Le Chat Noir: You routinely post incredibly popular Buzzfeed articles to Facebook. “Laughed so hard,” you write as you share a post that has over 3 million pageviews and has already been shared by fourteen of your friends. You have no idea that some of your coworkers talk about this habit of yours. You have no idea that it is even a habit. “What’s the big deal if she does?” your cube mate finally asks a digital products manager who has been making fun of you all throughout an after-work drinks get-together that you weren’t invited to. “So she thinks they’re funny. So maybe she doesn’t realize we’ve already seen them. I don’t understand why you care so much.” The digital products manager will deny caring about it at all. “I just think it’s funny, is all,” he’ll say. “I don’t mean anything personal about it. I don’t care, obviously. It’s just funny.”
Trainspotting: You began smoking in college, part of you always aware that you would eventually, inevitably drift back to the cozy domesticity of your origins, no matter how many radical anarchist Tumblrs you followed or how often you failed to clean your own kitchen. The drift has already happened, but ten years on, you still smoke a pack every day, the only habit from those days that remains. You terrify yourself every time you buy a pack. Why am I still doing this, you wonder. Why don’t I stop. This is stupid. This is so stupid. Your throat hurts every morning when you wake up. You’ll be one of the ones who gets lung cancer at 40, you know you will. You don’t stop. You don’t even try.
Fight Club: You have never read a book by Chuck Palahniuk that was not Fight Club. You did own a centennial edition of The Fountainhead for a while, but it was mostly because you enjoyed seeing how upset it made your friends when they came over to visit. Even now, you often consider yourself a “devil’s advocate” and enjoy defending positions you do not actually hold during arguments.
Those two white lesbians in matching camisoles making out in bed: If you are a lesbian: You are the most popular shift manager in your restaurant. You spend a great deal of time worrying about internalized homophobia. More time than you need to. You are not kind to yourself in your own heart. If you are not a lesbian: You tip 10% as a rule when you go out to eat. You always calculate the tip before tax. “Why should I tip on a tax?” you ask rhetorically.
M.C. Escher’s “Ascending and Descending”: You enjoy Malcolm Gladwell and Sudoku. In college, you once engaged in a lengthy debate with two of your roommates whether or not Frida Kahlo was hot (it was agreed upon that she was).
“The Persistence of Memory”: You could, if pressed, name one, maybe two of Dalí’s contemporaries. You cannot, however, remember the actual name of this painting, often referring to it as “Melting Clocks.”
Breakfast at Tiffany’s: Were you familiar with the word louche, you would enjoy using it to describe yourself. You, however, are happily unfamiliar with the word louche. You like to think of yourself as whimsically impractical, so the only things you keep in your fridge are bottles of champagne and restaurant packets of mustard. The champagne is always Veuve Cliquot, because that is the only brand of champagne you know. More than one of your favorite books and films are marred by wretched, hideous racist caricatures; you have never allowed this to diminish or inform your enjoyment of them in the slightest. “I know,” you laugh, only slightly embarrassed, “but it’s really good.” You are completely unreliable. None of your friends have ever asked you for a significant favor. You mistakenly believe this is because they are all remarkably self-sufficient; it is in fact because they do not trust you. You are incredibly good at wearing black eyeliner.
Turn-of-the-century absinthe advertisement: The worst thing you can think to call someone is “middlebrow.” Before that, it was “bougie,” but you like the way middlebrow sounds better. “Nothing’s wrong with it,” you say, trying to arch an eyebrow, “it’s just so middlebrow.”
Pink Floyd album covers drawn on backs of naked women: Every woman you have ever slept with has faked her orgasm without remorse or compunction. None of them considered for a moment doing otherwise. You have absolutely no idea.
Boondock Saints: Several of your roommates consider themselves tattoo artists. There are at least seven houseplants hanging from the ceiling in your kitchen; none of you have any idea how they got there.
“Beer…Helping Ugly People Have Sex Since 1862!”: You are fond of explaining that you go to the movies “to be entertained, not to hear a lecture, you know?” They know, the people you say this to. They know what you’re saying.
“Finish Your Beer…There Are Sober Kids In India”: You have never been to India.
“Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become character. Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny”: You have never once watched your thoughts, nor your words, nor your actions; not once have you given a moment’s reflection to how your day-to-day behavior influences who you have become. You have lost several decades-long friendships after getting into explosive fights over relatively unimportant issues. You have never once entertained the possibility that you were not the wronged party in every one of those cases; you never will.
“Nighthawks”: You were generally a B student in college. Your favorite book is The Catcher In The Rye. You have specific opinions about whiskey; whenever a woman orders clear liquor, you make some comment about it. Even if she already knows what you think of vodka, you want to make sure you remind her.
John Lennon wearing a white tank top and folding his arms: You find it physically painful to keep yourself from correcting someone else’s mistake, no matter how small or inconsequential, no matter whether you know them or not. Even if you’re not sure, exactly, that you’re right–really right, 100% right–you correct them so loftily, and with such certainty, that their entire recollection of your interaction is that of humiliation. Almost no one asks you what you’re up to on the weekend. This bothers you, but you cannot say exactly why.
Photographs of child models dressed as adults: You and your sister text each other every single day. You subscribe to more than 30 food-decoration blogs. You would describe yourself as reasonably happy, all things considered. You keep busy.
The Great Wave of Kanagawa: Your mother, who is not old–who is not that old–if you heard her age spoken aloud, without context, you might think of it as old, but in the context of your mother is not that old, because she is very active and looks ten years younger than she is and sometimes doesn’t return your calls for a few days because she doesn’t want to be one of those overbearing mothers–your mother who is not that old dies in her own house during a heat wave the summer you turn 45, which is truly ridiculous. You have air conditioning in your house. She could have come over to your house, if you had known, if you had driven over to get her. You didn’t even know how hot it was that week, not even when you read about the record-setting temperatures, not even when you heard about the fifteen elderly people who died from the heat in Chicago because your mother was not an elderly person and she would have called you, she absolutely would have called you, if she needed you, if she had been in trouble.
A black-and-white photograph where a single item is in color: You lie to your boss routinely about whether or not you have completed something she asks you to do. You blame people in departments she has never heard of when you cannot complete a task on time, and she always takes your side over these unreachable strangers. You tell her you have spoken to clients when you haven’t; you tell her projects are finished when they aren’t, when they clearly and demonstrably aren’t, when she could find out in thirty seconds that they aren’t even close to being finished. You have no idea why you do this. You almost never lie to anyone else, but you lie to her blithely and as a matter of routine. She has no idea what you really do, what you’re really like. If she ever finds you out, your career will be ruined. You lie, you lie, you lie.
