MetaFilter posts by iconomy.
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A nice collection of 19th century French and English medical caricatures, including some drawn by George Cruikshank.
posted on Dec-29-05 at 9:35 AM
On September 15, 1959, student Bill Thomas witnessed the bloody aftermath of a bomb going off at Poe Elementary School. "This was an extremely upsetting event for me and my fellow six-grade students, but no consideration was ever given to the treatment of our trauma. In fact, nothing much was even said about it when we returned to school the next day." Decades later, he deals with what happened by taking photographs of himself in which he's seen committing suicide in a variety of convoluted ways.
posted on Aug-5-05 at 10:26 AM
Page after page of late 50s/early 60s pop posters, advertisements and more, designed by the studio of Lefor-Openo, which consisted of Marie-Claire Lefort and Marie-Francine Oppeneau. Via Papel Continuo
posted on Jun-29-05 at 10:06 AM
Buildings that never were: Unrealized Moscow - grand scale architectural projects from the mid 1930s to the early 1950s.
posted on Jun-22-05 at 11:07 AM
I vould haf palbidations by de heardt if you vould let me take your picture. Vintage postcards featuring cameras and photographers.
posted on Feb-14-05 at 8:11 AM
Do you have trouble distinguishing between a crow and a crocus, or a parrot and a carrot? You may want to refer to How To Tell The Birds From The Flowers: A Manual of Flornithology for Beginners. (caches inside)
posted on Nov-23-04 at 8:00 AM
The galleries of Transportation Futuristics illustrate some of the ingenious things people have dreamt up to solve the basic problem of how to get from here to there. Personal favs: the Bee and the flying saucer bus. via the exploratorium
posted on Sep-29-04 at 7:22 AM
Stickfighting Irish Gangs, Wrestling Fashions, The Punching Bags of Pugilism, How Old England Trains Her Red Coats, and much more, in The Journal of Manly Arts - European and Colonial Combatives, 1776 - 1914 .
posted on Aug-3-04 at 7:52 AM
Three nice book links from the University of North Texas Libraries: 1. Victorian Bookbinding - Innovation and Extravagance has some gorgeous examples of bookcovers from the Art Nouveau, Victorian, and Arts and Crafts periods. 2. The Great Menagerie is an animated tour of 19th and 20th century pop-up books. 3. Pop-Up and Movable Books - A Tour, showcases pop-up book artists through the centuries, and includes the master of the genre, Lothar Meggendorfer. More about Meggendorfer inside ---->
posted on Jul-29-04 at 4:58 AM
Art to Enchant: Some of the works of Shakespeare as interpreted by various illustrators throughout the centuries.
posted on Jun-29-04 at 12:14 PM
Art, Link, Letter: Abba Richman's beautiful The Alphabet and Dean Allen's rustic Found Alphabet are collections of letter shapes found in various outdoor objects.
posted on Jun-25-04 at 7:40 AM
Show us your computer mascot! >> flash, engaging music
posted on Jun-24-04 at 5:36 AM
The grays, the mantises, the snake-skins, and the hybrids are just some of the aliens drawn by children at Aliens and Children. To note: thought screen hats will successfully prevent abduction by the mantis-like aliens, the servants of the mantis-like aliens, the snake-skinned aliens, and the Meek-Moks.
posted on Apr-27-04 at 5:02 AM
Scottish puzzle writer, poet, and soon to be author Roddy Lumsden pens vitamin q, a weblog devoted to, as he puts it, "trivia lists, curiosities, and fragments which please me as a connoisseur of the sequential and the inconsequential - it's more a cave of wonder than a grotto of geekery". Vitamin q is the place to go if you need to know 75 terms for being drunk, want lists of fruits and vegetables that have been used as derogatory slang, need the names of the My Little Ponies, or have always wondered which singers have been heralded as "The New Bob Dylan". The archives are bursting with more of the same.
posted on Dec-29-03 at 8:52 AM
The Circus Trees of Axel Erlandson: In the 1920s Erlandson observed the natural grafting of two sycamores, became inspired, and then fused 4 sycamore saplings into his first successful experiment - a cupola that he named "Four Legged Giant". Using his own techniques, Erlandson went on to fashion zigzags, birdcages, chairs, towers, hearts, loops, baskets, rings, lightning bolts, towers, picture frames, ladders, and spiral staircases by painstakingly threading saplings together. His trees appeared often in Ripley's Believe it or Not during the 40s and 50s. Click, click, click.
