Significant Objects

Ornamental sphere

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Charles Ardai, has ended. Original price: $1. Final price: $20.50. ] The telegram arrived too late. The morning mail had brought the box, wrapped in a double thickness of brown paper and covered with fibrous packing tape I’d had to dig out the heavy Wüsthof cook’s knife [...]

Ocean Scene Globe

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

3 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Stephanie Reents, has ended. Original price: 50 cents. Final price: $33.00. ] 1. The transparency of glass is cruel. 2. When the beige palm of the sky descends, there is no warning, no chicken calling, “The sky is falling. The sky is falling.” 3. A sphere has no beginning or end, and [...]

Choirboy Figurine

Monday, September 21, 2009

1 Comment

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by J. Robert Lennon, has ended. Original price: $1.99. Final price: $21.50.] The day after the day I turned seventeen, three weeks after the recital in which I received the award for distinguished effort in solo violin performance, five months after my older brother was arrested for dealing [...]

Uncola Glass

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

11 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Jen Collins, has ended. Original price: $2. Final price: $20.50.] For my 9th birthday, I begged my mother to take me to the iron-on decal store at the Meadow Glen Mall. I had seen some older boy wearing a sweatshirt with a glittery rip-off of the Superman [...]

Seahorse Lighter

Thursday, September 10, 2009

4 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 [...]

Cat Mug

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

3 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Thomas McNeely, has ended. Original price: $1. Final price: $17.] As a mug, it was useless: pot-bellied, so whatever we drank, herbal tea, cheap whiskey, cheap red wine, dribbled down our chins, as if we were children; the pouch behind the cat’s head, a promise of tidy [...]

Kentucky Dish

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

2 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Dean Haspiel, has ended. Original price: $2. Final price: $6.75.] Kentucky reminds me of my first and, probably, only encounter with a friend whom aliens had, supposedly, abducted. In the late 1980s, I co-created and drew a comic book mini-series with a writer who lived in Kentucky. [...]

Penguin Creamer

Thursday, September 3, 2009

10 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Sari Wilson, has ended. Original price: $3. Final price: $31.] It’s incongruous. The buttery finish, the fluted spout, the air hole in the back of its head offering a peek into its ceramic innards, a glimpse of the thick cream that no one is supposed to have [...]

Ziggy Heart

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

6 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Todd Levin, has ended. Original price: $2. Final price: $50.] Have you ever hated someone solely for her dumb benevolence? For bland and witless good cheer? It’s the lowest of unfair acts, I know, but as soon as a smile crosses Mary Eileen’s lips, my jaw tightens [...]

Bird Figurine

Monday, August 31, 2009

5 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Sung J. Woo, has ended. Original price: 50 cents. Final price: $52.] Last summer, my wife and I held a barbeque in our back yard. After the event, I saw a little yellow bird with a black crown and wings on the knickknack shelf above the toilet [...]

Grain Thing

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

2 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Joanne McNeil, has ended. Original price: $1. Final price: $20.50.] Among the many misconceptions that prevail about my great-grandfather, Hartford Townes Hastings, the most infuriating is the idea that he was a disinterested playboy benefactor, squandering the family fortune on “women and dreams,” as the New York [...]

Porcelain Scooter

Thursday, August 20, 2009

0 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with song (MP3, and lyrics, below), by Teddy Blanks, has ended. Original price: $1. Final price: $2.38. This was part of a special collaboration with Design Observer, where it was co-published here.] CLICK BUTTON to listen to “Figurines” by Teddy Blanks. Please wait while the audio loads. // < ![CDATA[ [...]

Tag Archive | "First-Person Narrator"

Ornamental sphere

Ocean Scene Globe

Choirboy Figurine

Uncola Glass

Seahorse Lighter

Cat Mug

Kentucky Dish

Penguin Creamer

Ziggy Heart

Bird Figurine

Grain Thing

Porcelain Scooter

S.O. v1 — the EXPERIMENT

S.O. v2 — for 826 National

S.O. v3 — for Girls Write Now

Special Epistolary Week