Photograph of the Eiffel Tower or construction of the Empire State Building: You own multiple “World Music” CDs, purchased at various upscale grocery stores and coffee shops. Every summer, you take a cruise with your best friend. It is the highlight of your year.
Jim Morrison/Sigmund Freud/Albert Einstein: You never listen, not to anybody. You don’t even do a passable job of pretending to listen. You absorb nothing. You have made it through almost your entire life without ever listening to anybody. You sometimes worry that you are desperately, terrifyingly boring. You try not to listen to that, either.
Reservoir Dogs: You refer to everyone that you have ever dated as “crazy,” without exception. “Crazy,” you say darkly, whenever any one of their names come up. “Definitely crazy.”
Marilyn Monroe leaning forward in that poufy white tulle dress: You consider yourself a very sexually compelling person. This usually means you get more drunk than anyone else at dinner parties, then loudly hit on the only person there you don’t know.
Keep Calm and Carry On: You are perfectly harmless.
Tags: black cats, german expressionism, humor, posters
Admittedly there was a Le Chat Noir print in the house my sister and I owned in college BUT IT WAS HERS NOT MINE.
When I moved into my first apartment, though, a friend did give me a Keep Calm and Carry On poster. I’m pretty fucking harmless.
My apartment now has a mix of framed mola panels, Lake Erie Monster comic art, weird 70s surfer prints, and a collage of Charles Darwin, which I like to think says “pretentious but homey.”
there was a *framed* Le Chat Noir poster in my studio one year in university. but because a friend had left it there, for safe-keeping, along with most of the furniture i was using, so it would have been rude to take it down. right?
Right! You were just being polite to your friend’s possessions.
yeah, melting clocks right heah.
I had “Swans Reflecting Elephants” because “The Great Masturbator” would’ve been too overt. I might be able to name Dali contemporaries by dumb luck.
I had melting clocks too, though it was only because my school bookstore didn’t have that many decent art posters. And hey, at least I knew the title. 😉
I also had the Escher.
Hmm, the only things on our walls right now are an Umberto Boccioni triptych I printed out and mounted myself in college, and a luxuriously framed photo of Michelle and Bo Obama that my wife won at a church raffle. WHAT DOES THIS SAY ABOUT US.
You will do anything to make sure the people around you know — casually, casually, of course casually – you know what a “triptych” is.
what if the only art hung ANYWHERE in your house is a May Gibbs illustration of Snugglepot, Cuddlepie and Aussie bush animals?
(A: You are Australian and boring 😉
Is it a triptych of Snugglepot, Cuddlepie and Aussie bush animals?
[Sidebar: SNUGGLEPOT AND CUDDLEPIE I just want to pinch their little cheeks and steal their little caps]
You are Australian and boring, but with a well-hidden sinister side. If pushed out of the zone of what you think is ‘right’, you may well kill with no remorse.
( love those dudes but fuck they are creepy.)
Hahaha GREAT now I won’t be able to look at those Kewpie doll faces without imagining a knife held behind their backs!
Let’s be real, the morals in these books are pretty whack.
Also I still have nightmares about the Banksia Men. Really.
I didn’t have to Google the spelling or anything!
“Luxurious framed” = Gold gilt? Velvet? Rococo carvings? All three? I’m dying to know.
It’s just very elaborately carved and painted gold. Still obviously mass-produced but luxurious by my usual standards of IKEA picture frames, friends’ art on scraps of corrugated cardboard, and paintings printed out on a inkjet printer and spray-adhesived to poster board.
Like, I’d be very surprised if more than a few sorority sisters aren’t going home with copies of this artwork that they paid in the lower three figures for.
I have a poster of a chair. (A red-blue chair, but still a chair.)
I let out a sigh of relief when I got to the end and I could be sure I didn’t own a single poster on the list. Though I guess I already knew having a “You Are Here” space poster means you’re a massive nerd.
Other wall hangings for consideration:
-a reprint of an old Guiness ad
-Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss
-any Thomas Kinkade print
And Mucha prints!
Yesssss, Mucha prints. (I love Mucha as well, but get that eleventy million people do too.)
There’s a Mucha print living in my house, which I’m sure was put up by a previous tenant. I don’t really mind though.
Any print of a pre-Raphaelite paintings: You like to wear long dresses made out of either velvet or cotton. The highlight of your year is the Renaissance Festival, which you will happily spend many weekends at trying to fake what you think is an old-timey British accent. You wish you were actually a fairy.
I say this out of love, guys, as someone who was maybe really into celtic mythology, Tori Amos, and faeries as a teenager. Although it occurs to me now that pre-Raphaelite paintings don’t count as popular posters.
I had a buttload of both Mucha and Waterhouse prints. I have been to more than one ren faire.
[ETA: had those when I was in college/grad school. Not sure where they are now.]
I had MULTIPLE Waterhouse prints hanging in my bedroom as a teen. I also had a faery print, and several BSB posters.
I kind of miss that teenaged self.
Yes, to old Guinness ad. It was a roommate not me, but I shamelessly enjoyed it.
I think every single one of my friends in college had a Guinness print or metal sign in their apartment. I still think they’re kinda cute.
I have framed old Guinness ad postcards in a series. I adore them.
Also:
-Monet’s Water Lillies
-the poster of the topless guy (who was actually quite pockmarked, if you looked closely) holding a baby
HERE HE IS! No but seriously, quite pockmarked. And I forgot how freaked out the baby looks. Oh, silly younger self. Need I add that I’m thirtymumble and still sans husband or baby (and not really sure I want either)? http://windupmyskirt.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/…
Seriously, get out of my first apartment! 3/3
Yes, “The Kiss” should for sure be included here!
Awww crap. “Nighthawks.” You freakin’ nailed it. I have so many opinions about whiskey. So many.
I didn’t have Nighthawks but I DID have The Singing Butler and you know, it’s basically the same thing, but if you want to hang out with some whiskey I’m game.
Mallory, I am so glad this idea came to fruition. I could do some major Audrey Hepburn fan trolling now, but I’ll keep the peace.
