magpie's shiny things

shiny things in messy little piles

Tag: dolls

Morning Linkage (Nov 3)

November 3, 2010 /

Transportation

(the slight­ly con­fused brand­ing edition)

First a lit­tle some­thing sooth­ing for the mid-week slog. When was the last time you were prop­er­ly enter­tained dur­ing a flight delay, hm? A lit­tle cham­ber music might help the time go by.

Ducati brand­ing reach­es into all the impor­tant parts of your life. Like break­fast. Red is a good col­or for coffee-making equipment.

Strange BMW Thing 1. A scoot­er.  All sorts of fan­cy body-work, some high-tech giz­mos, and tons of fluffy PR. But don’t imag­ine that they aren’t seri­ous about mak­ing a maxi-scooter. The sec­ond video is much more visu­al­ly appeal­ing than the talk­ing PR heads on the first one.

And if the maxi-scooter isn’t enough weird for ya here’s Strange BMW Thing 2.  The Husq­var­na Mille 3 Concept.

Palette cleanser. 1953 BMW R51/3. Bet­ter now?

Cool Machines

What could be bet­ter than machine pr0n? Maybe typo­graph­ic fan­tasies? A touch of lit­er­ary did­dling? How about a trail­er for a movie about the Lino­type machine. Oh god yes, yes, yes…

Art, Images, and Design

Amy was right, I want this cal­en­dar too. Images from ear­ly blues records and sheet music.

I can’t imag­ine how unac­cept­able to OSHA Antho­ny Bur­ril­l’s choice of ink was, but he’s mak­ing a great point. Oil and Water Don’t Mix, a lim­it­ed edi­tion screen print to ben­e­fit Coali­tion to Restore Coastal Louisiana.

Restor­ing the old mas­ters is one of those I‑wish-I-had jobs. An old dark sooty crusty cru­ci­fix turns out to be a bright shiny mas­ter­piece by Giot­to. A small image of the cross before restora­tion is includ­ed in the Cor­riere Del­la Sera article.

A tip-off from a fan of the Mag­pie brought me to Bet­sy Youngquist. Elab­o­rate­ly bead­ed dolls and fig­ures. Sur­re­al, cud­dly and spiny at the same time. Buck Fish is fab.

Animation

Prin­ci­pal Skele­ton. The fine art of stu­dent moti­va­tion. Yet anoth­er gig­gle induc­ing grick­le ani­ma­tion. (Gra­ham Annable)

hap­py hump­day — I’m off to get my hair done. It’s hard work being a redhead.

Morning Linkage (May 11)

May 11, 2010 /

Transportation

I am devel­op­ing a the­o­ry that green bikes are always chal­leng­ing. Take for exam­ple this ‘83 R80ST bob­ber. It is fas­ci­nat­ing; in a train wreck of a gas tank sort of way. Points for brav­ery though.

This Tiger 100 fea­tured at Quail is the def­i­n­i­tion of col­lectible. A one-off pro­duced in 1940 for Rody Roden­burg. Nev­er restored and doc­u­ment­ed all ways to hell. This one should be parked in the liv­ing room.

Anoth­er bike seen at Quail. The Mule Motor­cy­cles “Street­mas­ter” a Bon­neville based street track­er. Build details and plans for a lim­it­ed pro­duc­tion run. 70+ hp in 300 pounds. Oh my,

Society and Culture

The LA Times pro­vides a brief look inside Dis­ney­land after hours. 600 busy peo­ple make the Mag­ic King­dom sparkling new every night.
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All that eco-responsible toi­let paper you buy? You might want to start hord­ing. Too much recy­cled paper in the world means too lit­tle high qual­i­ty paper for mak­ing that cushy bum stuff.

Art, Images, and Design

Design­ers are now social engi­neers and cre­ators of solu­tions. At Cal­i­for­nia Col­lege of Arts the design stu­dents were giv­en a brief to design prod­ucts that fall (rough­ly) into the cat­e­go­ry of health and fit­ness. Some are prag­mat­i­cal, some are sil­ly, and few are out right good. Like the smack down dolls of Sam Free­man and the eas­i­er to grip wine glass of Aaron McKenzie.

I love shoes. I have tons of friends who love choco­late. I think I’ve found the per­fect gift for all occa­sions . Some­thing that clear­ly reflects my pas­sion and their crav­ing. What could be bet­ter than choco­late shoes?

Hid­den behind the easy, pas­tel  japan-kitsch there is some­thing painful­ly hon­est in Zain7’s depic­tions of ado­les­cence.

Her blog is NSFW (nudi­ty)

Morning Linkage (Mar 10)

March 10, 2010 /

Transportation

Ply­wood pad­dler for the junior set. Fun­ny how much the logo looks like Harley David­son from a dis­tance. Cute though.

1923 BMW fac­to­ry floor. Lots more vin­tage in the Vin­tage Motor­bikes Flickr pool but beware of bad cap­tions, and wild ass guess­es as to makes and models.

Scroll down once for hot girl in short skirt on a real rock­et of a bike. And I love how the cape stays ful­ly extend­ed while she’s sit­ting still on the desk. Yeah — it’s a Japan­ese super­hero toy. (SFW)

1937 Harley bob­ber. Anoth­er fab Dan­ish builder, Cus­toms from Jamesville.

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Science and Technology

A look at what’s under Nia­gara Falls. In 1969 the Army Corps of Engi­neers stopped the water flow over the falls in order to be able to inspect and but­tress up, if nec­es­sary, the rock face. In the com­ments look for Bla­tanville he’s got more info. Bitchin’ pics.

If you’ve got a stream with decent flow (7.5 ft/sec) you can have 500 watts of elec­tric­i­ty from a device that weights 25 pounds. Very use­ful. (7.5 ft/sec is about 8 miles/hour — which is pret­ty fast for a big riv­er but not so fast for a creek or stream.)

Test­ing struc­tures and new designs for resis­tance to earth­quakes at UNC’s Con­struct­ed Facil­i­ties Lab. Cruise the gallery for a look at cur­rent reasearch and projects. Lots of big (red) machines.

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Art. Images, and Design

Creepy lit­tle hand-made char­ac­ter dolls. In that quaint Dick­en­sian night­mare vein.

I’m claim­ing this is art. Scan­ning micro­scope images of the grooves in an LP. Images 2 and 3 look like the geog­ra­phy of memory.

These are hys­ter­i­cal. Old pho­tos with mod­ern goofy, think Car­toon Chan­nel kid’s show, char­ac­ters pho­to­shopped in. Rel­lano de Mono from Chile. (His per­son­al web­site is down. Not sur­pris­ing. I hope he is safe.)

A friend­ly reminder that it’s not about the gear or the jar­gon or even the tech­ni­cal prowess, but the see­ing. A medi­a­tion on what it means to be a pro­fes­sion­al (pho­tog­ra­ph­er) or an ama­teur. Applies to all artists.

that is all

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