bookofjoe

Screw Earrings

OK, admit it: you'd like to be able to look edgy, dark, maybe even a bit Goth when you go out at night, but you simply can't get tattooed and pierced and what not and keep your day job.

Well, you can add an element of the edge to your everyday look with these wonderful Phillips head screw earrings.

Rhode Island artist LeeAnn Herreid makes each pair by hand.

For pierced ears only.

"Note: earring backings are not threaded like screws, but are traditional style."

$24 here.

$1,925 — Price of the world's most expensive haircut

London stylist Lee Stafford (above) gives it.

You get what he calls a "couture cut" — but you have to travel to his house.

Of course, you'll get champagne, hors d'oeuvres and a follow-up trim as part of your package, so actually it's quite reasonable.

Isn't it?

Afsun Smith wrote in last weekend's Financial Times about the exploding price of haircuts on both sides of the pond.

Plum Sykes, author of "Bergdorf Blondes" and international socialite, said in the story that she gets her hair cut at New York City's relatively unknown and inexpensive Podlucky.

She's not alone: billion-heiress Aerin Lauder and society author Brooke De Ocampo are among the many other well-connected clients of Podlucky.

Sykes said in the article, "Paul cuts hair in his house on 67th Street; you've got to get past his three dreadful dogs, but he charges only about $310–$450 for a cut and colour. He is a secret kind of cool hairdresser who does very sleek, New York hair. All the bright young things go to Paul."

I can see where Sykes and her friends would consider Podlucky cheap, even at twice the price.

Podlucky said, "Let's face it, a haircut is like a blouse, there are only about 10 really great cuts; after that it's just variations on the same theme."

I went to the office 'just to have the privilege of walking home with Kurt Gödel' — Albert Einstein

He didn't say it about you, did he?

So who was this man, possessed of so powerful an intellect Einstein simply wanted to be in his presence?

For starters, Gödel (above, with Einstein at Princeton) has often been called the greatest logician since Aristotle.

Said eminent physicist Freeman Dyson, along with Gödel and Einstein a member of Princeton's Institute of Advanced Studies, "Gödel was... the only one of our colleagues who walked and talked on equal terms with Einstein."

Jim Holt wrote a wonderful appreciation of Gödel as part of a review of Rebecca Goldstein's new book, "Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel."

He also worked into his article a discussion of John S. Rigden's "Einstein 1905: The Standard of Greatnesss," another new book, which explores in detail Einstein's annus mirabilis of 1905.

Consider that the 25-year-old Einstein was that year working alone on his physics between tasks at his day job as a clerk in a Swiss patent office.

In March 1905 he published a paper explaining the photoelectric effect; it would be the basis of the Nobel Prize he was awarded in 1921.

In April and May came two papers which explained the up-to-then mysterious nature of Brownian motion: Einstein established in these paired works the reality of atoms, gave a theoretical estimate of their size, and showed how their bumping around caused Brownian motion.

Then came his June paper which unveiled his theory of relativity.

As a sort of encore, in September of the same year he published a three-page note containing the most famous equation of all time: E = mc².

Historians of science say that any one of Einstein's five 1905 papers would have guaranteed him a tenured chair in the physics department of any university in the world, even if he had never published another word.

Holt's piece appears in the current (February 28) New Yorker.

Here are some random snippets.

United by a shared sense of intellectual isolation, they [Gödel and Einstein] found solace in their companionship.

"They didn't want to speak to anybody else," another member of the institute said. "They only wanted to speak to each other."

[Gödel's] incompleteness theorems were hailed in 1953 as the most important mathematical discovery of the previous hundred years.

Gödel was especially preoccupied by the nature of time, which, he told a friend, was the philosophical question.

How could such a "mysterious and seemingly self-contradictory thing," he wondered, "form the basis of the world's and our own existence?"

There is no universal now. With different observers slicing up the timescape into "past," "present," and "future" in different ways, it seems to follow that all moments coexist with equal reality.

