This is NOT Interior Design 101. The concepts discussed here will be advanced and highly dangerous. Do not attempt to read further if you are not a trained professional, and for the love of G*d, put on your PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) before continuing.
The Pit
What’s better than a conversation pit? A conversation pit that is also a ball pit. Pit^2. The Pit, proper noun. This idea, revolutionary in its simplicity, would become the cornerstone of my home design.
Balls are kinda expensive. However, serendipitously, when my roommates and I moved in we received a cash gift card from AT&T (as a reward for becoming a customer even though it’s a monopoly and we had no choice). So shoutout to AT&T for being the corporate sponsor of our Pit.
We adorned The Pit with ball-themed artwork. Also, an “it’s a ball” sign, inspired by the “it’s a boy” sign from the baby shower of our neighbors, who were doing productive, adult things with their lives - just like us.
Perfection is not static - what is sublime in one moment has room for improvement in the next. The Pit 2.0 was ramped a few months later, fortified with body pillows sewn together around the perimeter of a fitted sheet.
I added a plaque on the wall nearby that read:
“The Pit,” 2022
plastic balls, cardboard, misc couches
Egan et al. labored for months (2, to be precise) to complete this avant-garde masterpiece, archetypal of the “Camp” style, rampant in the 2020’s with artists of the Zed generation. In an allusion to the universe, “The Pit” contains multitudes, tiny spheres that compose the fabric of a whole - impotent, trivial, and repugnant alone - but extraordinary in composition, the whole much greater than its mere parts. The perimeters of this piece consist of miscellaneous lounging apparatuses, conveying a modern take on the classic conversation pit, a nod to humanity and civilization, the discourse and camaraderie in contemporary symposium that distinguishes humankind from mere beasts. This structure encompasses the focal point of the piece, the pit, as humanity and the universe, at once both dissonant and enraptured, are thrust together as one. To quote Egan herself on the inspiration behind this tour de force, “I’ve never met a room that wouldn’t be better with a few thousand balls in it.”
The Tech Daddy Shrine
No Silicon Valley home is complete without a Tech Daddy shrine. It appeared the previous tenants took theirs with them when they left, so we had to install our own. (Really, a disgrace that our landlord didn’t disclose this to us prior.)
As soon as I drew the last drop of sacrificial blood to activate the alter, the house was cast in a #0047bb chroma blue, cybersecurity increased by 73%, and Steve Jobs himself appeared in apparition to express his pleasure.