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I’m not a TV junkie, but I have to admit to a certain sudden attachment to the Mad Men series, where advertising executives in 1960s America flaunt their demons. What I love most about the show are the sets and costuming that recall the America of my childhood.  The era, as characterized by the Oakland Museum of California, celebrated the “Birth of the Cool.”

Mad Enough for Me

It’s the narrow ties and the short haircuts and the cocktail dresses that get to me. Plus, everyone smokes as if it’s good for you!

Birth of the Cool

If there’s a single chronicler of the decade to remember, it’s certainly photographer Julius Shulman, who caught the Bauhaus and jazz inspired homes of mad men and Southern California hipsters. Take a good look at these cool cats! That, friends, is a Hi-Fi!

Decked Out

When they weren’t jousting in the board room, Los Angelino trendsetters cut deals and chased each other around the pool. This Shulman photo reveals the So-Cal beamed architecture of the era.

Darkness Falls

In May 1960, Shulman captured architect Pierre Koenig’s vision of a hip LA pad nested over the lights of Sunset Boulevard. Read more about Shulman in LA Magazine.

Valley of Dreams

I grew up in the San Fernando Valley and had friends with parents in the entertainment business. (Didn’t everybody?) This Shulman photo shows where they cooled out with martinis after their commute over the Sepulveda Pass.

Blue Horizons

The Oakland Museum’s “Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury” celebrates Miles Davis, Van Keppel Green furniture, hard-edge abstract paintings, and this photo taken by Shulman during the era. Read more about the Oakland exhibit.

I love houseboats. In 2002 I rented one along one of Amsterdam’s canals not far from the city zoo. In the morning, swans carved circles in the water outside my sliding glass door and you could hear the lions in their cages roaring for their breakfast.  There are great live-aboard houseboats you may have seen in Sausalito, just north of San Francisco, or on Lake Union, where Tom Hanks played a live-aboard, lonely widower in Sleepless in Seattle.  Considering how much of the Earth is submerged in water, I’m surprised so few of us live on it.

Route Canal

If you don’t mind herring and onion sandwiches for breakfast, you’d do quite well in Amsterdam.  You fall asleep to the rolling tide and wake to the sounds of cathedral bells tolling in the distance. About a fifth of the Netherlands in underwater, so locals learned to improvise a long time ago.

Big Bamboo

A great many vacationers in India take delightful refuge along rivers and canals in houseboats. This one plies the waters near Kerala. Looks downright peaceful.

Not So Sleepless

Katy Elliott lives in Massachusetts, but definitely appreciates the higher-end houseboats on Lake Union in Seattle. You’re only minutes away from downtown, the Fremont district, and good local coffee.

Chilly Frilly

Covey Island Boatworks created this Inuit-inspired arctic houseboat for freezing conditions. Powered by wind, solar, and marine systems, the house stays snug in the most challenging climates.

Dubai Dubai Doo

This is not your father’s catfish-trolling houseboat.  A double-decker in steel and glass, the boat sports furnishings that cost more than any floating domicile on Lake Union. It’s fit for a king.