This is a RetroRenovation rerun originally published Nov. 9, 2008.

10. Camp sees everything in quotation marks. It’s not a lamp, but a “lamp”; not a woman, but a “woman.” To perceive Camp in objects and persons is to understand Being-as-Playing-a-Role. It is the farthest extension, in sensibility, of the metaphor of life as theater.

- Susan Sontag, Notes on “Camp”, 1964

Dan the Man at the Houston Architecture Info Forum recently linked to RetroRenovation.com with the following comment:

Here’s a neat blog on mid-century residential design. It tends towards the kitsch, but it recommends many resources and materials for appropriate renovations…

While I am truly grateful for the reco, I found myself reacting harshly at being called “kitsch” and the disparaging connotation. Hmmm. So what is kitsch…and should I care at being lumped in? I went over to Wikipedia to study etymology…

Of course, there was lots of discussion about avante-garde art and capitalist oppression of the masses… as expected. What really caught my attention, though, was this PostModern update, which to my mind,  confirms that this blog is not kitsch – it’s camp. Of this – I am proud!  Here’s more explanation for your Sunday Magazine reading. Warning: please caffeinate first, this is very “deep”:

With the emergence of Postmodernism in the 1980s, the borders between kitsch and high art became blurred again. One development was the approval of what is called “camp taste” – which can be related to but is not the same as Camp as a “gay sensibility.”^[2] Camp, in some circles, refers to an ironic appreciation of that which might otherwise be considered corny, such as singer/dancer Carmen Miranda with her tutti-frutti hats, or otherwise kitsch, such as popular culture events which are particularly dated or inappropriately serious, such as the low-budget science fiction movies of the 1950s and 60s. A hypothetical example from the world of painting would be a kitsch image of a deer by the lake. In order to make this Camp, one could paint a sign beside it, saying “No Swimming”. The majestical or romantic impression of a stately animal would be punctured through humour; the notion of an animal receiving a punishment for the breach of the rule is patently ludicrous. The original, serious sentimentality of the motif is neutralized, and thus it becomes Camp. Kitsch is never ironic. “Camp” is derived from the French slang term camper, which means “to pose in an exaggerated fashion.” Susan Sontag argued in her 1964 Notes on “Camp” that camp was an attraction to the human qualities which expressed themselves in “failed attempts at seriousness,” the qualities of having a particular and unique style and of reflecting the sensibilities of the era. It involved an aesthetic of artifice rather than of nature. Indeed, hard-line supporters of camp culture have long insisted that “camp is a lie that dares to tell the truth.”

More… on Susan Sontag and her role in all of this:

“Notes On “Camp”” is a well-known essay by Susan Sontag organized around 58 numbered theses. It was published in 1964 and was the author’s first contribution to the Partisan Review. The essay created a literary sensation and brought Sontag her first brush with intellectual notoriety. It was published in 1966 in book form in Sontag’s debut collection of essays, Against Interpretation (ISBN 0-87052-352-X).

The essay codified and mainstreamed the cultural connotations of the word camp, and identified camp’s evolution as a distinct aesthetic phenomenon.

Quotations

Indeed the essence of Camp is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration. And Camp is esoteric — something of a private code, a badge of identity even, among small urban cliques.

9. Camp taste draws on a mostly unacknowledged truth of taste: the most refined form of sexual attractiveness (as well as the most refined form of sexual pleasure) consists in going against the grain of one’s sex. What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.

10. Camp sees everything in quotation marks. It’s not a lamp, but a “lamp”; not a woman, but a “woman.” To perceive Camp in objects and persons is to understand Being-as-Playing-a-Role. It is the farthest extension, in sensibility, of the metaphor of life as theater. [ Yes!]

18. One must distinguish between naïve and deliberate Camp. Pure Camp is always naïve. Camp which knows itself to be Camp (”camping”) is usually less satisfying.

41. The whole point of Camp is to dethrone the serious. Camp is playful, anti-serious. More precisely, Camp involves a new, more complex relation to “the serious.” One can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious. ["Yes!"]

44. Camp proposes a comic vision of the world. But not a bitter or polemical comedy. If tragedy is an experience of hyperinvolvement, comedy is an experience of underinvolvement, of detachment.

[Update: Dan the Man actually saw this post and emailed me to say he kind of just used the term casually. No insult intended. In any case, it was fun to explore the difference between camp and kitsch...]

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I don’t know what I was thinking, I did not buy these playing cards at the time capsule estate sale. This is just the kind of thing that I love almost the best.

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Some fun stuff in here: Check out the Sexton Genie Bottles, very cool — but line ‘em up, that’s the way to display them! I also spotted a MIB vintage Sears medicine cabinet with lights…vintage Ethan Allen fabric…a Moe Sputnik light (!)…and first up, 7 double rolls of metallic Birge wallpaper. For a foyer perhaps…

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This is a vintage Chambers gas range. I am seriously in love with it, and want it so much that I could burst. For now, though, it is staying in the time capsule house. I am guessing — 60s. Any experts out there who can tell me for sure?

This is the built-in, pop-up griddle. And yes, folks, those are stainless steel (or aluminum?) 4″ tiles behind the stove.

This is the control panel. I am so seriously in love with this stove I cannot stand it.

Here is the vintage Chambers range upstairs. I am dating it 1952 — because that is when the kitchen went in.

Here is the porcelain cover folded down over the burners.

And here is the built-in stove. It’s all so wonderful, and there is still more to come from this house, I’ve barely made a dent.

