four things i can do without this year

No, this is not some vow of self-abnegation. This is some time-honored peevish blogging!

1. deer heads
It pains me to say because I'm partial to all things surreal and macabre-- and these started out as such. But they've gone cute. Some heads and horns out there are still appealing, though. This one from local Brooklyn design emporium Matter has a nice Baroque kitsch sensibility, but the formerly (and formally) wonderful ceramic antler chandelier, also at Matter, has been tainted by the rest of the herd. They are still proliferating, like here and here, but the deer-head-as-coat-rack is dead.

2. public privates
This makes me positively shiver with hatred. To what depths of mindless skank has this country sunk? We're down at (warning: link NSFW) crotch level documenting a rash of "celebrity" front bottom airings.
3. ornamental kale
They have been sprouting in patches of bare dirt in front of countless office buildings like alien mold spores. There is just no reason for this.

4. lists
"What do you mean?" I hear you think, "isn't this, right here, a list?" Well, yes. (I could have just updated my beloved opinion circle.) But listmaking has become some knee-jerk, dumbed-down, commercially manipulable, ADD-oriented excuse for content. Ten years ago, during my time at sidewalk.com (the antecedent to citysearch), someone on staff introduced a new feature, something like "Weekend Top Ten." It was a list of the top grossing films of the weekend and how much they made. I remember thinking, "what is that? why on earth would someone be interested in that? That's going nowhere..." Quaint, huh?