...And the award for Most Enchanting New Products goes to...

We have, alas, returned from our little adventure in the exotic East.  Yes, the dogs were happy to see us (ditto Mrs. Galapatti-Da Silva, who in eight days had clearly had just about enough of them, bless her), but there's no denying that our winter holiday (and so the longer winter holidays) are over, and now the long slog toward summer is upon us.

We had an especially amusing last few hours in Thailand, however, having left the tranquil beach resort where we'd spent the last few days.  We met up with friends and filled out our experience as tourists in Bangkok by hitting the fabulous MBK center, a vast and quite wonderful emporium that is less mall a kind of concentration of Bangkok-ness, a six or so story conglomeration of discount electronics, market stalls, kiosks selling everything from Buddha heads to naughty devices, and pretty much anything you can imagine that you'd ever care to buy.  We went by tuktuk, as one does - I especially liked this gentleman's festive pink and white seats, which echoed the bright pink leopard print ceiling of the interior.


The MBK Center is tawdry and glossy and rather wonderful, as long as you don't think too closely about the implications of all those thousands of people and what looked to be about four emergency exits.


Seasonal decorations are everywhere in Bangkok, and MBK is no exception.  Oddly, in Thailand, Santa appears to have some sort of association with the space program, as he regularly appears, as here, in conjunction with what looks like SkyLab; satellite dishes and rockets also turn up here and there.


This gives no indication of either the density of the crowds or the intensity of the volume that envelopes you.  These corridors go on for what feels like three or four blocks.


Among other things, the place is a veritable festival of trayf.  I considered bringing a few of the manifold varieties of shredded, dried, and otherwise highly processed pork back with me to the Sandlands, just to see if they'd make it through, but decided that with a flight arriving at an ungodly hour of the morning, the last thing I needed would be a lengthy pig-related delay at Customs.


Dried fruit and other goodies proved to be much safer choices.


We found ourselves tempted by bling in many forms - these fine timepieces, for example, were being hawked by one stall proprietor as "A Number One Fakes!"  Some were so heavily encrusted that it was hard to tell fake what, exactly...

I had thought it would be hard to find trashier shoes than are found on sale at malls across the Sandlands.  I soon discovered that was I was quite, quite wrong.


Having been an aficionado of Engrish back in my Japanese days, I was happy to see that it's alive and well and living in Bangkok.  This sentiment could, I suppose, console us for forgoing the rhinestone watches.


Apparently, Amanda Lepore has a fast-food chain in Bangkok.  Who knew?


At a nearby eatery, a disconcertingly eager and seemingly cannibalistic pig advertises the delicacies to be found within.  Given Mr. Muscato's dietary proclivities, this joint was clearly off limits.


So we ended up at an excellent Japanese place nearby, drawn by its first-rate assortment of plastic examples of its offerings, and a good time was had by all.

We may not have gone for the watches, but we did very well on all kinds of tat, with which we plan to surprise and appall friends and acquaintances on a regular basis for the next few weeks - refrigerator magnets, novelty lighters, stuffed elephants in rainbow colors, and much, much more.

Within a few hours we were jetting back home, arriving to find the Sandlands surprisingly chilly (at least in comparison to Bangkok) and just about as dull as ever.  Tomorrow, it's back to the grindstone, but for now I'm holding on as firmly as possible to memories of mad malls, gilded temples, golden bar boys, and very nearly unwise amounts of excellent, ice-cold Singha beer...

Over in his cosy corner of the cyberverse, dear Cookie has been regaling us with tales of real estate and family furniture - perennial hot topics, both, whenever two members of my extended family gather.  The Farm and Why We Lost It looms large, as does We Never Saw That Chiffonier Again After Your Aunt Ginnie Got Her Hands On it, and variations on both can take us well into the night, outlasting both patient spouses and the cocktail supply (the former by a lot, the latter only very slightly).

Quite independently of all that, I've been thinking of furniture now and again, mostly in the form of wondering whatever happened to mine.  Oh, I know, well enough, but after all these years overseas, it all feels rather abstract.  Back in the beginning, when the Great Emperor Clinton ruled the West, I thought I'd take a flyer and see what the expatriate life might be like.  I gave up my (rue the day - rent-stabilized!) Manhattan apartment and, on the instruction of my new employer, put all my things into storage.  "Don't get rid of too much," they told me, "Many people only spend a year or two out and then come back to the Home Office."  Well, we know how that turned out.

