(Photo: Run, Martha! The laws of the universe don’t apply here!)

Some readers have wondered about the reason for these weekly flower posts. Find out more at the link at the bottom of this post. The short of the story is a condominium association at Marina City that appears to be of the opinion that it’s doing residents a favor by allowing a volunteer floral terrorist arranger to plop awful, phoney flower arrangements in our main elevator lobbies every week.

Regardless of official opinion, the plain-spoken two-cent take shared by most Marina City residents and visitors seems to be the reasonable contention that prominently featured fake flowers in any building — but especially a famous, architecturally significant high-rise like Marina City — serve no greater purpose than to make the building look like it can’t afford real flowers. Or, more bluntly, fake flowers make your condo look ghetto. Cabrini ghetto. Get-TOE ghetto. Now, on with the (freak) show.

Marina City’s stealth elevator lobby florist, Deep Stem, strikes again, this week defying the law of gravity in the name of patriotism.

Who says there are no true blue colors in nature? Not this naughty nasturtium. True, he’s not really a nasturtium. But since he’s plastic, does it really matter what name he chooses to be called by?

That’s gotta hurt.

A jaunty side-dish for any Patriot’s Day picnic. Beet slaw in a bow.

But today the best is last. I give you Deep Stem’s greatest achievement ever. Prepare yourself for the wonder of…

…levitation! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, in honor of our country’s birthday, Deep Stem ignores the laws of biology, physics, and realism itself…

…in order to suspend foliage in midair. I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a little verklempt. Or is that nauseous? Sometimes it’s a very fine line.

[What's with all the flowers? Read the first post in the series.]

(Photo: You’ll find no stigma attached to these flowers.)

Marina City’s controversial and shadowy floral arranger, Deep Stem, has struck again. This week, just in time for Independence Day, Deep Deep pulls out the patriotic stops to take us on a trip to…Tuscany?

Ensconced in this Uffizi-esque urn, any peppy plastic poppy would practically swear they were growing in the waiting room of a Florentine nursing home.

“I think I’m silk, I think I’m silk, I think I’m silk…”

“Maledizione! I’m plastic!”

I’m not sure why that flower was drooping. Perhaps Deep skipped the floral arranging class where they teach you to make sure the vinyl skeleton is facing away from view, or maybe some near-sighted third party actually flipped the flower over to see if it was real. Of course, there’s always the possibility that it was simply hanging its head in shame. Kind of like the way we Marina City residents hang our heads every time we have to pass these gratuitously ghastly gardenias, but with one small difference. We do it out of embarrassment.

Comments?

[What's with all the flowers? Read the first post in the series.]

(Photo: If you plant it, they won’t grow.)

For the better part of a year the elevator lobbies in both Marina City towers have been graced with officially sanctioned rotating floral displays. Lucky for us Marina Citizens, to keep costs down, instead of using the services of a floral designer, or of an actual flower for that matter, these budget bouquets are created in-house by Marina City’s stealthy florist, let’s call them Deep Stem, using plastic parts in place of pistils and petals.

Those busy bees at the independent residents’ blog, the Marina Watchdog, have been positively abuzz for months with commentary about these persistent petroleum petunias. No wonder, the faux flowers are spotlit atop a glass altar at the back of both elevator lobbies, offering every resident and guest entering Marina City a head on view of these fleurs-de-less every time they head for the up elevator.

Judging by some of the comments on the Watchdog, it’s frequently not just the elevator that wants to come up:

“We all have different tastes, but what’s up there week after week is just crap. If you like surprises, have the woman who makes the flowers put a vase of them next to your door every week. They don’t belong in a city lobby.”

“The cheap fake flowers that appear each week in often bizarre arrangements (see this week’s funereal-like offering) do nothing to improve Marina City’s image.”

“To the lady who makes them, are you over-medicated?”

“They look like they belong in a Filipino hotel.”

Perhaps that’s a little harsh? I don’t know. The plain-spoken two-cent opinion shared by most Marina City residents and visitors seems to be the reasonable contention that prominently featured fake flowers in any building — but especially a famous, architecturally significant high-rise like Marina City — serve no greater purpose than to make the building look like it can’t afford real flowers. Or, more bluntly, fake flowers make your condo look ghetto. Get-TOE, people.

a fake flowers But maybe you should decide for yourself. I give you a new, recurring feature of Chicago Carless: Marina City’s Elevator Lobby Flowers. Love them or not? Leave a comment and tell me what each new arrangement, er, brings up for you.

My take on this week’s offering: are those supposed to be leaves or rabbit ears?

As for the mirror, let’s just not even go there.