JuicyMaters’ Yurt-ers, ahead of the curve

by Bob | November 29, 2011 8:17 am

After doing my weekly new scan for several topics, including yurts, I discovered this week that the perception of us yurt-ers is changing, that we are being considered less weird, becoming more and more accepted, and looked at as being less and less…well…less and less “nuts”.  We seem to have become just a bit ahead of the curve, and yurts are becoming “trendy”!

Bummer!

Folks who have visited here very much know that among the reasons I live in a yurt…economy, efficiency, the aura of the round space, the fact the yurt was easily constructed with a few friends and avoiding having to use a contractor…besides those reasons, there was another that was equally important to me…

The weirdness factor.

Folks are usually cautious around crazy people.  For that reason I found the fact that some folks around here looked at me as a few brick short of a load because I was “the nutjob that lives up on the mountain in a tent” to provide a bit of security.  People who didn’t really know me, but just knew of me, tended to stay away…after one drive-by to see the “tent”.

I even had hopes that people’s fear of crazy people, and the perception that I was one of them, might, just maybe, encourage the troublesome neighbor I’ve told you about in the past to move elsewhere.

Hey!  I can wish, can’t I?

Alas, it seems the weird factor is giving way to just being a little “different”.

Yurts seem to be popping up all over the place, and are appealing to diverse groups of people for diverse reasons.

Apparently the wealthy are finding yurts at least a quirky little “toy”, as this years Neiman-Marcus Christmas catalog has a Neiman-Marcus Yurt for sale.  I’m surprised at the low price, given that it IS Neiman-Marcus…though it is a small one with no electricity, plumbing, or land…and the interior decoration was described by one writer as “Martha Stewart meets and decorates for Mohammar Gaddafi”.  I’m not sure which that says the most about…Martha Stewart or Neiman-Marcus.

A the other end of the spectrum, it seems that some of the “Occupy xxx” movement have decided to set up yurts in various parks and other public places around the US and in Canada.  One story had it that the ocupiers were having an argument among themselves as to if setting up a yurt was a good idea or not.

One group said a yurt was a temporary structure and should NOT be set up because the authorities were allowing temporary structures like tents, and another temporary structure would not be “in your face” enough to constitute a protest statement.

The other occupiers (the pragmatic ones, if there is such a thing) pointed out that it was getting COLD and that sleeping bags and tarps on the open ground, along with pup tents, just weren’t going to cut it through the winter.

Wusses!  These guys play at hating corporate America and capitalism’s excesses, AKA luxuries, but it looks like they’d be lost without their iPhones, iPads, the local supermarket for food, and Mommy and Daddy’s basement to live in.  Definitely NOT the homesteading OR yurt types in real life!

I have no idea who eventually won the argument…and really don’t care.  The Neiman-Marcus yurt buyers wanting a new toy in their backyard, and the occupiers struggling between wanting comfort and eschewing capitalist-produced shelter, are at two extreme ends of yurt-ers, while the yurt folks I know and love, my readers and site visitors here at JuicyMaters, sit comfortably in the middle, enjoying (or longing to enjoy) one of the most economical, efficient, soul-satisfying structures a person could choose to live in.

Darn we are lucky…and smart too!

More later, and remember…

Y’all come back now…ya hear?

 

 

Related articles

• Welcome to my yurt[5] (macleans.ca)
• $75,000 Luxury Yurt is One of the Fantasy Gifts in Neiman Marcus 2011 Christmas Book[6] (shoppingblog.com)
• Retail Therapy: Happy Holidays! Neiman Marcus Now Sells Fancy-Pants Yurts[7] (curbed.com)
• Occupy Toronto goes high style with $20,000 yurts[8] (thestar.com)
• A yurt too far?[9] (timesunion.com)

Source URL: http://www.juicymaters.com/2011/11/juicymaters-yurt-ers-ahead-of-the-curve/

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