The Poetry of Letters
3/26/1

There are three distinct topics I could write about now.

Today I observed that the world during work hours is no longer just populated by old people, but by teenagers and old people. The kids are on spring break. However, since this is the first day of spring break for them, the story hasn�t really matured, so I�ll give it until at least Thursday.

I have a newfound customer loyalty to Pepsi products which I think needs explaining.

However, what I think I�ll write about is the third topic.

Aisai was in the kitchen when I was about to dictate my note into my Panasonic RR-QR80 Geek Gadget. I told her �I�m about to say something into my recorder and I really don�t feel like explaining it right now. It would take too long.� Then I picked it up, hit record and said:

�A kind of poetry of letters like Ikea does, and the Kia Rio.�

When I first saw a Kia Rio, I was taken by the taillight design that Kia ripped off the Acura CL. I�m a sucker for good taillights. Head lights, too. It�s unfortunate that the middle 1990s Celica with those wonderful headlights doesn�t have any more than 130 hp.

The poetry of letters was also part of the allure. K-I-A R-I-O. The K and the R look similar and the last letter is changed, but remains a vowel. It�s not symmetry, or similarity, but a variation on a theme. Music and poetry are variations on a theme, so are dancing, architecture, and language itself. One could argue that all of it can be mathematically modeled. But the one who would suggest such a model should be promptly ignored before he starts some fool project.

Ikea knows the poetry of letters concept pretty well. They are full of made-up, pseudo-Scandinavian names for product lines. There are more umlauts in an Ikea catalog than�well, something with umlauts all over the place.

And even when they aren�t using umlauts it�s all EKTORP and TANNE, HOLKYA, GRINDA, ELLNE�Heck, it even has FR�LUNDA.

Fr�lunda is something I would never name a child of mine. I just wanted to get that out in the open so there was no confusion.

Now, these may be legitimate words some Dane might be tossing around as he talked about how much he likes vanilla, but there is that choice of what they are going to call these products. It adds instant legitimacy. It�s why they have that weasely, allegedly British guy selling cleaners and food driers and whatnot on late night infomercials.

But I�m not talking marketing here, I�m talking Art!

Those names above were the names of sofas. The ones we have, which aren�t Ikea, are most similar to an amalgam of the Halland without the smooth transition from armrest to back, the Laholm without having a kitty crawlspace underneath, and the back cushions are just like the Tenhult.

There may be some false pride variables introduced by the odd names. They don�t seem to evoke the self loathing of some brand names. I�d rather have some Rivig cutlery or a set of Drabant knives rather than some Melamine plates or Rubbermaid anything.

I say that, but I�m not sure it�s true. I own Rubbermaid stuff. I have a yellow Melamine �patioware� plate I use at work. I don�t really care about the names. We do own a Bokarv duvet cover and a white flowerpot and some picture frames that I forget the goofy names.

In the catalog, all the product lines are in all caps and the descriptive part of the name only in lowercase. I absolutely love the OPPALA easy chair designed by Lisa Norinder. It�s beautiful, but looks horribly uncomfortable. I�m not so Ikea that I�d want that.

While I was flipping through the catalog finding neat names, I couldn�t help but notice that the name of the rounded bottom pan was WOK fry pan.