March 24, 2009
Since my wife is a member of ASIFA we got passes to a pre-release screening of Monsters vs. Aliens tonight. Verdict: It’s no Kung Fu Panda or Bolt, but it’s got enough yuks and snappy design to make an honest buck, and I might even see it again. They were giving away McDonald’s toys in […]
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March 10, 2009
Where is he going? What is he carrying? Why is he important? Chinese factory workers so beautifully aped the luster of carved coral with cast, burnished and “age”-dusted red plastic resin that I’m left wishing I had the answers to these questions. In lesser hands, he would have been a child’s plaything, a little knicknack […]
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February 23, 2009
Two thumbsplats for eyes, slick back his ears, give him an immense tail, and now he’s some sort of steroidal racing bunny-ghost. My daughter’s latest class project calls for a creature endowed with camouflage. She made this – and several others like it – out of Super Sculpey. It’s so pure, I can almost envision […]
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February 19, 2009
Once upon a time, his paint was perfect. You can see it on his good side – the bright and chipper eye facing the lucky shamrock dangling from his left jowls – that look that says fortune will smile on us both if you keep me close. Flip to the other side – the stem […]
Filed under: Artifact, Ephemera, Fetish, Miniature, My father's HLOs, symbol | Comments (0)
February 8, 2009
If there’s a story behind this creature, my father will have to supply it. It arrived in a box of things he offered for photography, and it suggests nothing but a happy life aquatic, swimming through the dust in a drawer and surviving on pencil shavings until he’s required to dance on his tail, chatter […]
Filed under: Facsimile, Miniature, My father's HLOs, Objet, Toy | Comments (0)
January 24, 2009
This nation has bought into the culture of preciousness from the very first needlepoint sampler of the earliest Don’t Tread on Me flag. We can’t say we invented it- I think we can thank the Egyptians or the first culture that ever created chubby little fertility-goddess fetishes for that. But the U.S. has a by-God […]
Filed under: Adornment, Ephemera, Facsimile, Jetsam, Miniature, Tool | Comments (2)
January 5, 2009
He was rendered in porcelain bisque, no bigger than the end of my thumb many, many decades ago. This angelic countenance stands ready to receive whatever whim, benediction or mad wish a child of 18XX might bestow upon him. If he had a body, it’s gone now. No matter. Capped with glazed curls, his smile […]
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December 30, 2008
He is the lord and destroyer of obstacles and like his brother, he came from San Francisco – indeed from another shop in the same block on Columbus Avenue. He is brass, barely 1.25 inches high, carrying his teapot and parasol on the road from here to there. He smiles benevolently, secure in some knowledge […]
Filed under: Artifact, Ephemera, Fetish, Microfiction, Miniature, symbol | Comments (0)
December 25, 2008
Have I mentioned these? I got a motorcycle in my stocking this year. I picture myself cut about an inch tall from 1/8″-thick styrofoam, clad in teeny, tiny laminate leather, my shiny mug grinning. Flat helmet under my flat arm. Peace to all out there. I hope yours has been a warm and strengthening holiday. […]
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December 20, 2008
We decorated the tree a couple days ago, 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, colleagues and family. It was a swell time. At the height of it, a toddler knocked a […]
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December 10, 2008
Little plastic characters from barrio life, the Homies get as much flak as they get props. They were created by Mexican-American cartoonist David Gonzales, who clearly launched the collectible-toy phenomenon (120,000,000+ figurines sold) from a place of respect. Maybe I’m just a stupid white guy, but this vendor’s face and stance seem to radiate the […]
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December 5, 2008
The company Christmas party went off tonight as it always does – a full-blown bash with excellent food and good company. The capper to the meal was a créme brulée in a little chocolate box, topped with this emblem cast in dark and white chocolate. I always choose the cruelest month to do my no-refined-sugar […]
Filed under: Edible, Ephemera, Miniature, Model, symbol | Comments (0)
December 4, 2008
In 1969, 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, and came with little sheets of sandpaper, which clamped onto […]
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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, but do some math: Remember the faces of […]
Filed under: Art, Artifact, Ephemera, Facsimile, Fetish, Found Object, Jetsam, Miniature, Model, symbol, Toy | Comments (0)
November 6, 2008
(A guest post by my 9-year-old son) Dolls made out of yarn with wire armature and very small marbles for eyes. Kind of like voodoo dolls, if you think about it. The types of figures: a zombie, a burgular, a devil,a spider, and a guy with some wierd hairdo. They’re not bendable or flexable, but […]
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November 5, 2008
(A guest post by my 7-year-old daughter) I traded Baby Stripe to one of my friends named Dinah and Sammie.I gave them a little bear. First I asked Sammie the next day I asked Dinah and she agreed.So now I have a cute raccoon.
Filed under: Miniature, Toy | Comments (0)
October 30, 2008
Tiny accessories for teensy simulacra, 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, she got it into her head that she could sell them on eBay. I think she’s more […]
Filed under: Fetish, Miniature, Model, Part, Toy | Comments (0)
October 24, 2008
You own a lot of shit. You accumulate more of it every day. Sometimes, you have to pick through it to get your desk clean. And you make little piles. That might or might not be photographs of your life told in debris. And yet, you never seem to get rid of the things as […]
Filed under: Adornment, Art, Artifact, Blahg, Ephemera, Facsimile, Fetish, Found Object, Instrument, Jetsam, Life form, Miniature, Model, Objet, Part, symbol, Tool, Toy, weapon | Comments (0)
October 21, 2008
In some lights, my 9-year-old son is my very heart dancing around outside my body, a handsome, smart, innocent, brave, funny, sensitive boy. In others, he’s a degenerate, unwashed, mouthbreathing game addict who would rather live a fantasy life through his hunched shoulders, twitching thumbs and unblinking bloodshot eyeballs than virtually anything else, including eating, […]
Filed under: Fetish, Miniature, Model, symbol, Toy | Comments (0)
October 16, 2008
This lump of polished, lustrous stone – so fetishy I can’t even decide what to do with it yet – came my way for $2 at the swap meet last weekend. It has a wondrous weight and feel in the hand. And it’s made of this stuff which gives it a symbolic potency far deeper […]
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September 30, 2008
Back in 1969, the Louis Marx and Company was casting its “WILD ANIMALS” series in plastic. These beautiful little facsimile animals were hand-painted (in Taiwan, according to the garish and lush four-color offset-litho box) and turned them loose in the wilds of American family rooms. The box copy says (in all its unproofread glory): MULE […]
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September 27, 2008
I’d like to say I’ve had dreams of people pulling back my head to eat candy from my neck. I haven’t. But if I had, I’d choose this Star Wars specimen, one of the finest expressions of the Pez-maker’s art that I have ever seen. You?
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September 16, 2008
Parallel to the spine of the bus: LEYLAND ROYAL TIGER COACH MADE IN ENGLAND BY LESNEY (and then just beneath the engine compartment) #40 From my wife’s collection.
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September 15, 2008
Tiny morsels of molded silicon, hand-daubed to an irresistible crunchylookingness. Only 900 yen. The linchpin to a successful front-window display in your 1:8-scale restaurant. From the same niche of Japanese collectibles culture as this
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August 1, 2008
The micro-war between the races of earth still rages on in English toy shops and adult imaginations – even though most young Londoners have graduated to XBox, Flickr and Legomania. Most warriors wear meticulously handpainted uniforms. In the antiques stalls of Portobello Road they rest, weapons at the ready, medals ablaze in gold and polychrome, […]
Filed under: Found Object, Miniature, symbol, Tool | Comments (0)
