Mitch’s House

Mitch lives in a rented, nondescript single-family home in suburban Edenvale, California. The front room is dominated by the dyad of a big couch with a paisley slipcase and a television set on a stand, blocking off the nonfunctional fireplace. It's apparent to the casual visitor that Mitch sleeps on the couch most nights. A half-dozen posters are taped to the walls, nothing exciting: the kind of album promotional material that piles up at radio stations. Blackout curtains and table lamps.

The layout is fairly standard: bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, cramped utility room (water heater, etc.) connecting to the garage where the washer and dryer live. Most of the larger pieces of furniture have the air of conveying with the rental (the couch, the kitchen table). Mitch's hi-fi is in his bedroom. Taped to the wall over it is a copy of the current KPFA broadcast schedule, and more of the album posters. Mandrill's self-titled LP is on the turntable, more LPs are filed in four milk crates lined up along the wall, and the windowsills are ersatz bookshelves with a bunch of paperbacks. The bedroom has blackout curtains like the living room. The kitchen has a bunch of spider plants and other hardy houseplants, and a door out to the back patio which has some lawn furniture that came with the rental and Mitch has almost certainly never used.

Every room except the utility room (and the living room) has a small black-and-white television set in it, with antenna deliberately positioned.