“It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease than what sort of a disease a patient has.” - Sir William Osler






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The Aesthetics Fairy

Los Angeles has a problem called "teardown chic." Basically it involves the destruction of perfectly nice homes which were probably built 50 to 70 years ago, measuring under two thousand square feet on relatively small lots. People buy these homes, tear them down and build huge, garish two- or three-story replacements that cover the entire lot like frosting spread to the edge of a cake. These structures are usually some sort of indeterminate pastel color and have overwrought iron fencing with gilt details. They are hideous.

Yesterday as V. and I went on our 1.2 mile fitness march around the neighborhood after work we saw several of these ghastly structures. I began to fantasize about a being called the Aesthetics Fairy, who would punish homeowners guilty of erecting these crimes against good taste. Might he or she look like... Simon Cowell?

Right, that's it. You have been voted out of this neighborhood.

Or perhaps Nurse Ratched? (A terrifying thought.)

There are rules here, Mr. Homeowner. If the rules are not obeyed you will be punished.

And of course there's the obvious, Jorgen von Strangle.

Were it up to me, I'd sentence them to two weeks in a mud hut with no indoor plumbing followed by six months in a condo with noisy neighbors overhead. It's nice to fantasize about, anyway.

Labels: Los Angeles, Pop Culture

posted by Dr. Alice at #