posted on Aug-27-03 at 8:03 AM
The Lycette Brothers have a nice little flash and shockwave collection. Their oldest is the Goreyesque Illustrated Alphabet of Unfortunate Chance, in which dire alphabetic catastrophes plague the dapper but unlucky Monsieur Maurice. Their newest is The Modern Compendium of Miniature Automata, in which you can make your own creaky, whirling, steam age nanobot or just browse through the endless collection of books displaying automated creatures.
posted on Jul-25-03 at 7:35 AM
1: dear fruit master, you never got my first letter! i'll tell you what it said- i hate the stupid, idiotic game of fruit! the new one and the old one! they both stink! if i lose again i'm going to smash in the computer screen! i will win i will not lose again! or in three words- I WILL BE BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Signed, LAURENE 2: Dear Fruit Master, I lost your game after I tried about 200 times!!!! This game is really hard, and I thought you improved it. My child is highly upset and we will never go on the internet again!!!!! signed,a very angry parent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:(:(:(:(:(:(:(
posted on Jul-19-03 at 6:57 AM
Box-Bots are robot-like collages made only from product packaging and labels. My favorite: Strawberry Pop Tarts.
posted on Jul-4-03 at 10:45 AM
The tiny Picture Book Of Foods is an invaluable resource for true foodies everywhere. Learn where many of your favorite foods really come from. There are also growing secrets, educational cross-sections, and recipe tips. And pancakes.
posted on Jun-25-03 at 7:39 AM
Girls dress up, boys don't. Boys need to help girls cross the street. Girls work, boys play. Subtle gender messages (and really silly hairstyles) as observed by Monsieur Jean after collecting images from different countries of children on street signs for his salon.
posted on Jun-24-03 at 7:11 AM
The stamps of Michael Hernandez de Luna and Michael Thompson have been called provocative, tongue-in-cheek, mischievous, beautiful, and/or tasteless. All have made their way through the US postal system. Work alert: I see naked people.
posted on Jun-19-03 at 5:29 AM
It started with a small dragon, tattooed above the right breast.
posted on May-6-03 at 12:46 PM
It took the Smithsonian author and naturalist Kjell B. Sandved 24 years to find all the letters that went into the butterfly alphabet. Along the way he found butterfly wings imprinted with salutations and smiling, happy faces, and threatening expressions on wings and flowers with menacing expressions that say "Do Not Eat Me". Explore the site yourself by going directly to the gallery without looking at all of the images I've linked to, or read the story of how Sandved discovered his magnificent obsession.
posted on Apr-29-03 at 6:31 AM
Sure, sex and drugs have been associated with rock & roll from its very beginnings. But what about finely granulated sugar? See defining moments in the history of rock and roll, as re-enacted by marshmallow peeps. swiped from large hearted boy
posted on Apr-19-03 at 11:37 AM
Zombie and Mummy are friends. They have many excellent adventures. via surfstation, quirky midi alert.
posted on Apr-18-03 at 4:42 AM
Long before William Wegman dressed up his dogs in silly costumes, posed them and then took snapshots of them, other photographers were doing the same thing in the 1800s. See the results at the Photography as a Fine ARF! exhibit at the American Museum of Photography. Other current exhibits include Did You Ever Have A Dream Like This, The Daguerreotypes of Southworth & Hawes, The Face of Slavery & Other Early Images of African Americans, and Of Bricks and Light.
posted on Apr-16-03 at 9:02 AM
Industrious caddisfly larvae live within odd protective cases that they painstakingly craft from bits of twigs, stones, gravel, sand, and leaf fragments. They drag the case around, much like a snail or a hermit crab carries their shell. Artist Hubert Duprat, being well aware of the caddisfly larvae's reputation for resourcefulness and adaptablity, decided to see what would happen if he replaced the usual case building materials with precious gems, gold, turquoise, pearls, lapis lazuli and coral.
posted on Apr-9-03 at 10:02 AM
They may not have staples in their stomachs, but these monthly pictorials might have you wishing that there were more than 12 months in a year. Meet January's lovely Absinthe: mysterious, intoxicating, barely legal, and February's naughty Anthrax, who can only be described as dangerous and intimidating. Or perhaps you prefer spicy Myrrh, December's offering - exotic, refined, desirable. safe for work
posted on Apr-3-03 at 5:30 AM
The Historian of Things That Never Were: Edgar Governo collects timelines, chronologies, and histories of events that never happened, to people and things that never existed. Like who? Like Dr. Who, and Final Fantasy VII, Gargoyles, Buckaroo Bonzai, Gulliver's Travels, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and many more.
