bookofjoe

Lady Gaga x Chinese Elle

Above, the latest issue.

[via Coverjunkie]

Skateboard Stool

From the website:

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This sturdy, compact seat features a creative reuse of of roughed-up skateboards.

Broken boards are byproducts of skate culture and decks are usually destined for the landfill once they're cracked. 

Inspired by the consistent way many skateboards were busted, artist Jason Podlaski collects shattered skateboards from skateshops and skateparks in the U.S. and Canada and turns both deck and truck into a hybrid, high-quality piece of furniture that's built tough. 

The scrapes and scars on the decks create a beautiful veneer of use over the original graphics. 

Every deckstool is meticulously built, reinforced and finished by skilled craftsmen in Pennsylvania.

Materials: Steel, recycled broken skateboards, skateboard truck.

12"L x 13"W x 18"H.

Due to the variable nature of recycled skateboard decks, every stool is unique and will feature a one-of-a-kind combination of scarred skateboard art, scrapes/bangs, colors and graffiti. The decks for each stool are carefully selected by hand in order to be complementary, much like a woodworker would select lumber for a piece of fine furniture. Despite the fact that every stool is unique, we have engineered our production process to insure all furniture meets our strict quality and dimensional specifications. We do produce every piece of furniture to be balanced as far as "quality" of skateboard art, colors, and graffiti included in each stool.

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$195.

Coke Cherry Zero

Happened on this Saturday and bought a 12-pack: excellent.

My new default sugar-free soda.

Nicely done, Coke.

Now to find Vanilla Coke Zero,

whose existence I only learned of when searching for a suitable picture of Cherry Zero.

Salsa Bowl

No, not another in the endless succession of bowl games, besides which they're over till December.

From the website:

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Artist Melanie Mckenney has deconstructed salsa into three key ingredients: purple and white onions and a juicy red tomato.

She created these sturdy earthenware bowls by making slip-cast molds of real vegetables.

Onions: 4.5"L x 4.5"W x 1.75"H; Tomato: 4.5"L x 4.5"W 1.5"H.

Handmade in Tonawanda, New York.

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Set of three: $48.

"You Are as Brave as Vincent van Gogh" — Donald Barthelme (1976)

I read this wonderful short story in the New Yorker when it came out; it's since been included in "Flying to America: 45 More Stories," a 2007 collection of the author's sui generis short fiction.

Above and below, the final three of the five pages of the piece.

You say you want to read the first two pages so you can enjoy it the way the author intended?

Buy a copy of the book for 21 cents here.

Many of the stories in the 2007 collection, as well as a number of others, along with much about the author, here.

"I'm Nuts About You" Key Ring

Looks a little bit like a bumblebee, doesn't it?

Brass key ring with silver- and gold-plated hardware.

$20 (key not included).

Why hasn't this kid been on Jay Leno?

Wrote Richard Kashdan, who sent me the link: "There are a lot of other videos on YouTube of amazing little kids playing music like this that seems way beyond their age and experience, and you could imagine that they were a reincarnation of someone, if reincarnation existed. Does this phenomenon occur in medicine; i.e. are there little kids who could just walk over to a patient and do a beautiful surgery (if Best Buy had a section where kids could play with surgical equipment)?"

I don't know, Richard, but it's a wonderful and provocative question. 

I've never even entertained the possibility before you raised it.

Perhaps some of my blade-con readers will offer their thoughts, anonymous or otherwise.

Dr. Bueller?

Anyone?

Dry Chair — Jan Philipp Wittrin

A 2009/10 design 

made from

a clothes dryer

and metal pipe.

Apply within.

Means of contact

Remember once upon a time when you needed an email address to contact someone online?

Those days are so (thankfully) over.

Consider that it's pretty easy now to send a direct message to someone via Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Etsy, flickr, YouTube, and no doubt many other avenues I haven't mentioned (do StumbleUpon, Digg, reddit and their ilk feature direct messaging between accounts? If not, they should.)

All of the above are free; LinkedIn offers a paid avenue of contact, which I've never felt the need for: if I can't get it done using one of the freebies above, I simply tell my Crack Research Team©™® to drill down till they come back with something.

OK, to be fair, you don't have access to my Crack Research Team — but you do have access to me.

So if you're trying to get in touch with someone but not having any luck, give me a holler and I'll pass it on to the team.

It's the least I can do in return for your reading.

PowerPod — Powerstrip Pencil Cup

That's different.

Designed by Scott Wilson and MINIMAL.

Wrote Michael Hsu of this dual purpose device in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, "Gadgets have a way of multiplying. And they all demand to be plugged in. Even if there are enough outlets under your desk, who wants to don a miner's cap to reach them? The simplest solution is to keep a power strip on top of the desk, and the Power Pod is one of the few that's sleek enough to fit the bill. Its six surge-protected outlets are arranged in a ring, so gear with hulking power plugs won't hog all the space (a discreet button in the center powers everything up), and its tapered base makes the unit appear to hover. Like a cellphone tower that's masquerading as a tree, the Power Pod has a clever disguise: When the outlets aren't in use, a cup for office accessories fits neatly over the top."

From the PowerPod website: 

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Power Pod is a design-conscious portable power source and accessory tray all in one.

It can be used on any table top for easy access to power.

Features and Details:

• Surge suppression complete with a circuit breaker reset button on the bottom of the device
• "Blinking light" safety feature when connected to a non-grounded outlet
• Available in one finish, Milk, that will blend with almost any décor
• Portable power supply can be used on any work surface
• Table top access to 6 power outlets and storage
• Vessel and main body made of ABS
• Energy-saving on/off switch
• Ring made of aluminum
• 6-foot power cord
• UL Listed

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$99.