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Dear Readers,

We’re back from our SUMMER HIATUS! And, we’ve been places !!!

This week we discuss, as you continue on or reflect on your own SUMMER HAITUS, the function of:

Let us being with:

It has been our great pleasure that a portion of our Summer Travels have been to MECKLENBURG-WEST POMERANIA. Why such a pleasure? VERY GLAD YOU ASKED:

it was fresh.

ppl in our circle were f*cking very surprised and confused, upon us posting (personal) Instagr*m reportage, perhaps because:

it was not MARSEILLE, ATHENS, PATMOS, (whatever happened to STROMBOLI?), et cetera, i.e. a set of regularly-trafficked Euro destinations popular amongst an international set of people that overlap heavily with the “FOR SCALE” readership (i.e. YOU!) (i.e. a SAM YOUKILIS MOOD BOARD)

No, this was BALTIC GERMANY. So unusual did it seem for us to be there, even on the ground, that upon hearing us speak English even crowds of tourists (German, Polish) would WHIP heads around. A THRILL! and AN EMBARASSMENT-ish!

MINI PHOTO BOOK OF MECKLENBURG-WEST POM AT THE END HERE… if u want us to GUIDE it, please let us know… lots of work if u don’t really give a sh*t about the place!

the point being… (and just believe us when we feel there is a deep connection here to HOW ONE TRAVELS and HOW ONE DÉCORS…):

One should, and must, feel like a Freak when visiting distance places… because an out of placeness = heightened senses = keen observationage, et cetera. You expect nothing, so you notice everything.

Because what we always seek is:

spaces which surprise or resist easy cataloguing (more on that see Gaston Bachelard)

Because we believe:

habit deadens perception (more on that see Viktor Shklovsky)

You have the opportunity to refine a WAY OF SEEING, and we can talk to Roland BARTHES about this as well… and he was talking about literal cameras, and the “PUNCTUM”… the small, unplanned detail that "PRICKS" an otherwise composed image.

Foreign travel should PRICK!!!

The world is too visited, perhaps.

But, only a sliver of it.

And of the many places that can effect INFLUENCE upon you, many are either and by definition (a) not visited very much at all, or (b) not visited by YOU because you’re only trained to see the beauty in an Athenian slender beeswax ecclesiastical candle or whatever.

We repeat other people.

It’s a problem in tourism, so it becomes a problem in “REFERENCES” and trickles down into the mood-boardery Pinter*stery people’s current life choices and ergo also décor. Don’t think these things aren’t connected.

(ALSO YOU BRING BACK SOUVENIRS.)

One should not just be “SEEING THINGS FOR ONESELF” (i.e. because they have been seen first on the Instagr*m of others, and now u want it too), but in fact we should be putting ourselves in the position to be surprised a thing existed. This prompts: QUESTIONS, BRAIN ACTIVITY, EXPANSION.

Again, so rarely do we feel like freaks. To develop INDEPENDENT AND PERSONAL TASTE, we must feel more comfortable feeling like little freaks.

And, we LOVE a slim-AF little greek church candle as much as the next person (we LOVE!)… but, when then it’s like “Who doesn’t!?” there becomes a little problem?

Now, may we quickly discern (awkardly?) between INSPIRATIONAL TRIPS and INFLUENTIAL TRIPS? … in our minds. This is not Dictionary sh*t.

To be “inspired” is to suggest that the aim of the seeing of a thing is that it have some sort of productive value. Some almost 1:1 of like, “I GAVE MY TIME TO BEING THERE AND THEN IT SHOULD BE EASIER TO PRODUCE X, Y, or Z”.

Take some of those trips, of course. We’ll be in Sifnos in a week. And, like frankly, its why we go to House Museums and such… we want some really assured and direct experience of Great Décor in person.

But, INFLUENCE, as we mean it, is sort of… deeper, way more passive, way longer arc, not obviously 1:1, not necessarily “POSITIVE” always, more sort of warped-psychological, less transactional. Influence does inspire, but it sticks around more and after, it’s not ‘spent’ like inspiration is.

When HAROLD BLOOM wrote about the wild anxiety of writing poetry (much like décor: an “EXPRESSIVE” pursuit) he was like INFLUENCE is sort of like, a "HAUNTING”. u don’t choose, u can’t shake. it’s not f*cking CURATED (the most hellish word in décor ← an essay). (Or, that’s what we’re taking away from it.)

In seeking an INFLUENTIAL trip, may we hightlight:

This has a lot to do with how hard u labor in your “normal” life. So beat down are we that we feel there is no possible scope in our LEISURE TIME to err. It’s too f*cking precious.

