Saturday, December 02, 2006

The Swedish Touch


Who could resist interior design sounding like Oksekjoet, Gulost and Fiskeboller? Sometimes the Luddite succumbs to the allure of assemble-yourself Swedish furniture. The act of taking it home in flat awkward boxes and putting everything together gives him a sense of accomplishment. It's probably because although his daily work is gratifyingly creative, it's all about making things appear on screens: It never results in anything tangible in a three dimensional sense.

The assembly instructions are wordless, using images as the sole means of communicating the necessary how-to, bridging cultures and linguistic complexities with ease. He feels that should we ever encounter alien intelligence, Swedish Furniture's authors of chair bodgering instructions for two left thumbs will be uniquely qualified to initiate communications.

However, this weekend's assembly of a new computer cabinet had no less than 39 steps. They should supply raw logs and a handsaw, for simplicity's sake.

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