Dearling NYC-folk,

May I humbly recommend waiting in the absurdly long line to view mysterypants-british-street-artist Banksy’s “Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill” on 7th avenue between Bleeker and W.4th. It puts the ‘bing’ back in disturbing, or something. whatever. go see it because it’s only here until halloween (yay ephermal!).

For ye who liveth in elsewhere, I took some video:

(yes that is a swimming fish stick)

learn more about banksy if you like.

Dearlingest, talentpants etsy-staffer Claire and I were discussing the fashion animal phenomenon the other day and came up with a list of former and future fashion beasts (below).

Recent fashion animals (like so 5-years-ago)

1. Birds (49255 items on etsy)
   • or more specifically, owls (10354 items on etsy)

   

   • and vintage-tattoo swallows (2525 items on etsy)

   

2. Various underwater creatures
   • cephalopods/octopuses (2651 items on etsy)

   

   • whales/narwhals (1699 & 79 items on etsy, respectively)

   

3. Woodland animals
   • Bears (12661 items on etsy and 1541 pandas)
     
   • Deer (4196 items on etsy)

   

   • Wolves (1485 on etsy, but there were like 1kerflillion indie-rock ‘wolf’ bands in the last 5 years)
4. The Moustache (admittedly not technically an animal, but it’s furry anyway) (325 spelled “ou”, 463 spelled with just the “u”)
   

The next hip-and-now fashion animals

1. Crustaceans (MY PREDICTION)
   • SHRIMP (not cooked/cleaned/sushified shrimp, but the real swimming antennaeful little guys are adorable)

   

   • HERMIT CRABS (cute like turtles, but meaner)

   

2. Capybara (CLAIRE’S PREDICTION)
   
3. *bonus* Mashups: take the that’s-so-last-year animals and mix them together and you get PURE cryptozoological amazingness.
   • The Octo-Owl

   

At long last, pt. 2 of my wall-improvement series is ready. My plan had been to show just a couple of samples from the nature illustration print collection of the NY public library’s Digital Gallery, but, well, there were way too many that I adored.

and so BELOW are just an itty bitty smattering (apologies for the nautical prejudice - it’s just where my interest lies) of the vast collection of archived science/nature book pages scanned and available for purchase (for like $50 and up, depending on size):

Testudo polyphemus. from North American herpetology; or, A description of the reptiles inhabiting the United States. (1842) (omg, TURTLE BELLIES.)

Sixteen Varieties of Gooseberries, from A collection of the most esteemed fruits…with the blossoms and leaves… (1812) (who knew there were so many varieties of gooseberries? not me, that’s for damn sure.)

Himanthalia lorea, from Photographs of British algae: cyanotype impressions. (1843)

Fig. 1. Male Narwal, or Unicorn (15 Ft. in length); Fig. 2. Under side view of the same Narwal; Fig. 3. Lamantin. from American natural history. Part 1.–Mastology (1826)

Sea Anemones from Animate creation; popular edition of our living world, a natural history (1898)

Les Poissons: le Hareng, la Morue, la Baleine from Cabinet du petit naturaliste (1812) (Woodcut = yay)

Ctenophores. from The new natural history (189-?) (Just LOOK at that loverly shade of blue…)

1. Helix antiqua; 2. Helix Coreanica; 3. Helix leucostoma; 4. Helix orientalis; 5. Helix immaculata; 6. Helix caliginosa; 7. Helix decora; 8. Helix densa; 9. Helix plurizonata; 10. Helix canescens; 11. Helix conoidalis. from The zoology of the voyage of H.M.S. Samarang; under the command of Captain Sir Edward Belcher … during the years 1843-46 (1850)

Siren lacertina from North American herpetology; or, A description of the reptiles inhabiting the United States. (1842)

They also have cartography, russian civil war posters, fashion illustration (see below), industrial blueprints, architecture, menus… I just… it’s just so… overwhelming. Go forth, acquire.

from Ladies’ dress shoes of the nineteenth century (published 1900)

A little known fact* about me: for the past 4 years, every now and again, I volunteer for the circus. Specifically, the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus.  Specifically-pt-2, I help them sell merchandise, hand out programs, setup/breakdown and what not.  I volunteer for them because:

1. Sword-swallowing, juggling, burlesque, aerialists, wire-walking, vaudeville, fire-eating, general bizzarities and bawdiness etc are Where-Its-At.
2. They are a non-profit organization (mission statement: Bindlestiff Family Variety Arts, Inc. is a non-profit performing arts organization dedicated to increasing the knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of the history of circus, sideshow, vaudeville, and related arts through activities including performances, lectures, print media, and workshops for the general public as well as creating opportunities for cultural exchange and fostering a sense of community.)
3. I get to wear striped tights.