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Take a neighborhood full of cookie-cutter tract houses …  let their owners fuss with them … and 50 years later photographer Julia Baum finds that they have been “transformed from modest white cubes into a vibrant display of personality and present a rebellion against conformity….human individuality cannot be contained. Inevitably it shines through even the most average facade.” I love her study, which demonstrates again that their is so much to love about our jewel box mid-century homes. No matter how small, the opportunity is there to make them our own.  Read more about Julia’s project and see her slide show of 13 same-yet-different homes here.

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More photos from the weekend’s fabulous time capsule house estate sale — today focusing on floors and walls. To start — this typical 50s slate porch or foyer flooring. I adore this type of flooring, and it is still available today at a reasonable cost, because it’s so old-fashioned.

Yowza, here is the downstairs powder room. You know that I love it. It has very 70s wallpaper — on the walls, the closet doors and the ceiling. It’s kind of interesting to see the mod wallpaper and toilet paired with the classic American Standard 50s sink.

Grey Kentile asphalt tiles in an upstairs half bath. I love how the tile is ‘coved’ to work its way up into a baseboard. I am pretty sure this is Kentile because there was an old brochure in the kitchen. I noticed that even though the brochure called this “asphalt tile” it also mentioned “asbestos fillers” — so be cognizant of this issue in your own homes, readers. Get informed, consult with a professional, and decide how you will handle this tile.

More of the fabulous fabulous kitchen floor.

And more.

The upstairs kitchen again, with a better look at how the “two floors” meet. As I took this picture I was standing here:

The upstairs kitchen dining area. Notice the simple pull-shades on the windows, which themselves are classic picture windows flanked by casements.

A downstairs bedroom / reading room. Mod orange wallpaper with wood trimmed in harvest gold paint. The lighting fixture was all swirly orange-and-yellow-and-white. I have to dig further to see if any of my shots really captured it properly, drats.

Lovely wallpaper in an upstairs bedroom. The color — so pleasing. Perfect feng shui color for a bedroom.

Peek a boo. This featured flat panel mirrors in many, many places. I heard that a fancy New York decorator was involved. Yes, to flat panel mirrors! Outside the door on the right is a porch with gorgeous views. There were lots of porches everywhere, too.

Wallpapered ceiling in the big yellow tile bedroom. Fabulous detail. The graphic mix is perfect, too — the angularity of the tiles countered by the simple floral in the wallpaper. I have been reading my feng shui book again, closely. Trick to achieving harmony: Pairing opposites. As evidenced here.

This garden trellis wallpaper was used on the walls and ceiling of the main stairway.

Last but certainly not least – the blue and gray bathroom downstairs. Ha! Many of you are sick of hearing me say “wallpaper your bathroom walls.” Now I add to the litany: “…and the ceiling, too!” This wallpaper is particularly gorgeous – so light and airy but with just enough metallic gravitas to punctuate the gray tile and royal (navy?) blue trim. The tile, by the way, appears to be old…maybe a kind of rubber…that was later painted. Like, this is the original 50s bathroom – they just repainted the tile and added the wallpaper in the 70s. I guess I’d better show the floor, too:

More Kentile – this time, blue. More of those classique American Standard fixtures. And I must say, I love this color combo. It’s one I haven’t seen yet, and it’s quite pleasing.

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With Christmas coming I am on the hunt for mint-in-box items that, under your tree, will set the mood for… 1964. In this bunch — notice the two great bucket purse kits. And when have you ever seen a Bubble-o-Bill Bubble Hat. There also is an Easy Bake Oven. My mom and dad would not let me have one of those. No batteries allowed in our house, it would have bankrupted us. I was so deprived, woe is me.

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I spent not one — but two — days this weekend at a fabulous estate sale in Adams, Mass. I’m really busy with work right now, so don’t have a lot of time to post, but I wanted to start getting photos from the house (and my finds) online. This is a 1952 Geneva kitchen. It was the second, upstairs kitchen in the house. As far as I could tell, it was virtually unused – absolutely pristine.

This is a shot from the dining room, looking through the butler’s pantry toward the downstairs kitchen. You can see Geneva’s also in the butler’s pantry. But the downstairs kitchen was renovated in the 70s, so there were melamine cabinets there…plain white, nothing eye-popping. However, look at this fabulous vinyl-tile floor. Seriously wonderful.

Gold metallic-Asian inspired 70s wallpaper in the (Victorian) dining room. You know I love this paper. Beyond words.

The downstairs master bathroom / dressing room was expansive — a dream bathroom. . Notice the tiled-in nooks just above the vanity top – a very nice feature. That’s a big mirror looking at the closet opposite. The sinks are avocado. The floors are a small multicolored mosaic of white, avocado and harvest gold tiles. This bathroom was incredible.

On the walls were 4×4 harvest gold American Olean tiles, each designed to look like three smaller, longer, rectangular tiles (see image below, as well). Interestingly, I have about 5 big boxes of this very same tile that I picked up at the Re-Store last year. There were Hall-Mack Towelscopes on both ends of the vanity.  Just beyond the door on the right is the separate toilet — that’s a Danish Modern light fixture on the wall, I have some close ups coming. Oh, and to the left of the Towelscope … look up… and you can see the can lights kind of sticking out of the ceiling about an inch… satin chrome or maybe brushed aluminum finish. It was a wonderful detail. Oh yeah – wallpapered ceiling. If you have a house built after, say, 1965, I’d say you must think seriously about wallpapering your ceilings.

Oh — a gorgeous vintage Frigidaire in the upstairs kitchen.

It is going to take me like, five days, to get through all the photos from this house. And then I will start on WHAT I BOUGHT. I was so enthralled, I spent 3 hours at the house on Saturday, then I drove back on Sunday to go through it again. The house was an inspiration.

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