Buying and selling

Humphrey did a cursory search to see what those in the ivory tower have to say about consumerism perpetuated in real estate transactions. He figured since "ivory towers" must be pricey properties, they ought to be experts. So far, nothing came up.

Here's a completely unfunctional living/dining space.

He recently experienced a little something called "staging," which is quite literally performance (in the scholarly use of this big word!). The idea is that the space for sale masquerades as something it's not so that the buyer's eye (and perhaps ego) is led to believe a space is something that it normally isn't. It involved a lot of furniture-moving. But it often involves major purchaes (or sometimes rentals), just for show.

Detail of purchased flowers

Paintings, mongolian fur pillows and tulips are not normally part of this room.

Sometimes, it even involves electrical upgrades - including this space that replace all toggle light switches with sleeker "decorator" switches purely for aesthetics (the others were actually more functional!). Not only was this (useless) consumerism, but also possible environmental concerns if the old toggle switches are not freecycled (they were). Then there's the ethical matter of "advice" to install things that are against code. All for the sake of selling, when there is a high probability the seller will just rip things up and send them to the dump!

Kitchen, sans range hood which is against code!

Humphrey's favorite appliances - laundry!!!

What an odd home office, with no actual place to work. And where's all the technology in this home???

Humph's "machine for thinking"

And voila, the virtual tour is over. Humphrey must scurry and replace all the accoutrements of "real life" (toys, computers, paper, pens, etc.) that are frowned upon in the world of real estate showings.