For lack of anything better to say today I give you the following:

I imagine you’ve all heard about this, but it seems a tailor-made (no pun intended) opportunity for anyone just out of school and furnishing their first post-dorm rooms.

From the press release:

National Search Launched for the Ugliest Couch
Sure Fit Scours America for Biggest Eyesore

NEW YORK, NY, August 21, 2008 – Sure Fit Inc., the leading provider and marketer of ready-made furniture covers, announced today the launch of its 2008 Ugly Couch Contest, the search for the ugliest couch in America. Photo entries for the contest will be accepted until September 30th at www.SureFit.com and by mail for a chance to win a $5,000 living room makeover by designer and host of HGTV’s Myles of Style Kim Myles, courtesy of Sure Fit Inc.

If it’s old, worn, unsightly, revolting, repulsive, lumpy, grumpy or just plain ugly, Sure Fit wants to see it. As the leading creator of stylish, easy, affordable decorating solutions to quickly transform your home, Sure Fit created the “Ugly Couch Contest” to illustrate that Sure Fit slipcovers can turn any couch into a stylish sofa.

“Every year we look forward to sorting through the hundreds of hideous entries, searching for the ugliest of the ugly,” said Laura Hilburt of Sure Fit Inc. “But Sure Fit covers couches nationwide, and we can give even the ugliest couches a total transformation.”

This year’s judging panel features guest judges Kim Myles, designer and host of HGTV’s Myles of Style, Natalie Warady, Style Director for O at Home, Jacqueline Gifford, Features Editor for OK! Magazine, and comedian Sean Kent, seen on E! Entertainment and NBC’s Last Comic Standing.

The panel will select 20 semi-finalists from around the nation before opening up voting to America on www.SureFit.com on October 13th. Each semi-finalist will receive a Sure Fit slipcover of their choice, ensuring that no ugly couch goes uncovered. The grand-prize winner of the $5,000 living room makeover will be announced on November 15th.

The criteria for choosing the ugliest couch includes the ugliness of overall design and fabric pattern, offensiveness of color, inappropriateness of fabric and inappropriateness of the combination of fabric, color and design as it relates to any period in the recent history of furniture. The uniqueness of the couch as it relates to the above-mentioned criteria will also be taken into account.

How to Enter:

Contestants must send a good quality color photo of their ugly couch to: Sure Fit Inc., c/o “Ugly Couch Contest”, 6575 Snowdrift Road, Allentown, PA 18106. On a separate piece of paper, include full name, address, phone number and email address.
You can also submit an entry online at www.surefit.com. Simply click on the “Ugly Couch Contest” button located on the homepage, and follow the instructions to attach photo.
Official rules and privacy policy can be viewed online at www.surefit.com.

Sure Fit products are available via mail order catalog, select major retailers, online at www.surefit.com, and by phone (800) 305-5857.

(My scanned image from: Town & Country, August 2008, pg. 82)

“That’s when it pays to live up there,” said the now thoroughly-domesticated Mrs. E. in reference to my mentioning that New York will celebrate Leonard Bernstein’s (pronounced like “Steinway” as my mother would invariably remind me) would-be ninetieth birthday by playing dozens of concerts.

“That’s when it pays to have lived then,” was my thought.

If you get a moment, please read “Life With Father,” a remembrance of Leonard Bernstein by his daughter, Jamie. Here is the opening paragraph:

When we were little and shared a room, my brother, Alexander, and I used to drift off to sleep at right angles to each other, listening to the steady waves of laughter, piano playing and singing emanating from our parents and all their witty, noisy friends downstairs. This is what grownups did: they drank and smoked and interrupted one another and played raucous word games and sang at the top of their lungs and laughed until they choked. We couldn’t wait to be grown-ups.

That pretty much sums it up doesn’t it? As a child, I was frequently enlisted to solicit drink orders and deliver the finished product to guests. My parents would drape a little white linen napkin over my arm and hand me a silver and melamine tray holding a martini to take to Group Captain Sinjin-Sinjin Smythe, RAF… . After having my dinner in the kitchen and saying my goodnights, I would be led upstairs to bed. More than once I would tiptoe to the top of the stairs and peer down to watch the shadows dance across the floor and hear the laughter and tinkling of ice in glasses. If it was late enough there would be someone playing the piano and a group chorus singing along (Australians love “Waltzing Matilda.”) “Do You Know the Way to San Josè” was popular that year. “What’s New Pussycat” was another crowd pleaser.

Like Ms. Bernstein, I couldn’t wait to be a grown-up.

Mrs. E. and I try to recreate the feeling of those parties. I wonder how well we succeed? No one wears coat and tie (well, regularly … we do specify dress sometimes) let alone a uniform. Women guests don’t jingle with bangles, leave the scent of “Chanel No. 5″ lingering behind as they pass through the crowd, or abandon lipstick smudged Sobranie Cocktail Cigarettes in the silver and crystal ashtrays…. Those days seem to be gone.

Piano lessons are on Mrs. E.’s list of “must-learn-to’s.” And, on occasion, I still use the tray to pass drinks.

What are your fondest memories of the adult world downstairs? What are your secrets for (re)creating a grown-up party? Or is it even possible in today’s world?

(“Cocktail” Gerald Murphy, 1927 available through Allposters.com)

“You hate people.”
“I know, but I love gatherings. Isn’t it ironic?”
– from “Clerks.”

I like the anonimity of the city. It seems a paradox, but you aren’t forced to interact with your neighbors that way that is required when you live in the suburbs. You may nod and smile, even wave, at your fellow city dwellers without actually having to stop and make polite conversation unless you’d genuinely like to. It seems to me a most civilised way of life.

I am sorry that I didn’t get to know a couple of my neighbors earlier, though. They are here, on the Outer Banks this same week, and the sun-kissed Mrs. E. and I enjoyed a marvelous meal of fresh fish grilled over charcoal, fresh corn, rather older wines and even older jazz with them just last night. They are a delightful couple, he an accomplished jazz musician, she a very successful attorney. I’m looking forward to more evenings with them.

Delightful though they are, they are not the subject of this post. Rather, it is their neighbors here at the beach who inspired me to write about a wonderful tradition that is sure to bring you closer to your neighbors, should you wish to get beyond nodding acquaintanceship.

“It’s five o’clock somewhere” is the rallying cry at the manse on many an occasion. My neighbor’s neighbors don’t have to shout to announce happy hour. Instead, if they wish to open the bar and soak the block, they fly the cocktail flag, and like moths to a flame, in come the friends to share in the festivities.

What an easy and elegant solution. The only question is what flag will you fly? Should we choose to show the colours, I think a pair of crossed cocktail sabres with skewered olives might do the trick. Or maybe that wonderful man on the cover of “The Savoy Cocktail Book.” “Cocktail” by Grald Murphy (shown above) would be very ambitious and completely perfect.

Or perhaps it’s time to invest in the green dock light that so entranced Gatsby.

What will your flag look like?