so i was in the shower when i saw this dish. in the dish was a bar of soap. this isn’t important. i’m just trying to give you an idea as to why there would be a dish in the shower. the size and shape of the dish were similar to that of an ashtray. the dish would make a horrible ashtray though. well, that’s not totally true. it would be perfect if you wore paisley shirts, 30 gallon corduroy pants and your hair was getting natty. at any rate, i started to think about design (scrub-a-dub-dub). cleverness seems to pervade good design now. for many designers it is what links the object to the idea to the smile on your face. i started thinking of ideas for ashtrays that were just interesting. they didn’t have that “AH-HA” moment that always comes with cleverness. they were just different ways of dealing with ashes and cigarettes (scrub scrub). interesting but boring. and come on, how can you avoid cleverness. it’s pasta with parmesan. it’s a latte with a rosette. it’s a room with a view. so. i came up with a few ideas…
one
it would be cast glass in both translucent brown and clear. it would be rectangular in shape and equal in proportion to a grave. there would be a hole in the cube that appeared to be dug out of the glass (there may be a place where that pile of dirt could go. oh oh oh it could be the lid!). it could stop here because it is enough. but lets see where this goes in:
one B
there could be a body or a number of small bodies inside the hole that slowly get buried in ash.

two
just make an ordinary ashtray but make it out of the cremated remains of things. make it out of ash. (lang should get partial credit for this one. she convinced me or told me to make it ordinary. thanks lang! you’ve got the brain that powers this train!)

are these clever or just morbid? maybe that will be the new trend. morbidity over cleverness! or did that end in the 90’s?

three
take a piece of the earth and dig the little hole in it and cast the whole thing. nothing is arbitrary.