[Via Tiny Cartridge]

Why, yes, yes, that is exactly what you think it is. A tattoo on a man’s calf, of Patrick Swayze as a Chippendale’s dancer/centaur, on a field of purple haze-sky, with criss-crossed rainbows behind him.

There will never be another tattoo more majestic than this one (Move over Celtic Colonel Sanders tattoo, now there’s something surrealler). It’s really too good to be true. I think this picture should be displayed on your television set on Easter morning, a la the Yule Log. Enjoy.

[Don't miss the rest of this jaw-dropping celebrity tattoo gallery at Entertainment Weekly.]

But at night, the farmer heads home for the day, spreading stars behind him:

I wasn’t able to track down the name of the artist who created the farmer, but I’d like to think he’d approve of Morfai’s embellishment.

[thanks to Trott]

Okay, these cracked up my proverbial shit. Over at I Love This World, René got these knockoff puffy E.T The Extra Terrestrial stickers for just $2 on eBay. $2! That’s what I call value. I mean, let’s take a look at these for a moment:

It all starts off as you might expect, with E.T. bopping merrily along in his glowy spaceship, apparently rocking out to some groovy tuneage on his totally boss headphones (with two antennae!).

Then, we learn that E.T. is a lefty, as he veges out in front of his favorite video game, with his unused right hand to his lips in pensive thought. But he doesn’t have the look of your standard tensed-up, video game-obsessed teen… no, his look is almost wistful, as if this game reminds him of a summer spent on the far side of his home planet… and he’s inspired to softly whistle a merry tune. I like this softer side of E.T.

Why, here’s another side of E.T. I like! It’s Get-Down Disco E.T.! He has got all the moves, and he wants you to come shake it with him! Come on, there’s a party in E.T.’s bathroom, and you’re invited! It’s BYOBathrobe, baby!

Whew! That’s quite a sweat we worked up, so now it’s time to get tidy. E.T. knows that all the good little boys & girls & whatevers need to scrub down, especially under their armpits.

Awwww… E.T. wants to show you his favorite panda. Hello, E.T.’s favorite panda! What a lucky panda you are to have such a friend.

HOLY CRAP. I’m sorry, I did not see this coming. The knockoff puffy sticker people killed E.T.! Or, at least hooked him up to some serious Muppet Labs-caliber equipment, so you know the best case scenario is that his head is going to explode.

Poor E.T. Such a fun-loving guy. Why couldn’t we just let him be? Why must we humans always kill what we do not understand? Thank you, knockoff puffy stickers, for showing me that sometimes an alien can be the better human. I am changed.

And now, I’m really, really wishing that I still had my E.T. latchwork pillow kit from when I was 8. Why-oh-why didn’t I find the wherewithal to finish it? I could be an eBay HUNDREDAIRE!

… but you haven’t experienced the sheer terror of An American Hippie in Israel. Okay, maybe sheer terror is a little strong. How about “bad scene?” (NSFW due to some slight hippie boobage.)

Fools. Fools! Fools! FOOLS!

[Thx to Christy]

[via Laughing Squid]

They don’t make cartoons like they used to.

But in the spirit of getting shit done and moving on, I present to you crappy photos of my previous two paper wallets, taken today, on my desk under the yellow light of my K’nex lamp, with the bare minimum effort put into setting up the shots.

Today we have two paper wallets.

60s Legs Paper Wallet

NOTE: At the time these photos were taken, the wallet’s seen a few months of wear and tear, and is looking a little weathered not unlike an off-the-strip Vegas cocktail waitress (Sorry mom! No offense!), but when it was new it looked fly.

This wallet was made out of two extra-long postcards I found in some gift store. I thought legs would make a great theme. I was wrong. Still I like how it turned out, and it has only offended a few so far.

North Woods Inn Paper Wallet

NOTE: At the time these photos were taken, the wallet was so badly worn that I retired it (and made the Legs wallet above), so it’s looking a bit like the box to a “We swear it works fine” returned digital camera at Fry’s. When it was new, it looked badass.

I love Clearman’s North Woods Inn. A lot. It is so fantastic it deserves it’s own post here. But here’s the Cliff Notes: The North Woods Inn is a themed family restaurant in Southern California that takes it’s cue from the rustic romanticism of the snow dusted Klondike. It’s a big log cabin (and by big I mean freaking huge) with permanent, fiberglass snow on it’s rooftop. The place has not changed since it opened in the 60s … but is has also not fallen into disrepair. It looks pretty much like I imagine it looked like on opening day; preserved in time perhaps better than Disneyland. The food is good, the service is friendly, and the crowd has real appeal — multiple generations of families gathering to celebrate good report cards and new drivers licenses. I ate lunch there on a Sunday and must have heard Happy Birthday (sung to the real tune of Happy Birthday) and Happy Anniversary (also sung to the real tune of Happy Birthday) at least thirty times.

