1903's World of the Future! - a list by betty_rocker

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About this list:

Yesterday's home decor, accoutrements, and inspired attire for the modern ladies and gentlemen of Tomorrow. Culled from the filamented ether of the internet by betty_rocker, stationed in sunny Ruritania.

Qualifications:

I'm a close personal friend of Irene Adler.

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Viewing 1-10 of 24 Items

Sherlock Holmes Chess Sets

First to recommend

Description

I actually am recommending both the Sherlock chess sets from the Chess Store.

The first Sherlock Holmes Chess Set, the brown and ivory one featured in the main photo, is my favorite. Thus spake the Chess Store: "The famous fictional private detective, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is featured as the King in this remarkable chess set. His opponents are led by his arch enemy, Professor Moriarty, with the fearsome Hound of Baskervilles as the Knight." I just like that it's very simple and classy.

As to the other set, it's not my style but it is more completely described by the store: "Beautifully hand decorated in shades of green and grey, the characters are based on the original drawings that appeared in Strand Magazine in 1890 to accompany the Sherlock Holmes stories. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson face their greatest adversary, Professor Moriarty, across the chess board. The set also features Mrs. Hudson, Inspector Lestrade, Irene Adler, Colonel Moran and the infamous Hound of Baskervilles." I guess all the inlay and the like is why it's $200 more than the simpler one I prefer.

Apparently, I'm a cheap date.

Updated Jul 21, 2008

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Steampunk R2D2 on deviantART

First to recommend

Description

Speechless. Amoebabloke over on deviantART has constructed an antiqued, steampunk-looking R2D2. (If you need me to explain what R2D2 is or why that's freaking awesome, this list is not for you.) This is the stuff of which L. Frank Baum's nightmares were made. Didn't you know he was obsessed by robots? I'm not kidding on that one. He was.

And here I just blew a fortune on Hasbro's life-size talky-talky, beepy-beepy plastic version of R2 for my husband's birthday. Believe me, that droid has got a serious attitude problem. They programmed him that way. He only listens to you half the time. The rest of the time he just gives you lip and keeps trying to run away.

I can tell that this beer-barrel-bodied fellow would be much more of a gentleman. Amazing.

I skipped the via link because the entire known blogosphere was linking to this project. Gizmodo, boing boing, geekologie, neatorama ... seriously, everyone. So make your usual rounds.

Updated Jul 21, 2008

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"Silent Sunlit Stair." Photo Art by Glenn-Patrick Ferguson - RedBubble

First to recommend

Description

From the artist: "This image was taken at an abandonded state hospital for the developmentally disabled. I came across this staircase and as I climbed it I was struck by how worn the stone treads were. Worn down a full inch in places. How many steps would that take? How many feet? How many times? This place was a home to many--probably all some knew as home. I felt honored to be able to photograph it."

At first I just thought this was cool and creepy, but now, having read the artist's own description, I am even more drawn to this photograph. Check out redbubble.com for more. Really a great site.

Updated May 6, 2008

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Motoart DC-6 Cowling Desk

First to recommend

Description

MotoArt urges you to "Own a piece of aviation history," and this desk, made from the cowling of a DC-6, is a pretty awesome place to start. Ruude Leeuw says the Douglas DC-6 was "considered to be the best in her class, in the 1950s. Of course, in those days, only the Upper Class travelled by air. So their means of transport had to have class as well!"

The piece is from a later date than that toward which I normally gravitate, but the lines and the original purpose of it were irresistible to me.

Updated Apr 25, 2008

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River Island Ankle Boots

First to recommend

Description

Unexpected find thanks to flying saucer!

The shop carries a variety of ankle boots, including some with peep toes. The ones in the main image are very Napoleon, while the peep-toe buckle detail boots are more ladylike. Natch, I'm jonesing for the Napoleon ones.

I think I'll be listing a few other items from this store, too.

specs from site: 8.5cm heel, leather upper, plastic sole.

100% pretty darned cool. (via Flying Saucer)

Updated Apr 7, 2008

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Cowboy Cuffs - Dixie Gun Works

First to recommend

Description

Dixie Gun Works is a paradise of re-enactment attire and accessories. While most of their products are intended, as the name suggests, for Civil War period replication, there's at least one gem on every page that can be repurposed to a later and more fluid surreality with a little macabre imagination.