posted on Mar-28-03 at 5:28 AM
The Bob Lancaster Gallery of Unusual Playing Cards is a collection and celebration of the beauty of playing cards. The site is over 7 years old and is still updated when Bob comes across a new find. Personal favorites are Le Florentin and the very intriguing Transformation Decks. After viewing the decks, you may wonder why the ace on the ace of spades is larger than the others.
posted on Mar-12-03 at 9:04 AM
Mamiko picked up a cork that had rolled on the floor at the restaurant where she worked. From it she made her first tiny cork doll. She is often asked where she gets all of her corks. "I don't drink so much, but all of my friends who can drink quite a lot keep many corks for me." The pacifist is my favorite.
posted on Feb-19-03 at 9:35 AM
Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliet, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, Xray, Yankee and Zulu. Now I know my NATO phonetic ABCs, next time won't you sing with me?
posted on Feb-14-03 at 8:44 AM
"Interested in meeting my brother Jon, ladies? Due to the expected high demand, I will be forced to prescreen all e-mails received. Please send a nude photo of yourself, and a short explanation of why you think you would be a good match for my brother Jon, to me." A really swell brother wants a really swell girl to marry his brother Jon.
posted on Feb-11-03 at 5:05 AM
You take a toy car, and hold it in such a way so that it looks like it's a real car parked between other real cars, or driving in traffic with real cars. Then you take a picture of it. That's the sublimely simple concept of Parking Spots.
posted on Feb-8-03 at 7:50 PM
"In the last 13 years I have kept everything you have sent in close to heart and in safe keeping. I now hope to open these files again and share more of the creations given to us by you, the Dead Heads". The keeper of the Dead Files has put online hundreds of emails and newsletters and exuberantly colored and illustrated envelopes and letters from the fans of the Grateful Dead. There are, as you'd expect, many drawings of skeletons and American Beauty roses, but you certainly don't have to be a fan to appreciate all the handiwork, personality, and creativity that went into these. I like the irregularity of the hand drawn lettering. {via coudal}.
posted on Feb-6-03 at 12:21 PM
What did John F. Kennedy, Oscar Wilde, William Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin, Dr. Samuel Johnson, and Confucius all have in common? They were masters of chiasmus. If you've ever been amused by the simple but elegant word play in sentences like "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy, or "It's not the men in my life, it's the life in my men", then you appreciate a good chiasmus when you hear one. via the always interesting bragadocchio
posted on Jan-21-03 at 4:59 AM
Mouse miles tracker (like a pedometer for your mouse), bandwidth generator (crank it up), H2O-powered internet (take the concept of streaming to a whole new level), or live tv delivered over the net via a vintage television set. Just a few of the experiments and projects at Coin-Operated. via b3ta - they love the web
posted on Jan-18-03 at 6:17 AM
"The world wide web was supposed to be pistachio". Say that three time fast, then visit the internet database of tongue twisters, shibboleths, and battologisms; over 2,000 frustrating, word-mangling, syntax-slaughtering entries in 90 languages, with translations. Also worth a look: the short list of devious one-liners.
posted on Jan-15-03 at 9:37 AM
In the 1920s, a bookmobile named William, driven by a female bookshop employee, set out across the Massachusetts countryside "to blow the horn for fine books for boys and girls", and thus The Horn Book was born. Seventy-nine years later The Horn is still going strong, with an online guide, and a fanfare list of children's lit for 2002. Their online Virtual History Exhibit contains recollections, articles, memorabilia, sights, sounds, and correspondence with The Horn from Beatrix Potter, Isaac Asimov, and Roald Dahl, among others, and also includes some radio interviews with transcripts and sound files.
posted on Jan-8-03 at 4:37 AM
"Theriantropic harridan, what elephantine denticles permeate your oral orifice!" Minikin Incarnadine Cowl-Titivated Gamine adduced. From Fairy Tales for the Erudite, for those of you who enjoy a good story where the twain exist evermore in felicity and Elysium.
posted on Jan-6-03 at 4:54 AM
Addi Somekh and Charlie Eckert travel around the world, photographing people wearing their spur-of-the-moment, whimsical balloon hats. It's hard not to smile when you have an inflatable, multi-colored crown on your head. Via obsessive Magnificent Obsessions.
