A Reading At Poggenpohl Studio

My friend Lisa, who always knows about totally weird cool things, got an announcement for a reading at the Poggenpohl Studio on Park Avenue South. I knew that Poggenpohl makes, you know, high-end, design-y kitchens, so I couldn't picture a reading there (being a veteran of readings in, mostly, dandruff-y bookstores and damp-smelling galleries for the most part, although I did once read in front of a thousand or so students at the morning assembly of a high-falutin' private school in New Jersey, and for $500 I wouldn't do it again). But, yeah, it was at the Poggenpohl Studio (showroom), and there was a spread of savory and dainty hors d'oeuvres and top shelf-ish sparkling wines and men with good hair and woolen scarves and women with perfectly half-considered make-up and pointy-toed shoes. A writer named Akiko Busch read from her new book, Uncommon Life Of Common Objects: Essays On Design And The Everyday. The excerpt she read was about Sam Farber and how he founded his company, OXO (this next part isn't from her book, but it'll give you an idea what she read about):


In 1960, Sam Farber founded the successful kitchenware maker Copco, Inc. Before this, he had worked for 11 years for his father Louis, who owned Sheffield Silver. Farber's uncle Simon had founded Farberware in 1900. After 39 years in the kitchenware business himself, Sam Farber retired in 1988 at age 66. With all those years of experience, it wasn't until retirement that Farber realized the impact of his family's business on people with disabilities.

Shortly after retirement, Sam and his wife, Betsey, rented a home in Provence, France for two months. Betsey had developed arthritis and the available kitchenware at their rented home was difficult and painful for her to use. The more cooking they did together, the more inadequate the utensils seemed. Betsey's discomfort forced Sam to wonder, "Why can't there be wonderfully comfortable tools that are easy to use?"


In 1989, Sam Farber decided to unretire and establish Oxo International to produce kitchenware with older and disabled users in mind. Farber chose the name because it could be read horizontally, vertically, or upside down.

from: http://www.design.ncsu.edu:8120/cud/projserv_ps/projects/
case_studies/oxo.htm

Akiko Busch's excerpt highlighted the kindness and humanity that can be inherent in the most innocuous objects; we just need to look. It was a nice moment and I think I may buy the book used on Amazon at some point (it's $30).

Lisa and I sat listening behind an expensive metal Poggenpohl table, drinking our sparkling wine. We didn't know anyone there. People walking by outside looked in quizzically. After the reading was over we moved to another expensive metal Poggenpohl table and continued eating, drinking, talking. We didn't notice time passing. Then, over by where the reading was, at the back, came the sound of loud singing into a microphone, like you might hear at a wedding in New Jersey. It was close to eight by then, and we figured this was how they were throwing people out. But it was just the showroom staff, drunk-ish, reading from the book as from the Bible in ponderous tones. Somebody mentioned Jesus, and I gave the "rock on!" hand signal. Some guy who works at the showroom asked Lisa and I if we were Polish. He said he used to go out with a Polish girl, and he always could tell when someone was Polish -- by their eyes. Then he asked if he could show us something. Uh-oh. But it was photos of his incredibly cute six-month old daughter. You know how babies are ugly (oh, be honest!)? How they all look like Yoda (but uglier)? Well, this kid was beautiful. Like the Virgin Mary in Fra Lippo Lippi's "Madonna and Child with Two Angels" at the Uffizi. We congratulated the guy, and extended the sentiment to his wife. What else do you say? I felt like saying, Well, she'll be a hideous teenager, but once she grows out of that she'll be okay. Hopefully. Personally, I was ugly until I was nineteen, after my Freddy Mercury teeth finally got fixed.

Then Lisa and I wanted to leave, and so we excused ourselves to go the bathroom. We were young on the punk scene in Chicago, and so we always went to the bathroom with our friends, and like back then I averted my eyes while Lisa peed in the high-end Poggenpohl bathroom (in their medicine chest was a copy of Architectural Digest).

Walking out into the faintly rainy evening, we laughed about how Lisa and her husband and me and my husband all have the same doctor now, and Lisa said that she and Geoff often run into him on the street in their neighborhood, and he never acknowledges them.

If they ever have a reading at Poggenpohl again we're definitely going.