Some thinkers... [maintain] that Gödel's incompleteness theorems have profound implications for the nature of the human mind.

Our mental powers, it is argued, must outstrip those of any computer, since a computer is just a logical system running on hardware, and our minds can arrive at truths that are beyond the reach of a logical system.

Although Gödel was still little known in the world at large, he had a godlike status among the cognoscenti.

"I once found the philosopher Richard Rorty standing in a kind of daze in Davidson's food market," Goldstein writes. "He told me he had just seen Gödel in the frozen food aisle."

Gödel... believed that time, as it was intuitively understood, did not exist at all.

A resident of Gödel's universe could travel back to any point in his own past.

If time travel is possible, he submitted, then time itself is impossible.

A past that can be revisited has not really passed.

Time, like God, is either necessary or nothing; if it disappears in one possible universe, it is undermined in every possible universe, including our own.

World's First Mook

What's a mook?

Hey, I didn't know either until about five minutes ago, when I read a review in the March issue of Wired magazine about Mark Frauenfelder's "Make: Technology on Your Time."

Wired used the word "mook" to describe "a quarterly publication that combines an easy-to-read magazine format with the heft of a book."

Sounds good to me.

"... Frauenfelder... offer[s] up illustrated instructions for stuff like making a magnetic strip reader (to access the info that's stored on your credit cards), rigging together a steadycam for just $14, and building a hybrid car."

I like it.

"'Make' is like a Time-Life collectible series for geeks."

Where do I sign up?

Amazon will sell you one for $10.19; ISBN/item# 0596009224.

Walk/Don't Walk Chair

Winner of the bookofjoe 2005 Best Chair of the Year Award.

Sure, it's still February, but I doubt there'll be a more fabuloso one created in the remaining 10+ months of 2005.

Über-artisan John Carter starts with a real, working New York City "Walk/Don't Walk" sign.

He makes the legs from reconfigured, customized steel street sign brackets, with galvanized, heavy-duty self-leveling feet.

"The chair comes complete with all the genuine scuffs and stains of its New York City roots."

Seating surfaces have been reglazed with one-inch-thick polished resin, and cushioned with felt suspension.

The chair plugs into a standard 115V AC wall outlet.

Comes with a remote control to turn the signs on and off.

Uses standard replaceable light bulbs (included).

Handmade in New York City.

$2,700 here.

Allow 10-12 weeks for delivery.

iBrush — Hasbro's Revolutionary Musical Toothbrush

They're going to call it "Tooth Tunes."

When you brush your teeth, you hear music.

Hilary Duff's about to sign on — she might even write an original, two-minute-long song you can only hear while brushing with the iBrush.

Andrew Recke, her music manager, told Joseph Pereira, in today's Wall Street Journal story, "Hilary's into clean living."

Hey, so am I — where's my endorsement? But I digress.

The two-minute recordings played by the brush are stored on a microchip the size of a dot atop the letter i.

Push a button on the brush and a microcomputer starts playing the song.

Sound waves are then transported through the brush's transducer to the front teeth, traveling from there to the jawbone and then to the inner ear and brain.

People standing near you hear only a hum.

Launch is slated for later this year.

Hasbro hopes this effort will pan out better than "Sound Bites," its 1999 venture which offered a sugar-free lollipop that played a song when pressed against the teeth.

Perhaps the fact Sound Bites cost $10 — a pop — made it less than a sweet deal.

For an additional $3 Hasbro tricked-out Sound Bites with a mini FM radio that attached to the end of the lollipop stick, but even with that enhancement it crashed and burned.

Next, Hasbro thought about putting their Sound Bites technology into forks and spoons, but decided it probably wouldn't work out since every time you removed the implement from your mouth to prepare another bite, the music would stop.

Then they thought about using a pen as a delivery device, but figured kids wouldn't suck on a pen for the duration of an entire song.

I think, by George, that this time they might have hit pay dirt.

