I think I could turn and live in the Vitra display window

On the ground floor of my office building there’s an upscale furniture store that sells cool, elegant pieces like the Eames chair and its splendid ottoman. I pass by daily and never see a customer inside. I assume they need sell only a single sofa every month to pay the overhead.

I said to a colleague today my wish is to get a position inhabiting that display window tucked beside the entrance. I could sit beneath the lights there, showing the deep-pocketed how stylish solitude is. 

As you see in the picture, the current display is all black & white - a little bit of pine ringing the stools and trolley, a Tapiovaara chair poised attentively in the corner like a fragile animal.

I think I could abandon all I possess and sit there with a book, tapping the ash of a cigarette onto a black saucer. 

I wouldn’t brood or fret about the future. I wouldn’t obsess about sins I committed half my life ago. I could turn my back on Israel and Palestine. I’d be glad to drink a glass of sparkling water with lime to jolt the color scheme, or import some black-eyed susans from what until then I’d called my backyard. 

The Burden

When I was in graduate school I had a boyfriend from Berlin. We lived together in an apartment near the university.

Götz had habits that took getting used to. He made a sharp intake of breath, for instance, when answering a question in the affirmative. I took this for a personal tic, until years later when I met other northern Germans.

Whenever there was some major handiwork to do, like renovating or painting a room, Götz wore zip-up coveralls rather like a mechanic. I found the outfit overdone. He also considered it normal to put on his swimsuit on the beach, discreetly or under a towel, while I found this embarrassing if not illegal. Disrobing was something to be done privately before arriving, or in a toilet stall.

Most awkward of all, home at night Götz walked about half-dressed or naked with the shades up and the lights on. Though I thought he ought to practice more caution and modesty, Götz didn’t feel that burden. He said it was up to the people outside not to look in.
**

Photo by Gary Heller

Mr. Paradise

We live in a rowhouse lined up behind an identical row of identical houses. Our gardens are also the same size - small. Our homes are all the same. In back, there are five large windows.

The neighbor directly before us, whose garden we look out on, we’ve nicknamed Mr. Paradise because he has planted every inch of his garden with low-growing, pale purple flowers. It is pretty if a bit monotonous, and would be impossible to navigate without damage if it weren’t for a few stepping stones.

Almost every weekend Mr. Paradise hosts another ladyfriend for Sunday brunch. Over time, the rotation has been whittled down to three.

The tall blonde one.
The thin one with the bob haircut.
The bespectacled brunette with the small son.

It is difficult to discern what his relationship is with these women, who vaguely resemble each other – lanky and slow-moving, laconic. They could be girlfriends, or sisters, or friends from work. I’ve never seen him touch one.

It’s really none of my business.

It’s none of anybody’s business, and I don’t go out of my way to watch, but Mr. Paradise has a low fence, and even if he had a high fence I’d still see his patio from my upstairs window where I am standing behind the curtain firmly on the side of the brunette.

(repost for the voyeurs)
*painting by Sarah Boyle

Inside-Out Voyeurs

In the house across the street the husband and wife are both smokers. Like sentries, they take turns at the big kitchen window, smoking whether it’s cold or hot, morning or night. They have two small daughters. The elderly grandmother, who used to live there alone, has been moved upstairs. Someone is always home.

It is a house of much abruptness. Curt words, and sudden gestures that just as quickly end.

One can’t help but want to get a longer glimpse into the kitchen, but the man and woman have turned tables on the curious; their constant watch prevents it. When I walk past on my daily sojourn with the dog, I must discipline myself not to turn to the window, where one of them blows a thin rope of smoke into the street, daring anyone to look.

Atlantic City

This week I'll be doing a post each day that touches on watching or voyeurism. Let's start with a movie ...

Atlantic City

One of the most memorable opening scenes from the early 80s was in Louis Malle’s movie Atlantic City. It zooms in on a kitchen window, apparently from an opposite building. A woman stands at the sink slicing lemons. Because it’s dark out, the sink light, though dim, illuminates and isolates her, rinsing her face and hair. She takes off her blouse and rolls her camisole down to expose her breasts and shoulders.

This could easily turn into a cliché male fantasy – the standard payoff for a voyeur violating a woman’s supposed solitude. But instead of deteriorating into something cheap, she starts to rub her arms and upper body with the lemons. She is practiced at it, as if it were a daily ritual. She is rough with herself, as if she didn’t inhabit her own skin. Yet she takes the time to perform this strange cleansing, she takes this care, however perfunctory.

In addition to the unbidden intimacy, for some time the audience must suffer the mystery of why the woman washes herself with lemons. We – the audience – later learn she works at a clam bar, and the trenchant smell of fish compels her. We – the audience – are an old man observing her from an apartment window across the street.