3-D-iti, or, Hunter Collage

I realize this freebie newspaper stand near Hunter College has been defaced, but the drawings, funny faces, and textures are amusingly artful. Move over Shepherd Fairey; there are guerrilla sculptors on the loose.




Doh? Are the skull and crossbones more message-full than artful? Or a trendy-ish appropriation?

Marry the DJ

I love it when my own interests intersect. Remember I posted about that tiny little radio station on the Lower East Side? Apparently the tiny little DJ inside just got married, and her wedding was featured in the Combat Sports Style Section of the New York Times.

And apparently she is actually tiny and eats only seeds. She also reportedly has eyes the color of Coca-Cola (no word on whether that's caffeine free or regular). Weird when you find out that people are having lives outside of the little boxes we see them in!

Proust in Philly

I went to the Acme outside of Philadelphia just to pick up a newspaper for my broken-ankled 90-year-old mom, but when I saw the display of Ivin's Famous Spiced Wafers, I had to snap up a box. Ivin's conjured childhood autumns; the ginger snap is my madeleine. In doing some deep iPhone research, I found I'm not alone. Others extol Ivin's and the power of the seasonal cookie. Actually, the packaging is my madeleine-equivalent. (Vox Box agrees.) I remember the box as square and opening from the front. Now, it's slimmer and sold as a two-pack. The old-timey design is still catchy—and works both horizontally and vertically.

De-Z

Speaking of words that are readable despite being severed, here's a word that was truncated on purpose: "decoded." This Broadway-hit-of-a-sign promotes Jay-Z's book, which was apparently hush-hush till today's launch date. I'm amused that I heard (OK, read) the buzz from a New York Public Library e-mail blast. Jay-Z is now codified. It makes sense to me. Just as Wynton Marsalis justifiably promotes jazz as our national music, Jay-Z describes rap (to an admittedly less hip audience) as a "conversation between worlds." The promotion, with bing (hardly der Bingle), is interesting even if the wall ads showing Jay-Z's text on a device aren't as compelling (or even readable fer chrissakes) as the billboard near Times Square. Have you seen the game? Played it? Seen the cover with the Andy Warhol "Rorschach"?

Dumb Client

Ever wonder how other people deal with silly questions? This twitter feed is all about the impossible requests from certain clients, like "I want my website to be like Google" and "Can you fax me that MP3". Reading this is a bit addictive!

Lights out, but still read-y for coffee

Always readable, the word that seldom let's you down.

Chaitime

My friend Sherebanu Baldiwala was in town from Mumbai last week, and when we had breakfast at the recently-opened Peel's on the continuously-gentrifying Bowery, she presented me with a tin of chaitime tea, saying that although she knew how much I loved coffee, she really loved the tea's packaging. I do too. I particularly respond to the rectangular tin and stamped top. The brand's overall effect is so nifty that it doesn't matter that I'm fuddy-duddily not crazy about the type for "chaitime," which, for me borders on goofy. Sherebanu's prezzie of tea combines relaxation, spices, and long-lived local—and international—customs; it will certainly help me stop and smell the cardamom.

The importance of being kern(est), or goblins no longer welcome

Just as frightening... Either a budget meal, or a budget buster. Depends on which side of the sign you're on.

Goblins Welcome

Love your headline "Boo Haiku." Unreal goblins, pirates, Dead and Undead are all welcome. Halloween is turning into the feel-good holiday, when it's fine to be the other, the outsider. Of course, the outsiders adhere to a sort of safe codei—i.e. witches and zombies are pretty safe bets, which makes them sort of insiders. Although Halloween's roots included some spiritual rituals, the 'een is now devoid of any religious partisanship and full of pirates sans ships. It's sort of community theater. One block in NYC seemed to be dressed by Broadway set designers, with the ever-present trash bags almost hidden in the dark of night.

Interview with a (very likeable) Smartypants

I am so impressed with this interview of the artist William Powhida by Paddy Johnson (aka the ArtFagCity blogger) that I simply have to repost it. Powhida is known as a bit of an artworld smart-ass, perhaps best known for his "How the New Museum Committed Suicide with Banality" for the November 2009 cover of the Brooklyn Rail. He also co-curated #class with Jennifer Dalton in 2010, which was a fascinating (and fantastically idiosyncratic) freeform event series in Winkleman Gallery in Chelsea (one of the events was one of my colleagues, Zoe Sheehan-Saldaña, gift-wrapping, in her handmade paper, things that gallery visitors randomly brought in).

Discussing everything from struggling to career shame, the interview is smart questions, even smarter answers.