When making the Ford Edsel the company was trying to find new ways to come up with a name:

The naming contest and polling having yielded a bewildering, and essentially useless, surfeit of possibilities, Ford’s own head of market research decided to take a new tack. He put in a call to the woman many considered the most prominent American poet of the day, Marianne Moore , and informally commissioned her to present a list of names that would evoke what he called “some visceral feeling of elegance, fleetness, advanced features and design.” Even among literary critics and fellow poets, Moore was considered an eccentric. Her suggestions more than lived up to that reputation. Among them were Resilient Bullet, Andante con Moto, Pastelogram, Mongoose Civique, Ford Silver Sword, Varsity Stroke, Utopian Turtletop, Thundercrest (and the variant, Thundercrester), and Intelligent Whale. A late entry was Turcontinga, which combined the name of a South American bird, the cotinga, with turquoise, a popular car color of the 1950s.

“May I submit UTOPIAN TURTLETOP? Do not trouble to answer unless you like it.”
Letter to the Ford marketing department from Marianne Moore, December 8, 1955

From the chapter on the Ford Edsel failure in Alan Axelrod’s book Profiles in Folly. Seen as a comment here this morning.

Via Bree Apperley.

What does that kid at the back know that I don’t… he looks like he’s undressing me with his eyes.

Sometimes inspiration strikes in the strangest of places.

I love this peacock cane chair, which reminds me of my sister’s house when she was just married in 1980s Australia. She also had a camphor wood chest and a silk kimono with the chair in the bedroom, both of which I thought were totally louche. She is 16 years older than me, and that’s not her in the picture.

The picture is from Sexy People.

The rough collies aren’t bad either.