MURKETING

Books, the idea, cont’d: Book for hiding a notebook, etc.

Click for more.

Moleskinerie pointed out the above item the other day. The maker is an Etsy seller, Pommes Frites. While this object is no longer available, there are other hollowed out books for sale in the Pommes Frites shop.

“This old book has been upcycled into a secret place to hide your moleskine journal!” was apparently the pitch on this one. This again goes to a recurring theme in this series: the book as raw material. You may recall the series actually began as a spinoff of a post on Significant Objects, in which I wondered allowed why that project can’t seem to get any eco-cred for upcycling with words. Maybe if we got writers to invent stories about destroyed books?

Anyway, there’s something particularly fantastic about a hollowed out book that hides, of all things, a journal. (A very special journal, to its buyers at least: See this 2005 Consumed on Moleksines).

Here are some more cool works by Pommes Frites:

Hollow Book -- Flask. By Pommes Frites. Click for more.

Hollow Book Pistol Safe -- SOLD. Click for more, though, it's cool.

Books, the idea, cont’d: Interesting end

By Art Ori. Click for more.

Via Bookshelf blog. Not so practical, but interesting. Earlier bookends here. Part of a series.

Tell the future, about yourself.

Click for more information. 

Here is RosettaStone, a product of Objecs LLC. I read about it in Obit Magazine. As I understand it, it’s a piece of granite inlaid with symbols of your choosing, and it contains digitally accessible information about you. It’s meant to be embedded in your tombstone. But you can buy it now, and start crafting the message you want to leave behind, about you, which will be available to people with the right cellphones, or whatever, for upwards of 3,000 years. You can “be discovered” by citizens of the future, as the company’s site says. It also says: “Be more than a name and date for future generations.”

Some choices. Click for more information.

Obit Mag interviewed a man who bought one:

Hill has been updating and frequently rewriting the text he wants to accompany his RosettaStone entries frequently.

“If a truck hits me tomorrow, I’ve got some words that will last forever and that’s real,” he said. “It’s hard to write at first. You’re thinking, ‘Wow. These are my last words.’”

Wow, indeed. Also, “for a limited time,” you can get a “tablet case,” so you can carry this around with you, I suppose, until you die.

“Limited time” offer. Click for more.

Obit Mag says “fewer than 100” have been sold.

Books, the idea, cont’d: This is not a book.

Given my interest in Things That Look Like Other Things, it’s inevitable that some would pop up in this series.

Boxes That Look Like Books. Click for more.

Bookshelf blog reports: “Designed by Peleg Design. Printed cardboard boxes for elegant storage on book shelves.”

Shelf That Looks Like A Book. Click for more.

Note the title of the bottom “volume.” Bookshelf blog notes that it is actually “a small shelf with the appearance of a book.”

Books, the idea: Limited edition luxe

Monocle has launched a “book collection,” with a reprint.

First in the series is a limited edition of Alain de Botton’s The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. Originally published by Penguin, each book is printed on (retin-a) quality paper, bound in linen and signed by the author. They also contain an exclusive DVD interview.

£60

I’m quite interested in the idea of a sort of fancy, limited version of a book that was actually published earlier by a mainstream house. What do you think of that concept?

It’s a little odd in that the conventional thought would be to do this concurrently (or to reprint a more obscure “forgotten,” older book), I think. But I think this timing, as a kind of almost-belated endorsement, is rather interesting.

That said, Caleb Crain absolutely kicked the shit out of this particular book in an NYT review last year. But I suppose that’s neither here http://pted.org/Propecia.php nor there.

Part of a series.

Books, the idea, cont’d: Bookends depicting readers — of what?

By Cubo3 via BoingBoing, click for more

BoingBoing published this. At first I was interested in bookends depicting someone reading. Then I wondered: What are they reading? The comments suggest others had the same thought. Is it a Kindle or an iPad? somebody wondered. Someone else countered, amusingly, that those devices require hands to use, and these figures lack hands or even arms. So perhaps it’s flat-laid book of poetry. Somebody else noted that some of the angles actually suggest a sort of spy-holding-a-gun pose. And finally: “Those are velcro-backed ebook readers. Stick right to your lap, no hands required. To turn the page, lean forward and tap with your nose.”

