February 10, 2009
Around our house, I make dinner one of two ways: Crank something out in a hurry on the stove, slap it down in front of the kids and hope they don’t moan or spill all over their clothes as they forget to use their utensils; Or grill something big and munchy (think ribs or sesame-garlic […]
Filed under: Ephemera, Fetish | Comments (0)
January 26, 2009
It used to be Bic Stics, Bic ballpoints, the occasional Shaeffer Bros. throwaway or oddball Pentel gel-tip – whatever. Whatever the newspaper clerks stocked the supply closet with – that’s how I wrote. Tools didn’t matter. The work did. Once I moved out of dead trees and into the trackless wastes of the interwebs, I […]
Filed under: Ephemera, Fetish, Tool, Toy | Comments (0)
January 21, 2009
I never repeat heavy little objects. I mean, never. My little daily obsession can be a cruel taskmistress, sometimes commanding me to find something cool to post even when nothing cool has come through my life. But like an idiot samurai, I live and die by a code set in motion long ago and over […]
Filed under: Adornment, Artifact, Ephemera, Facsimile, Fetish, Objet, symbol, Tool, weapon | Comments (0)
January 10, 2009
This was explained to me as “the lightning bolt which destroys ignorance.” Here’s what this page says about the Tibetan vajra:
Filed under: Adornment, Fetish, symbol | Comments (1)
January 9, 2009
According to these guys, the Universal Minute 16 shot 16mm film in little cartridges. It’s a tight, dense little chunk of stainless steel, about half the size of a box of cigarettes. A fingernail pops up the two panes of the viewfinder. Round metal stud under the right finger trips the guillotine shutter, thumb lever […]
Filed under: Ephemera, Fetish, General, Tool | Comments (0)
January 8, 2009
Here’s a sweet chaser to yesterday’s grim ditty: The Ferrero Rocher dark chocolate truffle is a multilayered confection, starting with a chocolate-sprinkled shell of chocolate-coated wafer wrapped around a rich dark-chocolate truffle encasing a slightly chewier core of chocolate so dark it seems to absorb light, thought and reason. God these things are trouble. Good […]
Filed under: Art, Edible, Fetish | Comments (0)
December 30, 2008
He is the lord and destroyer of obstacles and like his brother, buy he came from San Francisco – indeed from another shop in the same block on Columbus Avenue. He is brass, ampoule barely 1.25 inches high, carrying his teapot and parasol on the road from here to there. He smiles benevolently, secure in […]
Filed under: Artifact, Ephemera, Fetish, Microfiction, Miniature, symbol | Comments (0)
December 28, 2008
I have a problem with gadget blogs. They gush and bloviate on the merits of equipment that I either don’t need or desperately crave/cannot afford. So when the gushing about this device peaked last month, pilule visit this I reluctantly shoved the MINO Flip from the latter category to the former in my mind, and […]
Filed under: Fetish, Instrument, Tool | Comments (0)
December 26, 2008
A gift from our lovely friend Arden. Once upwrapped, find the gilt, seek almost fetishized packaging reveals jellies of every type and description (red bean, plum, green tea). This one was clear, virtually flavorless until you dropped a spoonful of the powdered sweet green tea powder on top of it.
Filed under: Edible, Ephemera, Fetish | Comments (0)
December 20, 2008
We decorated the tree a couple days ago, there and tonight we threw a massive Christmas party – I spent most of the day cooking ribs (27 racks) and gumbo (probably six or eight gallons) for 100 good friends, web colleagues and family. It was a swell time. At the height of it, diagnosis a […]
Filed under: Art, Ephemera, Fetish, Miniature, Model, symbol | Comments (0)
December 12, 2008
My son’s collecting these – Chinese insects preserved in two layers of resin – a clear dome over a glow-in-the-dark bed.
Filed under: Adornment, Fetish, Life form | Comments (0)
December 12, 2008
A more mellifluous blend of ash-blue plastic and polished aluminum, symptoms nor a stranger device, order I have never seen. The tool holds a small ink reservoir at the end of a complex/adjustable curve of metal. One of the handrests is missing, which is probably why it turned up in a junk shop en route […]
Filed under: Fetish, Part, Tool | Comments (0)
December 10, 2008
Little plastic characters from barrio life, check the Homies get as much flak as they get props. They were created by Mexican-American cartoonist David Gonzales, troche who clearly launched the collectible-toy phenomenon (120, patient 000,000+ figurines sold) from a place of respect. Maybe I’m just a stupid white guy, but this vendor’s face and stance […]
Filed under: Art, Ephemera, Fetish, Miniature, symbol, Toy | Comments (0)
December 4, 2008
In 1969, order the Ideal Toy company came out with a line of fully operational miniature powertools that plugged into battery supplies built into their small carrying cases. This “Powermite” sander is about three inches long by two inches tall and less than an inch wide, order and came with little sheets of sandpaper, for […]
Filed under: Artifact, Ephemera, Fetish, Found Object, Miniature, Tool, Toy | Comments (0)
December 2, 2008
I haven’t opened this yet. I don’t care what it tastes like, approved or even whether it does what it claims: Y MUSCLE WATER – because you never know who’s going to challenge you to a wrestling match. 100% natural and certified organic: Reverse osmosis water, this web organic evaporated cane juice, sick organic white […]
Filed under: Edible, Ephemera, Fetish | Comments (0)
November 22, 2008
This fine object puts the specie in specious: Someone at the Christian organization LivingWaters.com worked very, information pills very hard on this piece of counterfeit. The four-color printing and gravure work are fine anough to pass the “holy, shit, WTF is that” moment after you’ve picked it up and still can’t believe it’s not money […]
Filed under: Art, Ephemera, Fetish, Found Object, Microfiction, Model, symbol, Tool | Comments (1)
November 21, 2008
More than 500 million human beings live in absolute poverty. Right now. Their lot is not changing. More than 15 million children die of hunger every year. Starve. To. Death. How many children is that? Numbers are pretty meaningless when you’re talking about entire nations of people, try but do some math: Remember the faces […]
Filed under: Art, Artifact, Ephemera, Facsimile, Fetish, Found Object, Jetsam, Miniature, Model, symbol, Toy | Comments (0)
November 19, 2008
This gem of an art book covers the crafting of complex 3-D figures from 2D materials using little but scissors. For some insane reason, see the sole available copy on Amazon is going for $212.91. I found a copy in the Hayward Gallery last summer for about 8% of that amount. And no, you cannot […]
Filed under: Art, Ephemera, Fetish, Tool | Comments (0)
November 16, 2008
More than 500 million human beings live in absolute poverty. Right now. Their lot is not changing. More than 15 million children die of hunger every year. Starve. To. Death. How many children is that? Numbers are pretty meaningless when you’re talking about entire nations of people, try but do some math: Remember the faces […]
Filed under: Ephemera, Fetish, Model, Objet, symbol, Toy | Comments (1)
November 12, 2008
When you’re 9, order you’re already wondering what it means to be a man. You ask a lot of questions. A lot of questions. You challenge people twice your size to arm-wrestling matches. You suddenly take to doing pushups and situps wherever it occurs to you – like on train platforms …
Filed under: Fetish, symbol, Tool, Toy | Comments (0)
November 11, 2008
When we were still a-courting, illness she and I drove 2, tadalafil 200 miles around the American southwest in a rented convertible in the space of a week. We slept beneath the stars and in seedy motels. We lolled in the open ragtop beneath towering mesas in Monument Valley, order and muggy midnight at Four […]
Filed under: Adornment, Art, Fetish, symbol | Comments (0)
November 9, 2008
The thinking man’s ketchup. I attended the huge Disney Animation Studios wrap party for Bolt (an excellent cartoon, viagra buy by the way) and they were passing these out with the cocktail shrimp. It’s barely an inch and a half tall, and enough to salt a pot of soup or – in my case – […]
Filed under: Edible, Ephemera, Fetish | Comments (0)
November 2, 2008
We hold these things close – our beliefs. They guide our acts, page they govern our thoughts, case they control how we vote, ampoule whom we love, what we do in the dark. And we bind ourselves to these intangible self-truths with talismans – headdresses, tefillim, hair shirts and medals. This is an odd little […]
Filed under: Adornment, Artifact, Ephemera, Fetish, symbol | Comments (0)
October 30, 2008
Tiny accessories for teensy simulacra, dosage mind these silicone shoelets and bagettes piled up in my daughter’s room until her obsession with Polly Pocket wore off and she tired of them and moved onto a new obsession. At some point, here she got it into her head that she could sell them on eBay. I […]
Filed under: Fetish, Miniature, Model, Part, Toy | Comments (0)
October 27, 2008
My son seems to have my eye for HLOs. He spotted this anodized aluminum pill container in among the bottle openers at some sporting goods store or Quikie Mart, this and quickly reminded us of his lost allowance so he could buy it. A few days later he attached some discarded pot-metal chain to it […]
Filed under: Fetish, Jetsam, Tool, Toy | Comments (0)