posted on Dec-3-02 at 5:23 AM
Someone's magnificent obsession: an exhaustive list of movies which have contained jugglers, or scenes involving juggling. There are many, many more than you could have possibly imagined, if you're the type who actually spends times imagining such things. There are also lists of movies which contain bagpipes, accordians, librarians, and math.
posted on Nov-21-02 at 5:11 AM
Ryoan-ji (Temple of the Peaceful Dragon) is possibly the best known of all rock gardens. The entire design consists of fifteen rocks arranged in a large bed of raked gravel, and on the outskirts there are many benches so that visitors may contemplate its meaning and find inner peace. Ryoan-ji inspired the design of the very first mini-zen garden, according to the self-proclaimed inventor, who also pays homage to Ryoan-ji with beautiful photographs. For those who might like to try making their own source of inner peace and harmony, not to mention taking up that awkward space on their coffee table, check out the unabashedly exuberant version by Crafty Chica, who always celebrates her Mexican-American roots with color and verve and quirky charm.
posted on Nov-18-02 at 5:11 AM
Rumplestiltskin gets torn in half, Cinderella's stepsisters get their eyes pecked out, and Snow White's stepmother dances in red hot iron shoes until she dies from exhaustion. These are the original endings to the non-sweetened, and sometimes unsavory, fairy tales collected or written by by reclusive librarians Jacob and Wilhelm, better know as The Brothers Grimm. Their first book, Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Childrens' and Household Tales) was published in 1812. Several more books, mostly of folk tales collected from willing relatives and friends, followed, some containing bizarre and disturbing stories with less than happy endings. As the National Geographic Grimm site puts it, "Looking for a sweet, soothing tale to waft you toward dreamland? Look somewhere else. The stories collected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the early 1800s serve up life as generations of central Europeans knew it—capricious and often cruel." Check out the strange 1960 Mp3s and RealAudio files of some Grimm tales.
posted on Oct-29-02 at 6:42 AM
Celestial Atlases are perhaps some of the most beautiful scientific books ever published, capturing the mystery and the grandeur of the heavens, and rife with beautiful and often intimidating interpretations of the constellations. Out Of This World has been my favorite website since the dawning of time, and one I go back to over and over again even though it never changes. The period from 1603 to 1801 produced the most beautiful star maps, and you don't have to know a thing about astronomy to appreciate how heavenly these are.
posted on Sep-10-02 at 5:31 PM
There are lots of toys modeled after automobiles, but no automobile has ever been modeled after a toy (?), until now. The insanely popular Choro-Q line of toy cars of Japan (ebay pics here) have inspired a whole new line of impossibly cute real cars, to be unveiled in November of this year. The tiny, brightly colored electric autos look like something straight out of a Roger Rabbit cartoon, seat one, go 50 miles on a battery charge, and cost around $10,000.00 - $16,000. Must...have...one...
posted on Jul-16-02 at 4:33 AM
Italian concept artist Piero Manzoni created art, controversy, and statements on the gullible nature of the art-buying public by selling his thumbprints on hard boiled eggs, his breath in a balloon, and his own excrement in ninety little tins, one of which has been sold recently at Southebys and purchased by the Tate Gallery for the sum of $61,000.00. Manzoni stated that he hoped the tins would all explode in time, and at least half of the cans have already obliged him. Are we as gullible as he thought, or is art truly in the eye of the beholder, or both? partially via arts & letters daily
posted on Jul-2-02 at 7:37 AM
Musicians are really smart. They have larger and more sensitive brains than non-musicians, and their collective IQ is much higher. They have 130% more grey matter in one area of their auditory cortexes. The question of how this explains Ozzy Osbourne nonwithstanding, I'll bet if you're really, really smart, you could be one of the new members of Men Without Hats. Must be very knowledgeable in midi, sequences, and sampling.
posted on Jun-25-02 at 4:59 PM
When all of the good vinyl albums have been bought from the cardboard box at the local church bazaar, Nick DiFonzio buys the rest and scans the jackets. The result? Bizarre Record Covers. And because beauty, or the apparent lack thereof, is not only jacket deep, check out this trippy collection of 45 rpm labels from No Relevance, and this detailed record label discography, where you can see how record companies from the 1950s thru the 1990s kept trying to update and redefine their image by redesigning their labels.
posted on Jun-23-02 at 5:14 PM
Fortune Magazine went roadtripping in search of the technological future by trying (and not succeeding) to blend in with college kids. After getting schooled themselves, they came up with a list of cool web companies with lots of sex appeal, in the categories of media, communication, biotech, and international. via Blogger.
posted on Jun-18-02 at 10:13 PM
posted on Dec-29-05 at 9:35 AM
On September 15, 1959, student Bill Thomas witnessed the bloody aftermath of a bomb going off at Poe Elementary School. "This was an extremely upsetting event for me and my fellow six-grade students, but no consideration was ever given to the treatment of our trauma. In fact, nothing much was even said about it when we returned to school the next day." Decades later, he deals with what happened by taking photographs of himself in which he's seen committing suicide in a variety of convoluted ways.
posted on Aug-5-05 at 10:26 AM
Page after page of late 50s/early 60s pop posters, advertisements and more, designed by the studio of Lefor-Openo, which consisted of Marie-Claire Lefort and Marie-Francine Oppeneau. Via Papel Continuo
posted on Jun-29-05 at 10:06 AM
Buildings that never were: Unrealized Moscow - grand scale architectural projects from the mid 1930s to the early 1950s.
posted on Jun-22-05 at 11:07 AM
I vould haf palbidations by de heardt if you vould let me take your picture. Vintage postcards featuring cameras and photographers.
posted on Feb-14-05 at 8:11 AM
Do you have trouble distinguishing between a crow and a crocus, or a parrot and a carrot? You may want to refer to How To Tell The Birds From The Flowers: A Manual of Flornithology for Beginners. (caches inside)
posted on Nov-23-04 at 8:00 AM
The galleries of Transportation Futuristics illustrate some of the ingenious things people have dreamt up to solve the basic problem of how to get from here to there. Personal favs: the Bee and the flying saucer bus. via the exploratorium
posted on Sep-29-04 at 7:22 AM
Stickfighting Irish Gangs, Wrestling Fashions, The Punching Bags of Pugilism, How Old England Trains Her Red Coats, and much more, in The Journal of Manly Arts - European and Colonial Combatives, 1776 - 1914 .
posted on Aug-3-04 at 7:52 AM
Three nice book links from the University of North Texas Libraries: 1. Victorian Bookbinding - Innovation and Extravagance has some gorgeous examples of bookcovers from the Art Nouveau, Victorian, and Arts and Crafts periods. 2. The Great Menagerie is an animated tour of 19th and 20th century pop-up books. 3. Pop-Up and Movable Books - A Tour, showcases pop-up book artists through the centuries, and includes the master of the genre, Lothar Meggendorfer. More about Meggendorfer inside ---->
posted on Jul-29-04 at 4:58 AM
Art to Enchant: Some of the works of Shakespeare as interpreted by various illustrators throughout the centuries.
posted on Jun-29-04 at 12:14 PM
Art, Link, Letter: Abba Richman's beautiful The Alphabet and Dean Allen's rustic Found Alphabet are collections of letter shapes found in various outdoor objects.
posted on Jun-25-04 at 7:40 AM
Show us your computer mascot! >> flash, engaging music
posted on Jun-24-04 at 5:36 AM
The grays, the mantises, the snake-skins, and the hybrids are just some of the aliens drawn by children at Aliens and Children. To note: thought screen hats will successfully prevent abduction by the mantis-like aliens, the servants of the mantis-like aliens, the snake-skinned aliens, and the Meek-Moks.
posted on Apr-27-04 at 5:02 AM
Scottish puzzle writer, poet, and soon to be author Roddy Lumsden pens vitamin q, a weblog devoted to, as he puts it, "trivia lists, curiosities, and fragments which please me as a connoisseur of the sequential and the inconsequential - it's more a cave of wonder than a grotto of geekery". Vitamin q is the place to go if you need to know 75 terms for being drunk, want lists of fruits and vegetables that have been used as derogatory slang, need the names of the My Little Ponies, or have always wondered which singers have been heralded as "The New Bob Dylan". The archives are bursting with more of the same.
posted on Dec-29-03 at 8:52 AM
The Circus Trees of Axel Erlandson: In the 1920s Erlandson observed the natural grafting of two sycamores, became inspired, and then fused 4 sycamore saplings into his first successful experiment - a cupola that he named "Four Legged Giant". Using his own techniques, Erlandson went on to fashion zigzags, birdcages, chairs, towers, hearts, loops, baskets, rings, lightning bolts, towers, picture frames, ladders, and spiral staircases by painstakingly threading saplings together. His trees appeared often in Ripley's Believe it or Not during the 40s and 50s. Click, click, click.