These corset-style lace-up cowboy cuffs just plain ring my bell. Ow!

Specs from the seller: "Handmade, the cuffs are cut from 9-10 oz. oak tanned, tip grain cowhide and decorated in an assortment of styles. Two heavy duty snaps and adjustable lacing close the cuff at the wrist. Stamped w/DGW logo. Russet only."

Updated Jan 30, 2008

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Doctor Scops Doll Series - Strangedolls by Beth Robinson

First to recommend

Description

Beth Robinson of strangedolls.net custom makes a number of strange dolls but I believe the series featuring the good doc here is my favorite. Besides the freaky balance between suggestion of and direct attention to detail, I also like that her dolls look like they've just stepped out of a penny dreadful illustration and are now considering eating your face.

This particular Doctor Scops, now creeping out the hot little hands of a lucky gent in San Diego, is my especial favorite due to the fact that he reminds me of the figure of Death-in-the-guise-of-a-doctor in one of my favorite films, Terry Gilliam's Baron Munchausen. Or some kind of Edward Gorey dreamt-of Victorian serial killer hiding out in an Old West sideshow.

The extraordinarily, unbelievably talented and not a little frightening Ms. Robinson also has dolls available for immediate sale. For the Wednesday Addams in your life, from 8 to 80!

Product specs: 24 inches tall . Wood . 2 Part Resin . Resin Skull

Updated Apr 7, 2008

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"The Séance at Hobs Lane" - COIL aka Mount Vernon Arts Lab, dist. Ghost Box

First to recommend

Description

I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey. No, not over at the Frankenfurter Place. Silly you. This audio CD would actually be an even STRANGER journey.

Click through to the strangeattractor product listing and listen free to three sample tracks in mp3 format. This is the perfect background track for, well, anything. Anything dark and sinister with oversized exposed clockworks and clouds of steam coming out of grates and curling around ladies' ankle boots.

The organ and the persistent percussive strings kind of make it sound like if a resurrected Bernard Herrman or not-bored Danny Elfman scored a new Sherlock movie, set in Sing Sing on the night of a failed electrocution. I can also hear it being played through a Victrola at Arkham in an Elseworld's Gotham by Gaslight.

The retailer calls it: "...psychogeographic investigation into a world of abandoned Underground stations, Quatermass, seventeenth century secret societies and the footsore reveries of a modern Flâneur. ... The booklet features liner notes by the author Lawrence Norfolk (Lemprière's Dictionary, The Pope's Rhinoceros) and incredible centre spread artwork by Julian House."

Updated Jan 30, 2008

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Mechanical Bird Brooch

First to recommend

Description

From the seller: "Dead pocket watches are given new life through these brooches. I have mounted old pocket watch parts on painted wooden plates (1 inch diameter) as a statement, that today’s stressing through life if not saving you any time, it is stealing it. The key is not to try and save time with stressing it is to live every day to the fullest.

This brooch is one of a kind and it is almost impossible for me to another one just like this again, it fastens with a butterfly clutch and the parts comes from non working watches only."

If I ever stop digging hard on clunky whimsy, shoot me with a blowgun! Click through to check out her other awesome one-of-a-kind designs.

Updated Jan 30, 2008

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Armand Marie Leroi's Mutants

First to recommend

Description

From Penguin's site: "Stepping effortlessly from myth to cutting-edge science, Mutants gives a brilliant narrative account of our genetic code and the captivating people whose bodies have revealed it—a French convent girl who found herself changing sex at puberty; children who, echoing Homer’s Cyclops, are born with a single eye in the middle of their foreheads; a village of long-lived Croatian dwarves; one family, whose bodies were entirely covered with hair, was kept at the Burmese royal court for four generations and gave Darwin one of his keenest insights into heredity. This elegant, humane, and engaging book “captures what we know of the development of what makes us human” (Nature).

I read this for a book club last year, the meetings of which I somehow always skipped, even though I read the books (they caught on and kicked me out via email. dumped by lit geeks--what next?). This is an extraordinary book, vascillating from science to almost science fiction as it tracks "freaks" in the scope of evolution. I can't recommend it highly enough for people with an active interest in our human race, both its history and its future. Also, my daughter likes to flip through and look at the pictures. So there's that, too.

Leroi has a site of his own, http://armandleroi.com/index.html.

Updated Jan 24, 2008

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Viewing 1-10 of 24 Items

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