And ANYWAY.

Their current show “Kinko (the clown) for President” was at the Zipper Factory this month and the last show (and subsequently my volunteer gig this season) is TOMORROW on Oct 1st at 7:30: http://www.thezipperfactory.com/shows.html and you know what? I’ll tell you what. You should come. for the reasons above.

*by “little known”, I mean that I talk about it all the time because I think it makes me hip-and-now.

I found these delightful and morbidly absurd images on rebel:art (another non-english image-heavy blog that i rss-ify daily) and I thought, “whoa awesome, I wonder if there are more of these? who is the artist?” But to my infinite dismay, I found no link to the origin of this work, and the only text on the site is in German.

According to the babelfish online translater (which is clearly entirely accurate), here is the translation for the text that accompanies these images:

I get such mails: two pictures, the reference “death bird” - and nothing else. Thank you, Tom! I do not understand completely, what you would like to say me thereby - now is a threat or rather a radix complement? - however in any case: Has which! In this sense: Meal and I are pleased again and again about mysterious post office.

Thank you to Erica, captain of the dearlings brigade, for sharing with me this article (translated from swedish for you).

I invite you to enjoy with me: the Manual for Postmodern Child-Rearing (by Athena Farrokhzad & Tova Gerge) because it tickles my snobby-liberal-arts-education’s theoretical funny bone.

Below are some of my favorites (but read the whole thing, hilarity):

• Rub your child on some carbon paper. Then cut up the paper and stick the pieces to the child’s body. Question the child as an original. Question the child as a copy. Question the carbon paper as a construction.
• If the child claims to be hungry, accuse it of indulging in being-based oppression.
• If your child accuses you of incomprehensibility, then accuse it of logical positivism.
• Lecture your child on the decentralisation of power, on the crumbling of the centre into a domain of autonomous, cross-fertilising peripheries. Talk continuously for several years at a stretch. Punish all forms of interruption and intervention.
• Render the child immune to the fetishisations of visual culture by dysfunctionalising its left eye.

1. this is for serious.

2. really though, I’m not kidding, the Guardian says so.

3. nothing I can say or show you could possibly adequately invoke the sheer terror that this event must have inflicted on the swiss.

here is the article:

Giant dog turd wreaks havoc at Swiss museum

A giant inflatable dog turd created by the American artist Paul McCarthy was blown from its moorings at a Swiss museum, bringing down a power line and breaking a window before landing in the grounds of a children’s home.

The exhibit, entitled Complex Shit, is the size of a house. It has a safety system that is supposed to deflate it in bad weather, but it did not work on this occasion.

Juri Steiner, the director of the Paul Klee centre, in Berne, told AFP that a sudden gust of wind carried it 200 metres before it fell to the ground, breaking a window of the children’s home. The accident happened on July 31, but the details only emerged yesterday.

Steiner said McCarthy had not yet been contacted and the museum was not sure if the piece (pictured here) would be put back on display.

The installation is part of an exhibition called East of Eden: A Garden Show, which features sound sculptures in trees and a football ground without goalposts. The exhibition opened in May and is due to run until October.

The centre’s website describes the show as containing “interweaving, diverse, not to say conflictive emphases and a broad spectrum of items to form a dynamic exchange of parallel and self-eclipsing spatial and temporal zones”.

Tuesday August 12 2008 11:49 BST

the feeling I got when I saw this homage-to-the-giftdonkey in my inbox is akin to how I imagine I might feel if one day I arrived at work and discovered that my desk, computer and copier were actually pinatas filled with reeses pieces and world peace and what not, and that instead of a desk chair there was a bat that said “for meredith” on it, and maybe a lightening bolt like robert redford’s bat in ‘the natural’, and maybe there is also a freshly baked pineapple upside downcake there, and a bumper boats pool too.

and anyhow, THANK YOU INFINITELY, dearling rick-monkey.

