Tacky is as tacky does

Garden gazing balls (even when the size of the one in Millennium Park), plywood cutouts of some one bending over in their garden, and, yes, especially, garden gnomes are tacky, as are plastic ducks and deer.  Sorry, that's just the way it is.  Not even the fact that after 100 years the Chelsea Garden Show is allowing celebrity decorated garden gnomes to be auctioned for charity changes the fact that they are tacky.  You have to take a large hop, skip, and jump to get from tacky to whimsical, which in gardens is actually OK.  Now you may ask how do you know what's tacky and what's whimsical?  A fair question, and the answer is simple enough: something has to be a bit clever, a bit creatively odd, a bit tastefully fanciful to be whimsical, and you know it when you see it.  Mostly you do not get whimsy ready made; it has to be transformed from ordinary, so there's a chance that a gnome decorated by Elton John just might make the grade to whimsical, or like Liberace, it may end up just wildly, fantastically, grandly tacky, but tacky nonetheless. Hope this raises a lot of money for a worthwhile charity because how else could Chelsea bear the indignity?   

New neighbors - Hmmm.

The Phactor tries to keep an open mind.  New neighbors just moved in across the street so enough of the neighborhood must have thought them OK to have gotten through the rigorous screening process.  All the best neighborhoods have them.  But the large blue garden gazing ball that they are obviously proud of, because why else would it be in their front yard, does give one pause.  Now blue gazing balls are not quite in the same category with ceramic ducks, a goose with clothes, or pink flamingos, but it is a GARDEN gazing ball and just does not belong in the front yard.  It's just like clothes lines; they are fine in their place.  So its tastefulness, or lack thereof, does deal with place.  Things that are just plain tacky, can, if properly placed, transform from kitsch to funky.  This topic was brought up with dining friends and the funkiest of them mentioned his neighbors bowling ball lawn sculpture!  Things could be worse.  Your opinions are sought.