I came across this thread while searching the bathroom forum for installing sinks! Very interesting thread, I just have to add my two cents. I grew up in the Philippines (in the 60's) and our shared bathroom had a toilet that was retrofitted with a small tube that sprayed water upward--specifically pointing in the right direction (after #2), if you know what I mean. It was effective for getting the bottom clean, and not wasting a lot of TP. Moving to a new house in the late 70's, we were able to install bidets in some bathrooms. We favored the fountain sprays as opposed to the one which had a faucet. We had always used the bidet by sitting on it the same way you would a toilet. It surprised me years later to find out that Europeans use it by straddling the bidet, facing the bidet controls. Having to transfer from toilet to bidet was a hassle, but having a bidet had become a necessity since we got so used to a water stream in "that area". Fast forward to the 2000's. Most homes I know don't even bother with the bidet anymore because what has become very popular here is a "bidet hand spray". It's like a kitchen spray that is connected to the side of your toilet, to use whenever you felt like an extra blast of water would be useful. A bunch of rolled face (should I say "bum") towels sits next to a bench beside my toilet. The hand spray is easily retrofitted to an existing toilet by using a valve that has two outlets--one for the toilet and one for the spray. With the new homes that use "gray water" for flushing toilets, many have just plumbed in another cold water line where the hand bidet would be connected. Now even the guest and powder rooms usually have this feature since it's so inexpensive to add. A handspray is cheap--from $8 to $30 depending on brand and material (plastic, chrome-plated brass, etc). The only downside we've experienced is if the water pressure is too strong, and the valve is not shut off before leaving the house for vacation, the hose can break and flood your bathroom. That would do a lot of damage to wooden floors and sheet rock. But if you know this, and keep the pressure at medium at all times, shut valve off in long absences, it should be fine. Bidet sales have almost vanished here, even in the most high end homes, giving way to these hand sprays. I was trying to put in a picture but I don't know how to, so just google "bidet hand spray" and you'll see what they look like. I'm not sure if they carry bidet hand showers now in Lowe's of HD--but I've actually sent these over (together with the retrofit valves) to some cousins in the States.

It seems to me wise for folks who are Christians to be careful about becoming too certain about the circumstances surrounding Christ's return. Let's not forget that the original people who believed in one God and were expecting His Being to come to earth saw the coming, but it was so different from what they were expecting that they said that this wasn't the right one ... ... and they're still expecting a Messiah. Sometimes I feel that the expectations which many Christians have for the Second Coming seem somewhat similar to what the Jews were expecting the first time. Further ... the Romans were a tough lot - you had to be, if you were going to subjugate a major portion of the world ... and keep it subjugated. But their representative in Jerusalem did not see Jesus as threat enough to merit death. Herod, who was a local exercising power under the Romans, and a bit of a skunk, wasn't in favour of killing Him, either. Who was it who insisted that He had to go? That there wasn't room enough in the world for their system and His ... and they knew whose had to be gotten rid of! It was the religious bunch. If Christ were to come in a quiet fashion, as He did before and walked our streets and talked with us ... ... perhaps His ideas and teaching would be so different from what we're used to and accept ... that we would reject Him, as the religious bunch did before. Or perhaps walk by and ignore Him, considering His message ineffectual and of little value in the real world. If Christ were in charge in our communities, nations and the world - they sure would be different places! ole joyful

A&AE, I have been following this discussion with great interest, because I am going to be decorating with some pieces in the future that are "Japonisme," which is Chinoiserie's cousin, lol! My mom lived in Japan for a year back in the mid 50's and brought back a ton of stuff. Some of it was made more for European tastes. Also, she lived in SF for three years after that and bought a lot of Japanese influenced things to go with what she brought back. I have inherited it all now. So I tend to love Asian influenced things but also I have a style that can be described as "sentimental" or as I call it, "cozy granny" because most of the stuff I like hasn't been in style since granny's day or even great great grandma. I've always liked antiques, but at my age, things that are considered antiques today are the MCM stuff I grew up with. When I was a kid back then, that was NOT the definition of antique! I like stuff from the late 1800's through Art Deco. I like Victorian, but couldn't live with most of it. Arts and crafts is one of my favorite styles and that definitely had an Asian influence. I don't know if Chinoiserie has ever been extremely popular, but right now I am up against a couple of trends which I think are also influencing how a younger generation might view Chinoiserie. One is gender, because my SO for whatever reason, is very strongly against floral things. My dad didn't like floral things all that much either, but he often just acquiesced to my mom and that was fairly typical I think of male/female relationships in the last century and maybe even the one before that. The home was the typical purvey of the "woman of the house" and Chinoiserie was popular with them. I think there is a great deal of sexism in considering certain colors and motif's "feminine" but it's out there and prevalent so there you go. My SO certainly suffers from that cultural conditioning. So now that men are taking a more active role in home-making (at least some men, my SO included) and marital relations are looked at more as a partnership, there's a lot more influence of taste that might be considered "masculine" in the home, from color palettes to art and furniture styles, like the "industrial" trend. Not to say that men don't like florals and women don't like gears, but I know in my decorating dilemmas, it is often gears vs flowers and we tend to compromise on styles and designs that are less extreme--abstracts, geometric stuff, etc. I'm not sure what will bring about a revival of the taste for Chinoiserie or even Victorian or antique anything. Folks are more transient nowdays and aren't as inclined to devote themselves to a set aesthetic in their homes. They want a flexible look. So I think individual pieces of Chinoiserie will always be popular, like art, dishes, fabrics and accent furniture. I think the total look will remain popular with only a few folks who can afford it. Because of the transience, I am afraid the days of those gorgeous Chinoiserie influence wallpapers are gone forever, at least in big common spaces in homes. While I love the look, even I myself would not go for it, because I would want to be able to more easily change out the look of a room from season to season or year to year. But I have little vignettes of Japonisme all around my current home. When I have some time, I may post some of them. Here's a quickie, just something I totally threw together. The framed pictures are very old calendar pics that my mom had from back in the 50's in SF. They are just there right now to fill up the space and hide the very ugly white back of the shelving units. They will go on the wall eventually, and my mom's collection of Japanese dolls will go in the unit when I get it properly set up and the glass doors installed.

It seems to me that Hollywood only makes three movies these days: The movie about running real fast and engaging in physically impossible acrobatics while things blow up all around. The fart joke movie. The dysfunctional relationships movie, which has two variants: pseudo-inspirational and frankly depressing. Of course, these can be combined, as for instance, in the upcoming remake of Murder on the Orient Express which seems to combine Hercule Poirot, superhero, with the most dreary-looking trainload of miserable people you ever saw. So I just don't go. The suggestion to go to an art house is clearly made by people who live in very major metro areas. I live just north of a major metro area, but still about 90% of the movies I might possibly wish to see do not play within 150 miles of where I live. I see about one movie a year in the theater. Unfortunately, I do keep up with what's current when visiting my brother who has every known streaming service. I'm astounded at how fatiguing it is to try to be entertained.