Thing Celebration: Annecy's copy of "White Noise"

As I've discussed before, I'm a big fan of books with reader annotations. This recent NPR piece tells the story of a young lady purchasing a copy of White Noise that happened to be annotated by the writer David Markson.

I love this story for two reasons; it tells the history of an object and I'm lucky enough to be friends with the young lady, Annecy Liddell. Listen to it, it's only 5 mins.

Thing Celebration: "Sweet Bird of Youth"

Oooooo, I absolutely love this tableau from the film "Sweet Bird of Youth." The fuzzy figure on the left is Paul Newman running to pick up the phone. I just don't know what the brown thing to the left of the U.S. map tray is. I think it's a pack of handkerchiefs, any ideas?

Celebration of Things: Hilda Grahnat

I'm wild about the Swedish photographer, Hilda Grahnat's, Vintage Love series of vintage things organized by color. These photos make me want to rearrange everything in my room.

via Oh Joy!

Thing Celebration: "30 Dumb Inventions"

T.V. Glasses! Yodel Meters! Baby Cages! ... and much, much more!

I think you'll find the whiz-bangery of the Life slide show "30 Dumb Inventions" most entertaining.

via Dwell blog

Thing Celebration: Unhappy Hipsters

So, this has been on lots of blogs but I think it's hilarious...

(...and I think it add some levity to Devo Loweth's fourth semester of architecture school)

Thing Celebration: Catcher in the Rye Covers

See more here.

Thing Celebration: The Work of Michael Johansson

Michael Johansson is my favorite artist of the month. I think his work is great but the thing that really sold me on him was reading this:

"I am intrigued by irregularities in daily life. Not those that appear when something extraordinary occurs, but those that are created by an exaggerated form of regularity. Colours or patterns from two separate objects or environments concur, like when two people pass each other dressed in the exact same outfit. Or when you are switching channels on your TV and realize that the same actor is playing two different roles on two different channels at the same time. Or that one day the parking lot contained only red cars."

via but does it float

In Celebration of Things: Today's New York Times Book Review Cover

Speaking of covers...I'm smitten with the tableau Kelly Blair assembled for the cover photo of today's New York Times Book Review.

In Celebration of Things: Pictorial Webster's

I saw John M. Carrera's book, Pictorial Webster's: A Visual Dictionary of Curiosities, a few weeks ago and was charmed by its collection of engravings from 19th century Webster's dictionaries. Then, I saw this video about the project and developed an even greater appreciation for the book and the decade of work that went into it... and the mean case of tennis elbow that Mr. Carrera most likely developed from all that printing.

In Celebration of Things: A typeface

With this typeface you can use things to write things.