The arc of my upward mobility has come with a Faustian downside. I write for TIME now, but can’t fill my pages with obscenity and personal invective. And I live in a “nice” apartment, which means I have traded in a gas range for a sleek, dark, unbroken plane of near-black ceramic glass, a chic abyss marred only by a few geometric circles, like those found left in crops by aliens. My wife Danit is crazy about it. So easy to clean! And from my exposure to any number of identical wannabe-upscale house and apartment kitchens around the country, I see where this is heading. And I’m not happy about it. Last week I ranted against gas barbecue grills, but in the kitchen, it’s gas that takes the John Connor side in the war against the machines.
And see is the right word. This range is meant to please the eyes of people offended by disorder and process. It’s never as much itself as when totally empty, clean and gleaming in the refrigerated modernist heaven of modern aspirational living.
