Rob Walker's Blog, page 52

Indian Maiden

Object No. 78 of 100

[Bid on this Significant Object, with story by R.K. Scher, here.]

Visitors never fail to ask about my squaw. It's what I like to call her, although one of those visitors, an earnest young art critic, did try to impress upon me the incorrectness of the term. Small as she is in stature, the squaw demands attention. Hers are the only colors in my entire studio. I'm a Minimalist, after all… or as my art dealer has it, a Neo-Minimalist.

I used to enjoy telling the story of how I ...

The Significant Objects Story Contest — in partnership with Slate!

Go ahead -- make it Significant.

You requested an opportunity to write a story for SignificantObjects.com, so here it is: the Significant Objects Story Contest! Submit a 500-word story featuring the object pictured above (a barbecue sauce jar) by next Friday (Oct. 16) at 5 p.m., and you may be the lucky winner!

We're excited to announce that our partner in this venture is Slate.com. All stories must be submitted to Slate (details below). A panel of judges consisting of Slate editors and...

Clown Figurine

Object No. 77 of 100

[Bid on this Significant Object, with story by Nick Asbury, here. ]

Kenny is a funny clown

Kenny is a funny clown.

He sees the whole world upside-down.

Kenny is my best friend.

The day before Kenny was born, he said

"I bet I can live life standing on me 'ead!"

Kenny is from the North of England.

Kenny sometimes says to me:

"I am the King of Comedy!

Just don't ask me to do stand-up!"

It's funnier when Kenny says it.

Kenny's favourite food
is upside-down cake.
Except he calls it...

Toothbrush Holder

Object No. 76 of 100

[Bid on this Significant Object, with story by Terese Svoboda, here.]

You are fitting it in between the toilet paper and the shaver accessories, on top of the wart remover and the nose hair clippers. You say, tentacles for moon-people — this is where they store them.

Prehensile is prejudice, I say. But I'm not really agreeing.

Or a vehicle for invasion unwarned by Welles? you say. They're everywhere and they're transmitting.

Maybe, I say. Or maybe it's for votives. The...

Wave Box

Object No. 75 of 100

[Bid on this Significant Object, with story by Teddy Wayne, here.]

At the Ramada Hotel and Conference Center Qualcomm Stadium San Diego, on a June weekend in 2007, eighty-two men and women from Sealy, the mattress giant, converged for their national sales meeting.  Sealy was falling behind in the burgeoning memory-mattress market and its finances were, in industry parlance, "sagging."  One right rectangular prism made of Lucite with a "Catch the Wave" decal, half-filled...

Sea Captain Pipe Rest

Object No. 74 of 100

[Bid on this Significant Object, with story by Michael Atkinson, here. ]

… Somebody's grandfather's pipe stand, back when men smoked pipes that they cared to buy handcrafted out of specific hardwoods, made by Europeans, maybe old  artisans they found in narrow-street shops while away at war as young men, all grandfathers now or actually grandfathers years back, they're all dead now of course, but the pipes weren't made in a factory but at a bench, carved and sanded, out of...

Weekly Project Update + Countdown to Contest Announcement

S.O. contributor Colson Whitehead met not one but two bidders on his Mallet + Story at a DC area book fair. The winner got 'em signed. Pretty cool! (Thx: T.R.!)

Aggregate cost of objects, sold so far: $90.97

Aggregate sales, post-Significance: $2,141.62

Coming up this week: I'm already a day late with this Weekly Update, so I'll skip the other formalities and say that this Friday there should be a Big Announcement about the story contest we mentioned earlier. That's right! You'll have a...

Mr. Pickwick Coat Hook

Object No. 73 of 100

[Bid on this Significant Object, with story by Christopher Sorrentino, here.]

My parka (Coat, Cold Weather, Men's, Field, OG-107) hangs from a hook whose shape is in the likeness of Pickwick, of Dickens' classic and eponymous book. The hook is mounted on the back of my door. Above the olive-drab parka, I can see Pickwick gesturing expansively. This is kind of a funny coincidence because just earlier today I was standing outside the home of Stanfield Mooney, in my...

"Hawk" Ashtray

Object No. 72 of 100

[Bid on this Significant Object, with story by William Gibson, here.]

In 1969 my friend's dad was a Pentagon technocrat. My friend said that when his dad came home with a new tie-tack, it meant there was a new weapon in the works. Not that there would be a new weapon, but that there was now a coterie of guys in the building who though the idea was cool enough that they'd wear the tie-tack. It started with the tie-tack. If you couldn't get the über-geeks to wear your...

$2,000+ and a note about the Duck Vase

Forgot to mention that we passed $2,000 in sales with the auction of the Cigarette Case + Margot Livesey story. That went for $33.77, putting our grand total at the end of Tuesday at $2,023.96 (for 64 items we purchased for $84.48; that's a 2295% Significance Premium). Once again: Thank You to our writers, and our buyers.

And as long as I'm here, the following inquiry came in to the Significant Objects eBay account.

Hello,

I am writing in response to your duck vase posting.I have a question...