posted on Aug-27-03 at 8:03 AM
The Lycette Brothers have a nice little flash and shockwave collection. Their oldest is the Goreyesque Illustrated Alphabet of Unfortunate Chance, in which dire alphabetic catastrophes plague the dapper but unlucky Monsieur Maurice. Their newest is The Modern Compendium of Miniature Automata, in which you can make your own creaky, whirling, steam age nanobot or just browse through the endless collection of books displaying automated creatures.
posted on Jul-25-03 at 7:35 AM
1: dear fruit master, you never got my first letter! i'll tell you what it said- i hate the stupid, idiotic game of fruit! the new one and the old one! they both stink! if i lose again i'm going to smash in the computer screen! i will win i will not lose again! or in three words- I WILL BE BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Signed, LAURENE 2: Dear Fruit Master, I lost your game after I tried about 200 times!!!! This game is really hard, and I thought you improved it. My child is highly upset and we will never go on the internet again!!!!! signed,a very angry parent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:(:(:(:(:(:(:(
posted on Jul-19-03 at 6:57 AM
Box-Bots are robot-like collages made only from product packaging and labels. My favorite: Strawberry Pop Tarts.
posted on Jul-4-03 at 10:45 AM
The tiny Picture Book Of Foods is an invaluable resource for true foodies everywhere. Learn where many of your favorite foods really come from. There are also growing secrets, educational cross-sections, and recipe tips. And pancakes.
posted on Jun-25-03 at 7:39 AM
Girls dress up, boys don't. Boys need to help girls cross the street. Girls work, boys play. Subtle gender messages (and really silly hairstyles) as observed by Monsieur Jean after collecting images from different countries of children on street signs for his salon.
posted on Jun-24-03 at 7:11 AM
The stamps of Michael Hernandez de Luna and Michael Thompson have been called provocative, tongue-in-cheek, mischievous, beautiful, and/or tasteless. All have made their way through the US postal system. Work alert: I see naked people.
posted on Jun-19-03 at 5:29 AM
It started with a small dragon, tattooed above the right breast.
posted on May-6-03 at 12:46 PM
It took the Smithsonian author and naturalist Kjell B. Sandved 24 years to find all the letters that went into the butterfly alphabet. Along the way he found butterfly wings imprinted with salutations and smiling, happy faces, and threatening expressions on wings and flowers with menacing expressions that say "Do Not Eat Me". Explore the site yourself by going directly to the gallery without looking at all of the images I've linked to, or read the story of how Sandved discovered his magnificent obsession.
posted on Apr-29-03 at 6:31 AM
Sure, sex and drugs have been associated with rock & roll from its very beginnings. But what about finely granulated sugar? See defining moments in the history of rock and roll, as re-enacted by marshmallow peeps. swiped from large hearted boy
posted on Apr-19-03 at 11:37 AM
Zombie and Mummy are friends. They have many excellent adventures. via surfstation, quirky midi alert.
posted on Apr-18-03 at 4:42 AM
Long before William Wegman dressed up his dogs in silly costumes, posed them and then took snapshots of them, other photographers were doing the same thing in the 1800s. See the results at the Photography as a Fine ARF! exhibit at the American Museum of Photography. Other current exhibits include Did You Ever Have A Dream Like This, The Daguerreotypes of Southworth & Hawes, The Face of Slavery & Other Early Images of African Americans, and Of Bricks and Light.
posted on Apr-16-03 at 9:02 AM
Industrious caddisfly larvae live within odd protective cases that they painstakingly craft from bits of twigs, stones, gravel, sand, and leaf fragments. They drag the case around, much like a snail or a hermit crab carries their shell. Artist Hubert Duprat, being well aware of the caddisfly larvae's reputation for resourcefulness and adaptablity, decided to see what would happen if he replaced the usual case building materials with precious gems, gold, turquoise, pearls, lapis lazuli and coral.
posted on Apr-9-03 at 10:02 AM
They may not have staples in their stomachs, but these monthly pictorials might have you wishing that there were more than 12 months in a year. Meet January's lovely Absinthe: mysterious, intoxicating, barely legal, and February's naughty Anthrax, who can only be described as dangerous and intimidating. Or perhaps you prefer spicy Myrrh, December's offering - exotic, refined, desirable. safe for work
posted on Apr-3-03 at 5:30 AM
The Historian of Things That Never Were: Edgar Governo collects timelines, chronologies, and histories of events that never happened, to people and things that never existed. Like who? Like Dr. Who, and Final Fantasy VII, Gargoyles, Buckaroo Bonzai, Gulliver's Travels, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and many more.
posted on Mar-28-03 at 5:28 AM
The Bob Lancaster Gallery of Unusual Playing Cards is a collection and celebration of the beauty of playing cards. The site is over 7 years old and is still updated when Bob comes across a new find. Personal favorites are Le Florentin and the very intriguing Transformation Decks. After viewing the decks, you may wonder why the ace on the ace of spades is larger than the others.
posted on Mar-12-03 at 9:04 AM
Mamiko picked up a cork that had rolled on the floor at the restaurant where she worked. From it she made her first tiny cork doll. She is often asked where she gets all of her corks. "I don't drink so much, but all of my friends who can drink quite a lot keep many corks for me." The pacifist is my favorite.
posted on Feb-19-03 at 9:35 AM
Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliet, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, Xray, Yankee and Zulu. Now I know my NATO phonetic ABCs, next time won't you sing with me?
posted on Feb-14-03 at 8:44 AM
"Interested in meeting my brother Jon, ladies? Due to the expected high demand, I will be forced to prescreen all e-mails received. Please send a nude photo of yourself, and a short explanation of why you think you would be a good match for my brother Jon, to me." A really swell brother wants a really swell girl to marry his brother Jon.
posted on Feb-11-03 at 5:05 AM
You take a toy car, and hold it in such a way so that it looks like it's a real car parked between other real cars, or driving in traffic with real cars. Then you take a picture of it. That's the sublimely simple concept of Parking Spots.
posted on Feb-8-03 at 7:50 PM
"In the last 13 years I have kept everything you have sent in close to heart and in safe keeping. I now hope to open these files again and share more of the creations given to us by you, the Dead Heads". The keeper of the Dead Files has put online hundreds of emails and newsletters and exuberantly colored and illustrated envelopes and letters from the fans of the Grateful Dead. There are, as you'd expect, many drawings of skeletons and American Beauty roses, but you certainly don't have to be a fan to appreciate all the handiwork, personality, and creativity that went into these. I like the irregularity of the hand drawn lettering. {via coudal}.
posted on Feb-6-03 at 12:21 PM
What did John F. Kennedy, Oscar Wilde, William Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin, Dr. Samuel Johnson, and Confucius all have in common? They were masters of chiasmus. If you've ever been amused by the simple but elegant word play in sentences like "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy, or "It's not the men in my life, it's the life in my men", then you appreciate a good chiasmus when you hear one. via the always interesting bragadocchio
posted on Jan-21-03 at 4:59 AM
Mouse miles tracker (like a pedometer for your mouse), bandwidth generator (crank it up), H2O-powered internet (take the concept of streaming to a whole new level), or live tv delivered over the net via a vintage television set. Just a few of the experiments and projects at Coin-Operated. via b3ta - they love the web
posted on Jan-18-03 at 6:17 AM
"The world wide web was supposed to be pistachio". Say that three time fast, then visit the internet database of tongue twisters, shibboleths, and battologisms; over 2,000 frustrating, word-mangling, syntax-slaughtering entries in 90 languages, with translations. Also worth a look: the short list of devious one-liners.
posted on Jan-15-03 at 9:37 AM
In the 1920s, a bookmobile named William, driven by a female bookshop employee, set out across the Massachusetts countryside "to blow the horn for fine books for boys and girls", and thus The Horn Book was born. Seventy-nine years later The Horn is still going strong, with an online guide, and a fanfare list of children's lit for 2002. Their online Virtual History Exhibit contains recollections, articles, memorabilia, sights, sounds, and correspondence with The Horn from Beatrix Potter, Isaac Asimov, and Roald Dahl, among others, and also includes some radio interviews with transcripts and sound files.
posted on Jan-8-03 at 4:37 AM
"Theriantropic harridan, what elephantine denticles permeate your oral orifice!" Minikin Incarnadine Cowl-Titivated Gamine adduced. From Fairy Tales for the Erudite, for those of you who enjoy a good story where the twain exist evermore in felicity and Elysium.
posted on Jan-6-03 at 4:54 AM
Addi Somekh and Charlie Eckert travel around the world, photographing people wearing their spur-of-the-moment, whimsical balloon hats. It's hard not to smile when you have an inflatable, multi-colored crown on your head. Via obsessive Magnificent Obsessions.
posted on Dec-3-02 at 5:23 AM
Someone's magnificent obsession: an exhaustive list of movies which have contained jugglers, or scenes involving juggling. There are many, many more than you could have possibly imagined, if you're the type who actually spends times imagining such things. There are also lists of movies which contain bagpipes, accordians, librarians, and math.
