adapt and overcome

from the ratty to the mundane to the marginally tacky

things turned into other things. black paint seems to find its way everywhere.

garbage into something. jurassic technology preserved. stuff.


"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." - Archimedes

the worst ad EVER

I pride myself on being one of the worst graphic designers on earth, and also a poor excuse for a copywriter. So when Mollie asked me to make an image to go in an email announcement for the store opening, this is what I submitted:



Of course it got a fail for poor taste. The Yellow Ennui Face (now known as "Thompkins") is my alter ego, so he has to be socially inept and uncouth... just like me.

Mollie cleaned up the copy for normal human consumption and released it:


A true hack is never appreciated in his time.

Huzzah

on days like these...

...basement apartments are good.

Seconds after walking into our apartment, the sky turned green and the rain arrived.

All sideways, tearing big branches off the tree in the back yard, taking them god-knows where.

Someone up the hill captured it all.





A half hour later I was back at the store installing ceiling fans, cuz that's how I roll.

textures

Lazy B*stard 101

...or "Man the Toolmaker"

I set out yesterday afternoon to lay down a coat of oil on the old weathered front door of the Red Hook storefront (allegedly 150 years old and in recent years reclaimed from some other Brooklyn building, but I don't really know.)

Then I notice that a big hunk of thick veneer was hanging off of the center part just above the kick plate, 3/4ths of it had come unglued.

But I didn't want to waste a few hours pulling the heavy beast off it's jamb - 3 hinges with 10 monster screws apiece. 30 screws, big door, by myself, hell no!

So, I shaved some of the bottom of the veneer off with a utility knife because it had been waterlogged and expanded... and using a zip tie repeatedly dipped in glue to snake that glue across the back of the veneer... plus some scrap wood made into wedges and flats on the chop saw...

I used the existing kick plate mounting holes and some longer drywall screws to create a makeshift "vice" until the glue dried, tapping the wedges in to get a good, tight seal.




Ta-Daaa! Though it rained last night, this morning the glue was dry.

Time to oil The Beast.

bk day

store:



not store:

oh hell yes

the build continues.

This week's palette comes from the wondrous magical color forest of Formica.

I SO wish they bring back some of their 60s and 70s colors and patterns. You gotta love the old ultra-glossy wood grains. As fake as you can get, but so damn cool.

Not sure what's sparking my current Formica fetish. Pure nostalgia maybe. My former fetish of making finely milled pieces from big-ass slabs of exotic hardwood combined with heavy chunks of melted and ground metal... that has passed.

Formica was my Dad's medium. For four decades he built a load of things, much of them covered with Formica. I had a general disdain and rejection of the material for many years, but now I've flipped.

In my view, everything is a style choice. This is not the year 1890. Nor is it 1970. But we have available to us all these material types, fabrication techniques and styles from previous eras. Exotic and reclaimed hardwoods, high pressure laminates (Formica), all sorts of plastic and metal and newer bamboo-based components. The only limitation is our imagination.

If using certain materials makes you feel ethical and helps you sleep at night, then more power to you. Being inspired by some thought or idea, that's a good thing.

Me... I just want to play. This week's toy is Formica.

wicked awesome

stuff. things. space. What would you put in it?

My answer is: sh*t we like.

That's how Mollie described it a few months back. She said, "We should have named the store Shit We Like because that's what it's turning out to be."

Even the stuff we're putting in that is not for sale is in the "not typical" range.

a little taste of things to come...

the nameless one

My laziness and fascination with cheesy imagery is causing the soulless yellow "ennui" face to propagate further in the Ebmerc universe.

I guess it (he?) has become a mascot.



and now an old clip from Mr. Show: