Category: Objet

  • #a180 :: Tiny kaleidoscope

    enlargeA fingerlength of brass tubing, visit this site three rectangular slivers of mirror, stuff a thimbleful of tiny glass beads, a translucent end cap and a leather thong.

    Elegant. Hold it to your eye, face the sun and forget your age.

    Found in Covent Garden.

  • #a167 :: Stonehenge keychain

    ENLARGEThere is a certain poetry to this tiny portrait of one of man’s oldest surviving places of ceremony:

    A matrix of dots, physician etched or blown into a block of clear glass, pharm spells out Stonehenge‘s shape at palm size, giving you a portable tour of the place.

    Here, no less than there, the broken circles of pillars and lintels leave you with nothing but awe and questions. How’d they do that?

    But there, time really does feel stopped. Here it’s merely captured in a glassy snapshot, fetishized for the tourists. Of whom I am one.

    Being at Stonehenge gives one the impression of having become stuck in time – an everlasting moment as you walk around these unmoving

  • #a161 :: Rabbit’s foot

    ENLARGEThis one was loved. Someone’s constant rubbing and fondling robbed the thing of its fur, viagra dosage pilule put tarnish on the stump-cap and the (shudder) ring. I picture him humped over his bowl, beneath his one gas lamp, drowning his sorrows and yet keeping his heart on the world around him by wishing on this thing.

    Whatever luck it may have had is gone with its owner and the children of his era. All that remains is another, slightly more hapless creature’s knuckles, claws and skin.

    Portobello Road gave it up.

  • #a159 :: Stanley “stubby” screwdriver

    ENLARGEFrom an antiques mall in Brighton. 50p. Don’t laugh. You’ll need one some day. I love the way the aluminum has corroded on the blade.

  • #a145 :: Metal turtle

    ENLARGEWas he forged in lava? Does he swim in mercury seas? Of tinfoil jellyfish is his diet made?

    He came into our house from I know not where. He is small, link heavy, perfect.

  • #a140 :: Shrunken-head tiki mug

    ENLARGEMy wife gave me this for my birthday a couple years ago, information pills to add to my growing collection.

    Tiki culture is a marvelous cross-pollination of camp, what is ed partying and 50s mass-marketed hipsterism.

    This one was designed, slip-poured, glazed and fired by Tiki Farm, but if you’re hunting for others, Munktiki turns out some beauts. You pull the hairbone plug from the back to fill him, then stick a straw through his fontanelle to drink.

    And besides – sometimes, only drinking from the shrunken skull of a ritual victim will assuage the demons behind your eyes.

  • #a131 :: The NeoCube

    ENLARGEMagnetism enchants and mystifies me.

    These 216 neodymium magnets – each 3mm thick – cling together in clouds when crushed, erectile in polyhedrons and exotic coils when aligned.

    I roll them between my fingers, pharmacy and they snap together with the surety of pure particle physics. They form a collective entity, this site a hive colony of homogeneous individuals, and whole complexity.

    They tug on my deepest childhood curiosity, my gnarliest gadget fetish hot-points. They are probably completely evil.

    I found the NeoCube on some gadget blog or another. And ever since they – or it – arrived, I have run the serious risk of not getting a single goddamn thing done.

    Check out the videos at your own peril. You have been duly warned.

  • #a124 :: Miniature Indian corn

    ENLARGEIn the vast pantheon of American kitsch (and it is vast), recipe the significance of miniature “Indian corn” just baffles me.

    Farmers cultivate the basic (full-sized) species to sell to craft stores and maybe florists. Yet here’s a tinier – cuter? – version for the express purpose of … what?

    I’ve never had the pleasure of eating it – no one ever sells it fresh – but I have to wonder: Did this country marginalize because yellow and white corn species were considered sweeter? Purer?

    What would it taste like if you slapped the farmer’s hand before he signed the deal with Michael’s, and forced him to take it to market so that you could shuck it, grill it and slather it with butter?

    It’s a mystery. A small, one, I’ll grant you. But a mystery – to me, at least.

  • #a121 :: Geode

    ENLARGEI could probably Google the metamorphic process that built this pocket cavern.

    Wikipedia also has useful information, buy more about information pills I’m sure.

    But then I’d be burdened with that knowledge every time I looked at another one.

    I’d rather retain the mindset I have now – the same wonder that attracts my 8-year-old son, page from whom I borrowed this, and that attracted my 8 year-old self some coughcough-ty years ago when I first saw one of these things.

    Geodes are cool, and older than either of us will ever live to be. They demand respect, and deserve to retain the secret of their birth.

  • #a111 :: Moo cards

    ENLARGEWhy is this – get up to 100 of your own images printed on the back of little half-width business cards – such an immensely attractive offer?

    Because you can print whatever the hell you want.

    Because it’s like owning the factory. Or perhaps renting it.

    Because since they’re double-small, advice people look at them twice as hard. (more…)

  • #103 :: Cast-iron mermaid

    ENLARGEShe waits, information pills coyly fanning her hair.