So there it all sits, still, my life more or less frozen in amber, some two tons of it (what?  A lot of it's books), as it existed back when Cher was having her seventeenth or twenty-third comeback with "Believe."  Among the great mass of regrettabilia that I can still remember are something on the order of 160 snowglobes (a passing fancy that snowballed, as it were, into a collection only because people kept giving them to me), an acid-washed tour jacket for a production I worked on (which I might still be able to wear, were abbreviated boleros ever to have an unexpected renaissance), and, I think, a fair amount of the product of Catalina Studios, on VHS.  Surpassing all that, however, in terms of sheer bulk, is a remarkable amount of Victoriana, much of it passed on from relatives - three china cupboards of various capacity, a bowfront secretary, several clocks, a great many spindly end tables, and so many impractical things on which to sit that, for a while, some of them hung from the walls and some acquaintances referred to my place as "The Chair Museum."

"Your apartment," a friend once told me, "is very nice.  For an exiled archduchess.  For you... well, I'm not surprised you're single."

Were all of that ever to descend back on me - now us (and so there, Gene Boarderman!*) - I'm not quite sure what we'd do.  Some of the things have sentimental value; some fewer are inherently attractive; and as for the chairs, my grandfather's vast tufted armchair aside, I'm not sure there's a single one on which either Mr. Muscato or I could sit without endangering it and us.  Market wise, the bottom has fallen out of nineteenth century furniture, and none of my various nieces and nephews show any sign of wanting to become the next generation of caretakers.

All of which brings us to the image above, the work of one Darci Goodman, who put this rather beguilingly rethought settee into a "Colorful Ranch House" she designed.  You see, sitting there in some East Coast warehouse, among the tawdry videos and doubtless now unusable rolled-up carpets, is a love seat very like this one, albeit still clad in the dowdy hunter-green shot silk I put on it when Grandmother's lilac velvet finally gave up the ghost in 1989.

Perhaps, when my Long Lost Possessions and I are finally reunited, this is the way I'll go: throw caution to the wind and run a little wild.  Having had the domicile of a Pym heroine in my twenties and thirties, perhaps I'll become the male equivalent of those women who constantly recite that "When I am Old I Shall Wear Purple" poem and decorate wildly.  I'd like that settee in my foyer, wild orange stripes and all; I can only imagine it will go better with what I've picked up on the road - African totems and huge Ottoman brass trays, Egyptian knick-knacks and such - than the shot silk.  Rather nice to think: while I may have no choice but to grow older, at least my taste can grow a little younger as the years roll by, no?

* Name changed to protect the catty and inaccurate.

Sometimes the best inventions just don't, for mysterious reasons, find a foothold.  62 years ago today, the good people at Life magazine documented one such forgotten landmark: the creation of something that could have revolutionized grooming as we know it - whiskey toothpaste. 

If the cartons are to believed (and what could be more reliable than background props in what is likely, after all, a joke setup?), the product came in scotch, rye, or bourbon.  I'm mostly a vodka man, myself, if forced to abandon my beloved Champers, but I suppose I could have settled.

You know, if fairs and carnivals still had loot like these Kewpies as prizes - instead of knockoff SpongeBobs and aging Peeing Calvin T-shirts - they might be worth a visit for more than the funnelcake and carnie-watching.

I'm very taken with their look, halfway between Mae Questel and Josephine Baker, and with the effect that they have en masse, as if in preparation for a Ziegeld Follies tribute to Lolita.

Divine Deco androgyny from the Master, Peter Ashworth.

The subject, we're told, is Walter, "an Elizabethan Gentleman." He handles with aplomb the plaguing question of just what is the right inseam to be worn with platform stilettos...

Sometimes I think all it would take to make me perfectly happy would be the gift of a real Fabergé egg.

Just in case you were wondering. And had a little spare cash burning a hole in your pocket...

Perfect of a New Year's Eve outing (or hostess gift, darling!), from the good people at Veuve Cliquot (my favorite widow, actually) comes this rather awesome picnic accessory. Designed by the divine Karim Rashid, it's a handy carrier for a single bottle of Champagne that is a combination cooler/atmospheric lamp.

Just the thing when you want to share a glass, just you and your lion.