Conspicuous consumption

Before heading to the Apple Store SoHo for our blogging panel last Wednesday, I dropped by evolution ("science and art in SoHo"), a store recommended by Pam of Phantasmaphile. Evolution is clearly NYC's prime destination for the amateur natural historian, an east coast cousin of Berkeley's Bone Room. They offer skulls (real and replica), butterflies and beetles in cases, minerals, shells, memento mori carvings, skins, ammonites, coprolites, meteorites, tusks, teeth, arrowheads, and other things one never dreamed one needed. A sphere of elemental copper? Natural hematite magnets? A wallet…
Via bookofjoe via geekologie: a glossy black panther bike by Byron Hemmes.
When was the last time you coveted something, but let prudence prevent self-indulgence - to your later regret? This summer I was gallery-hopping on Martha's Vineyard when I saw these wonderful stone neckpieces by artist Andrea Williams. I really, really wanted the round Kyuma Pendant, a smooth black tumbled stone cut in half and then made whole once more with a magnetic clasp. The stone can be closed in either an aligned (round) or misaligned (asymmetric) manner; in the aligned state the magnet looks like a decorative silver band, but in the misaligned state, the method of construction…
Skeleton appetizer plates Pottery Barn I usually just toss my Pottery Barn catalogs, because I no longer have a house to decorate. But the Halloween edition just arrived and there's some good medical-specimen stuff in there. In addition to the skeleton appetizer plates above, which I totally covet, they have a skull tray, vampire teeth placeholders, and glossy black skull candles. But alas! This smashing skull cocktail shaker set is "no longer available" online. . .
Yesterday the large hadron collider started up successfully, and the world did not end. But it will still be months before we have exciting collision data, so don't hold your breath waiting for that Higgs boson - unless you want to buy a stuffed one at Particle Zoo: Wait - a Higgs boson costs just $9.75?! Someone should have told CERN before they spent all those billions of Euros! If the Higgs boson is too trendy for you, Julie at Particle Zoo also offers a Z boson, which looks kinda like a Pac-Man ghost, or one of the three neutrinos, which resemble the disembodied heads of Ninja turtles…
Just in case you aren't following the savage recipe war between Isis the Scientist and PhysioProf, I have to call your attention to PP's latest entry: it's a tentacle salad. You CAN have your cute little squid, and eat it too! Despite the attractiveness of Isis' steak salad, when it comes to cephalopods I'm a one-issue voter. (Luckily neither of the presidential candidates has taken a position on cephalopods, or I might be placed in an awkward situation.)
A great gift for the medical history junkie, from Manifesto Letterpress: twelve "Dreade of Death" letterpress bookplates ($9.95 on sale). The designs are also available as coasters. Manifesto also has skeleton and microscope letterpress postcards for the scientist in your life.
For the cephalophile's gift registry: a large octobowl by Hudson Beach Glass. Available here and elsewhere.
This morning, Hasbro finally intimidated Facebook and Scrabulous into suspending the popular word game app. I love Scrabulous, and I'm mad as heck - not least because in my current game, I'd scored a whopping three Bingos (words in which you use all 7 letters) and was routing the usually dominant competition (my staffer). Scrabulous is an online pseudo-Scrabble - a godsend for those of us who can't meet to play real games in meatspace, but can squeeze in a word here and there over the course of the week. But Hasbro, the company which has the rights to most of your typical-American-childhood…
Via the SEA blog: Jeremy Kalgreen at Amorphia Apparel has created some delicious t-shirts that help you advocate teaching your controversy of choice. Or, display your support for the amazing things Science has brought us - like giant guitar-playing robots and mechanical paramecia: Rock on, Amorphia! We here at Scienceblogs understand that it's turtles all the way down. . .