Anyway, at the gift shop I picked up a couple of North Woods Inn pint glasses, and a set of North Woods Inn steak knives, and of course some of these fancy North Woods Inn postcards, which I used to make perhaps my favoriteist wallet of them all: the North Woods Inn Paper Wallet.

I need to make a new one of these soon.

Wait! Here’s some photos I just found when the wallet was pretty new, and I took it back to the motherland to be reunited with cheese toast, their famous “two salads”, and a stein of Molson (okay, okay, it was probably Anchor Steam):

And now for the reverse angle:

I hope to post more, with better pictures, as I make new ones. And there’s a whole story about why I started making them in the first place. Watch this space for more!

Neato Coolville has done it again with another amazing post. This time it is a collection of giant advertising characters, including several Paul Bunyons, a couple of Big Texs, a spaceman, and even a lumbering Alfred E. Newman. Be sure to check them all out.

Everyone here at the Junkyard Clubhouse love a good flapjack. So I was quite thrilled to see Neato Coolville‘s post about the Perkins Pancake House menu. It’s a great example of the wonderful design sensibilities of the the midcentury. The colors work well with our blog, too. Neato Coolville has full scans on the inside menu as, well.

There are many things in life that are not for me to understand, and chief among them is the ubiquitous ceramic kitchen rooster. It’s one of those things that for many years I didn’t even think to question, but once I did set to wondering, I became amazed and mystified by this seemingly-simple kitchen tchotchke.

You’ve seen these a hundred times before, and I’d wager you haven’t given them a lot of thought, either. But, they’re kind of weird. For starters, the rooster is always depicted with all the noble bearing of a Roman general. These roosters don’t look like they’re just the big man around the henhouse, they look like they’ve just come back from conquering half of Europe. And they’re not cheap — the one pictured here has a $375 price tag. Who is spending nearly four hundred dollars on a ceramic chicken? Granted, it’s a very, very nice ceramic chicken, but it seems a bit odd that this would be happening all the time without a few questions being asked.

Questions like … who makes these? Somewhere out there, someone is making a living off of making ceramic roosters. Someone is a ceramic rooster artisan. Someone learned how to make ceramic roosters from their grandfather, and comes from a long line of rooster-makers. Perhaps there is a village in Italy that is renowned for its collection of fine chicken portaitists.

When I first started to ponder the kitchen rooster a few years ago, I started photographing them whenever I saw one. I finally gave up after I hit a few dozen — the suckers are all over the place. But here’s the kicker — I never saw two that were alike. They have got to be made from molds, but why have I not seen any duplicate chickens? The variety in the ceramic rooster market is simply astounding.

I don’t have the answers, and frankly, I don’t want them — I like a little mystery now & then. So, the next time to cross the path of a very fancy ceramic kitchen rooster, ponder for a moment where he came from, and where he’s headed. And be thankful you aren’t a peasant in some tiny European village he’s just ransacked.

p.s. — I do appreciate the irony in this questioning of ceramic roosters coming from a woman who runs a huge site dedicated to ceramic drinking cups made to look like Polynesian gods.

Fade to White, Golden Gate Bridge – © 2007, Anastacia Campbell

Anastacia Campbell is a Bay Area-based photographer, and her stuff is great. You can order prints direct from her website. If you like what you see, be sure to vote for Anastacia at the Blogger’s Choice Awards — she’s been nominated for Best Photography Blog!

[via Wonderland]

Last night in a fit of sleeplessness, I came across this chair, which was just sold under auction at Sotheby’s. It’s just a smidge over 2″ tall. It was created by Fabergé sometime between 1899 and 1903. I think it’s just stunning. I don’t know if it’s 2.8 million dollars worth of stunning (that’s what it sold for), but I do find myself utterly enchanted by it. I’ve always been on the wee side myself, which I think makes me a bit drawn to all things undersized.

It’s the work of Fabergé workmaster Michael Perchin, and is based on furniture designed in 1839 by Leo von Klenze for Tsar Nicholas I for the new Hermitage in St. Petersburg. It’s crafted out of gold and enamel, with the surfaces ground to resemble the grain in mahogany. The front is a removable drawer. Miniature furniture by Fabergé is very rare; other similar pieces, including a miniature table and desk, are in the collection of Queen Elisabeth II.

It got me started looking through the famous eggs that Fabergé made for Russia’s royal Romanov family from 1885, right up until everything went kerplooie for them in 1917. I thought that I’d looked through the Fabergé eggs before, but it turns out I hadn’t — I recognized a few of them, but I definitely hadn’t seen all of them, and didn’t know exactly how intricate some of them were. I always thought of them as little boxes, but I had no idea the wide variety and creativity in their construction. For instance, I wasn’t aware that some of them had clockworks, and even automotons — chirping, wing-flapping birds!

Peter the Great Fabergé egg

The history of the eggs is very interesting, particularly seeing them in the context of what was happening in the Romanov family through the years, how World War I impacted everything, and of course the whole Rasputin brouhaha. After the Bolsheviks took over, the eggs sort of scattered to the four winds, and some of them are still missing, or have parts missing. The ultimate Easter egg hunt, I suppose.

The eggs are the very definition of ornate, and at first glance are just too much. However, these haven’t been executed by clumsy hands — no Bedazzler atrocities here — every detail is so finely crafted, so mind-bogglingly precise, it’s hard not to get sucked in. Find some pictures that let you really zoom in on the detail — it’s breathtaking. No really — I found myself holding my breath even just looking at them on a computer screen, I’d probably seize right up if I ever got to see one in person. I can’t think of anything else that I’ve ever seen that has so much care and fine detail in such a compact space, just for art’s sake. Nobody is making things like this anymore, and that’s a shame.

The Fabergé eggs have been documented pretty well on the Mieks site, including lots of great up-close photographs from different angles, and even some video (the video of the Clover-leaf egg in particular makes a big difference — photos can’t capture how delicate and translucent the egg is).

Half Way Through, by Peter Callesen

Callesen cuts shapes partway out of the paper, and folds them into objects that remain attached to the paper. The hole where the paper was removed remains as a sort of shadow, or as its own element in the piece.

In Down the River, a wall of water cascades off the edge of the paper, and a tiny canoe with two paddlers is headed for it. In Angel, the removed paper leaves a shadow of a tiny angel, surrounded by beams of light; the paper that was cut out has been formed into a cage whre the angel now sits — and the paper appears to have never been removed from the A4 sheet. Closet has a full 3-D wardrobe, with monsters crammed into it; the shadow left behind in the paper sheet shows a creepy menagerie and hints at the contents of the closet.

Callesen’s website has dozens of truly inventive pieces — some are astounding in their intricacies and elaborate forms, while others are simple and clever, and all the more compelling for it. Below is the one I think is the most stunning, in terms of its beauty:

Cradle, by Peter Callesen

There are so many fantastic pieces at Peter Callesen’s website that I wish I could put them all here — instead, I’m going to insist that you go over to Callesen’s website and see them for yourself. Here is Peter Callesen’s website, and here is a link directly to his A4 pieces.

Rare fossils of the pellet-eating omnivore Homo pacius , commonly known as Pac Man. [Via gaygamer]

Just one word. Plastics.

I have fond childhood memories of filling up little metal frames with these plastic bits and melting them in the oven to make stained-glass suncatchers. But for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what the heck they were called. A lot of Googling time only brought up a company that makes Jewish-themed ones, and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t making stained-glass dreidels and menorahs when I was a kid. It was more like mushrooms and butterflies and frogs — y’know, good ’70s stuff. Just when I was ready to give up, I found ‘em — they’re Makit & Bakits. And they’re still making them!

Kindergarten-level glazier

Well, that meant a jaunt to my friendly neighborhood craft store was in order. Sure enough, there was a very small selection of kits. They even make glow-in-the-dark ones now. I had to buy one. I picked out this little flower one, just because the colors were more interesting than the ones in the other sets. It rang up at $1.35 (!). It was definitely at least $2, maybe even $3, worth of fun. That’s value, my friends.

I cheated and mixed the colors on the petals, because I like it when the nuggets blend together like that. I’m happy enough with how it turned out, but I don’t know what I’m going to do with it; it will probably live a prostrate and nomadic life, moving about the house from one flat surface to another along with random scraps of papers and other doodads, until I throw it out.

So, now what? Here’s what — I’ve got a whole mess of those little plastic nuggets left. They seem to have designed these kits to come with enough pellets to recover from a spill onto the particle abyss that was a ’70s shag carpet. I think I might actually somehow have more of these plastic bits than I started with. It’s the melting of the plastic bits that’s the most fun with these — the frames are kind of ass — so I can’t just throw these out, I’ve got to melt them. But how? In what shape?

My current thinking is that I want to lay them out in a disc shape and melt them, and then, while they’re still warm, shape them into a little bowl. Kind of like they do on television cooking shows with grated parmesan. But I can’t help but think that this is worth pondering a little bit more.

Got any ideas?

[Via A Sampler Of Things]

My bacon costume inspired the delightful Miss Delirium Tremens to send me a sweet message… turns out she’s got a great bacon costume of her own, but hers is decidedly more sexay than mine. Click here to see it… it’s street legal, but probably NSFW.

The little red rectangle represents the area of part of the image that fits on my laptop’s monitor

[via John Nack]

These are just some of the lovely vintage plaster wall fish that have been posted on the new blog, Bowling Trophy. There’s no name attached to the blog, but if it is who I think it is, then his one-two punch of excellent photography skills matched with uncanny thrifting ability should combine into a really swell blog.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

I think these fish are great; they often have really great shaded paint jobs that make them look almost like sugar candy or marzipan. Their happy and alluring demeanor always reminds me of the underwater sequence in Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

Fishing for a Compliment, by Dale Sizer

My friend Dale Sizer did this cool painting of plaster wall fish on a slice of a log a few years ago.