TROLL EM THEY DESERVE IT
There’s a book (“book”) called “How to Be a Hepburn in a Hilton World”–the cover art is an illustration of the Golightly ensemble (/lazy girl’s Halloween costume), which makes me want to deface all the copies and/or stand next to them in Barnes and Noble shouting “SHE PLAYS A PROSTITUTE IN THAT MOVIE. THAT MOVIE IS ABOUT PROSTITUTION.”
Mallory’s heard this rant before, but my biggest issue with her “gamine”-ness (and fetishizing it) is that her body was that way because she was STARVED during the war. Malnourishment….all the rage.
I didn’t find that out until a loooong time after I became a fan of hers, but then I just thought she was a sweet, pretty person and a good actress with amazing clothes; I don’t fetishize her body type by any means, but I guess that means I’m not the type of fan you’re talking about, so carry on 😉
ALSO, how does the WORLD NOT EXPLODE IN SHAME when Astaire kisses her in Funny Face? He must be actually 4 times older than her!
If it didn’t explode in shame when he was romancing “teenage” Leslie Caron in Daddy Long-Legs, it wouldn’t explode for Funny Face.
The world’s got a high shame tolerance, huh?
MY MOTHER BOUGHT THAT FOR ME! It got lost super quickly.
Audrey Hepburn was by all accounts, a lovely person. She was a charismatic actress, if not a spectacular one, she worked for the french resistance during the war and unless there was a scandals of classic hollywood article on her that I missed detailing some hidden awfulness, I don’t know what’s so bad about being a fan of hers.
…. I am keeping the closest tabs on my mum forever now, THANKS TOAST for almost making me cry at my desk over that particular fear OMFG
… also the Kiss. Which is _also_ the name of that white-ladies-kissing poster. AKA: Scott Pilgrim’s bed poster.
Now I know why, when my sister bought me a very lovely copy of The Great Wave, even though I really like it, I never put it up.
My mother IS old (sort of, she WILL be when I’m 45 and she’s not exactly young now), I never call her on purpose, and while I don’t actively hope she dies in a heatwave, it would solve a lot of my problems.
My mom GAVE me this poster last week. I didn’t even want it! I had to call her before finishing the article.
The call was a little awkward.
I just hung–well, leaned on the mantelpiece– a small canvas “painted” by a baby pudu from the local zoo. Tiny, well-formed rainbow hoofprints. I think this means I am universally loathed by all.
No, I think this means you are amazing and that you should post a picture of this miraculous work of art by a baby pudu.
https://twitter.com/figwiggin/status/356572266848…
Calling them “well-formed” may have been a bit generous, but I still like it.
I just Google Imaged that and what even oh my god
Please post a picture of this artwork!
I cannot even believe I just verbed “Google Imaged,” our society needs some help.
and also tell us what a pudu is.
It’s a little tiny deer thing!
BABY pudu? So like, tinier than tiny? Ahhhhhhhh.
oh my god you guys: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7… (not posting it here bc it’s effing huge)
i just made these SOUNDS at work
SQUEE!
Figgy, the only thing that would make this better is if you actually had a pet pudu. According to Wikipedia, they like a ” a damp, moderate winter and an arid summer” and that’s not totally unlike your climate!
I quickly scrolled down looking for the Great Wave, and now all I can say is “Noooo, Moooooom!” 🙁
I know. That one felt… cruel. MOM. Oh god mom I’m so sorry.
I had that print and I turn 45 in three weeks! Holy crap! Fortunately, my mom lives in Seattle. No one dies in heat waves there.
Crap.
“You are fond of explaining that you go to the movies “to be entertained, not to hear a lecture, you know?” They know, the people you say this to. They know what you’re saying.” I can’t stop laughing.
THIS. Judging by this, all the people in my office have that poster. (Would not actually be surprised). YES I DO KNOW WHAT YOU ARE SAYING NEVER SPEAK TO ME AGAIN, OFFICE PEOPLE. (the last one was ‘I’m thinking of going to see ‘the Lone Ranger’, it looks like a laugh, Johnny Depp looks so funny in the ads!)
The description of the owners of “Nighthawks with the people replaced with Marilyn Monroe and James Dean or whatever” is too vile for words.
What if they’re the owners of “Nighthawks with an angry anteater outside of the diner”?
That’s my favorite Primitive Radio Gods song!
There’s a “Poster Sale” at my university where they sell mostly really tacky posters for 18-year-olds to put up in their dorm room, but they had like a whole slew of these, like Marilyn Monroe and James Dean and Elvis hanging out and shooting pool, or having drinks, or whatever, and they were so amazingly tacky that I still regret not buying them. (I bought a detailed map of the Netherlands for my office instead.)
If the poster sale is back this year and they have them, I’m definitely buying one for my home.
Oooh, yes, I went to that. It’s where I got my Breakfast at Tiffany’s poster. I am well and properly shamed.
I’m pretty sure I got a John Belushi Animal House poster and probably some awful band’s poster at the one at my school. I still feel shame.
*raises hand* James Dean poster with a quote on it that I don’t remember anymore. It eventually fell off the wall and then my puppy peed in the middle of it while it was on the floor.
I absolutely bought multiple posters at my school’s poster sale. None of them are on this list, thank God, so I will keep the specifics to myself.
That’s where I got my LAMINATED ‘Choose life’ Trainspotting poster. (I am pretty sure I actually still have it, rolled up in the shed)
That description is totally accurate of me except that I never smoked, and I liked that poster half because I liked the vitriol and half cos it sounded… kinda nice? I DO CHOOSE LIFE WHERE IS MY COUCH and I am pretty happy descending into cozy (hippyish) domesticity. It’s much cozier than the domesticity I came from.
Although judging by this I ought to get a B&W poster where one item is in colour (WHY THOUGH WHY DO I DO THIS SOMEONE HELP ME)
…no one has EVER called me ‘perfectly harmless’ before.
Well played, Toast.
Oh man, the Great Wave and wanting to cry at my desk are apparently a thing.
I went to an Escher exhibit once and it turns out he also did really cool etchings of Dutch cities.
(In my first apartment I had a frameless framed poster of Lou Reed and one of Nick Cave, cut out of larger posters. They were cool and I kind of wish I still had them.)
You have great taste. I’ve never once thought that Escher was over rated. My ex had/has a Velvet Underground poster that took up our entire kitchen wall and it ruled. Miss that poster. Nick Cave poster wins.
Fun Fact: The ubiquitous green devil poster is advertising Maurin Quina, which is actually a reasonably gross cherry liqueur, and not absinthe at all!