No site, no meal, no “downtime” moment must be “wasted”… immense pressure to see Rothko in Florence, to book the table at Cantina on Sifnos, to gaze out upon the mountainous slopes surrounding the Calanques (in the right little slip de bain).

It is a pressure we feel across our lives: the pressure to ‘do’ what feels safely trodden and “universally” agreed-upon as “Chic” is the same pressure to ‘wear’ and to ‘décor’ in the same way.

It’s why we feel like everyone on f*cking Earth has an Akari lamp, but so few have, like, a Maija or an ARA’ or like, infinity other great lamps. (Just some FOR SCALE personal faves there.)

We walk the paths, you know? They are status symbols.

I N

A N Y

C A S E

EVEN MORE SHOCKING God forbid u do something that other people don’t like, but you actually totally like.

Holidays can be an extremely important training ground for this, muscles worked that can be then used to stand by decisions in other realms of personal taste.

Back to Athens, et cetera. (Sorry, it’s just having such a moment so we can pick on it.) And, as all architects study, this super-admiration of ANCIENT GREEK ARCHITECT*RE i.e. “CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE” which is like a real j*rk-off about the proportions and symmetry and such. BUT ALSO

restrained
monochrome (if “PATINATED” ugh)

very sort of “rational” but none of the culty jazzy flamboyance that a temple of the time really was (and also is…). So like, people have this fantasy about “THE PARTHENON” for example, or similar, and they produce stuff like thisssss…

(t) parthenon in athens (the “INSPIRATION”)

(m) the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana in rome that mussolini commissioned and now it’s fendi

(b) acne studios by Arquitectura-G in acne hometown of stockholm

The Parthenon was, we hate to say, sort of like a bit tacky-ballroom frankly. like very over the top, very huge-bright-finial, very almost-disproportionately-huge gold statue of athena in the middle. you know, it was not chill.

and not to say that someone can’t be INSPIRED OR INFLUENCED by ruins, but like, let’s not pretend that it was some sort of pure-white ultra-minimalist scenario and the ancient greeks weren’t just wildly over the top…

(t) the parthenon in render of what it would have been like

(b) the old Limonaia of Palazzo Schio Angaran Vaccari

and so we have contrasted it with the old Limonaia at Palazzo Vaccari, which was redone in the 1980s and seems a waaaaaaaay more accurate new-day décor reinterpretation of greek temple, you know? Flavio Albanese did it for himself. Just saying. But you wouldn’t at first see this room and like “oh cute, reminds me of the parthenon!”

Or this, VENTURI BROWN addition to the NATIONAL GALL*RY in London:

Venturi Scott Brown's Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery ...

columns, symmetry, blah blah. but also COLOR!

And, tangentially, reminds us of when DENISE SCOTT BROWN was in VENICE (ITALY, NOT CALIFORNIA) and, with great thought, tells u that it’s just like Las Vegas… WE ENCOURAGE YOU TO WATCH THIS BRIEF 13-second CLIP.

Over the top ornamentation, basically, that carries a lot of meaning, in contrast to modernist ideals which is like “FUNCTIONALITY” and “FORM” alone (they think).

We just sort of want people to acknowledge that temples (and religious décor) were and remain, like, gaudy and colorful, in really a lot of circumstances. so the whole “temple-like” is a lot more fun. you mean “ruins-like”?

tangent —
we have some thoughts on vegas, which is that a LOT of the people trotting around paris and venice should maybe just go there, and have the superficial slice of those places they’re after and then call it a day

Johann Wolfgang von GOETHE (one of our faves!) talks about ELECTIVE AFFINITIES… like, that you might show a preference for something when brought into proximity to it, that’s is sort of not chosen or willed or whatever. IN ANY CASE…

FOR US, it’s like, to seek “INSPIRATION” these days really feels like just confirming that things u’ve seen on the internet do, in fact, exists and are chic. they are really about a sort of wandering serendipity. a sort of unexpected, subconscious thing.

Inspiration is great… like, yeah, see that Palladian villa in person, because it’s very different than just pictures et cetera. Or study that Scarpa handrail and be inspired to make a different-sort-of-handrail.

But we suppose the point we are trying to make a little is that there is not enough travel that just puts you in front of not- “sure-things”?

no productive goal, just entering yourself into a receptive DRIFT

this is the flâneur. a lost art in summer travels

We’re gonna put up locations and sh*t on REC LEAGUE ?????? SHOULD WE? DO YOU GIVE A SH*T?