Against Air Conditioning: Aesthetics Finally Have a Say at the Washington Post!

Against Air Conditioning: Aesthetics Finally Have a Say at the Washington Post! August 25, 2016

This piece covers a surprisingly wide range of arguments, from film noir to cost savings to the human need for siesta–it isn’t the expected environmental scold. I assume the author didn’t write the headline. While I strongly prefer the un-AC life (I have permission from my landlady to cover the AC vent in my room with a magnetic panel, so my Literal Garret gets gloriously subtropical, with soft caresses from fresh air and the tidal howling of crickets and cicadas) I try not to tell other people what to do. But this piece is excellent:

…Also, I don’t like the hermetic feel of central air, the way it reduces everything to an artificial hum and makes you feel isolated from the environment, your body’s natural responses and, depending on your age, all the summers of your youth.

Air conditioning is not sultry or mysterious. It has no place in pulp fiction or film noir. The movie “Body Heat” is set in a small Florida town in 1981 yet is completely devoid of central air, which manages to make absolutely everything seem sexy — ice cubes, sweat, even wind chimes, which are generally just annoying.

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