annoying
Reader Brian doesn't have a womb, so when he saw a copy of
Working Mother magazine in his mailbox, he was pretty sure that he didn't order it:
Last December I placed an order at art.com for a framed print which I intended to give as a Christmas present. I placed the order well within art.com's recommended time frame for delivery in time for christmas. During the order they promised delivery by December 17th. Well, as you may guess December 17th came and went with no package (they shipped it on the 15th via DHL.) December 24th came and went with no package. DHL finally delivered it on the 26th after I had been forced to go out and purchase another gift to replace the one that had not arrived.
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sad
Polaroid has announced that they will no longer manufacture instant film or instant cameras and will instead concentrate on TVs, digital cameras, and printers, says the
Chicago Sun-Times:
''We're trying to reinvent Polaroid so it lives on for the next 30 to 40 years,'' Tom Beaudoin, Polaroid's president, chief operating officer and chief financial officer, said in a phone interview Friday.
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consumer alert
Here's a fun scam: buying art at auction on cruise ships. In one case, a woman paid $20,000 for what she thought were high-value Salvadore Dali, but when they got shipped to her, an independent appraiser told her they were worth maybe $700 each. The business is conducted on international waters, so there's no consumer protection laws to throw you a lifesaver. Consumerama says they're not even run under real auction rules, but are instead, "coordinated inebriated sales hysteria."
Cruise Ship Art Auctions: Disasters at Sea [Consumerama]
(Photo: jimg944)
childhood fantasies
An artist in Providence, Rhode Island was apprehended the other day by mall security as he left
the secret apartment he'd built almost four years ago, in an unused utility space in the mall's parking garage. The apartment had no running water (they used mall bathrooms), but it did include "a sectional sofa and love seat, coffee and breakfast tables, chairs, lamps, rugs, paintings, a hutch filled with china, a waffle iron, TV and Sony Playstation 2," according to the Boston Globe.
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the art of negotiation
Reader Tim tried to pay for his Subway meal with a debit card today but was foiled by a technical snafu with the card reader. He didn't have cash on him, but there was an ATM machine in the store, so he withdrew the funds and paid the old-fashioned way. The trouble was, he was now stuck with a $2 ATM fee for a $12 purchase.
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Whether or not Paho Mann's pictorial taxonomy of all of his and his partner's personal possessions, sortable by color, cize, material, location, owner, cost, use type, and use amount, cause you to reevaluate your personal politics of consumerism is up for debate, but it's unquestionable that his site is neat. [
Sort]
polls
Airports throughout the nation are stocking up on art to entertain bored passengers and promote the local economy. Atlanta already has 300 pieces of art, including "a large display of stone sculptures from Zimbabwe," a collection rivaled by Phoenix's 500 pieces, such as "strands-of-light-reflecting-glass artwork." Are these cultural offerings pleasant distractions, or intrusive nuisances? Vote in our poll, after the jump.
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berwyn spindle
"The Spindle," sometimes known as the Car-Kabob, a giant sculpture in the parking lot of the Cermak Plaza strip mall in Berwyn, Illinois, is set to be destroyed as part of a strip mall reconstruction. Instead, drugstore megachain Walgreens, apparently not content with its near-complete saturation of the Chicagoland landscape, will replace the legendary sculpture. Goodbye, quirky art, hello, homogeneity! (You might remember the 1989 sculpture by artist Dustin Shuler from the movie "
Wayne's World.") But fans of the art and the citizens of the Chicago suburb of Berwyn aren't sitting still: The website
SaveTheSpindle.com has launched, and there's a resolution in the Illinois House decrying the teardown. Will the sculpture survive? Hit the supporters' site and show 'em your love.
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frugality
Have you heard of Matthieu Laurette? From 1993 to 2001, he fed and cleaned himself by buying almost only products with "Satisfied or your money back" or "Money back on first purchase" items, then filing the rebates or writing to the companies and saying he wasn't satisfied.
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videos
New York City has these special video billboards at the top of subway stops playing silent movies for Lexus, Chanel, and NBC. It's kinda beautiful, and kinda annoying. The
Graffiti Research Lab and the
Anti-Advertising Agency did an interesting project back in January where they cut out phrases into stencils and taped them over these ads. The moving light behind the letters illuminated phrases like "Graffiti," "Advertising = Graffiti," piggybacking on the very message-dispensing machine it attacks. Click the picture above to see the movie.A cool art project and way to reclaim the urban space, if only temporarily. Just don't do it in Boston.
— BEN POPKENLight Criticism [The Anti-Advertising Agency]
cheesecake
Mattel has announced that every ten year old boy's secret plastic girlfriend, Barbie, is finally going 50's sexpot. The lascivious, long legged tramp is getting her own "Pin-Up" line of dolls, inspired by the fifty year old cheesecake calendars still mustily crumbling upon the wall of our grandfathers' garages.
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gas
Your pain at the pump is palatable, but what ring of the underworld inferno should we consider this?
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british telecom
This retro
British Telecom (BT) telephone box, pierced by pick axe, was a recent unauthorized outdoor art installation by guerrilla artist
Banksy in London's SoHo square. It was removed shortly afterwards by the London City Council.
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howto
A panel from an instruction manual on creating a Shangri-La within the shopping mall. As the video game
Civilization taught us, all revolutions undergo a period of chaos and anarchy, also known as "the fun part," illustrated below.
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