The Weekend: Angels, Danes, Celts, and Michael Caine

It started out normally enough. On the way home from work I picked up the a couple of books, including the brand new book release, Strange Angels, by author Lilith Saintcrow. I'm telling this all out of order because I have more Book Binge posts in mind, but Lilith's Dante Valentine series turned me into an instant Saintcrow addict. Anyway, Strange Angels is her first foray into the Young Adult market.

I'm not sure what I expected of a Young Adult book. I mean, I've read all the Harry Potter books, a few times. And I like Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series. Somehow though, I had the impression that most YA would kinda hafta be....sweet, with some kind of strong moral message, and with gossipy girls. But come on, this is Saintcrow we're talking about, so her main character, 16 year old Dru Anderson, travels the country with her dad, and helps him kill the bad things that go bump in the night. Dru is independent and tough, she occassionally has Visions, and she can cuss like a sailor. Or like a teenager. The book begins about the time that one of her dad's hunting missions goes very very wrong.

Read it. I lost a rainy Saturday to the book, and don't regret a minute of it. If you're like me, you'll want to know What Happens Next. Luckily, there are at least two more books planned in the series; the next comes out in November.

Also over the weekend, I lost my mind.
Just a little bit.
Over this guy:
That's Dice. He's a 5 month old Harlequin Great Dane, who is being fostered by a rescue group a state away. I went through a major case of the I WANT's over the weekend, and even filled out an adoption application. I was serious enough that Smithy had to invoke the BSC label: BatShit Crazy. BSC usually comes up when someone (hey, it's not always me!) is doing something illogical, and, well, crazy. Perhaps along the lines of wanting to stuff a 4th dog into a tiny house with a bunch of other dogs that don't particularly want a biiiig little brother. I've slowly inched away from the ledge; I don't think we'll get a spotty bundle of joy just yet.

Smithy's fiery midway game, The Kittyroaster

image via

Also over the weekend, I learned that Smithy and his buddies in the Art of Such and Such are really and truly heading to Ireland as part of the performance art for the Electric Picnic festival in September. Smithy had mentioned the possibility months ago, but I was skeptical that it would actually happen. Apparently, yes it will. They're talking plane tickets and passports. So, Smithy and I are thinking about doing a combined Pan-Celtic trip to Ireland and Scotland. I'm at the very beginning stages of planning it, and trying to figure out how much it would all cost, so we'll see where it leads.

And in a last bizarre twist, I got an email from the actor Michael Caine over the weekend.

At least he said he was Michael Caine, and he was commenting on an old blog post that I did. As I mentioned in the post, the actor, Michael Caine, collects glassware by the Art Deco era designer/glassworks company Degue. Email-Michael-Caine thanked me for the post, and then pointed me in the direction of a link to an Australian interview with him about his collection. Which is pretty much the same link I had shown in my post.

And this particular 'Michael Cain' doesn't know that the real Michael Caine spells his name with an 'e' at the end.
Huh.

Actor Michael Caine seems like a charming and intelligent gentleman. And he certainly seems like someone who would know how to spell his own name.

Dear Trolls and Aussie TV PR Flaks, if you're going to impersonate someone famous, please learn how to spell their names!


Love, the Great Dame

Design Love: Degue Art Glass

(image via Decorum)

My intense interest (read obsession) in Art Deco lighting continues, and the second designer I've 'discovered' in recent weeks, besides Loys Lucha, is the French designer David Gueron.


Gueron formed his own art glass production company, Verrierie d'Art Degue in 1926; Degue being a shortened version of his name (much like a JLo or LiLo nickname today!). Initially the company concentrated on functional tableware. However, he quickly moved the company into the luxury art glass market intended for well to do French and American clients, and began producing thickly molded and acid etched glass chandeliers and vases. More information HERE . Degue was not without controversy; according to the summary at Style and Design,

"The factory produced glass which one might generously describe as an homage to Schneider. [Another well-known art glass manufacturer of the time.] Gueron employed ex-Schneider workers and soon over stepped the mark resulting in litigation between Gueron and Schneider. Styles include highly decorative brightly coloured Art Deco designs; all well executed which bear a striking resemblance to Schneider."


Copycat or not, Degue glass is credited with being well crafted, and beautifully designed. Degue produced several different styles of chandelier lighting, all with his signature thick glass, and various hand-worked metals. The style that I like best, though, is the simpler pressed glass (pate de verre) suspended bowls, or vasque, fixtures. The bowl is usually seen suspended by three silk cords or a trio of gorgeous nickel or chrome rods with a metal ceiling canopy. The lights are usually illuminated by a single bulb suspended just above the glass bowl.

While stunning and not exactly quiet, these simpler bowl lights seem more adaptable to variety of today's interiors than the grander armed-chandeliers. I'm still a novice at this, but pricing seems to vary wildly. For an entry level collector/fancier, you can find shades (with no wired fixtures) on Ebay, and basically build your own light. And some Ebay items are shown with non-original hanging apparatus - usually 3 chains and a new canopy. For the serious collector who wants everything to be original, expect to have significantly deeper pockets. Interestingly, the actor Michael Caine is a collector of Degue glass, according to this article.

Take a peek at some of these recent listings on Ebay to see for yourself.



A quick stroll through Google will reveal lots of antique dealers who have Degue chandeliers and vasques, including 1st Dibs, Modernism, DecoDame, Art Deco Collection, and others listed at right in the links section. But by far the treasure trove of Degue lighting can be found at Decorum, in San Francisco, and Jack, the proprietor, is very amenable to questions via email. (And please do visit his website to read his interesting and amusing description of just what it's like to go to the big antique shows in France!) The following two are a tiny sampling of the gems at Decorum, as is the first image at the top of the post. Please note the gorgeous metal rods and decorated ceiling canopy, as compared to the more piecemeal assemblage of fixtures in the Ebay images above: