Can't We All Just Get Along?

I've stolen this headline from an article I just read about my living room in the premiere issue of the new online home magazine "House of Fifty."

(Click HERE)

(p. 58)

A few months ago, the editor-in-chief Janell Beals emailed me about doing a possible feature.

Hi Lisa,

I just found your blog after wanting to find the person behind the living room I included in my latest ideabook written for Houzz. I selected your room to be included in a piece on how bringing floral patterns into a room can introduce a bit of spring all year long. I particularly liked your room because of its interesting mix. However, for some reason a couple readers decided it was time to bring on the criticism full force.

The comments left on the ideabook started a conversation between my husband and me about subjective design, which led to me deciding to write an article for my upcoming e-zine on this very topic.

I emailed Janell back that I found it kind of amusing that someone would choose to get so worked up about pairing a zebra rug with Peter Dunham's "Samarkand" fabric...and to write whatever she wanted. Absolutely.

Well, the premiere issue launched today and I think Janell's article is fascinating because it addresses something that I notice happening more and more frequently in the blog world.

I'll let her tell it:

"Why is it often difficult to experience disagreement with another's point of view without getting upset? Is it not possible to express that one would not have made the same choice, without tearing down what another has done? Why is it so hard to have a difference of opinion and be comfortable with the fact that not everyone shares our point of view?"

Let me make this clear: I'm SO NOT offended whether people like my house or not. It's small and weird and colorful (like me) and if you're a beige-on-beige addict, I would kind of expect you to run screaming from it. And that's fine. Because one's home is a visual autobiography of the people who live there -- not anybody else.

Here's the bigger issue:

1. Why are the personal choices of total strangers such an affront to some people?

2. Has it become impossible for us to co-exist peacefully if someone has a different point of view?

3. Why is it still so darn hard for us to celebrate each other's differences?

Janell goes on to write:

Perhaps a key to being okay with a conflicting opinion begins with not only being comfortable, but secure, in our own; understanding that there is nothing to be lost by accepting and hearing another's opinion.

Obviously, this is one smart lady.

All this got me thinking and, as usually happens when I start thinking, my thoughts turned to England.

In her book "The Anglo Files", Sarah Lyall writes of the cheerful streak of anarchy that runs through the British personality.

The British may be conformists, but paradoxically, they also demand the right to be left alone to practice their individuality.

In England, you have some of the most upright and proper people in the world living side by side with some of the most peculiar people in the world. All are secure in the knowledge that they are doing what feels true for them.

(Banksy, "Old Women Knitting Punk Slogans")

You have to love a country in which being "a little Brit different" is not only accepted as a legal birthright, it's borderline canonized.

Edith Sitwell

Quentin Crisp

The Marquess of Bath

Vivienne Westwood

Alexander McQueen and Isabella Blow

Grayson Perry

My friend Amanda Eliasch

Mr. Pickwick

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a speech to write and a royal wedding to prepare for.

xx/Lisa

Westweek Fever

This past week, I did something truly radical. I put down the needle and thread...

(A work in progress)

...and ventured out into the world of the living. And what a crazy and glamorous world it was.

The annual design event known as "Westweek" had descended upon Los Angeles, and a flurry of designers, bloggers, editors and executives were shopping, cavorting, and networking with an energy that seemed to invigorate the entire town.

(Max Beckmann, "Paris Society", 1931)

It's still a bit of a blur, but I'll try to recount as best I can.

There was dinner at the Chateau Marmont with the captivating Heather Clawson of Habitually Chic and too-amusing-for-words Christian May of Maison 21 which consisted mainly of peals of laughter and glasses of Prosecco.

There was a chic cocktail party at Almont Yard hosted by One Kings Lane where I met founder Ali Pincus, designer Nathan Turner, blogger Katie-d-i-d and visionaire Sean O'Mara of Royal Apothic. It ended up being one of those nights where you tell yourself you'll leave in twenty more minutes, and then suddenly it's almost midnight and you have to get up in six hours.

(photo via Velvet and Linen)

There was a keynote panel at the Pacific Design Center that was well-represented by stellar bloggers Ronda Carman of All the Best, Brad Ford of DesignTherapy and Vanessa De Vargas of Turquoise LA.

There was breakfast at Cecconi's with Patricia Shackelford aka Mrs. Blandings, who arrived wearing a sleeveless Liberty dress from Target that clung to her like couture.