I hereby and henceforward and thither and thus would like to introduce you all to the very-very-new-and-hip-and-now FangFriends.com - the project of miss Calamity J., a dear friend whose fanged-illustrations are a seamless ballet of bloody delightfulness. In return for some basic wordpress-setup/design, she has created the following NSTGD portrait:

i love it so, so much.  and I encourage everyone to draw their own gift-donkey portrait.

yes, the rumors are indeed true: I am the sheriff of Lametown, USA and I have been missing for some time now. But! canada was ridiculously rad, and I have returned to you refreshed and re-bloggifull.

and so, I would like to share with you the following dirty-car-art by scott wade- because one man’s vehicular-safety-hazzard is another man’s treasure.

*found via my “dogs playing poker” google news alert.

I truly hit the Internets jackpot here, my dearlings. but you know what, I’m going to shush-up because, behold! the pictures speak for themselves:

for your consideration, “hair hats“, by japanese artist, nagi noda

please, PLEASE, let this trend catch on.

via designboom.

I’ve been bookmarking affordable art stuffs over the last few months and it’s time to share! this may become a series. my love of the following burns with the fire of one thousand suns.

Cardinal & Deer by Berkeley Illustration, buy here for $7-$15. They are just so stately-looking.

if only we could wear pants & Up to no good, marc johns, buy his prints here: $16-$20.

antler girl and horse hostess by Ashley Alexander (or “I’m Smitten”), buy here for $40 each. adore. also, I appreciate another opportunity to use my cryptozoology tag.

and last, but in no way least… No one wants to play sega with Harrison Ford, Brandon Bird, buy here for $7.99 (unsigned). and if you aren’t into lime green, it comes in many alternate shades of awesome.

Just when you thought you had seen the final slug this month on NSTGD, the folk behind the “little people” tiny street art project have gone and a-started graffiti-ing snail shells…

and they call it Inner City Snail, and it makes me all pitter-pattery with joy. Also, the little people take snail public transport it seems…

swoon.

Also - hello! to the 1 billion extra hits I have gotten since the lovely jules over at ikeahacker posted my fira-shelf becomes disco-drawers how-to.

via rebet:art.

NOTE: I was very very close to calling this post “feather-man in the netherlands”.

It seems as though a bird-person has built a huge barnacle-looking nest on the side of an apartment building in the netherlands…

I would tell you more, but the website is in some sort of bizarre unintelligible ‘bird-person’ language:

found here.

Hi hello, so I recently discovered the craft-tastic website “Ikea Hacker” and it is giving me hope for creativity and unique-snowflakey-ness in a world full of unfinished pine and a preposterous swedish-meatball-to-person ratio.

here’s my rant:

In my 6-plus years living in and visiting lotsa NYC 20-something-people’s apartments, ikea’s brand lexicon has infested my subconscious. I want to kick myself in the face with smelly soccer cleats every time I accidentally say things like “oh I love your new living room, I didn’t know you could get the poang in periwinkle!” or “you are right, it would be nice if the billy shelves could come with a more leksvik finish.” etc.

my point is that if I have to see identical design everywhere I go*, it would be rad if folks gave their ikea-loot some pieces of flair, and ikea-hacker has lots of great ideas.

here’s how I turned my $13 pine “fira” mini-chest into my very own sparkley-disco-drawers:

materials

• 1 ikea fira mini-chest
• chrome aluminum spray paint (the can says it’s for cars, but whatever.)
• sea-mist wood stain (or whatever color, really - I mean EVERYTHING goes with sparkley)
• polyurethane clear gloss sealant (or something similar)
• those sponge-y foam paint thingers
• sand-paper
• ignore the steel brush in the photo below. I had orginially thought that I would distress the wood to make antique-looking disco-drawers, but not only was that absurd, it also made the most irritating noise ever in practice.

instructions:

1. sand the wood lots and lots, and wipe off all the sandy-bits.
2. take out the drawers and set aside, paint the base with your wood-stain following the directions on the can. Do this as many times as it takes to get the shade you want.



3. then open your window, shake up the chrome spray paint can a whole lot, hold each drawer outside your window and spray it with paint on every side. DO NOT spray paint in your house, unless you would like silver spots on your floor, and an intense paint-fumes-headache. Set your drawers somewhere to dry.



4. Seal it with the polyurethane, let it dry and you are done. wooooo.
5. then fill it with your treasured items, like polaroid film and bunny ears.

*yes, I am prone to hyperbole.