Most of the things you call “middlebrow” are things you are fundamentally failing to understand?
Interesting. I assumed we were talking about this poster, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Privat-Livemon… , which was ubiquitous in my dorm.
Your writing reminds me a little of early New Yorker Talk of the Town pieces by EB White.
That is a massive compliment.
I bought the worst posters at our freshman year Poster Sale in college. The worst posters. The only one I’m not ashamed of is my Hedwig & the Angry Inch poster, kind of wish I still had that.
That’s funny – the *only* poster I have in my home anymore is a smallish (11×17) Hedwig & the Angry Inch poster signed by Jerick Hoffer (Jinkx Monsoon), from his show here in Seattle. And I love it.
I had “The Great Wave of Kanagawa” on my wall, and my parents are not that old, and it is hotter than the nine hells out today, and fuck you melis, I am utterly and completely terrified now. Mom? MOM?
When I was home a few weekends ago my friend and I were at the thrift store buying coffee mugs for her dad, who loves unmatched tacky mugs, and we got him a “Great Wave of Kanagawa” mug and now I’m concerned for him. O.O
The not-a-lesbian owner of the lesbian poster is precisely a person I would call a “horrible human being” without compunction. TIP YOUR SERVERS! And the “Watch your thoughts” person is someone I used to be friends with. And then things went precisely the way of that blurb. Now we are not friends and I do not miss her.
I own none of these things! Now I have no idea who I am! WHO AM I, MALLORY?
you are a cipher
you are like Bella, I cannot read your thoughts
. . . okay I know we’re all kidding here but seriously, “you are like Bella” was WAY HARSH, TAI.
At least Bella was played by Stewart?
I think we’re all having identity crises now. Dammit, Mallory.
Thanks to a giant mirrored closet, windows, and living at my parents’ house, the only thing on my wall is a print I made. I feel like I need to go hang a bunch of random things on my wall so that I can finally know who I am.
The Ministry of Silly Walks: you’re slightly embarrassed by everything you like, no matter how popular or not it actually is. This poster is the most personality you’re comfortable expressing where just anybody could see it, and even then it makes you a little nervous.
So, a British Person, is what you’re saying.
That might explain a lot, actually.
Okay. Yep. Fair. I also have the Picasso Quixote print and Le Chat et son Charactre print, along with a silly band poster with Tom Selleck’s mustache replaced with the band’s name- but I got those at my last year of college, so they don’t count, right?
(…I’m proving your point by being nervous about it, aren’t I?)
I can only hope with all my heart that literally nothing I did (apart from scraping a degree) in my last year of college counts in any way. I would like it struck from the record.
Also what would you say about the person who owns multiple prints of plant life in extreme close-up from IKEA?
oh noooo. trainspotting one, why are you so right? why have I done me so wrong?
A couple of framed drawings of yourself that your long ago really good artist ex did (I maaay be guilty of this one) but I like them, they make me feel SPECIAL do they need to go away?
WHAT ABOUT DOGS PLAYING POOL
You are the best because dogs are the best.
You’ve tried your hand at professional golf but have settled on just having a billiards room in your basement, which is adorned with the poster but also a number of framed vintage Playboy covers. You’ve got some real misgivings about the direction this country is headed in.
Pool? Not Poker?
I had the Escher in college…but now I have a living room loaded with Ansel, what say you?
I had no posters at all on my walls. Not one. I had some framed pictures of friends around on shelves and things…I did, however, paint the walls of my first on-my-own bedroom a shockingly bright semigloss (semigloss!) red. What can I say? It was the 90s, I was in WAY over my head my freshman year in college, I really really really liked red.
Also, an old roommate who did horrible things to me and tried to tank my wedding had a Breakfast at Tiffany poster–and she was the most flaky, unreliable person in the world. The kind of person who couldn’t keep friends longer than a couple of years. After not having seen her in 9 years, I recently saw a picture of her on fbook and she looks like a puffy troll. I was (almost) equal parts gleeful and horrified.
Wow. I am quite curious as to how she tried to tank your wedding? She is obvs a heinous person.
Oh, it’s such a long story, how to shorten it? She was convinced my then-fiance should be marrying her instead of me. She went to the leadership of the church where he was music director (and where we attended), and told them he was a sex predator. Seriously. He lost his job. She also went to some of my bridesmaids and told them they could either be her friend or be in my wedding. Her behavior was so erratic that I had actual nightmares about her showing up at the wedding uninvited and making a scene. Didn’t happen, and I haven’t seen or spoken with her in years. But yes, she was toxic.
Oh My God. Wow. What a horrible human being. Good thing you’re not friends with her anymore.
Every word of this post is pure genius. Melis – how do you produce so much good content? What poster on your wall compels you to do so?
This one:
My college boyfriend had Reservoir Dogs and an absinthe poster in his bedroom. He might as well have had the John Lennon poster too. Now you all know what that relationship was like!
I know someone who should have the John Lennon poster but John Lennon’s probably too mainstream.
Oh man so many things!
What is a person who has band posters and a Warhol Brooklyn Bridge print?? Although if we want to get technical, that was my first dorm room, not apartment.
My bf’s brother keeps calling everything bougie (as opposed to his previous ‘insult,’ hipster) and I want to punch him in the face every time.
I love classic movies and I was b.o.r.e.d. out of my skull watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Someone please explain the appeal to me.
A little relieved they didn’t have posters at the Whitney gift shop when I went to see the Hopper exhibit this spring, because the real Nighthawks was amazing and really affecting. This is my second apartment though. (my first apartment was mostly folk band posters and photographs from friends, though my roommate had a poster of a bunch of black and white vulvas in our bathroom that my mother HATED).
Also Automat is my desktop wallpaper. Does this mean I own too many hats and like to frequent bars and coffeeshops alone?
I’m alright with the M.C. Escher poster-having assessment, EXCEPT crosswords over sudoku every time.
Also what does it say if I had a framed Star Wars poster? Have. I still have it. It’s hanging in my hall.
Also, Lord of the Rings. All three of them. Well, two. One was laminated.
I still live with my parents (going on 30, have never been able to afford my own place), but it was super exciting when they upgraded me from the converted garage to an actual room in the house. My posters were Roman Holiday and a signed poster from Nickel Creek’s last tour, when I met Sara Watkins and Chris Thile and about died of giddiness because 1) hugenormous crush on Sara when I was 22 and 2) Chris Thile is the greatest.
