Catalogorrhea -- Urban Outfitters

Sometimes I like to play this little game where I flip through the home section of the Urban Outfitters catalog and try to find items are not ironic, meta, po-mo, kitschy, retro or otherwise too cool for school. Most of the stuff they sell belongs on Look At This Fucking Hipster's Bushwick Walk-Up, so it can be a real head-scratcher.  Not unlike "What's New in the LL Bean Catalog?".

UO is currently in the throes of a mini-obsession with 1970s Marin County macrobiotic chic. This means macrame pot hangers, scratchy needle point pillows in avocado and burnt orange, and pictures of owls that look they've taken the last Quaalude. It's the decor equivalent of the Williamsburg mustache, and if it doesn't make you want to open a vein in protest then you've been watching too many reruns of Phyllis.

However, I did find a few kindasorta cute things that I wouldn't be totally ashamed to own, which probably means that they were the sloppy seconds from an Anthropologie buyer's drunken shopping spree.  I give myself 10 points for each of the following:

I might love this magnifying glass stand a little bit too much. I picture it atop of a stack of Victorian surgical pictorials holding a perfect specimen of Acherontia styx...or a tear-stained petal from your prom corsage...or the likelihood that you will achieve your dreams before you die.

This desk has a utilitarian spareness that mixes corporal punishment cheekiness a la The 400 Blows with an insouciant wink of nuclear holocaust drill. Super-sexy! It figures largely in the recurring nightmare I have of taking the GRE naked in a room full of morbidly obese Kabuki dancers.

I also love(ish) these tuxedo ruffle curtains. They prove that on rare occasions, UO can contain itself. You know some design intern in gladiator sandals wanted to silkscreen them with production stills from Joanie Loves Chachi, but somehow cooler heads prevailed.

Your turn, friends! Highest score gets to throw this at this.