posted on Nov-21-02 at 5:11 AM
Ryoan-ji (Temple of the Peaceful Dragon) is possibly the best known of all rock gardens. The entire design consists of fifteen rocks arranged in a large bed of raked gravel, and on the outskirts there are many benches so that visitors may contemplate its meaning and find inner peace. Ryoan-ji inspired the design of the very first mini-zen garden, according to the self-proclaimed inventor, who also pays homage to Ryoan-ji with beautiful photographs. For those who might like to try making their own source of inner peace and harmony, not to mention taking up that awkward space on their coffee table, check out the unabashedly exuberant version by Crafty Chica, who always celebrates her Mexican-American roots with color and verve and quirky charm.
posted on Nov-18-02 at 5:11 AM
Rumplestiltskin gets torn in half, Cinderella's stepsisters get their eyes pecked out, and Snow White's stepmother dances in red hot iron shoes until she dies from exhaustion. These are the original endings to the non-sweetened, and sometimes unsavory, fairy tales collected or written by by reclusive librarians Jacob and Wilhelm, better know as The Brothers Grimm. Their first book, Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Childrens' and Household Tales) was published in 1812. Several more books, mostly of folk tales collected from willing relatives and friends, followed, some containing bizarre and disturbing stories with less than happy endings. As the National Geographic Grimm site puts it, "Looking for a sweet, soothing tale to waft you toward dreamland? Look somewhere else. The stories collected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the early 1800s serve up life as generations of central Europeans knew it—capricious and often cruel." Check out the strange 1960 Mp3s and RealAudio files of some Grimm tales.
posted on Oct-29-02 at 6:42 AM
Celestial Atlases are perhaps some of the most beautiful scientific books ever published, capturing the mystery and the grandeur of the heavens, and rife with beautiful and often intimidating interpretations of the constellations. Out Of This World has been my favorite website since the dawning of time, and one I go back to over and over again even though it never changes. The period from 1603 to 1801 produced the most beautiful star maps, and you don't have to know a thing about astronomy to appreciate how heavenly these are.
posted on Sep-10-02 at 5:31 PM
There are lots of toys modeled after automobiles, but no automobile has ever been modeled after a toy (?), until now. The insanely popular Choro-Q line of toy cars of Japan (ebay pics here) have inspired a whole new line of impossibly cute real cars, to be unveiled in November of this year. The tiny, brightly colored electric autos look like something straight out of a Roger Rabbit cartoon, seat one, go 50 miles on a battery charge, and cost around $10,000.00 - $16,000. Must...have...one...
posted on Jul-16-02 at 4:33 AM
Italian concept artist Piero Manzoni created art, controversy, and statements on the gullible nature of the art-buying public by selling his thumbprints on hard boiled eggs, his breath in a balloon, and his own excrement in ninety little tins, one of which has been sold recently at Southebys and purchased by the Tate Gallery for the sum of $61,000.00. Manzoni stated that he hoped the tins would all explode in time, and at least half of the cans have already obliged him. Are we as gullible as he thought, or is art truly in the eye of the beholder, or both? partially via arts & letters daily
posted on Jul-2-02 at 7:37 AM
Musicians are really smart. They have larger and more sensitive brains than non-musicians, and their collective IQ is much higher. They have 130% more grey matter in one area of their auditory cortexes. The question of how this explains Ozzy Osbourne nonwithstanding, I'll bet if you're really, really smart, you could be one of the new members of Men Without Hats. Must be very knowledgeable in midi, sequences, and sampling.
posted on Jun-25-02 at 4:59 PM
When all of the good vinyl albums have been bought from the cardboard box at the local church bazaar, Nick DiFonzio buys the rest and scans the jackets. The result? Bizarre Record Covers. And because beauty, or the apparent lack thereof, is not only jacket deep, check out this trippy collection of 45 rpm labels from No Relevance, and this detailed record label discography, where you can see how record companies from the 1950s thru the 1990s kept trying to update and redefine their image by redesigning their labels.
posted on Jun-23-02 at 5:14 PM
Fortune Magazine went roadtripping in search of the technological future by trying (and not succeeding) to blend in with college kids. After getting schooled themselves, they came up with a list of cool web companies with lots of sex appeal, in the categories of media, communication, biotech, and international. via Blogger.
posted on Jun-18-02 at 10:13 PM