Atomic Monster Cafe: Art Deco...

...wonder...love that fireplace...enough so I think I'm inspired to design our guest room around it.

Of course at the moment the guest room is a bit of a mess, but it is heated...by this lovely mid century modern fireplace...

...and thankfully they're in demand at the moment, so guess what I'm going to be selling?

Since I have a pretty nice collection of art deco radios...

...I think I can pull off the art deco look and feel in that room.

Plus, even though I sold my original 1946 RCA 621TS television, I do still have the case for one of those beauties...

...it was actually designed in 1939 which explains the art deco lines...the war delayed its production / distribution, and by 1946 when it finally came out it was not a huge hit...in short order it was replaced, which oddly helped cement its place in history as a "rare classic".

I'm thinking of putting a 7" lcd screen in my currently empty case and voila, functioning modern TV with classic art deco looks...perfect for my guest room.

If our guests would rather waste their time watching TV than visiting with us, then they can scooch their chairs right up close to the TV and squint like they had to back in the good ol' days...c'mon, stop whining and put your back into it!

That'll teach 'em...but the TV will look great while they're doing it.

Add an appropriate chair or three...

...some 1920's / 1930's period lighting...

...and we'll be good to go...

Now all it takes is money...lots and lots of money...

While writing PMT 7 I researched World War 1 and came across poetry by a young British officer named Wilfred Owen.

Sadly he was killed in action just a week before the Armistice, but he left behind a number of poems he penned during this bloody conflict. Owen's legacy over time has become his poetry and he is generally considered to be one of the best from that era.

Perhaps his most famous is "Dulce Et Decorum Est", a Latin phrase borrowed from a work by the famed Roman poet Horace in one of his Odes (book III ).

The full line from Horace's work is "dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" which translates to "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country".

While not an unusual sentiment, and one that was bandied about fairly commonly in the early days of WWI, as the fury and gore of that unprecedented world conflict unfolded in all its gruesome reality, the phrase began to be seen in a different, more cynical light.

Here's what Owen wrote, describing the horrible death from a poison gas attack he and his mates endured:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—