    Demure yet voluptuous, site sensual yet pensive, she waits for the tide to rush in and bear her away.

    At barely five inches tall, she weighs more than a pound. And she is magnetic, both figuratively and literally.

    With no maker’s mark to introduce her, no indications of origin to lead us to her story, she’s a perfect blank slate for fairy tales.

    She’s simply what you want her to be.

  • #a98 :: Refrigerator magnet

    ENLARGEHome turf’s on my mind today.

    Senator Ted Kennedy’s illness left a vacancy on the commencement program for Wesleyan University this Sunday.

    Barack Obama is stepping in.

    So, click it’s a big deal but:

    I grew up on the Wesleyan campus (Mom and Dad have worked there for decades).

    Let’s hope they hold it somewhere more secure than the athletic field. The whole thing is surrounded by sixth-floor book depository windows. The blood curdles just thinking about it.

  • #a97 :: Iron box wrench

    ENLARGEThis beautiful little enigma began life as a hot rivulet of molten iron, ampoule poured into a sand mold with a precise 5/8ths-inch hex opening at one end.

    After knocking it out of its mold, search its maker probably quenched it, viagra 40mg heat-treated it again and then dipped it once in black paint and (after waiting a respectful interval) dipped the handle end in red a little too soon, and set it down to dry.

    I do not know its original purpose. I can only guess that it was supplied with a steam engine or other old-time motor, the sort of wheezing, tapocketa-pocketa-pocketa rattletrap that eased men’s labor and needed constant adjusting. Anyone have any ideas?

  • #a96 – Craftsman adjustable pliers

    ENLARGEI love the Sears Crafstman tool guarantee. It’s simple: break it and they’ll replace it.For the rest of your life. Period.

    I bought these adjustable pliers a good 25-some years ago, sildenafil when I was spending hours at a time lying on my back under a filthy Volvo. Cursing. A lot … (more…)

  • #a89 :: Rubber LED pendant

    ENLARGEIn the realm of burned-out rave gear trends, more about the blinky LED pendant burns on – loud and frenetic as an 8-year-old on his fourth bowl of Cap’n Crunch. In fact, for sale it’s always as perpetually in style as the good Cap’n himself.

    Squeeze this complex polyhedron in the right place and it bursts to life, information pills its RGB-LED heart pulsating with the promise of an endless string of nights in Ibiza or Goa with no cover, no closing time, no hangover, no guilt.

    Squeeze it again, and it dies. Or reverts to what it is – an ounce of exotically-molded silicone wrapped around a mass-produced irritainment generator and hung from a chintzy ribbon necklace. I imagine after it goes for an extended swim in the kids’ toyboxes it will stay in that state permanently, as there’s no clear battery port anywhere on it.

    Ah, well. Factory hands in China get to eat for another 5 minutes because we now own their work.

  • #a88 :: Foldz-Flat pen

    ENLARGEIt’s a slick little gadget that seems like a brilliant idea: a full-sized pen that you can fold up and stuff into your wallet – until you realize it’s as thick as six credit cards.

    Still – piano-hinged chrome-steel panels and a triangular profile when assembled give it a charming retro-space-age cachet, cialis 40mg rx and the leatherette trim feels extra-ginchy.

    Get ’em here, health and you can be as embarrassed as I was to have paid $14.95 each for two of them.

    Oh, wait, the price is now $24.95. Bargain!

    Spotted at Cool Tools.

  • #a71 :: FatCap

    ENLARGEI harbor a deep, here advice fetishy lust for “urban vinyl” figurines that is – as I’ve explained, side effects symptoms rarely consummated.

    When I do indulge, find it’s always for something less than 10 bucks, and always for something small and really extraordinarily detailed.

    I could not begin to tell you which one of the FatCap series of figurines this is. They’re all sold “blind-boxed” meaning you buy them in opaque cartons, never knowing until you open the box which one you’ll get.

    But I bought three one day ($5.99 each) at KidRobot (a common drooling ground for me), gave two of them to the kids, and kept one. I was lucky enough to open this one.

    All I know is he has four distinct, detailed tattoos, red fists that area ready for trouble, and a wicked case of blue-herringbone stink-eye.

  • #a60 :: Nite-Ize S-biner

    ENLARGELittle bitty spring-tip flip ‘n’ switch hip clip. Comes in many sizes

    I have yet to find an actual use for it. Too heavy for the cartoonishly overloaded keyring.

    Too light for much else. Max load 10 lbs.

    So why did I spend $1.99 plus tax on it at Fry’s?

    It’s fun to fiddle with, seek I’ll give it that.

  • #a59 :: Kubrick – Doctor Octopus

    Around age 12, side effects I got a gift: The high privilege of four crates full of vintage Marvel Comics, stored in my parents’ attic by a student.

