October 18, 2004
Iconic, kinetic, and about as simple-minded as a yo-yo, the Wheel-O was your own hand-held Sputnik. The red wheel spins on axle-tips of magnetized metal that cling to the wire frame. Tip the frame back and forth, and it spins faster as it rolls around the frame. Get good enough at it, you can get […]
Filed under: Artifact | Comments Off on #253 :: Syquest disk
October 4, 2004
Iconic, kinetic, and about as simple-minded as a yo-yo, the Wheel-O was your own hand-held Sputnik. The red wheel spins on axle-tips of magnetized metal that cling to the wire frame. Tip the frame back and forth, and it spins faster as it rolls around the frame. Get good enough at it, you can get […]
Filed under: Artifact | Comments (2)
October 2, 2004
Iconic, kinetic, and about as simple-minded as a yo-yo, the Wheel-O was your own hand-held Sputnik. The red wheel spins on axle-tips of magnetized metal that cling to the wire frame. Tip the frame back and forth, and it spins faster as it rolls around the frame. Get good enough at it, you can get […]
Filed under: Artifact | Comments Off on #237 :: Authentic manufactured maritime artifact
September 8, 2004
this correctly). Wrapped around the ceramic jar (which stands about 4 inches high), they look crude, orthographically drawn and gallant in the sort of stiffbacked fashion that would have had them still shooting and reloading by ranks in the regimental way, only to be cut down by guerilla potshots, as if they had learned nothing […]
Filed under: Artifact | Comments (1)
September 7, 2004
this correctly). Wrapped around the ceramic jar (which stands about 4 inches high), they look crude, orthographically drawn and gallant in the sort of stiffbacked fashion that would have had them still shooting and reloading by ranks in the regimental way, only to be cut down by guerilla potshots, as if they had learned nothing […]
Filed under: Artifact | Comments (1)
September 1, 2004
this – an elaborate ice castle lit from within. It glows with a liquid intensity, the frosted bulb cavity diffusing all 25 watts of its little bulb through about two pounds of solid glass. It would make a dandy blunt instrument – coldcock your prey, then fling it to a concrete floor to shatter into […]
Filed under: Artifact | Comments (2)
August 26, 2004
this – an elaborate ice castle lit from within. It glows with a liquid intensity, the frosted bulb cavity diffusing all 25 watts of its little bulb through about two pounds of solid glass. It would make a dandy blunt instrument – coldcock your prey, then fling it to a concrete floor to shatter into […]
Filed under: Artifact | Comments (2)
August 22, 2004
this – an elaborate ice castle lit from within. It glows with a liquid intensity, the frosted bulb cavity diffusing all 25 watts of its little bulb through about two pounds of solid glass. It would make a dandy blunt instrument – coldcock your prey, then fling it to a concrete floor to shatter into […]
Filed under: Artifact | Comments Off on #195 :: “Lucky Fish” earring
August 18, 2004
this – an elaborate ice castle lit from within. It glows with a liquid intensity, the frosted bulb cavity diffusing all 25 watts of its little bulb through about two pounds of solid glass. It would make a dandy blunt instrument – coldcock your prey, then fling it to a concrete floor to shatter into […]
Filed under: Artifact | Comments Off on #190 :: Dental Floss
August 17, 2004
this – an elaborate ice castle lit from within. It glows with a liquid intensity, the frosted bulb cavity diffusing all 25 watts of its little bulb through about two pounds of solid glass. It would make a dandy blunt instrument – coldcock your prey, then fling it to a concrete floor to shatter into […]
Filed under: Artifact | Comments Off on #189 :: Industrial bobbin?