My boyfriend, an uber-networked Congressional staffer, has fallen out of love with his Palm, and is counting the days until he can acquire a 3G iPhone. I'm trying to accept that I bought one half as good for twice the price a few months back. . . after all, I did enjoy the self-satisfied glow of the semi-early-adopter, fielding all kinds of covetous glances and inquiries from strangers on the Metro. ("No, it's not an iPod Touch.") But I can pass the techno-torch to the next generation gracefully. Maybe. At least I can console myself with the wave of new third-party apps, many of which will…
I saw this adorable stuffed cephalopod, which I think is meant to be an octopus, at the gift shop in the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati. I almost bought it out of sheer enthusiasm, but note that like many stuffed octopi, this cutie has only six legs. I've noticed that stuffed cephalopods frequently have six or even seven legs - what part of "octo-pus" is so hard to understand? Harumph.
After the long weekend, I'm catching up on links friends and readers have sent me. Artist Erik Nordenankar shipped a GPS device by DHL to create this giant tracking self-portrait (according to the project website, appropriately titled "biggestdrawingintheworld.com"): This video shows how he did it: My first question was prosaic: how could anyone afford to do this? I figured it was some wealthy Silicon Valley hobbyist's idea - how could an art student afford the shipping fees? Not unexpectedly, it turns out the project was conceived as both art and ad - Nordenankar describes it as "…
Chris Smith and Todd Redmond of Crowboy recently asked to use my painting Fly Away Home as the cover of their new alt-country album, Making Up for Lost Time. This painting was inspired by a rusty aqua trailer that my dad bought and refurbished twenty years ago for use as a family vacation cabin in Idaho. My dad passed away in 2003, but I think he would have enjoyed Crowboy's music, so I was happy to give Chris and Todd temporary custody. They're both visual artists as well, and I think they did a lovely job putting their album together. To celebrate the release of Making Up For Lost Time,…
How difficult life must be for expatriates. Moving from the West coast to the East coast has made it difficult for me to find certain brands of food, and foreign foods are doubly difficult to come by. This week, anticipating a recipe created by the fabulous Nigella Lawson, I ran out to the store to get Lyle's Golden Syrup. They didn't have it, which is weird, because they had it three months ago. I drove to another store. Same problem! In the end I had to use King Golden Syrup, which doesn't compare at all. If I'd had time for shipping, I'd have ordered Lyle's online - it would totally be…
This week, I'm completely infatuated with the eclectic, macabre vision of young Irish designer Jonathan Anderson. From his fall/winter 07 collection: A contemporary look at Russian surrealism, J.W. Anderson's autumn/winter 2008 menswear and jewellery collection, The Rattle Bag, delves into the intricate mind of Grigori Rasputin and his relationship with the Romanov family in the early 20th Century. . . a felt coat reminiscent of combat-wear of World War I is enveloped in spinal cords as an image of the hopelessness and barbarism present in a time of war and revolution. Surprising shapes and…
Yesterday I alluded to the wonder cabinet aesthetic of retailer Anthropologie. I love that store, though I can't afford to patronize it (not that insolvency always stops me). But I'm sometimes ambivalent about their use of science as marketing tool. Here's a screenshot from their latest web ad campaign, "It's elemental": Ok. . . the "science behind our March outfits?" What does that even mean? And what do any of these outfits have to do with their respective elements? A few do use the "right" colors, but I feel like this collection was compiled by the contestants of Project Runway: "Your…
Nancy Fiddler with her mastodon skeleton photo by Robert Galbraith So apparently there's a week left to place your ebay bid on the Rustler Ranch mastodon skeleton. It's only $115K, and ebay helpfully notes that you can get "up to $25 back with ebay MasterCard"! So get out $114,975 (plus shipping) and start planning your new fossil decorating scheme. The skeleton was discovered in 1997 by ranch hand Eric Pedersen on land belonging to Roger and Nancy Fiddler. But the Fiddlers are finding their fossil charge cumbersome: The mastodon is so big that it's been separated into pieces and covered in…
Homeland Security Kitchen Towel Christy Rupp Labels for Genetically Altered Food Christy Rupp Artist Christy Rupp has created a small line of products designed to freak people out, in the hope that alarm will translate into environmental awareness. Let's hope she's right. At the very least, they're pretty cool hostess gifts for fellow enviro-geeks. Shown here: Homeland Security Towel, $65, "A remedy for that queasy feeling at home," and Labels for Genetically Altered Food, $30, "Celebrate the mystery while you speculate what that new breed of organisms in your digestive system is up to!"