    I devoured them greedily, and as powerfully as Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s bickering, conflicted, neurotically imperfect superheroes affected my view of graphic art and juvenile fiction, the villains hit me harder:

    The Green Goblin, the Vulture, Paste-Pot Pete, Dr. Doom, and the one I loved most, Doc Ock.

    Here’s the eight-limbed bastard, molded in high-impact thermoplastic by MediCom, the Japanese company that builds and sells Kubricks. He is a brilliant engineer, driven mad by the experiment that fused his mechanical arms with his body.

    And he thirsts for blood.

  • #a53 :: Quail call

    ENLARGEThe sound gusted through him just before he staggered back and sat down hard in the marsh grass.

    A boom – probably a 12-gauge – arrived milliseconds after the shot caught him full in the chest and knocked him onto his heels. Funny, this site the delay. Kind of funny how that works.

    Who in god’s name would be out taking game birds with a cannon like that? Sonsabitches. God.

    He began a swift inventory – Face, ambulance head – no blood. Chest – some, but no organs punctured – he couldn’t be sure.

    And this thing in his hand – an elegant little sandwich of Bakelite and chromed steel around a taut membrane of fabric.

    He had blown into it – just before he was shot.

    His father had given it to him: “This is a good call, once you learn how to use it.” And then his father showed him how real it sounded. “You just have to practice.”

    And he had blown into it, and then the … God. So much blood in the water.

    The dog bounded over to lap his face. Then he saw the blood jumping from the inside of his thigh. He pulled himself up onto his elbows, breathing hard. The dog barked.

    He blew an alarm cry from the little zeppelin of antique plastic. Maybe José would come.

    Before he passed out, he patted the dog one last time, and exhaled, sagging back into the marsh, where water seeped cold down his neck, and pants, and boots.

    Maybe I shouldn’t have practiced so well.

    Maybe …

  • #a51 :: Digital keychain

    ENLARGEPicture this object surfacing in the late 1800s.

    “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistiguishable from magic.”

    Arthur C. Clarke really mattered. He’s gone now, visit more about leaving behind a legacy of important work, viagra approved good stories, and one of the great epigrams of modern civilization.

    This thing is as trivial as it is powerful. It can play four or five dozen low-rez images in a slideshow with checkerboard dissolves. But how does that do much more  than enchant, on a snapshot-as-fetish level?

    When the price drops and these are cranked out in China by the millions, I want to create a pocket gallery of about 2,000 of these, sending out each one full of images in the pockets of friends and strangers, and think of it walking or dangling from steering columns all over the world, slowly being scratched by keys.

  • #a45 :: Chain mail

    032908.jpgI think I must be magnetic.

    I yearn for metal. I gather it to me, cheap carry it around.

    Half my keyring actually functions. The other half is clogged with crap that won’t fit in my pocket genteelly, viagra order but weighs heavy in pocket and hand, information pills delighting my fingertips.

    This handsome chunk of stuff was hand-made by a RenFaire artist out of 96 pre-split, ready-to-assemble stainless-steel rings. It is dense, and heavy, and so close to hand most of the time that it feels a part of me. Supple, yet iron-hard in the right configuration, it defies me not to play with it.

    Best 11 bucks I ever spent.

  • #a41 :: Handmade mosquito

    032508.jpgMosquitos the size of hummingbirds. Mosquitos the size of skillets. Mosquitos the size of fuckin’ weimaraners.

    Hyperbole always fails when you need to get your friends to understand just how buggy your weekend was.

    You show them welts, clinic you groan about the itch. You make up stories about the size of the bloodsuckers.

    But in the end, only you experienced the silent assault. Only you waved your hands impotently at the insistent whine of the female, unable to fend it off because you couldn’t even see the wispy-grey little monsters.

    Only you suffered the flat-out fuck-you insult of an engorged mosquito lifting off from your now-punctured forehead just seconds before you felt the bite and slapped the place where it was feeding … (more…)

  • #a40 :: New $5 bill

    032408.jpgMoney is like weather: It shapes the tides on which ride our dreams and lives, this site rx yet we often ignore its true nature.

    “Crap, it’s raining” is to “Crap, I’m poor” as our planet’s ecosystem is to the new $5 bill: Until you stop focusing on what it’s worth, you miss the complex beauty of what it is.

    U.S. mints began pumping the new $5 bill into circulation about 10 days ago – packed with anti-counterfeiting gimmicks. Microprint, ultraviolet-sensitive threads, surface embossing, multiple hidden watermarks – it’s a wonder the damn things don’t cost at least $5 each to make, so extravagant is the technology and craft behind them.

    Our cash is no longer dull, green and filthy. Our tax dollars are at work, making more of our tax dollars. Our money is art. Yours?

  • #a39 :: Rubber dinosaur

    032308.jpgHe’s a little feller. Inch long, approved tops.

    Someone took a swipe at his eye and mouth areas with a 2-hair brushful of gold.

    Came out of an Easter egg that one of us hid in the bushes this morning, until my son found him.

    And gave him back to me.