Here's the Wall Street Journal story.

Got a Song Stuck In Your Head? Try Brushing

Toy maker Hasbro Inc. has been trying for more than six years to find a use for its clever invention of a pea-size device that transmits sound through enamel and bone.

At first, the company tried marketing the technology in a lollipop that, when sucked, would play a catchy tune.

But parents choked on the $10 price tag, and the product was discontinued.

Unwilling to give up, Hasbro considered spoons, forks -- even pens -- that would play a musical ditty in the mouth.

Those ideas never made it out of the lab.

Now, Hasbro has a product it thinks it can take to the bank: a musical toothbrush.

When pressed to the teeth, the toothbrush renders a recorded riff from a pop star that lasts two minutes -- precisely the amount of time dentists say children should spend brushing their teeth.

Hasbro plans to highlight that advice in marketing for the new toothbrush, which also has a suggested retail price of $10.

Called "Tooth Tunes," it's getting a thumbs-up from dentists.

Children tend to brush their teeth for only a few seconds, says Ed McLaren, associate professor of dentistry at the University of California, Los Angeles.

"Most kids have no idea how long two minutes is."

Hasbro is in talks with several recording artists about getting rights to their recordings.

Many artists would probably consider a gig in a toothbrush beneath their talents.

But others might welcome the daily exposure in their young fans' lives.

Hasbro says it got a green light from Vivendi Universal SA's Universal Music Group, a major hip-hop publisher, to approach some of its artists.

Among the "upbeat" songs Hasbro says it is considering are "What a Wonderful World," "Wild Thing," "Walking on Sunshine" and a new rendition of the 1960s classic "Do You Believe in Magic" now getting a lot of play on the Disney Channel.

Among the recording artists Hasbro is currently talking to are the actor-singer Will Smith, rhythm-and-blues band Black Eyed Peas and pop-music queen Hilary Duff.

Mr. Smith hasn't signed a long-term agreement but Hasbro has requested a license to use his hit song "Switch," says Dave Capper, a Hasbro project manager.

A lawyer for Black Eyed Peas confirmed that negotiations are ongoing, but declined further comment.

Andre Recke, Ms. Duff's music manager, was initially skeptical but now says it is "likely" his 17-year-old client will strike a deal.

"When Hasbro came to me, my reaction was 'Yeah, Yeah, so it's just a toothbrush,' " Mr. Recke says.

"But then, I listened to it, and I went like 'wow.' "

He says he may even persuade Ms. Duff to write an original, two-minute composition to help with the Tooth Tunes launch.

"Hilary's into clean living," he says.

"She would like to convey to kids that, 'Hey, I may be Hilary Duff, but I have to brush my teeth too.' "

Modern computer technology makes the Tooth Tunes possible. The two-minute recording is stored on a microchip no bigger than a dot atop the letter i.

Push a button on the toothbrush, and a minicomputer starts playing the song.

Sound waves are transported through the transducer to the front teeth, traveling from there to the jawbone and then to the inner ear.

In 1998, Andrew Filo, an inventor-consultant to Hasbro working with a crew of six company engineers, devised and promptly patented a "dental mandibular sound transducer."

When pressed against teeth, the tiny contraption powerfully propels sound waves through the incisors and mandibles into the inner ear.

"The human jaw bone is a great conductor of sound," says Mr. Filo, who says he has long been fascinated by the movement of sound through the facial structure.

As a child, he says, he used to close his ears and wonder how he could hear himself hum.

He came up with the idea for Tooth Tunes one morning while brushing his teeth.

The sound produced by Tooth Tunes is, for the person brushing, a cross between the sound of music coming out of a stereo speaker and the sound of humming to oneself.

The transducer's sound waves don't travel efficiently through air, so someone standing near the person brushing hears only a hum, similar to the sound of the Walkman on a fellow passenger in a train.

As currently envisioned, each Tooth Tunes brush would come with just one song.

