Friday, October 11, 2024. Cooler last night in New York with temps in the upper 40s. The building heat automatically went on. Otherwise up into the upper 60s although this weekend they’re predicting back to the 70s in the bright sunlight. Lots of those dramatic clouds moving through like an artist’s performance and under soft baby blues of the sky around us. And heavy daytime traffic although it knocks off a little earlier on Friday afternoons.
Today Lauren Lawrence’s dream subject is Mario Buatta. When I heard, I could only think about the pleasure and often the amusement of knowing Mario. I think he tried to look or seem a little eccentric in many times socially. And yet he was a deeply sensitive man.
When I think of him, it is always about his personality. If he hadn’t been a decorator, he would have been a comic, standup. Playing Vegas or anyplace with a stage. He almost couldn’t resist performing.
But it was magnetic and had a bit of a torment implied. But very funny in a sweet way, or a bizarre, crazy, very funny way. Otherwise if you saw him on the street, he looked like a well dressed executive or a very successful banker so relaxed with his success or wealth. But you knew that behind that was a very emotional man, still the child living within.
In an interview he gave 13 years ago to Sian Ballen and Lesley Hauge with JH photographing the apartment he had decorated for a client, classic Mario began like this:
So Mario, we’ve been trying to get you for years – why have you been acting so hard to get?
Because my apartment isn’t suitable for these photographs.
Why Not?
Because I live in it! You wouldn’t like it. I have a leak on the ceiling in my bedroom and I freeze every night.
Why are you tough?
Because I’m a perfectionist. And I like to get things done. I hate mistakes. They drive me crazy.
Do you get angry? Do you shout?
Do I get angry? I probably yell … I don’t know. How else can you be a boss? But I mean they got good training.
How do you cope with criticism then?
I hit people with my walking stick.
SOCIETY DREAMS: Mario Buatta
by Lauren Lawrence
The Dream: Ever since September 11, I have had this recurring nightmare. The city is being attacked again, and the buildings are shattered. Bombs are going off, and insects are flying all over… these huge water bugs, and I awaken horrified. What is your interpretation?
The Interpretation: When two significant buildings — the WTC twin towers — pancake downward before our very eyes and leave in their stead a hideous rubble of pulverized dust, significant psychic trauma also remains. Buildings are structural edifices that symbolize the solvency of the self, and their destruction triggers feelings of inward dissolution, powerlessness, and a sense of void. It is not unusual, therefore, to experience nightmares that evoke the emotional horrors of instability and fear.
A city is perceived as a womb symbol in that we live in it. Thus, a shattered city signifies that one’s sense of protection, insulation and security has been compromised. The uncertainty of the moment leads to feelings of helplessness and despair. The bombs symbolize the impact to the psyche. Nothing is as it were. The center did not hold. In this view, the city under attack is an affront to the personality.
For Buatta, a world renowned interior designer whose livelihood is based on creating beautiful interiors, the destruction of exterior façades is particularly threatening as it is viewed as an assault on the aesthetic sense. Internalizing this tragic event indicates Buatta’s sensitivity and strong identification with the most powerful city in the world.
For private dream analysis, contact laurenlawrence@aol.com
