July 17, 2022

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A Furniture Repairman Is Blowing Up Instagram With His Midcentury Furniture Memes

  • July 17, 2022

By day, the anonymous Portland man who calls himself Herman Wakefield repairs and consigns used furniture. By night, he posts memes on Instagram.

Under the ‘Gram handle @northwest_mcm_wholesale, Wakefield makes memes that use internet lingo and joke structure to talk about midcentury modern furniture. (Over 50? A meme is basically a web comic that mocks somebody.) Even the name Herman Wakefield is a furniture pun: a combo of furniture companies Herman Miller and Heywood-Wakefield.

The account began as a sort of authenticity audit, calling out resellers for selling designer fakes or taking unwarranted markups, then expanded to gags about how all the houses flipped on HGTV look the same and how Portland boys in Carhartt jackets haven’t picked up any tools but a video game console. Mostly Wakefield skewers design trends—you might’ve seen his “Frank Lloyd Wright would’ve loved COVID patios” meme pop up in one of your group chats.

Currently approaching 35,000 followers, Wakefield had no idea his account would ever get this big and was actually “quite satisfied when I had 300 followers.” Of all his creations, Wakefield’s personal favorite is the “Horseshoe Theory of Chair Design and Function,” featuring a constellation of chair designs to match the spectrum of political ideologies. (An Eames chair is liberalism. A La-Z-Boy is male chauvinism. It tracks.)

“I spent several days on that one,” he says. “A friend from high school sent it to me because he thought I’d like it. It’s a weird feeling when people you haven’t seen in years send you your own memes.”

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South Texas Botanical Gardens | kiiitv.com

  • July 17, 2022

If you have not paid a visit to the Botanical Gardens recently, there are some summer sights you don’t want to miss.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — If you haven’t paid a visit to the South Texas Botanical Gardens recently there’s some summer sights, you won’t want to miss.

Starting with the flowers that bloom during the summer. The plumeria flowers at the gardens make you feel like you’re in Hawaii.

“People best know it as the Hawaiian lei flower, but they’re not native to Hawaii,” said Executive Director Dr. Michael Womack. “They’re native to the Caribbean, Southern Mexico, Central America.”

Womack says they are one of the garden’s summer favorites and will be blooming through October.

After taking a stroll through the plumerias you can make your way inside the reptile room. When inside, you’ll find all kinds of reptiles. Snakes, bearded dragons, turtles, and much more.

There’s even a weekend program where you can interact with some of the animals.

“Tortoise Tales- where you can come and feed our larger tortoises outside for a donation,” said Womack.

Womack adds this is a great way to learn more about reptiles even if you are a little afraid.

After the reptile room you can head outside where there’s much more to do. Not only are there orchids to see, but butterflies over at the butterfly garden.

Not only can you see butterflies, but you can see them in all stages.

“What we do here is in our butterfly house and outside we collect the eggs, raise them in cup containers feeding them leaves until those caterpillars are big enough to turn into a chrysalis and emerge into a butterfly,” said Womack.

Butterfly releases also take place at the Gardens and to participat,e they ask that guests give a donation.

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