When the brush wears out, the whole thing must be replaced at a cost of another $10.

The launch of Tooth Tunes is planned for later this year, in time for the back-to-school shopping season.

But Hasbro will find itself competing in an increasingly crowded oral-care aisle.

Its top rival will be Procter & Gamble Co., which has agreed to acquire Gillette Co., maker of the top-selling toothbrush line, Oral-B. P&G and Gillette together had about 49% of the total toothbrush market in 2004, according to retail sales tracker Information Resources Inc., whose data don't include figures from Wal-Mart stores.

Still, retailers are interested in Hasbro's Tooth Tunes.

CVS Corp, the nation's largest pharmacy chain, sells 116 different types of toothbrushes, including 88 manual and 28 battery-powered models.

It says it would like an exclusive on the product.

It is negotiating with Hasbro but exactly how much lead time CVS can get ahead of rivals hasn't been determined.

"We plan on putting Tooth Tunes in all 5,300 of our stores," says Mike Bloom, senior vice president of merchandising.

"That's a big risk, but I really feel this brush is here for the long haul."

Hasbro's first crack at commercializing the technology began in 1999 with "Sound Bites," a sugar-free lollipop that played a tune when pressed against the teeth.

For an additional $3, music fans could get a mini FM radio to attach to the end of the lollipop stick.

Hasbro discontinued the products after selling a combined total of about two million.

Engineers canned the next idea -- putting the transducer into forks and spoons -- after it occurred to them that the music would stop between bites and so discourage normal eating.

The pen idea, too, seemed a little impractical.

"Expecting a kid to suck on a pen for the duration of an entire song was asking much," says one company insider.

Tooth Tunes is an opportunity for Hasbro to diversify out of the shrinking toy industry.

Instead of going to toy stores, Hasbro is hoping to sell the toothbrush through drugstores, supermarkets and discount retailers.

One of the company's Asian suppliers is making the product, which Hasbro is aiming at children age three through teens -- a demographic group it knows well.

But success is by no means assured.

The youth toothbrush market is already chock full of character-themed and battery-powered electric products.

P&G had a substantial hit with its Crest SpinBrush that retails for around $5.

A kiddie version featuring Spider-Man scaling a building rang up nearly $4 million in sales, according to Information Resources Inc.

Another Crest brush, featuring cartoon character Dora the Explorer, logged retail sales of $3.3 million.

MorphWorld: Giada De Laurentiis into Natalie Portman

The granddaughter of legendary producer Dino De Laurentiis, Giada (above) is a star in her own right: her Food Network show "Everyday Italian" is a smash, and her cookbook of the same name is selling like gnocchi.

Considering Natalie's looks continue

to evolve as she matures,

I'd say the two will be

dead ringers for one another

in about a decade.

Perhaps in 2015 I'll come back and have a fresh look.

Rorshock - 'What do you see?'

The Rorschach test still has street cred in pockets around mental health circles.

It's a low-key, non-threatening way to take up some time when you evaluate someone, and you can charge for it.

I mean, everyone passes; it's the Lake Wobegon of psychiatric tests, because no one's ever been below average.

Nor is it possible to be.

Even though the Rorschach probably about as useful an indicator of someone's mental state as the color, shape and form of their feces (considered an excellent diagnostic tool back in the days of the Caesars), people still use it.

Hermann Rorschach (below),

a Swiss psychiatrist, invented it, first publishing it in his 1921 book "Psychodiagnostik."

But hey, it's 2005, so why not take it out of the fancy Fifth Avenue psychoanalysts' offices and into your party?

Now you can.

The Rorshock deck consists of 20 classic inkblots on cards, along with a somewhat irreverent interpretive manual which leads the seller to advise, "Intended for mature players."

So you're out of luck.

But maybe you know someone....

$18 here.

If you'd prefer the real thing, it'll run you $75.

Unlike the smartypants knock-off, this one's approved for all audiences.