Significant Objects

Missouri Shotglass

Friday, November 13, 2009

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Jonathan Lethem, has ended. Original price: $1. Final price: $76.] Listen, friend, forget about the bartender, you could wait all day in this dive, we might as well be invisible over here, I kid you not. Here, let me pour you a drink. No, really, I insist, [...]

Rooster Oven Mitt

Friday, November 6, 2009

1 Comment

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Victor LaValle, has ended. Original price: $1. Final price: $51.99.] Who the hell goes to Portugal? In my family? The question arose as my sister and I were going through my grandmother’s things—her effects. She’d died of old age at Queens General Hospital and she’d been longing for [...]

Jar of Marbles

Monday, November 2, 2009

5 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Ben Ehrenreich, has ended. Original price: $1. Final price: $50.] I pull a marble from your skull each time we kiss. “Give it back,” you say, each time. “Darling,” I say. “Baby,” I say. “No.” I put the marble in my pocket. Later, I will hide it with the [...]

Windsurfing Trophy/Statue

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

2 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Naomi Novik, has ended. Original price: $3. Final price: $31. ] Found at the base of a street lamp near Madison Square Park, beneath a rain-bleached photocopy with a picture of the same object, in black and white halftones but recognizable. Beneath the picture it said IF [...]

Wave Box

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

3 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Teddy Wayne, has ended. Original price: 50 cents. Final price: $20.50.] 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 [...]

Sea Captain Pipe Rest

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

3 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Michael Atkinson, has ended. Original price: 34 cents. Final price: $21.50. ] … 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 [...]

“Hawk” Ashtray

Friday, October 2, 2009

12 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by William Gibson, has ended. Original price: $2.99. Final price: $101.00] 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 [...]

Maine Statutes Dish

Monday, September 28, 2009

5 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Ben Katchor, has ended. Original price: 50 cents. Final price: $42.] This beautiful, but slightly worn, example of early 20th century porcelain “bookware” was manufactured and distributed free-of-charge along with newly printed copies of the “Maine Revised Statutes Annotated” — a dreary compendium of state laws. This example, [...]

Motel Room Key

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

4 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Laura Lippman, has ended. Original price: $2. Final price: $45.01.] Her husband saved everything. He had a box, for example, of cigarette lighters, useless plugs taken from every car he had ever owned. He saved ticket stubs and playbills. He had three hand-knit sweaters from an elderly [...]

Military Figure

Friday, September 18, 2009

2 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by David Shields, has ended. Original price: 33 cents. Final price: $21.50.] The Mute World War II Airman ROYAL AIR FORCE (RAF) MEDICAL CHIEF All war pilots will inevitably break down in time if not relieved. BEN SHEPHARD In the Battle of Britain, a stage was reached when it became [...]

Hand-Held Bubble Blower

Thursday, September 17, 2009

5 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Myla Goldberg, has closed. Original price: 50 cents. Final price: $36. ] This is not a toy. Only the young or the hopelessly commonsensical dip it into liquid soap, content with bubbles. Curl your fingers around the handle, lift it to your mouth, and flick the switch. [...]

Seahorse Lighter

Thursday, September 10, 2009

6 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Aimee Bender, has ended. Original price: $1. Final price: $36.] When I was twelve, many decades ago, I was at a beachfront store in San Diego, one of those towns that smells like kelp and where all the men and women have hair so light they [...]

Tag Archive | "Exposition – Classification"

Missouri Shotglass

Rooster Oven Mitt

Jar of Marbles

Windsurfing Trophy/Statue

Wave Box

Sea Captain Pipe Rest

“Hawk” Ashtray

Maine Statutes Dish

Motel Room Key

Military Figure

Hand-Held Bubble Blower

Seahorse Lighter

S.O. v1 — the EXPERIMENT

S.O. v2 — for 826 National

S.O. v3 — for Girls Write Now

Special Epistolary Week