It used to be, and bloggers of a certain era will remember this, that buying light bulbs was an easy task. If it was general use, it was a 60-watt. For a three-way bulb, you had a choice - 50-100-150, or 50-200-250. For special uses, there were 40, 75, 100, and 200. About the only fly in the ointment was the dreaded MOGUL base for floor lamps. There were candle bulbs in texture and smooth, and floods and spots! These bulbs lasted, burned out and you moved on. I won't even go into fluorescent lighting, but you get the idea.
ANYWAY, the reason why I brought all this up is that the bathroom lightbulb in our "en suite"- a phrase that makes it sound lovely when it's just a bathroom - went out this morning. When we moved in 2015, we switched every light but two antiques over to LED bulbs. And all this time we've been using those LED bulbs and evidently they are beginning to fail.
But now, with LEDs, you have choices. GE branded, FEIT (whatever the fuck that stands for) these odd-sounding brands, or store brand. Do you want a HARSH blue hue light or a mellow soft light? Do you want a bulb that changes colors? Do you have to rewire your house to accommodate a light fixture with FOUR wires instead of the normal two wires?
And then there are those God-forsaken steampunk-style bulbs that people just love, and Cookie abhors.
Bare bulbs look like skid row decor. Yes, I know, they are fashionable. The last time bare bulbs were in were in fashion, it was the 1920s when standardized electric lights were becoming the norm, but the quality of light was poor. Then bulbs got better, and they could be hidden by frosted glass and shade. Well, it's 2021 for God's sake and we all have electricity. Do we need to see your bulbs?
There used to be an antique market in Pasadena, in the Paseo, that had an entire display of those monster bulbs. You walk into the room that housed the display and it was hotter than Hellzapoppin. The intensity of the coming off that display must be like what a menopausal heat flash is to a woman going through the change.
So, back in the present, in Balwimore, Cookie went today to load up with all manner of new, efficient, bulbs for the house. I get to the Large Mart and they have moved the bulbs to a different aisle, closer to the mundane lights they sell.
And, son of a bitch, guess what.
Irony of ironies, that aisle has the worst lighting in the store.
Figures.
I find these new "energy-saving" lightbulbs are never "quite right" in the light they give out. Often in a lamp with a shade they're too dazzling (especially those ones that are a coiled tube rather than a globe), yet in a ceiling light they are too dim to light the room as one would expect it to be lit. The only other alternative, the halogen light is apparently also being "phased out" by our government - in praise of "Saint Greta", or something. Shit, innit? Jx
ReplyDeleteI think we should just go back to candlelight.
ReplyDeleteI have found that the new bulbs do burn out--perhaps not quite as frequently, but they cost many times as much to replace. Also, until the new bulbs are standardized, I would not recommend buying an expensive fixture that uses them. I have a newer dining room fixture that was meant to use the shorter coiled bulbs (the regular ones stick out and look awful), but Philips no longer makes them and they are being phased out of existence. I had to buy a whole bunch of an off-brand that I found at a specialized light-bulb store.
ReplyDelete--Jim
Oh, I love irony. I like the bare bulbs around my mirror. I like seeing everything I'm working with and against. As for the rest of my little pad? I keep it on the dim side. Hushed lighting, I call it. You know... the kind meant for gentlemen callers. Blanche Dubois is not the only one who needs a scarf thrown over the lamp shade now and then. Kizzes.
ReplyDelete