It's been previously documented (here, for instance: http://junglemonkee.livejournal.com/251077.html) that I LOVE catalogues, but more for what's behind the stuff they're showcasing than for the stuff itself.

Last night, I had a chance to flip through the new Restoration Hardware catalogue, and I have to admit that I'm mystified. The website touts RH's "spring collection," and the hardcopy catalogue is trying its best to entice me into its newest "gallery" (more commonly known to us layfolk as a "store"), but the furniture and accessories depicted are so grim and frightening that I can only assume that the head of design at RH feels professionally slighted and is exacting his or her passive-aggressive retribution on a commercial entity that refuses to properly acknowledge his/her genius. And genius it is.

First, let's talk about spring. Spring is all about life and renewal and color, moving Rainer Maria Rilke to say "Everything is blooming recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night." When we think about spring, we think about green leaves and flowers and warmth and sunlight. But, apparently, the designers at Restoration Hardware have different ideas about spring. They apparently think about the less pleasant aspects of spring: dirty melting snow, mud, rust and a vague sense of dread. Okay, not everyone experiences that last one in spring, but it's the entire theme of the RH catalogue.

The dining rooms are especially grim. The chairs are upholstered in something described as "sand Belgian linen," but anyone who has ever seen a horror film that took place in a mental hospital will easily recognize that the actual color is "filthy bed linen." The being-held-against-one's-will theme is furthered by "exposed, hand-hammered brads," which is a fancy way of saying round-headed nails that will eventually break off and pierce your clothes and thighs every time you sit down.

The dining tables all share a theme: large slabs of "reclaimed" wood held up with enormous columns of other "reclaimed" wood. Some of this wood is so battered that you can tell the reclamation was done only after a protracted battle with the original owner of the dilapidated barn or sea shanty, although they've thoughtfully sanded (or, in some cases, gouged) the bloodstains off for you.

The lighting is stunning: ponderous, inelegant, and yet without the ability to cast actual light over anything. At least one of the lamps looks like a birdcage in which a few recalcitrant candles were imprisoned. The effect is, at its cheeriest, forlorn. Better to go ahead and actually hide your light under a bushel basket, I think.

By far the cheeriest and springiest of all the rooms in the new catalogue are the bedrooms, if only because RH expanded its gray/taupe palette into wan shades of kelly blue and lichen green. The only time I've ever seen bedlinens this color was when I was in college and we all routinely washed everything we owned at the same time so that in time, everything came out the same depressing gray. The furniture in these rooms looks as though it was all made out of rafts that had been previously used by survivors of horrendous shipwrecks and had been floating at sea without food, water or hope for weeks on bits of wood from which they'd pushed the bones of other clingers-on who had perished from exposure or been eaten by sharks. This wood isn't just distressed, it's tortured, emotionally overwraught and in therapy. These are the kinds of beds that consumptive women take to and never leave.

Lastly, I'd like to say a word about some of the accoutrement laid out on the pages of this fine catalogue. I'm happy to see that rust is back in style. I'd thought we'd eradicated it in the 1970s, but apparently it's back and we're moving it right into our living rooms, bedrooms and bathrooms where it can proudly flake all over our sisal rugs. I think that nothing complements dingy fabrics and battered wood like rusting, sharp-cornered metal.

I'm taking a vacation in August to Scotland, where I've just found out that temperatures may not top 60 degrees Farenheit and, when it's not actually raining, it's often foggy. I think I'll take this catalogue along with me just to keep me in the dark, somber mood.