I attended an event last week at a contemporary Italian furniture showroom.  Upstairs there were ultra-slick cabinets with exotic veneers and concealed hardware.  Downstairs there were pieces in gravity-challenging shapes and ice-cream colors that reminded me very much of Memphis.

Memphis was an quirky little design movement.  Its members possessed an excellent story about how they got their name (a group was sitting around listening to records when “Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again” came on), and an enviable formal freedom.  But their work was unremarkable.  In fact it’s hard to believe that Italians (Italians!) wanted to make things that were so awkward and so unlovely.  But apparently their kooky, graphic energy is inspiring a new generation of designers.

I just read “Ghostwritten” by David Mitchell, a novel told by nine narrators in nine parts, each tangentially and mysteriously linked to the others.  The danger of structuring a book like this, of course, is that one voice will dominate the others.  And, indeed, while all the stories were fine one was hallucinogenically vivid: the account of a British banker in Hong Kong whose personal and professional lives become unraveled.  One summer morning instead of boarding the ferry from Lantau, where he lives, he wanders the coastline of the island and, basically, goes insane.

Although I’ve never been to Lantau (or to Hong Kong) the story so vividly conjures the heat and sun and dust and scrub of the place that I recall it the way I recall a place I know well.  No picture I’ve found of Lantau so far matches the intensity of what I’ve imagined.

Rihanna won Worst Dressed accolades from several pundits today for the striped, white Jean Paul Gaultier dress she wore on the red carpet at last night’s Grammy Awards.  It made her look like a very, very pretty Doctor Seuss character.  But she made up for it later when she took the stage to perform “Love The Way You Lie” with Eminem in a stunning Dior ball gown.  The dress had a folded, fitted black bodice and a bell-shaped bottom that exploded in petal-like layers. 

The song is about an abusive relationship, of which Rihanna knows.  Facing a field of devouring flames, as well as Eminem, she stood strong.  The gown, both tumultuous and lady-like, suited her perfectly.  On an evening full of leather and fur and sequins and latex, she had the purest, boldest costume.

The Sharpie ultra-fine point is my writing instrument of choice. It works for both notes and sketching, and responds to the touch to leave a light, feathery line or a deep, indelible one. The pen’s design is strictly no-frills, with an opaque grey plastic body and a colored cap. It’s the kind of pen you can toss in a tool chest or kitchen drawer.

Then earlier this week I discovered that Sharpie had introduced a retractable version. It’s goofy-looking, with the body of a fat-tipped Sharpie (to accommodate the spring) and a long button at the top. Who’s idea was this? Did someone in a focus group mention that he had once lost the top to a Sharpie? The mechanism takes away from the blunt utilitarianism of the original.