July 31, 2004
The invention of the white LED has sparked a renaissance in personal illumination. The carbon-battery-powered torch in 1899 began pushing back the darkness around us at night that was only somewhat held at bay by oil and kerosene lamps. Beef that up into brick-sized 9-volt-powered floods, tweak it into the shape of a cop’s metal […]
Filed under: Artifact | Comments (4)
July 15, 2004
A good pen is a transformative tool. If it is heavy and strange enough in your hand, it opens pathways in your writing circuitry where none existed, allowing creative flow from channels hitherto untapped. There is nothing so heavy and strange, nor pleasureable and – for the money – full of cheap thrills – as […]
Filed under: Artifact | Comments Off on #156 :: Lightcycle
July 13, 2004
A good pen is a transformative tool. If it is heavy and strange enough in your hand, it opens pathways in your writing circuitry where none existed, allowing creative flow from channels hitherto untapped. There is nothing so heavy and strange, nor pleasureable and – for the money – full of cheap thrills – as […]
Filed under: Artifact | Comments Off on #154 :: Minnie Ball
July 10, 2004
A good pen is a transformative tool. If it is heavy and strange enough in your hand, it opens pathways in your writing circuitry where none existed, allowing creative flow from channels hitherto untapped. There is nothing so heavy and strange, nor pleasureable and – for the money – full of cheap thrills – as […]
Filed under: Artifact | Comments Off on #151 :: Art Deco bullet reading lamp
July 7, 2004
A hoop of pewter notched with the hours and days, a ring of brass with a little knob for spinning it, a lanyard and a pinhole. Line it up with the sun, spin the ring to indicate the month, and a pinprick of sunlight falls on the hour. I had only the vaguest understanding of […]
Filed under: Artifact | Comments Off on Tech notes
June 26, 2004
A souvenir from a European road trip, a call to action, a study in French traffic control. Printed black on yellow and stuck to a little plastic road sign, the message is clear, yet vague if you feign ignorance as to its purpose: 500 meters to an exit? 500 million possible variations ahead? An arrow […]
Filed under: Artifact | Comments Off on #137 :: Glass slide – US Mint, Phila.
June 16, 2004
Filed under: Artifact | Comments Off on #127 :: Japanese Sugar Candy
June 15, 2004
Before any lens, a performance takes shape the instant the shutter is opened. It lasts a few milliseconds, so quickly as to not exactly “happen” at all and then the camera shuts its one good eye, sinking into blissful ignorance of what it has witnessed, the actions, people, places and things lurking inside the dark […]
Filed under: Artifact | Comments Off on #126 :: Daguerrotype
June 10, 2004
Before any lens, a performance takes shape the instant the shutter is opened. It lasts a few milliseconds, so quickly as to not exactly “happen” at all and then the camera shuts its one good eye, sinking into blissful ignorance of what it has witnessed, the actions, people, places and things lurking inside the dark […]
Filed under: Artifact | Comments Off on #121 :: Soviet Souvenir
June 3, 2004
Faith is an odd, powerful force – a combination of yearning and belief in the unbelievable. Prayer cards are little faith amplifiers, allowing you (if you believe) to draw on the faith of dead saints whose faith was more powerful, and to ask for them to help. They’re tools for bootstrapping yourself to grace with […]
Filed under: Artifact | Comments Off on #114 :: Dot-com Relic
May 31, 2004
Filed under: Artifact | Comments Off on #111 :: Tube worm shells
May 29, 2004
Fossil tech, the earbone of a giant. Fifty years ago, thousands of operators huddled at thousands of switchboards, plugging and unplugging calls from millions of jacks at the Bell Telephone Company nearest you. The nationwide American Telephone and Telegraph conglomerate was as close as anyone had come to building a nationwide monopoly without inviting antitrust […]
Filed under: Artifact | Comments Off on #109 :: Low-capacity Storage Device
May 17, 2004
Here’s another amulet of urban protection, rendered useless by my faulty memory. It’s difficult to say how many of these I’ve owned over the years, for school lockers, bikes, gym lockers, strongboxes. Without the combination, it becomes a sturdy paperweight, thumb-twiddler, hammer-in-a-pinch. Back when I used them full-time, I wish there had been something like […]
Filed under: Artifact | Comments (1)
