“Electrified Plexiglas and Mirrored Glass Low Table,” circa 1970-79, by American designer Ron Ferri. American Glam. From the artnet site:

“There are few designers who captured the essence of the Studio 54 era as well as Ron Ferri did. The Emerald green Plexiglas base is illuminated from within and rests on a sleek mirrored glass top. Pure disco chic. From the original Jay Spectre designed interior for R. Roberts. Documented in Point of View: Design by Jay Spectre by J. Spectre and G. Bradfield; page 46. Original condition.”

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For those who aren’t familiar with the song In Every Dreamhome A Heartache, it appeared on the 1973 Roxy Music album For Your Pleasure. See here for a live performance featuring Brian Eno on keyboards, looking like a sick Ziggy Stardust, and Andy Mackay wearing some quite amazing blistered spaceman pants in green satin. The decor-filled lyrics are below, but here’s a sample: “Open plan living/Bungalow ranch style/All of its comforts/Seem so essential.” There’s a certain nostalgia for 70s decor happening at the moment. Not surprisingly, back in 1973 there was a different, more skeptical take on opulent, “utopian” postwar interior design and its discontents. As an aside, I think the houses being sung about here were actually the 50s rancher bungalows Bryan Ferry would have grown up with, but then the 1970s “dreamhome” styles would probably have had their roots in 50s modernism.

The top two photographs are from 1973; the photo at far bottom is from 1974.

Thanks to glen.h and vytaute and Miss Retro Modern on Flickr.

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Ann Margret as Nora Walker Hobbs in Ken Russell’s 1975 film “Tommy”. This scene, not to mention the whole film, was absolutely formative for me (and apparently I’m not alone). It opens with a drunk Nora watching TV in her all-white glam boudoir; on the screen is an ad for baked beans, “Fit For A Queen.” Nora throws a champagne bottle through the TV set, soap suds and baked beans pour out into the white bedroom, and she writhes, laughing, in the surreal, psychedelic mess.

 See Hilly Blue’s excellent collection of film stills at  Flickr.

I fell in love with this object when I saw it in the National Museum of Anthropology of Mexico. One of my best gay male friends and I were in Mexico City to visit friends and we’d been in the museum a couple of hours when I turned a corner and suddenly saw this piece. I was wearing the instructional audio headphones and a female voice with accented English was saying “La Gallina Loca: CRAZY Chicken, or FANtastic hen. A figure representing the underworld, it is ceramic with shell encrustations.” I called my somber, jetlagged friend over to look at it and he instantly brightened up and laughed and said “That’s the only gay thing in here!!!” Every house needs one of these, or equivalent.

“Popularly known as “la Gallina Loca” (the Crazy Hen), this unique piece probably depicts a raptorial bird with Underworld associations, given the fact that the marine elements it incorporates are often related to this realm. Bird Shaped Vessel. Teotihuacan, 300 – 550 AD, Clay, marine shells and greenstone.