A quick reminder that at various points in my life I have owned QUITE A FEW of these posters, so this is not a post born in reflexive snark but in deep and painful empathy.
I think most of us already knew that, but it’s a good distinction to make for the sensitive or uninitiated.
That was next question. I mean, here I am roiling in shame by the very first poster . . . and then a couple others.
Mallory, call your mom
Aah I had Dali posters in my first college dorm. Not Persistence of Memory though, instead Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening (tigers and naked lady) and Temptation of St. Anthony (elephants with long skinny legs). Also John Lennon, a Woodstock poster, and a Mucha poster. Terrible terrible. Also Ralph Steadman’s Lizard Lounge, does that make up for the others?
What about my husband and I’s competing posters? I have “Salad Greens of the World” and he a a giant schematic diagram of the Spruce Goose. They end up jostling for prime kitchen position on the reg.
darl, I hate to do this, but I’m going to have to rule on your husband’s side, because you said “I’s”, which, I feel, should really be punishable by death, but I’ll let you off with the poster denial this time.
Oh dear! Never drop out of high school! I missed all the good stuff apparently.
NOw let’s put this here too, just for the record. Icebergmama, what a fucking jerk. Again I apologize for hurting your feelings with my stupid glib comment, and now I’ll say what I should have already said; “I’s” irritates me personally, but the awful thing about the English language is that you basically have to reconstruct the whole sentence in order to make it correct and not awkward sounding. So I don’t even know how I would have phrased what you said! I believe “my husband’s and my competing posters” is technically correct but doesn’t it sound awful? UGH! “My and my husband’s competing posters”? I don’t even know, girl.
What about a poster of “Starry Night.” Doesn’t everyone own a print of that at some point in her/his life?
You did a really bad job of packing for college and brought too much sentimental stuff from home, cluttering your freshman dorm room. You looked at the more minimal rooms down the hall and wished all your sweaters matched when they hung in the closet, and that your mom had taken you to IKEA to get demure, pretty floral bedding instead of the scratchy Rosie the Riveter comforter you picked out in July after getting a concussion from falling off that horse. You bought that poster and hung it proudly — maybe, just maybe, I’ll feel like one of those perfect girls with the floral sheets, living in their clutterless room with matching sweaters, you thought. You have never been one of those girls, and those girls hung up Monet’s Water Lilies.
Monet is BORING.
Wow, spot on.
I had a Pre-Raphaelite lady with red hair smelling roses, which I think is the same neighborhood as the Starry Night, but not exactly the same.
You went to college in the 90’s. You wanted to have luxurious full red hair and an aquiline nose, and to be mysterious and interesting, especially to boys. You still had a ramen-hair perm, made more ramen-ey by the fact that you are a blonde (your mom made you get it in high school). If boys were interested in you, you couldn’t tell.
Now, you are kinda suspicious of dudes in general, dye your hair red, and people think it’s natural. This confirms what you always suspected about yourself. You have a terrible memory and forget appointments all the time.
I think you get half-credit for a Van Gogh calendar (desk or wall variety).
(guilty, by the way)
Just started dating a guy with a Marilyn Monroe print, not hanging on the wall, but leaning against the wall (does this make it better or worse?) – please advise! The Pink Floyd one was spot on.
I HAD THE DESIDERATA.
I’m pretty sure that makes me insufferable.
I *love* it. Still. Was is all calligraphied up?
No, I had a cheap version I bought from the local head shop.
I STILL think is is a beautiful philosophy and a good one to live by BUT AM ALSO aware that it indicates a certain level of painful earnestness and crunchy self-rigteousness.
Way back in the Regency period, I wrote one of my college essays on “beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.”
I wasn’t at all crunchy, but I was certainly painfully earnest and self-righteous.
“Starry Night” – You LOVE art. No really you don’t understand you LOVE art. That’s what your OK Cupid says. You studied abroad in Spain and complained the whole time about the differences in culture. “It would have been better if I went to Paris,” you say.
“V-J Day” of the sailor kissing unassuming woman- You are 22 years old and live in a city but are counting down the days until it’s acceptable to move to Providence. You graduated with a degree in Marketing or Communications and you have a job in social media. You exclusively follow Mormon mom blogs and have a PUBLIC Pinterest board dedicated to children’s clothes and home items that can be personalized. You probably also have a shit ton of wall decals in your kitchen that get splattered with Trader Joe’s marinara sauce over your half oven.
“Blown Away” poster of the guy on the chair being blown away by speakers- you sublet a subletter’s room. It’s not your poster but it’s the only thing on the walls and it’s come to define you. You worship your, by all accounts, kind of an asshole father and your friends are confused by it. It has something to do with Tom Petty.
V-J Day: you are unaccountably crushed when you find out that the woman in the picture didn’t actually want a drunk sailor kissing her. You occasionally imagine what living in the war would have been like, and in those imaginings, you have flawless 40’s hair. You replace the poster of the people kissing in Paris in the black and white photo. It’s not as good as the V-J Day one, but what can you do?
Wasn’t that on the Maxell cassette tapes?
yes, and only a person who can label it as the Maxell Tape Ad should be able to snark on it 🙂
Now let’s do posters on our bedroom walls during high school. I’ll go first (inoculative cringe): Jimi Hendrix burning his guitar, Alien smoking a joint, Pulp Fiction, collage of Rolling Stone magazine cut outs.
Fellowship of the Ring and a Waterhouse print.
Black and white Keanu Reeves. I regret nothing.
I had a black and white photo of Keanu from Interview magazine with a quote about how the dual meaning of “freeways/free ways” in LA really blows his mind. It was early days.
Star Wars and a trio of small LOTR posters. Also probably a horse calendar.
Sorry yes, also a horse calendar.
Morrissey, Morrissey, the Smiths, and a Mappe of Medieval Englande!
Oh snap, I had a map of the UK and on the back were, like, family crests or something.
Heath Ledger collage. Rest in peace, you beautiful man.
Legolas. Six posters, all of Legolas. I am deeply embarrassed of my teenaged self.
The Ramones WANTED! poster. Cuidado! Armados y peligrosos!
Simon Le Bon, giant wall collage of designer ads from Vogue and Town & Country, Siouxsie Sioux, the Smiths, a Degas ballet painting print (I was an obsessive dancer), and a life-size poster of Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon.
Lordy, I was a pretentious adolescent.
