More Bits and Bobs and LOOK! Look what I found!

Someone just got me this. No, not the car, the license plate. I know, it's quite silly. Just...uh, think of this as a "before" picture. I think now I will have to be converting this car to something less silvery and more...well, dirty-looking and brass, with gears glued or painted on. I will own the Clockwork Car. I am told by other members of my family that this will destroy the retail value, but I think I don't care. I won't be able to afford to buy another car for many years anyway. My only issue is the whale's tail on the license plate, but I do live in an old whaling town, so perhaps it's not too bad. Wish me luck with the conversion, which will probably be slow.


Meanwhile, coming across this reference on Brass Goggles, I feel it my duty to check it out. Alex CF's blog/website, Many Dead Things, has quite a self-descriptive title. Among many gruesome and startling drawings (see the link to the old website for the full display) are some quite wonderful creations he describes as "Lovecraftian Horrors in Specimen Jars." For an unspecified fee, Mr. CF will make you your very own compartmented box with your very own horror in a jar and attendant documentation. Sounds ideal!



Mr. CF also has a curiously compelling clockwork foetus, which I find simultaneously fascinating and very disturbing. You can see more of his stuff on his MySpace page.

On other blog fronts, I was surprised to find out that two days before I published the post about the Musee Mechanique (below), Boingboing actually had them on their "most interesting places" list. I suppose this fits in with my deep belief in synchronicity. The place deserves the publicity, that's all I can say.

And now...for the piece de resistance: look what I found in my parents' basement! I asked my mother about it, and she said she and my dad fell in love with it when traveling in England, and came home with it in their laps on the plane, full of glassware. Sigh. You can't do that anymore, I'm afraid. Might dash the glassware on the floor and threaten someone with the broken shards, or something.


Anyway, she said I could have it. It is apparently a Victorian hat-box, back from the days when people traveled by steam-ship. Think of it: you load up your steamer trunks with the drawers and the wallpaper linings, your copper hat-boxes... I think I'm in love.


I put her on the shelf with Mrs. Chicken, another friend of mine (note the cool graphics on her wheels).

A friend of mine told me once that she loved my house because it reminded her of the old Smithsonian, before it had its facelift, back when it was more like a combination Wunderkammer and crammed attic: things were just piled up higgledy-piggledy, and you could sort of burrow into odd corners and find interesting things. I was very flattered. It was the nicest way to describe a cluttered, messy house that I have ever heard.