What's Behind Door Number Three?

Voltere Agees -- Interior Design, 12/1/2001 12:00:00 AM

Already, the eerily mild, empty nights we witnessed this fall seem as foreign to us as a Wahabi reading House & Garden. There's a chill in the air, and the anticipatory holiday glow has grown around us, albeit somewhat sedately. Side streets with no foot traffic do make cozy sense in December—besides, wild rumors of people sporadically shopping showrooms again have reached our ears. We're doing our own bit, holding tight for a few more days to pass before we finally get over the huge hump that 2001 proved to be. Good riddance!

As we close the year past with a resounding "Bah, humbug" and open the door on a new one, we're tentatively predicting that 2002 will put on a more gracious show. (We still await corroboration from our local cabala oracle, unfortunately on vacation.) In the meantime, we would gladly settle for those reassuring routines of a typical trade winter. They merrily include excruciatingly boring company parties, unredeemably whiny designers, plain-obnoxious glitterati, terminally broom-sticked contributors, publishing-conglomerate shenanigans, and all sorts of snowstorms and acts of nature. Right now, they'd feel as warm as cedar crackling in the fireplace.