As my fellow Americans stare down the proposed bailout with a frowning, Say whaaaaat? and as I continue to hear the word socialism misused (hint: with socialism, people actually get something for their taxes), me I'm perusing the Patent Office files. Foolishly, I didn't check the date on the pix above, but if I had to guess, I'd say the '70's, a true renaissance of godawful ideas. I particularly remember the heated love affair with all things plastic and chemically man-made. That little bubble, f'r'instance, the one cupping the dog's snout, is a fine example. Those little bubbles cropped up all over the place, in remodeled homes and brand new ones too. They cost pennies to make, were easy to install as a cheapie skylight and, of course, became wildly, if dismayingly popular.
The downside of the bubbles was revealed quickly, usually within three weeks of their installation or the first rain, whichever came first. If you somehow avoided downpours and the inevitable leakage, your new bubble speedily assumed the cloudy regard of an old cataract, no matter what.
Sometimes, when my husband and I go for weekend drives in the funkier neighborhoods, we amuse ourselves by pointing out likely dope houses. I'm not talking about meth labs or squats full of no-hopers smoking rock. I'm talking a 70's style dope house, built by a dealer who made a million or so flying in bales of marijuana under the radar. And it's these (now moldering) homes that bear mute witness to the bubble-fad. Look closely, and you can still see their dim remains.
The 70's doper-dream house generally incorporated design themes from the wavy 60's, fern bars, the Biba boutique, and all things California. This mish-mash translated into stained glass windows, hanging crystals, macrame, lots of raw redwood and cedar, plus bubbles and skylights to the max, all compressed into a hulking three story presence stuffed into a large lot, one with no landscaping and an invisible driveway. As I said, it's possible to glimpse their dinosaurish remains here and there. The cedar has gone gray, as has the redwood, the skylights and bubbles are completely opaque and wet around the edges, while the lot looks like a steroid-fed rain forest. You can imagine these places inhabited by a shaggy oldster, befuddled by too much acid and too many rousts, now lapsed into muttering and playing scratchy LPs of The Band.
But then, the 70's were a universally Bad Idea for most of us, what with a rotten economy that wasn't budging, bad clothes, bad hair, and, as the crowning insult, disco. Still, we soldiered on, dreaming of better days. Knowing how it was, I am right there with this 70's inventor, on fire with his idea for a Dog Window, sawing a circular hole in the fence, carefully fitting the bubble over it, and coercing his unwilling beagle to stick its face inside. It won't do me any good to tell him that his idea is just a streaky receptacle for dog-slobber, and that his neighbors will complain. He won't listen. He's pinned all his hopes on the Dog Window: his ticket out of crappy times, his pass to the Big Rock Candy Mountain.
I can't blame him. We love our desperate dreams.
The downside of the bubbles was revealed quickly, usually within three weeks of their installation or the first rain, whichever came first. If you somehow avoided downpours and the inevitable leakage, your new bubble speedily assumed the cloudy regard of an old cataract, no matter what.
Sometimes, when my husband and I go for weekend drives in the funkier neighborhoods, we amuse ourselves by pointing out likely dope houses. I'm not talking about meth labs or squats full of no-hopers smoking rock. I'm talking a 70's style dope house, built by a dealer who made a million or so flying in bales of marijuana under the radar. And it's these (now moldering) homes that bear mute witness to the bubble-fad. Look closely, and you can still see their dim remains.
The 70's doper-dream house generally incorporated design themes from the wavy 60's, fern bars, the Biba boutique, and all things California. This mish-mash translated into stained glass windows, hanging crystals, macrame, lots of raw redwood and cedar, plus bubbles and skylights to the max, all compressed into a hulking three story presence stuffed into a large lot, one with no landscaping and an invisible driveway. As I said, it's possible to glimpse their dinosaurish remains here and there. The cedar has gone gray, as has the redwood, the skylights and bubbles are completely opaque and wet around the edges, while the lot looks like a steroid-fed rain forest. You can imagine these places inhabited by a shaggy oldster, befuddled by too much acid and too many rousts, now lapsed into muttering and playing scratchy LPs of The Band.
But then, the 70's were a universally Bad Idea for most of us, what with a rotten economy that wasn't budging, bad clothes, bad hair, and, as the crowning insult, disco. Still, we soldiered on, dreaming of better days. Knowing how it was, I am right there with this 70's inventor, on fire with his idea for a Dog Window, sawing a circular hole in the fence, carefully fitting the bubble over it, and coercing his unwilling beagle to stick its face inside. It won't do me any good to tell him that his idea is just a streaky receptacle for dog-slobber, and that his neighbors will complain. He won't listen. He's pinned all his hopes on the Dog Window: his ticket out of crappy times, his pass to the Big Rock Candy Mountain.
I can't blame him. We love our desperate dreams.
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