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Kinfolk #21
Kinfolk Volume 21: The Home Issue
Kinfolk
- GenresNonfiction
176 pages, Paperback
Published September 6, 2016
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July 20, 2017
After last issue I didn't have much hope for this issue, and for the first third or so I thought it would be even worse. I'm sure it's possible to relate an architect who mostly works on businesses to home, but the portrayal of Joseph Dirand didn't manage to do so. It pulled itself together after that point, though, and I was glad I took time on weekday night to read it.
Through a Glass Darkly, about how we're never truly at home alone because there are always insects there with us, was both well-shot and reminded me a lot of the time I lived in the Japanese countryside. Now in Chicago our apartment is essentially inviolate, with the occasional fly or crawling thing here and there, but in the middle of the rice fields they were a constant companion. We had to plug up a hole in our kitchen to stop the slugs from getting in and at one point, my wife was surprised by a frog dropping onto her from above while she was taking a shower. One night I accidentally left a window open, thinking the screen was in, and the ceiling came alive with a forest of flying insects. The rice fields may be more picturesque, but I sleep a little easier here knowing that the insects are out of sight, out of mind.
Lover’s Discourse: Villa Santo Sospir sounded very familiar to me. Not because we had a houseguest stay for eleven years, but because my father decorated my childhood bedroom by drawing on the walls. The ceiling was a view of the night sky done in glow-in-the-dark paint, with astronomically-accurate placement of the stars and constellations (he did the Milky Way with a toothbrush). On the wall above my bed was a dragon against a field of black, with green and red stars twinkling around it.
After I moved out, it was all painted over and now the walls of my old room are a bare white. Maybe that's why when I visit my parents' house, it no longer feels like home.
On Privacy, about open-plan houses and how people will do their best to carve spaces that are just for themselves out of their surroundings, made me glad for our current apartment. It's laid out lengthwise, but the bedroom door is a meter to the left in a line from the door between the dining room and the living room, and the computer room and kitchen are both perpendicular to the main layout. There's no place to see even half of the apartment all at once, which is just the way I like it. It allows both my wife and I to have spaces to ourselves if we need time alone while still being small enough that we can tell the other one is around.
Home Blindness sounds like a term we need in English, though I suppose that phrase will do. It sounds like a negative, but I liked the article's respinning of it as a positive concept. Overlooking the flaws in one's home in order to feel...well, to feel at home there allows for true relaxation and a foundation for more outgoing or creative activities that might otherwise be hindered by the disturbance of the environment. I know that if there's clutter around, I simply can't feel at home and eventually it overwhelms me and I have to clean, but it doesn't bother me in other's spaces because I have no expectation that it's not there. Those places aren't my home. But in my home...well.
I suppose it's the issue after this one that will really determine it, but I'm glad Kinfolk seems to be back on track. I'm planning to read Issue 22 on Saturday, so we'll see then.
Through a Glass Darkly, about how we're never truly at home alone because there are always insects there with us, was both well-shot and reminded me a lot of the time I lived in the Japanese countryside. Now in Chicago our apartment is essentially inviolate, with the occasional fly or crawling thing here and there, but in the middle of the rice fields they were a constant companion. We had to plug up a hole in our kitchen to stop the slugs from getting in and at one point, my wife was surprised by a frog dropping onto her from above while she was taking a shower. One night I accidentally left a window open, thinking the screen was in, and the ceiling came alive with a forest of flying insects. The rice fields may be more picturesque, but I sleep a little easier here knowing that the insects are out of sight, out of mind.
Lover’s Discourse: Villa Santo Sospir sounded very familiar to me. Not because we had a houseguest stay for eleven years, but because my father decorated my childhood bedroom by drawing on the walls. The ceiling was a view of the night sky done in glow-in-the-dark paint, with astronomically-accurate placement of the stars and constellations (he did the Milky Way with a toothbrush). On the wall above my bed was a dragon against a field of black, with green and red stars twinkling around it.
After I moved out, it was all painted over and now the walls of my old room are a bare white. Maybe that's why when I visit my parents' house, it no longer feels like home.
On Privacy, about open-plan houses and how people will do their best to carve spaces that are just for themselves out of their surroundings, made me glad for our current apartment. It's laid out lengthwise, but the bedroom door is a meter to the left in a line from the door between the dining room and the living room, and the computer room and kitchen are both perpendicular to the main layout. There's no place to see even half of the apartment all at once, which is just the way I like it. It allows both my wife and I to have spaces to ourselves if we need time alone while still being small enough that we can tell the other one is around.
Home Blindness sounds like a term we need in English, though I suppose that phrase will do. It sounds like a negative, but I liked the article's respinning of it as a positive concept. Overlooking the flaws in one's home in order to feel...well, to feel at home there allows for true relaxation and a foundation for more outgoing or creative activities that might otherwise be hindered by the disturbance of the environment. I know that if there's clutter around, I simply can't feel at home and eventually it overwhelms me and I have to clean, but it doesn't bother me in other's spaces because I have no expectation that it's not there. Those places aren't my home. But in my home...well.
I suppose it's the issue after this one that will really determine it, but I'm glad Kinfolk seems to be back on track. I'm planning to read Issue 22 on Saturday, so we'll see then.
Displaying 1 of 1 review