My oh my. It’s that time already? Seems like it was just yesterday we were trampling old women and clothselining one another for some electronic gizmo. And yet here we are! Christmas time again! Well last year, to do my part in spreading the holiday cheer, I whipped up a few holiday cards for your viewing, emailing, printing, and/or mailing pleasure. I’ve decided to continue that tradition and create a new batch for this, Xmas 2006. I only managed to make 4 this year, but added to last year’s 6 that makes a solid ten. See below for the whole collection, and a very merry to you and yours.

12.17. filed under: !. design. personal. 7

Some bits from the history of scissors

Quote, “The obvious is so commonplace that when waved in front of our noses we often don’t give it a moment’s thought or even realize it’s there. We take certain objects so for granted that we probably never stop to ask ourselves how they first figured in the life of man. This is the case with scissors: do they date back one century, two centuries or twenty? Our stainless steel kitchen scissors were probably bought from a market stall around the corner, but when did the first scissors come into the world? Attempting to track down the name of a crackpot inventor would certainly be of no avail; as in many similar cases, scissors were not invented in a flash of creative genius, but rather evolved, step by step, alongside many other tools destined to cut, separate and pierce, undergoing modifications of design, material and decoration from the first, primitive examples — or at least from the first examples revealed by archeology and literature — to the scissors of today.” - From Scissors by Massimiliano Mandel.

12.16. filed under: !. books. design. history. 1

It may surprise you to learn, good reader, that in our splintered, chaotic and perhaps irreducibly complex world there yet remains something pure. In my research, relentlessly poking every facet of human experience, I have identified something so widespread and yet simultaneously so unlikely as to be truly worthy of the overused adjective- extraordinary.

12.13. filed under: !. life. observations. play. 5

While searching out some relevant linkage for the term “pantheistic solipsism” I came up pretty well flat. One hit, however, made me laugh. There was an entry for it on a site called “all science fair projects.com” which bills itself as the Science Fair Project Encyclopedia… I started thinking about some kid doing research for his tired old sputtering volcano and coming across (who knows how) the idea for “pantheistic solipsism” and deciding, “Hey, that sounds like a great science fair project!” What are the odds? I imagined the kid standing there with some poster board diorama with scribbly marker text and a few taped up photos and I just had to laugh. Made me wonder what other unlikely bits of science project fare might be listed in the Science Fair Project Encyclopedia… I laughed heartily, then, of course, I had to fire up ye olde photoshoppe. See below.

12.07. filed under: !. play. science. 14

Prior to the 17th Century there wasn’t much in the way of organized fire control in Europe. Neighborhood night watches were organized by the residents of an area and they would essentially stay awake and keep an eye out for leaping flames. In the late 17th century this was to change, after The Great Fire of London in 1666 wiped out tens of thousands of homes, the first fire engines (hand pumps) appeared, and by the beginning of the 18th Century fire brigades, in the modern sense, were being created…

12.03. filed under: !. design. history. 4

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