Matthew Barney, I still have a crush on you.

Apparently. Every time I look at the wall of straws in the recent Tara Donovan post, I just think, "My, this is nice, but it just reminds me of Matthew Barney. He has a way with whale blubber." Unfortunately there are precious few images of gloopy lipids online.

Electricity is Magical

It certainly seems that way when you look at these lamps, and that is why I love them. They were designed by Jeremy Pyles for Niche Modern.Just for fun, take a moment to imagine if you would be able to sufficiently explain electricity to an alien if the life of the human race depended on it. (You can omit the part with the murdering alien if you like.)

This reminds me of Arthur C. Clarke's 3rd law of predicition, which is as sensible as it is beautiful and gives me great hope that marvelously mind-boggling things are in store:
"3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

And that reminds me of Nikola Tesla as portrayed by David Bowie in The Prestige which was very good right up to the very end. Unfortunately, from my experience, this is rare in the science fiction genre. Maybe this one is so good because it's barely science fiction. Anyway, this one is worth seeing if you like magic and electricity:

Tara Donovan (coffee cups cont., sort of)

Styrofoam cups, straws, and stickers! Who would have thunk it.
Images from Ace Gallery.

Puzzles for aliens.

Coffee lids are beautiful variations on a theme. They are intriguing on their own, but even better together. If aliens came on by and saw these objects, I wonder if they could figure out what these are for!the coffee lids from a flickr set by sarcoptiform. Bread bag ties from day 107 of the "A Collection a Day" blog. Both via Swiss Miss :)