(Photo via Apartment Therapy)

There would have been more to tell but by that point, I had all the symptoms of "Westweek Fever", a well-known malady caused by overindulgence, sleeplessness and vocal fatigue. The only known cure for this affliction consists of lying prostrate on one's sofa like a Victorian invalid...

...and confining oneself to bad television...

...and a strict diet of proven restoratives.

I'm feeling much better now.

W Magazine, Revisited

To my great delight, I've been asked to do another guest stint for W Magazine. The first post is up today and subsequent ones will run every Friday (there will be five in all).

Today's topic deals with organization or, as it's usually referred to in my house, "turning shambolic into sexy."

Click HERE and find out why my pick below will save you on those mornings when not even your hair is on your side.

Happy. Holly. Daze.

(The Kenmore Arms, 2009)

I'd like to send a personal thank you to each and every one of my readers for an incredible year. It's been such a rewarding ride, this blogging business, and I feel so privileged to have met so many kindred souls. You are all witty, erudite, and fascinating and I look forward every day to reading your quips, comments and recommendations. Your unbounded generosity has helped "A Bloomsbury Life" sprout buds and tendrils that reach to every end of the globe; as of today, we're nearing 200,000 unique hits for 2009 and count readers in such farflung places as Jaipur, Lisbon, Ile-de-France, Rekyjavik, Istanbul and Hemel Hempstead.

"A Bloomsbury Life" is about many things, but if I had to distill it into a bouillon cube, I'd say it's about living surrounded by what you love. About creating a well-seasoned life for yourself. It's about passionate curiosity. The charms of disorder. Embracing eccentricity and imperfection. And finding enchantment in the everyday. We're here for the merest blink of an eye on this swiftly-moving planet; let's make the journey a fabulous one.

See you in 2010.

xxoo

I'm Thankful For...You

(My new iMac)

To all of you who have commented on my unfortunate computer situation, I thank you. It's slightly ironic that immediately after revealing my "we shall overcome" knitting story I was faced with another test of character, thanks to the machinations of a corrupted (ruthless? immoral? unscrupulous?) hard drive.

After crying for a day, here's where we stand:

Plan A (a.k.a. "Recovering My Data") is looking quite slim, and in all likelihood, I will probably lose all of my photos from 2009 (around 3,000) as well as countless bookmarked ideas that I was researching for future blog posts (which is an awful lot of homework down the drain). What makes it especially frustrating is that I have been backing my files up on a regular basis, but apparently, I was doing it wrong. (Oh, the sheer lunacy of it all.)

Add to this the O. Henry-ish coincidence that for months I've been longing for a new computer. Now, thanks to this unfortunate real-life plot twist, I have one. My new machine is lovely and sleek and hopefully has only honorable intentions for the relationship we are about to forge together. But it's a slightly hollow victory because, like walking into an empty house, it contains nothing personal in it.

And having said that, I'm ready to move on.

Dramatic beat. A shaft of sunlight enters the room.

So here's Plan B (a.k.a. "The Fresh Start"):

I was thinking as I lay awake last night in bed that since blogging is, in its most satisfying aspects, a shared journey, perhaps this is the perfect opportunity to invite you to help me fill up my computer with ideas.

Sometimes the inspiration for a blog post comes down to a single word, one that is so intensely redolent of a person, place or thing (or period of history or style or even a feeling, for that matter) that it sets into motion a Sherlockian treasure hunt for what lies beneath.

Herewith, my list so far:

Adventure.

Art.

Aperitifs.

Aesthetes.

Beaton.

Bistros.

Blotting paper.

Bohemians.

Brilliance.

Camellias.

Caravanserais.

Country manors.

Decadence.

Dinner parties.

Disarray.

Dusk.

Élan.

Exotic travels.

Fete champetres.

Gardens.

Gipsy caravans.

Glamorous souls.

Hedgerows.

History.

Lavender.

Mitford.

Moonlight.

Morocco leather.

Novellas.

Portmanteaus.

Pot-au-feu.

Rhubarb.

Risktakers.

Sheep.

Souks.

Thistles.

Tweed.

Untidiness.

Vivienne Westwood.

Weald.

Wellies.

Wit.

Would you be so kind as to add a word (or words) that you would like to see explored on this blog? Truly, truly, I would be so honored.