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, [...]

Geisha Bobblehead

Thursday, November 12, 2009

4 Comments

[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

3 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

3 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 [...]

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 [...]

Pink Horse

Thursday, November 5, 2009

9 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Kate Bernheimer, has ended. Original price: $1. Final price: $104.50.] A long time ago, I was very poor and often traded my body for cigarettes, Chelada, or food (in order of preference). I had two children — both daughters — and together we lived in a motel [...]

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; [...]

Jar of Marbles

Monday, November 2, 2009

6 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 [...]

Cracker Barrel Ornament

Friday, October 30, 2009

6 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 [...]

Tag Archive | "v1"

Missouri Shotglass

Geisha Bobblehead

Bar Mitzvah Bookends

Lighter Shaped Like Small Pool Ball

Umbrella Trinket

Blue Vase

Rooster Oven Mitt

Pink Horse

Amoco Yo-Yo

Felt Mouse

Jar of Marbles

Cracker Barrel Ornament

S.O. v1 — the EXPERIMENT

S.O. v2 — for 826 National

S.O. v3 — for Girls Write Now

Special Epistolary Week