Now I Lay Me Down to Eat: Notes and Footnotes on the Lost Art of Living

by Bernard Rudofsky

Now I Lay Me Down to Eat

Genres: History, Design

191 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

From http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/...

Bernard Rudofsky (Austrian-American, 1905–1988) was an architect, curator, critic, exhibition designer, and fashion designer whose entire oeuvre was influenced by his lifelong interest in concepts about the body and the use of our senses. He is best known for his controversial exhibitions and accompanying catalogs, including Are Clothes Modern? (Museum of Modern Art [MoMA], 1944), Architecture without Architects (MoMA, 1964), and Now I Lay Me Down to Eat (Cooper-Hewitt Museum, 1980). He was also famous for his mid-20th-century Bernardo sandal designs, which are popular again today.

Reviews

[Alaina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit of a pompous orientophile, but I did learn a few neat things. I wish I'd gotten to see the exhibit.

Highlight: The first section tells about the ancient preference for dining recumbent. 'The legions of painters and carvers were forever at a loss to interpret such stage directions as Saint John "lying close to the breast of Jesus" (John, 13:23). All their attempts to follow the Scriptures to the letter-- that is, to portray a recumbent John among companions stiff as pokers-- presented an unsolvable problem. Whatever the extenuating circumstances, their common expedient to depict John napping is nothing short of slander.' (p. 17)

Also, I had never heard of Japanese water platforms (P. 84-85) and now I long for them.

Lowlight: Rudofsky goes to all sorts of lengths to explain and emphasize the erotic appeal of swinging/rocking, while ignoring what (to me) is the obvious answer. Rocking feels nice, and targets the vestibular system which can be especially soothing for some people prone to physical stress and dysregulation. But no, it must be that women enjoy swinging because it excites them sexually.

That said, all the different types of rocking devices pictured are wonderful, especially the 1885 "Health Jolting Chair" (P. 94)

[quoms · Rating 3 out of 5]

While amply illustrated, this book suffers by being separated from the museum exhibition it was written to accompany. Rudofsky appears to have desired to let the design of the art and artifacts speak for itself, and to use this volume rather to whet the palate than to provide a filling meal. As he admits in the conclusion, the writing is "all hops and skips;" he never plants himself firmly enough to deliver a truly powerful argument for any of the customs he advocates (though they are all very sensible, and I myself swear by a few).

Part of the trouble is that the book is written in an overweening elite register, with a whiff of Buckley Jr. about it. One the one hand that's not so bad; there is pleasure to be had in watching someone manipulate the words and sounds of English with such dexterity. On the other, Rudofsky seems unable to come down off his high horse, and it actually weakens his argument. He adopts the classic intellectual posture of a cultured disdain for everything; it is as if he finds genuine enthusiasm unbecoming, such that he can't muster up much of it even when he is talking about cultural and design practices that on a purely literal reading he strenuously supports. It is all acid wit, and too much acid (like too much lemon juice on a meal, when only a squeeze will do) leaves a sour taste in the mouth.

The book is a meditation on "civilization," but a meditation in the Christian sense of the term: circular, hermeneutic. Like any keen cultural commentator, Rudofsky knows that the "civilized" West is a stuffy charade that deserves mockery, and he doles it out anywhere and everywhere he feels appropriate. Yet he cannot, or will not, divorce himself entirely from the idea of "civilization": when he praises the Japanese for their "civilization," for instance, it is impossible to tell what level of irony is supposed to accompany the term. Similarly it is not entirely clear whether he is joking when he refers to "higher civilizations" than the Ashanti (because in that context he is noting a continuity rather than an ironic contrast). And is "vulgarity," the inverse of "civilization," good or bad? On one hand, the modern West is condemnably vulgar due to its rejection of the civilized refinement of the ancients; on the other, it seems to me that "vulgar" is quite an appropriate word for what Rudofsky advocates, which is simple design, built for purpose to fulfill sensual pleasures.

That is, it is all very muddled. The clearest throughline is not sensible, purpose-driven design, nor is it an unbridled epicurean enthusiasm; rather, it is an attitude of general nose-turning-up. This is not bad grist, as such; it has fueled countless conservative-minded satires and comedies of manners. But it is poor material, I think, for a book that is intended to open the reader's mind to particular life-improving design interventions. Gauche it may be, but even something as obviously useful as the bidet needs to be marketed; someone needs to run the risk of being unambiguously positive about it. It is not enough to chastise Americans for being too dull and filthy to see its benefits.

But that is the sum of my criticism, and I don't mean for it to reflect too negatively on the book. Many readers will get more out of it than I did - particularly those who are not already devotees of floor-sitting, mat-sleeping, squat toilets, and so on. I just hope such a reader is enticed to Rudofsky's design cosmopolitanism, rather than turned off from it, by the way in which the ideas are presented.

[A.K. · Rating 3 out of 5]

As Goodreads is information-poor, here, here is a directly quoted note:

The topics discussed in this publication were first broached by the author in a series of essays written in the nineteen thirties for Domus magazine, intended as a vote of no confidence against the then prophets of a spurious modern architecture. One article, Non ci vuole en nuovo modo di costruire, ci vuole un nuovo modo di vivere, roughly translated "What we need is not new technologies but a new way of living," he subsequently expanded (in English) into half a dozen books on architecture, apparel and related matters. In Now I Lay Me Down to Eat, he surveys some of these subjects from the present-day American point of view. Primarily meant to serve as a safe-conduct for his 1980 exhibition of the same name at New York's Cooper-Hewitt Museum, it also can be read as a sort of new earth catalog.

The-book-of-the-exhibition, fact of which I failed to catch in two readings of this. Observant as a box of hair. Knowing this does answer my main query of the book (or of Rudofsky, or of the motes floating cross my eyeballs, or whoever answers first- to be fair, the book did answer, before the question occurred- but I digress, somewhat weirdly): "YES, AND...?"

Meaning, I'm with Rudofsky, at least I seem to be and on some fairly obscure points, too- I find rocking chairs utterly dissatisfying, I like to conduct business while bathing, I am somewhat averse to forks- but I require more information,! At 185 pages it really is a damn fine book-of-the-exhibition, that is to say a damn fine catalog: I want a manifesto.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crazy man, crazy...

[Mills College Library]

392.36 R9171 1980

[C.K. Love · Rating 5 out of 5]

Want to reread. If I can get my hands on the book!