I suppose even if the figures are reading electronic devices, these items still require physical books for proper use. Unless we some day have so many devices they are shelved and displayed. Hm.

Other projects update

I mentioned a while back that I was cataloging all my collected images of counterfunctional watches in one place. That’s just about done. See: Counterfunctionality: A Gallery. I’ll add new ones as they come along, but I’m pretty sure this is everything I’d stockpiled. It’s pretty impressive if you ask me. (But if you ask me, what would you expect me to say?)

I’m still not sure if I should expand the Gallery to include non-watch examples of counterfunctionality, or just stick to the one product category. This was all inspired, you may recall, by this Consumed.

And meanwhile, Things That Look Like Other Things will continue to be updated daily, for a good while at least. I still haven’t worked off my inventory on that one, and new examples seem to pop up every day.

This too is a spinoff of an earlier Consumed column.

That is all. Have a nice weekend.

Commodify your followers

Like anything else that’s popular, Twitter has inspired plenty of physical and buyable things for those who wish to express their fandom for the service by way of products. One probably inevitable example: Tweet-based Threadless T’s.

But reader Kevin Dugan points out a more interesting twist: Twitter Mosaic. You type in your Twitter handle (or, it seems, anybody’s Twitter handle), and the site produces a “mosaic” of all your followers’ avatars, which you can then have printed onto a coffee mug, T-shirt, tote bag. (So if you use a photo of yourself as your avatar, someone you follow could put your mug on a mug.)

I suspect one of the great appeals of Twitter for many of its users is in fact racking up a high follower count, and seeing that pleasingly high number signaling to the world some notion of importance and/or influence (or “connection,” if you like). So converting that into an object that transports a version of that signal into the physical world makes a certain kind of sense.

Personally I’d prefer something that did the same with the Gallery of Default Anonymity.

[Previously: Consumed on Fail Whale + merch; Consumed on Threadless.]

Maybe what this country needs …

… is an immense Cheeto.

Or maybe not.

[April 1 update: Giant Cheetos reviewed (via Book of Joe): ” Eating a piece all at once was a bit of a challenge, so for some of the puffs, I went with the gnawing method,” etc.]

Yes we can, canned

Obama Soda, available in France — proof that the French really do know the meaning of the word entrepreneur (as the old joke goes). NPR story here.

Just Looking

Creepy Crawly Dinner Plate, by Foldedpigs, via The Storque.

Just Looking

This would be an example of what Friend of Murketing Lucian once called “life imitates Photoshop.” It’s an upside-down planter. Apparently real. Created by Boskke.

Conspiracy product

Since I pondered conspiracy-theory pscyhology here the other day, I should note this Illuminati/Bohemian Grove T-shirt evidently spotted on Macys.com by Alex Jones. Not to be paranoid, but it looks like the T is no longer available!

Coincidence??

[Thx: SW.]

Next best thing to an endorsement from Cayce Pollard?

Coolhunting notes some new products from Porter, “the famed Japanese bag maker,” that are “drawn from the William Gibson line, which is inspired by the science fiction writer of the same name.”

It wasn’t clear to me whether that means Gibson was involved, and on what level. Coolhunting says: “The shoulder bag costs $340 while the laptop bag goes for $530. The bags are exclusively available in limited numbers from Self Edge in San Francisco. The store is also planning on hosting a William Gibson party on 9 November with the man himself.”

Curious.

This led me to the Self Edge site, which has fresh news of more Gibson product.

William Gibson, always the fan of a faceless and logo-less product that exceeds all expectations; something timeless and classic that most across the world can relate to. Last week we brought you William Gibson’s Head Porter bags, and this week we’ve got his new line of Athletic Shoes.

William Gibson’s new line of athletic shoes?

Hunh.

In Self Edge’s online store, the high-tops are $168, the low-tops $158.

They do have a nice look.

I wonder if Blue Ant has a piece of this?

Current-events product: “Credit Crunch” chocolates

At Selfridges. Via The Dieline.