Significant Objects

Geisha Bobblehead

Thursday, November 12, 2009

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Edward Champion, has ended. Original price: $1.50. Final price: $56.] The resilient ruffians ran away with the geisha’s canes just after she refused to perform a classless act. While it was true that the geisha dramatized the occasional lowbrow feat, befitting an object of her status, even [...]

Bar Mitzvah Bookends

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

2 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Stacey Levine, has ended. Original price: $4. Final price: $10.50.] I’m not a collector, but really a purloiner, and there’s only a brief backstory to these novelties. When my second wife died, I sought companionship. So I installed a soda machine in my bedroom — it would be [...]

Lighter Shaped Like Small Pool Ball

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

4 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by (Six-Word Story Contest winner) Rob Agredo, has ended. Original price: $1. Final price: $27.] “You lose,” she puffed.

Umbrella Trinket

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

0 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Bruce Holland Rogers, has ended. Original price: 29 cents. Final price: $21.50.] By my third visit to Dr. Peragua, I had decided on what I was going to steal. There were lots of candidates. His office is full of keepsakes from his travels to meet shamans, whom [...]

Blue Vase

Monday, November 9, 2009

2 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Lauren Mechling, has ended. Original price: $2. Final price: $30.] It was during Charlotte Sanger and Georgia Howard’s punk period — which actually had nothing to do with music and everything to do with mustard nailpolish and slinking away from Pine Ridge High School ’s mandatory double-period orchestra — that Charlotte spotted her mother in the front [...]

Amoco Yo-Yo

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

3 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Mark Sarvas, has ended. Original price: 25 cents. Final price: $41.] When I was seventeen, I was expelled from high school. My father, reasonably enough, gave me a choice: Get a job or get out. The only job for a 30-mile radius was the night shift behind [...]

Felt Mouse

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

0 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Meghan O'Rourke, has ended. Original price: 50 cents. Final price: $62. ] After my mother died, a stranger emailed me. He told me that my mother had been the most important person in his life. They went to Catholic school together. He was unpopular, she was popular; [...]

Cracker Barrel Ornament

Friday, October 30, 2009

5 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Maud Newton, has ended. Original price: 59 cents. Final price: $24.50.] This astonishing “Cracker Barrel” artifact appears to be a souvenir of modern vintage, representing a down-home North American restaurant-and-country-store chain that upholds Christian values by refusing to hire gay people. In fact, the object dates to [...]

Swiss Medal

Thursday, October 29, 2009

2 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Kathryn Borel Jr., has ended. Original price: 50 cents. Final price: $16.] Marc’s room smelled like half-open tins of chewing tobacco. He liked Skoal butternut, and I loved it too. Not to chew — I was only seven — but I loved the way its manky smell [...]

BBQ Sauce Jar

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

7 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by (Slate contest winner) Matthew J. Wells, has ended. Original price: 75 cents. Final price: $54.] Booth 106 was the regular table of Evelyn Nesbit — it’s where she was introduced to Charles Dana Gibson, who used her as the model for his famous Gibson Girl drawings; it’s [...]

Wooden Animal

Monday, October 26, 2009

15 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Meg Cabot, has ended. Original price: 75 cents. Final price: $108.50.] So Brandon was going to Cabo for spring break and I saved up all my tip money for a year to chip in for the rental car to go with him. But then at my last cleaning [...]

Alien Toy

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

1 Comment

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Nomi Kane, here. Original price: 49 cents. Final price: $37. This story is the second in a three-part series produced in collaboration with The Center for Cartoon Studies. ]

Tag Archive | "Exposition – Sequence"

Geisha Bobblehead

Bar Mitzvah Bookends

Lighter Shaped Like Small Pool Ball

Umbrella Trinket

Blue Vase

Amoco Yo-Yo

Felt Mouse

Cracker Barrel Ornament

Swiss Medal

BBQ Sauce Jar

Wooden Animal

Alien Toy

* S.O. v3 — for Girls Write Now

S.O. v1 — the EXPERIMENT

S.O. v2 — for 826 National