12 December 2008 - 7:50Useless I cannot toss it out

Form Before Multi-function,
originally uploaded by tackyjulie.

This lamp works, but I’m afraid to use it. The wires looked old, and I don’t know how to fix them. The venetian blind shade tells me this was probably made in the 1950s. The base is a phone (which isn’t supposed to work) but where the dial is, there’s a clock ( which is supposed to work but doesn’t). The hand set has a cigarette lighter in the mouth piece (just push that black button sticking out from the other end). I don’t smoke. You can’t use more than a 25-watt bulb for fear of burning the shade, and that’s not a lot of illumination. So for all these reasons, the lamp-clock-cigarette lighter is useless. But I can’t toss it out. Just look at it…it’s multi-tasking its heart out. It’s a monument to form DESPITE lack of function. It’s the anti-Bauhaus.