Triumph of the bourgeoisie: getting rid of the dark scum on your deck

A couple days ago the NYT had an article about someone who realized a classic upper-class fantasy: buy the house behind yours, and transform it into something that shows everyone the superiority of your taste.

Just to be clear what we're talking about, here is the photograph showing an interior view of the transformed second house:

That the person in question was a celebrity author, Douglas Coupland (among other things, he is credited with creating the phrase "Generation X") adds to the cachet of the project and makes it seem like an acceptable thing for a liberal to do. To clarify his intentions, here's his description of the house in question:

"It was just a mess," he said. "There was dog effluvia, nicotine dripping down the walls, water damage...."

Nicotine "dripping down the walls"? Man, your neighbors were real trash, weren't they? You sure did the world a favor by taking their house and turning it into some kind of overblown cartoon of 20th century architectural flavors rather than, say, creating a home for for a family (or, given the apparent size of the mansion, several families). But if people lived in it, they might smoke, or have pets, or disturb the "art" that Coupland has put up, or worst of all, interrupt what he has apparently been doing ever since being the renovation, and which he must be doing over and over and over again while reading this New York Times piece and viewing its slideshow of images, namely, masturbating.

technorati: houses, Douglas Coupland, decorating