pipes. Nobody has mentioned pipes yet.
A large collection of dark-wood colored pipes, in a decorative stand,with several types of tobacco pouches casually laid alongside. Placed on the bookshelf, visible but not too prominently, next to the leather-bound editions of Plato, Aristotle, Bertrand Russell, and Wittgenstein.
and say, “Walk this way.”
This is one of the most entertaining ideas I’ve ever heard. Certainly solves that whole taking-care-of-the-fish problem, and it would be pretty easy to salt or otherwise poison the water to the point where nothing would grow. It would never need cleaning, the filter would never clog, the water would never need changing, and it would look pretty cool next to a window with sunlight, moonlight, or streetlight pouring through.
This is one of the most pretentious ideas in the whole thread, and yet I’m irresistibly drawn to it.
It also has the devilish entertainment of watching people try to find the fish.
People keep talking about having chairs that are pretentious. I disagree. You need to completely forgo even having a chair around, and go with nothing but rugs and pillows as your seating options. Chairs are so authoritarian, man.
I agree that it is brilliant. Unfortunately, this thread has caused me to start to relapse and I can’t find my PA sponsor right now. My J. Peterman catalogs are on the way and I am looking at ads for a new 3-series BMW as an update to the ones that I used to have before I kicked the habit. I never gave the whole habit up however. My seven year old daughter is still in French immersion schooling and will be through high school. My circa 1760 antique house was selected as the Boston Globe’s home of the week a few months ago and I still have many copies of the article around including a few in my personal safe. I still carry my Ivy League ID card in my wallet.
My advice to the OP is to start small but you also need to start saving some serious cash to support this lifestyle and image in the future. I always justified it to myself by thinking that I didn’t care what other people thought because I don’t simply because most of them are beneath me and I was only doing that stuff because I just wanted it. Only years of therapy would ever sort out that mind-screw.
Being a really accomplished pretentious person isn’t just about art or material possessions though. You have to cultivate the skill of insulting people so subtly that they have no idea that they were ever insulted at all yet they still wonder. It takes years of practice but it provides endless internal entertainment when you do it right.
This strategy is not a good way to make lots of friends but that isn’t the point as long as you are getting personal enjoyment out of it.
I think this should be extended to the bathroom as well. Get a squat toilet installed. Mention how you picked up on the benefits of using one while on sabbatical in Tibet.
Non, non, the Oscars are too risible for a connoisseur to worry about or even follow. Express disgust that your favorite films were passed over for the Palme d’Or at Cannes.
Also, with wine, remember that it isn’t just the wine, it’s a matter of what goes with what. Your merlot may taste like diesel fuel, but you bought it because it was the only thing you could find that went perfectly with oregano drizzled with basil sauce.
One word:
Levels!
Bang & Olufsen electronics.
That’s not pretentious; that’s just Japanese.
Oh, wait…
Download 5 of any photographs on this page, hang them in frames in your bathroom.
http://www.themodernword.com/kafka/kafka_images.html#kafka_images
Surely a much better idea is to put a small, discreet sign at one corner of the tank saying ‘Taiwanese Chameleon Fish’.
Let your guests stare at it for ages, trying to see if they can spot the beautifully camouflaged fish. You can make offhand remarks such as, ‘Oh I quite agree, she can be magnificently hard to find, she’s so clever’.
I’d agree, hanging weapons on the wall is more on the tacky side. To be really pretentious you need to get an “antique” armour display and point out to visitors that it belonged to your ancestor Humberto who was beheaded in 1548 for his role in the rebellion against the grand duke of Floggenheim.
And also you need to get a family tree printed up that prominently shows you as closely related to Charlemagne and Cicero. All the other names you can make up as you go along, but you’re nobody without those two. Of course, if anyone questions that your great-grandfather was the king of Serbia, you’ll just look at them and say “We don’t talk about that any more.”.
You are adorable and I LOVE your hair…but your pics do have an air of pretentiousness.
But not even a little bit twatty!
This is coming from a chick who decorates with her kid’s notebook paper drawings and has a twin bed serving as a sofa in the living room so my opinion doesn’t matter much.
Hey, I have Bentley auto catalogues and brochures! They’re a few years old, but who’d know the difference?
[sub]I got them when I went to the Auto Show here in Detroit during Industry Week (my brother worked designing stereos for cars at a well-known audio company) and we got to sit in the Bentleys. The rep there, with a great Indian-Scottish accent, told me to hold onto them because not many people ever get them. Then I actually see people selling them on ebay for a couple hundred bucks. People who buy them? Pretentious to the max![/sub]
Nobody truly pretentious has bookshelves “crammed full” of anything. The tres-hip books must be arranged in minimalistic splendor, to highlight your exquisite taste. With all that variety, your collection might include stuff that you obtained because you like it–not because you care what others think. Why, the cookbooks might even show signs that you’ve actually used them!
And posting kitty pictures on the 'net also knocks your pretention quotient down considerably…
Even if you’re the Pope? 
Not any 5 - two of them have to be Kafka’s parents, to be displayed prominently.
Guest: Oh - are these your parents?
You: Uh, no. They’re *Kafka’s *parents.
Guest: 
Set up a medium-sized bookshelf. Say, 4 feet high and 3 feet wide. Get a small ladder and put wheels on the bottom and attach it (via some sort of rail, so it can go from side to side) to the bookshelf. Invite visitors to join you in the library.