God, the wall collage. Mine was never-ending and always-evolving and my mom still curses me for the day she spent scraping scotch tape off the wall after I moved out. I may out-pretentious you because a good portion of my Vogue/Elle/Interview collage was *individual sentences cut out from articles*. Because.
I was told I couldn’t change the paint color of my room, so I covered it from floor to 8′ ceilings. Mostly it was animation related, with a streak of soft core illustrations running through the middle. Dad and I had a running challenge to gross each other out with sexual references, thus the pics of naked dudes. He usually won unfortunately.
The only poster in my first apartment was one that I made myself of a lesbian dragon, and she was glorious.
How could you tell she was a lesbian?
There may have actually been two of them kissing? I don’t really remember anymore.
It’s always the shoes that give it away.
Her claws were *really short*.
What if your senior-year apartment came with multiple foamboard vintagey circus posters GLUED to the walls, including a black-and-white poster of the whole circus troupe staring at you that seemed to glow at night, and then you tore that poster off the wall and threw it down the back stairs where nobody goes? Does that poster still have a poisonous, insidious effect on your spirit? Will it haunt you for the rest of your life like It?
That sounds terrifying. I hate the fact that my current room has mirrors everywhere (only at night, I like it during the daytime because I’m vain) and those aren’t half as inherently frightening as an evil black and white circus.
I am perfectly harmless.
I am in my 4th apartment right now, and there is a big vintage Italian travel poster that I dry mounted and framed myself, a poster of a cat that my mom got in Japan in the 80s, and a set of 3 watercolors of my grandpa’s village in Norway that my mom didn’t have room for in the house, so she gave to me. Harmless.
What if you had a poster of a hydrogen bomb explosion hanging in your dorm room?
You frequently say things like “well, it is too bad that [companies can’t provide health care/ day care costs too much/ you can’t survive on minimum wage]. But that’s business. That’s how the economy is.” You think The Economy is actually A Law Of Physics, and it makes you vaguely uncomfortable to know you pay an undocumented worker some money, but not a lot, to take care of your lawn. But not uncomfortable enough to, you know, really pay them.
Only superhero posters.
#winning
Nothin’ but Vertigo Comics Posters for most of my poster-having life. And Robert Smith.
I have a Fight Club poster, but only because it was “willed” to me by a girl who was graduating (despite the fact that neither I nor my roommate had ever seen the movie). I have actually read 1.5 Palahniuk books. Whenever I think of Fight Club, I am reminded of a time in high school when I was in a bookstore and my cousin asked me what it was about. I said something along the lines of “it’s about a bunch of people who make a secret fight club where they come and beat each other up.” At which point, the woman working at the counter interjected “not people” and I amended my statement to “it’s about a bunch of men who beat each other up.” Which really does get to the heart of why I personally didn’t like it.
@Brian: I had the H-bomb poster on the wall, and a Debbie Harry poster on the ceiling. I think that just means that I really, really like the track “Atomic”.
Whole bunch of black and white photography, mostly dancers, and a couple of Pulp Fiction cover reproductions?
Never mind I think I know.
What if you never personally owned any of these but between the three people you’ve “lived together” with, all have graced your walls? What then? Also maybe you have a Guernica print that’s been following you through a series of apartments and houses for 15-20 years that you’re seriously going to frame one of these days? Is that a horrible combination of every poster listed in the article and comments? It kind of seems like that.
Guilty of Fight Club and Escher in college (in my defense, I have read multiple Palhunik books. I still don’t know how to spell the man’s name.)
Currently have a small vinatage absinthe print, but it is part of a collection of 4 french pretty lady prints that I picked out for myself while actually in Paris, so I think that’s alright.
Other art I would like analyzed (for a friend, obviously):
1) Giant framed poster that looks like a Kincade-esque landscape but if you examine it closely, has Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh in it, placed somewhere where it is impossible to examine it closely.
2) Expensive artsy band posters from shows you went to but are now slightly embarassed by the artist’s antics though you still kind of love her, though you feel guilty about that.
When I went to see Nine Inch Nails in ’04 or ’05, the Dolls opened and they came out front to sign stuff. I went up there but the tour “lithograph” that was being sold didn’t list them as playing, so I was sheepish handing it to them, basically asking them to sign stuff that wasn’t theirs. Amanda said “Don’t worry, it’s beautiful” and wrote FUCK YEAH, Amanda on it. They were both really sweet, even when I had to bolt when the headliner started up.
I don’t know what happened to that litho, I wanted to get it framed but our framer was a devout christian and refused to work with anything that had swear words. She was also my mom’s best friend so going elsewhere wasn’t really an option. What a shame.
I enjoy the total confidence you had in assuming that the second one was AFP, because, yeah. Obivously.
From personal experience: “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”: You are pretty excited about how smart you think you are, and about your (really quite limited) knowledge of surreal artists. You will have an argument about being and realness with anyone who so much as looks at the poster, though you have never even taken a single philosophy class, so you have no idea what you’re talking about, probably. Later you take some mushrooms and chill out, and now your criteria for wall hangings is “does it have pretty colors and/or is it hilarious”
Aaaugh I had another Magritte painting (Son of Man) that followed me throughout college. Now my wall hangings are 4 framed prints of the Zombie Golden Girls, a painting of a monster that my friend did, and a few other zombie/monster assorted pieces of miscellany. So… we might be very similar. I, too, chilled out after I took some mushrooms.
I never had that on a poster, but I did have a t-shirt that said “ceci n’est pas une peep” with a marshmallow peep. I was pretty excited about how smart and irreverent I thought I was.
I would love to take a vacation every year with my best friend! Although no cruises. The thought of going on a cruise makes me feel icky inside.
(And while I don’t have a picture of the tower currently on my home wall, I do have three postcards in my office…)
I knew a boy who had a Eiffel Tower poster in his living room (in a full fledged house in a boring suburb, that he owned). I didn’t get as far as his CD collection but he did love Dave Mathews Band.
My own crummy apartment was decorated with religious indian paintings that scolded me every morning for my bad life choices.
When you were a child you had a shirt that said “The Brain is Watching You” with the Welles-ian face of the character from the cartoon show Pinky and the Brain , and you liked it so much that when you grew out of it your mom had the image cut out and framed. you don’t know what that says about you, perhaps that you were a 90’s child? Maybe it was an acknowledgement of your spectrum diagnosis. You would wear the shirt while perusing the rock collection that your parents bought you, perhaps vainly trying to stoke an interest in geology, almost certainly as a sensory diet kit. you remember the way the salt crystal tasted, so sharp in comparison to table salt. It induced a euphoria in you.
Then it was a bunch of Nine Inch Nails tour posters, which meant that you were an insecure early ’00s high schooler who felt safer identifying with bands and subgenres that had crested at least 5 years ago, and felt vague pride about liking dark and difficult music. You liked the way drum machines scraped the inside of your ears.
You had a street map of Paris, which meant that you had an upper-middle class family of health practitioners that would go on extravagant vacations every few years. Back when it was not illegal to do so, drug companies would fly your father out to Paris or Cancun and sell him on their products at “conferences”, and he would take you with him.
These days you have a personalized drawing from a musician you bankrolled a year or two ago, it says “Thanks to you …! (I am completely fucking insane!)” You met him after he sent it to you, and you stammered. He excused himself from the room, because he can’t stand stammering fans. There’s also a Molly Crabapple print, a woman with a long braid wrapped around her arm and the words “and yet God has not said a word”. It was a gift to yourself upon leaving New York. You see it and think about how maybe you should have stayed, all the friends you were making in that last month. That woman who invited you onto her radio show, maybe the only person you’ve ever met more nervous in the company of people than you are. She wore long sleeves year round, probably to hide scars, and she read your tarot once and kept stating that it wasn’t actually meaningful, as if you might judge her for the practice. She didn’t have to, and you didn’t.
And oh man Mallory, at my alma mater there was a week during the semester when poster vendors would descend upon campus and ply their trade, presenting the tackiest and most obvious selections you could care to imagine. If a university in your area does a similar thing, you should definitely conduct some field reportage!
Also, I want to know what a Bob Marley poster says. What a Bob Marley mural says.
The Bob Marley smoking a joint poster, of course.
I think you missed one- my sister brought back for me a bullfighting advertisment poster from her trip to Europe which proudly hangs in my kitchen, and I *know* I’m far from the only person who has one. WHAT DOES THIS SAY ABOUT ME?
My roommate, who had the Dali poster AND Anne Geddes, bought me a Mallrats poster. WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT US?
Sounds like you’re my age. Ugh, Anne Geddes.
My roommate had Danzig, Ansel Adams, and a giant red Budweiser banner stolen from a race.
My roommate hung a Hopper print in the living room and I’m sort of embarrassed by it, and in turn embarrassed by being embarrassed. It’s an obscure one, though! (by which I mean not Nighthawks or Christina’s World)
Christina’s World is Wyeth?
What if you have a print of John Collier’s Lilith, a Mucha calendar, a framed Portal 2 poster, a framed signed copy of Tasha Tudor’s There is No Frigate Like a Book, and 3 paintings by your sister (Maleficent, a raven in a winter tree, and Ottery St. Mary, respectively) hanging, currently, throughout your apartment?
I have NEVER posted a Buzzfeed article on Facebook, and I am not Facebook friends with a single coworker. EXPLAIN THAT, MALLORY
I’ve got a giant poster of The Penguin Dorothy Parker (http://www.theliterarygiftcompany.com/ekmps/shops/danihall/images/dorothy-parker-poster-680-p.jpg) whch, to self-diagnose myself, which tells the world: “You have a semi-useless but very expensive MFA in poetry. You worry that your love of gin is getting out of hand. You’re most often described as ‘intense’–sometimes (not often) this is meant as a compliment.”
Other posters in my home: Shepard Fairey’s Make Art Not War in my kitchen (cliched but I love it), a vintage painting of a dodo, and Qmx’s set of Firefly Travel Posters (nerdy yet classy). They are all framed because I am too old for pushpins and sticky tack.
The only posters I’ve ever had were advertisements for small circus and theater groups from this small town I used to live in. The professors at the school where I worked stole them to decorate our school apartment and I took a bunch when I moved back to the states. And I loved them all. So.
I’m pretty sure that puts me firmly in the “traveled/lived internationally asshole” category.
I had Broadway posters. I think the stereotype for this is “has more in common with Rachel Berry than she will ever admit or not yell at you for.”
What about that ‘eat money’ one? (I had this. SOMEONE GAVE IT TO ME AS A GIFT I don’t know if that’s better or worse)
I also had, as mentioned above, a laminated trainspotting poster. I also had:
A LoTR movie poster (I was obsessed with the props department, idk.)
A peter’s projection map. See here http://xkcd.com/977/ and don’t forget the alt text)
A very small print of ‘bedroom at Arles’ which I still have and cherish, except the colours are wrong because it’s a print of whichever version has the colours I don’t like as much.
Does it matter/change if the keep calm and carry on poster was bought and hung in 2008 before it became the horrible monster it is now? I liked it for its historical context I swear!
( I accept that this changes nothing, still harmless)
Are you trying to make me cry? Because I’m crying now. Partly from laughing.
You monsters are the reason why the only art in this room is a velvet Elvis and my grandparents’ wedding photo. (And an Italian Breakfast at Tiffany’s poster, ok, fine.)
Joke’s on you, melis! I have a Reservoir Dogs poster but I don’t date anybody!
Wait a minute.
Where is Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”?
You left off the Robert Doisneau kiss poster… Or was that too late80s/early90s? I am an Old.
I’m stupid…can someone explain The Wave one to me?
Maaaaallory; you are so beautifully cruel to all my ex-boyfriends. <3 u toastie.
I had none of these. Now we have some ridiculous werewolf bar mitzvah and zombie dance party prints in our back room now. And a whole bunch of octopus art purchases off of Etsy in the bathroom. The rest of our walls have photographs of family and paintings picked up from thrift shops and yard sales. They don’t have much because we just moved here and still need to paint but I’m so overwhelmed at finally being able to paint, I don’t know what color I want. My first place wasn’t decorated all that differently from now though. I think that I had a collage of secrets printed from PostSecret that I found “relevant.” Judge away.
Thankfully I didn’t own any of the above, but I adored my black and white posters of Louis Armstrong and a Helmut Newton photograph! Could that mean I am harmless and sick?!
I think people with black and white posters of Louis Armstrong get prizes and stuff. Harmless and awesome.
but how about radiohead’s hail to the thief???
or that black and white of bobby d? or does the trainspotting poster description fall under that one?
Oh no… I had an Einstein poster, black and white, with a few equations around his head in colour. This is really bad. Still, I don’t think either of those descriptions apply to me.
I had that poster of Faith No More in their underwear. What does that say about me?
