Things That Are Flat
Death Valley & Our Flat Rate Shipping
To celebrate the magical simplicity of our flat rate shipping ($15 for orders under $4,000 / $150 for orders above $4,000) here are a few special things that take place simply because something is flat.
In Death Valley, stones periodically change locations along the flat expanse of the Racetrack Playa. They'll stay in place for a decade, then suddenly move, leaving mysterious trails marking their journey. These sailing stones move across the dry lakebed when shallow rain water freezes into thin, icy sheets on the flat surface of the desert. Then wind carries rocks in a drift called "ice shove," leaving their notable trails.
Top photo by Samuel Scrimshaw/Unsplash
In Camogli, a short train ride south from Milan after Salone one year, we were endlessly delighted by the trompe l'oeil facades of the seaside village, where the flat peach and rose buildings are covered in optical illusions of stonework, windows and shutters. You have to get close to be sure whether something is a 3D architectural feature or artful trickery.
The sheer flatness of the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia creates an unbroken "infinite horizon" that means you can't judge distances. The last time we traveled to Bolivia, where Brendan's mom spent a chunk of her career (RIP USAID), we and every other group of twenty-something travelers played endlessly with the forced perspective. These were pre-Instagram days!
We haven't been, but we're told the Parthenon actually just looks flat. The optical illusion was an intentional effort by the Greek architects to achieve a visual harmony–the look of being flat–by using slightly curved steps and bulging columns that lean inward, since the Greeks knew that perfectly straight lines would seem droopy to the human eye.
(We assure you our flat rate shipping is the real deal).