">HomeOwnerNut

If you feel the least emotionally challenged these days, buy yourself a lamp. Not that shopping therapy really works, but getting a silly, ugly lamp can get you to see the absurdity of taking yourself and your design tastes too seriously. I own an art-deco lamp with Greek nymphs cavorting over archways covered with vines. It’s hideous and lovely, and I’ve had it by my bedside since 1981.

I’d be delighted to own three or four of these, while the rest make me queasy. You decide:

Exhibit 1. Clarence Clemons Designer Lamp

Nothing like some of the Big Man’s tenor sax solo on Springsteen’s The Promised Land to chase the blues away. “Mister I ain’t a boy, no I’m a man, And I believe in a promised land.”

Exhibit 2. Feathered Wings of Jollity

As Clint Eastwood says in a movie, “A man’s gotta know his limits.”  And these are mine. Made from Murano glass (from Venice) and decked with ostrich feathers, it costs only $5,000. So does a tenor saxophone. I know what I want. But if you like it, you can find it at Bond and Bowery.

Exhibit 3. Snakes on an Earthly Plane

If you don’t have the gorgon Medusa in your home, now’s the time to grab this illuminating visage of the Greek chthonic monster. Yes, chthonic is a word; you can look it up.

Exhibit 4. Hanging Out at Home

Uh…I’ll pass. Not interested in having people dangling from nooses in my home. (But there’s no accounting for taste.)

Exhibit 5. Volleywood

In truth, I love ping pong. I have my own Yuki blade and high-spin rubber. But the idea of putting a lamp with 315 table tennis balls in the house seems a bit excessive. According to Home Planet, the lamp casts interesting dot shadows on your wall.

Exhibit 6. Wiener Dog Delight

I’d love one of these. To know me is to love kitsch. I’d put it right beside the doggie treadmill I wrote about earlier this month.

Exhibit 7. Ugg Buttly

While these heavy-duty retro lamps probably sell–and cost much more than a wiener dog lamp–I won’t be carrying a pair out to the car. Buy them for me and I won’t accept the delivery. Come on, people. Enough is enough!