of days off and I'll be back next week.

Reader question: Is it island time for me?

Help! I live in a small house and I'm thinking about replacing my kitchen table and chairs with an island. Would this be a good or a bad idea? It's the only eating area we have in our small house.

spaces design

I can't tell really because I can't see the space or the size of the table in question. So I'm going to answer this from the gut. My gut answer is no; don't do it.

Let me preface all of this by saying that all rooms and all clients are different. Some people get a lot of use out of an island and some rooms can accommodate one with little difficulty. However, you told me two things that are offering a clue. First, your house is small. Islands tend to work better in large rooms. Second, you tell me that your current table is your only eating area. So putting in an island means that you're sentencing yourself to a lifetime of eating at a counter.

I talk about this topic a lot. I suppose I'm some kind of a kitchen table advocate. I write for Houzz.com and I devoted a whole IdeaBook to kitchen tables a couple of weeks ago. Here it is:

10 Reasons to Bring Back The Humble Kitchen Table

Houzz- Kitchen Design, Bathroom Design and More»

Find Home Improvement Professionals- For Example:

San Francisco Architect · San Francisco Interior Designer · Seattle Contractor · Chicago Landscaping ·

Forgoing eating at a table and instead eating at a counter does a couple of things that I think are important. More important than any storage gains you might get out of an island.

The most important thing that happens at a kitchen table is that you eat across from someone, not side by side like you would at an island bar. When you eat across from someone, your dinner mate is the focus of your attention. Human beings don't just communicate verbally. We communicate non-verbally just as much and in order to pick up the visual cues someone else is sending, you need to be able to see his or her face. This visual communication happens a lot more easily at a table then it does at a counter.

In addition to the communication thing, when you're eating at a table you're having dinner in a place set aside specifically for eating. But more than that, it's a space set aside for eating with other people. It's a lot easier to make meals matter when they happen in a space set aside for them specifically. Island counters are by definition multi-purpose surfaces. Eating at one isn't an event, no matter how mundane.

But at a table, it's easier to turn off the electronics and focus on what's important --your loved ones.

When the only eating area you have is a counter, it becomes to easy to have shared meals fall by the wayside. It makes the "we're too busy nowadays" lie easy to internalize and make true in your own life. The fact of the matter isn't at all that "we're too busy." Instead, what "we" have is an inability to prioritize. If you make shared meals a priority you will have them. An important statement that you're making them a priority is to keep your kitchen table.

So, you asked and I answered. While it's true that installing an island doesn't doom you to divorce and delinquent kids, keeping your table will make shared meals a more common occurrence in your home.