I picked up a set of Serenity travel posters to hang over the couch. Not a single person has seen them as anything other than old-timey style travel posters. So disappointed in my friends…I’m marrying the first person that actually looks at them, and recognizes them.
Those posters sound amazing! Where did you get them?
Originally at ThinkGeek, but I found them on Amazon, too. The words “Serenity travel posters” in my post are hyperlinked to the item. Love them!
ha, I am super observant. Totally missed that there was a link there…
Those are great posters. Subtle enough, but still super nerdy.
The Boondock saints was uncannily on the nose :O
My first apartment was plastered with college-bookstore-bought posters, and I am simultaneously disappointed and relieved to see that none of them are listed here.
The bit about the world music CDs from upscale grocery stores made me lose it.
For the record, I owned none of these. I did date assholes– who were in their 40s who had some of them, though. I have learned to run the fuck away from French Art Nouveau AND Pink Floyd posters. No good can come of any of it.
Second that on the Pink Floyd, and I’d like to add Grateful Dead posters. Bad news.
I think people with black and white posters of Louis Armstrong get prizes and stuff. Harmless and awesome.
Second that on the Pink Floyd, and I'd like to add Grateful Dead posters. Bad news.
Oh My God. Wow. What a horrible human being. Good thing you're not friends with her anymore.
I put real art on my walls in college not posters, originals. Same as the walls in my house now.
This made me laugh, but it does make me rather self-conscious about my own posters. I don’t have any listed (though I do have a Le Chat Noir shirt with Luna from Sailor Moon on it and an MC Escher coffee-table book), it’s mostly autographed posters (and two autographed CD-rs) from bands and comics that make me feel like the world’s biggest hipster (in the bad way) when I show them to people excitedly and those people have no idea what I’m on about. Also a giant Magic: The Gathering 2011 core set poster with a knight riding a griffin on it.
I’m guessing what this says about me is that I’m self-conscious and enjoy telling strangers on the internet about the shit in my room.
Oh! OH OH OH!
I just squealed in my bedroom.
This was posted on July 18 in America, judging by your domain name you're in Australia and your post is dated July 20th (I just went and looked at the link). Even allowing for the time difference which is somewhere around 14-16 hours… this post went up before yours.
Does the Jouets poster have the same meaning as Le Chat Noir or is there an added layer of awful because you obviously are copying Monica. I’m asking for, um, a friend.
I had the Dead Kennedys. Signifying the start of my rock journalist career, Jello Biafra was the first person I ever interviewed…
“You consider yourself a very sexually compelling person. This usually means you get more drunk than anyone else at dinner parties, then loudly hit on the only person there you don’t know.”
I am terrified that this is true about me.
Wondering what Bruce Springsteen’s ass and the American flag mean…..
Um, it’s a little thing, but John Lennon is wearing a shirt that says “NEW YORK CITY” in that poster. It’s not just a white tank top. I mean, I just thought you should know.
I wanted to write that too, but then I read the description about being physically unable to *not* correct someone and thought, “fuck!”
I had “Spider Elephants” not “Melting Clocks”
I like turtles!
I had a poster with a huge “a” in the Helvetica typeface. Helvetica! What can I say? I was young.
Isn’t it possible that someone had a mass-produced poster in their first apartment and wasn’t an asshole? Just because people were silly and less informed about the world when they were young doesn’t mean they stayed that way.
Maybe I sound like a jerk. I don’t really mean to be critical, but there’s so much knowing smugness here…it makes my stomach hurt.
Hmmm… My first apartment had a Ferrari Tifosi flag and framed pictures of Daffy Duck and Donald Duck. I’m sure the shrinks would have a field day figuring that one out…
Hmmm… My first apartment had a Ferrari Tifosi flag and framed pictures of Daffy Duck and Donald Duck. I'm sure the shrinks would have a field day figuring that one out…
So awkwardly true.
Guilty of Van Gogh’s The Night Cafe and Edward Hopper’s Chop Suey. At least it wasn’t Nighthawks. (I will defend all of those paintings, though!)
One of my flatmates got the Chat Noir poster for our living room, and my French flatmate nearly died of embarrassment.
This article was very depressing to read. Not because I identified with the poster-futures, but just because of the contrast between the image of the young, optimistic poster-poster and the bleakness that lies in store for each of them in every single scenario…
I can’t believe how boring and cynical this post is.
I STILL like the giant wave poster (though my mom’s still alive, so what do I know?)
The posters I was thinking of getting for my 27-year-old self are… Riddick and Wolverine. Second childhood?
what about a Breakfast Club poster or Van Gogh’s Irises?
What about, just, like, landscape photographs? Like gorgeous mountains? And some maps? And I guess I got the Ansel Adams prints the year AFTER college, but they probably also count…
Excellent piece. Very funny!
I had many posters, but one that sticks out os the movie poster for CLOCKWORK ORANGE. What does that say about me?
For reals, the entry for “The Great Wave of Kanagawa” needs to be expanded into a short story, that is the most chilling thing I’ve ever read in my life.
BRB, buying photos of child models dressed as adults – I would like this life please.
I had a Don’t Panic and Carry a Towel poster.
Does that make me mostly harmless?
I had Starry Night and a photorealistic fantasy dragon. WHO AM I!?
I had a Lord of the Rings poster (which I still have, actually), a poster with various different smiley faces on it, and a poster of Martin Luther King Jr. And I have no idea what that says about me.
(possibly something about being extremely nerdy?)
I had those smiley face posters for a while!
I had two movie posters in my college apartment: Barbarella and Todd Solondz’ Palindromes. Now, as my boyfriend recently pointed out, my wall art consists of mostly old framed portraits of my grandmother and my mother. Among the exceptions are a portrait of Donna Tartt and my friend Julia’s adorable Soviet kindergarten picture. Telltale signs of a louche, maladjusted ne’er-do-well?
I have a Fight Club poster because it is one of my favorite movies, based on a book by my absolute favorite author: Chuck Palahniuk (I took the time to memorize the spelling). I’ve read several of his books(by which I mean around 8), and I plan to eventually read all of them, but there are other things to read. I’m surprised there was nothing for a Rosie the Riveter poster; those are pretty popular. Though I guess I would have just been told what a “man-hating lesbian” I am or something.
I think it might be best for my mother if I get rid of the Hokusai’s Kanagawa Wave poster before I actually get my own home. My other 50 anime and Japan posters are safe.