Courtesy of my friend Jonathan M.

Artwork by Martin Creed, installed on the Wing Sang building in Vancouver’s Chinatown. Artwork and building are owned by collector and condo marketer Bob Rennie. Photo from Kathy Stillwell. More information here.

I found this item on the consistently entertaining blog deletia. It was taken from Rolcats, a site featuring fake English translations of an Eastern Bloc version of Lolcats. Rolcats makes Lolcats look very, very amateur, which granted is not difficult. Below is the translation of the caption above, and deletia’s response:

It’s pretty hard for me to express how much I love this. The men I’ve sent to death weigh heavily on my mind; but this burden is but a fist of straw compared to the strain of the republic. I can has post-Soviet irony in meme format?

It’s pretty hard for me to express how much I love deletia. The writer identifies herself only as Prolix, and she’s from Edmonton, which probably explains her command of irony.

Stefan Boublil of the NY design company The Apartment has done a holiday shopping guide for the NYT. Stefan is great because he tends to go for items that are useful, beautiful and clearly thought out. The yellow clock above is the On-Off LCD alarm clock by Nina Tolstrup for Lexon of France. The design is neat – once the alarm is set in the “On” position you just tilt the clock to turn it off. It has the kind of un-muddled design sense Stefan likes to promote. We first heard of Stefan Boublil on the Sally TV blog, where he was shown pictures of furniture and asked to give his (droll) opinion, yay or nay. You can read the whole interview on Sallytv (warning, profanity) but here’s a taste:

Name:  Danish Empire Settee
Designer:  Who fucking knows
Year:  Circa 1800

 

Stefan: get that off! get that off!
Sally: danish empire settee! i’ve never seen anything quite like that. what a fucking train wreck.
Stefan: sometimes i don’t understand the human brain and its capacity for horror.
Sally: i love everything about that settee. if i have children this will be their time out sofa.
Stefan: looks like something a danish king should want to be buried in.
Sally: i wish the base were drawers. i would keep all my dirty secrets in them.
Stefan: not enough room.
Stefan: i’d like to see torches on each side, so that you can clearly see the virgin you’re sacrificing on the pillow.
Sally: so anyway, this one is my favorite. it’s that awful.
Sally: yay or nay?
Stefan: über-nay

For his view on the sofa below and other objects, click here: