Another Unfortunate PhD Incident

The Blue Turtle, with pink + gold flower

Information is Beautiful

I discovered this book by David McCandless in the Co-op bookstore in Cambridge.  I cannot get enough of his graphs, more are at his website and his flickr scrapbook.

The Official Acquaintance of Tony Bag

It’s finally here, what all of Pittsburgh (and beyond) has been waiting for!  The Official Acquaintance of Tony tote bag.  This one, the prototype, is headed over to Mairead, we’ll see how many more I can unleash upon the world before Tony stops me.

And it was unintentional, that there is a slight Groucho vibe to my version of Tony.  Perhaps this should be the next line of bags: Tony N., The Lost Fifth Marx Brother.  Soon to be followed with Tony N., Bubba Hotep Redux…

Turtle : I know! The perfect gift.

Hapy Birthday Ksenia Dance

Recycled Plastic Monsters from Pittsburgh

From undergraduate students in Carnegie Mellon’s School of Design, lots of  plasticwares Frankensteined into insects, monsters, beasts!  The two just above, and the two just below, they are my favorites.  But there was a whole institutional hallway to choose from…

The Turkmen Snowdoll

Thanks to one of my (surprisingly numerous) Turkmen caps, and a former fatherly tie, I built a Turkmen out of snow + ice and put him in my backyard in Pittsburgh.  Just a note, I have never met a round Turkmen, nor one with such large nerd glasses.

Neighborhod Art, Kutluğ Ataman

In my search for good neighborhood art, there’s Kutluğ Ataman, from the Pittsburgh show a few years back at the Carnegie International.  He’s a Turkish artist-documentarian, and his exhibit at the Carnegie won its main prize.

It was room-large, a gallery full of televisions + earphones, each television with a different person from the same neighborhood, Küba, in Istanbul.  Enough voices + faces + stories to last a month of visits to the Carnegie, I wonder if anyone has actually listened to all of them all the way through.

More from Ataman at his website, The Institute for the Readjustment of Clocks.

This Week in Pittsburgh Love : Arthur is on the prowl