Random Thursday: Recycled, Repurposed, and Reused Randomness

Random Thursday (ˈrandəm ˈTHərzdā): the day on which Sarah plunks down all the odd bits and pieces she’s been sent by friends or has otherwise stumbled upon this week in an effort to avoid writing a real post, the assembly of which usually ends up taking twice as much time as sitting down and creating actual content.

In belated honor of Earth Day, which probably shouldn’t be a random thing.

I’d apologize for all the puns, but y’all know I’d be lying.

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Delftly Done

The Architectural Library of the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands
suffered a terrible fire a while ago.

The university rebuilt the library and replaced all the books.

This is what they did with the old ones:

How cool is that?

(Thanks, Watson . . . or Dee . . . Or caitlin?)

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Not Eggsactly Recycling . . .

or  repurposing, either, since eggs are supposed to make chickens.

But it is a revolutionary method for getting MORE chicken out of one’s eggs.

(Thanks, Patricia!)

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Encyclopedic Art

Brian Dettmer is an artist
whose art is books
and whose books are art.

This one is made of a set of the New Books of Knowledge.

Go look at his other stuff.

Right now.

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Musical Vegetarianism

Jane saw this and told me she wants to learn how to make spinach whistles.

It’s the first time she’s volunteered to get “that weird green stuff” that close to her digestive system.

 I’ve shown this before, so it’s a recycled video about repurposing.

Because I’m just that lazy good.

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Bitten by the Chapell Bug(s)

Julie Alice Chappell makes beautiful insects out of recycled electronics.

This one was made from bits of old gaming console.

Ms. Chapell has an Etsy shop,
DewLeaf,
which I visited in hopes of finding the above
(or one of his siblings)
for Janie,
who was bitten by the Nintendo bug years ago.

Unfortunately, at the posting of this,
it looks like she’s sold out of all her stock.

I’m disappointed, but not surprised—
look at the stunning detail!

(Thanks, liligriff!)

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Prelude for Boomwhackers

Part Bach, part Bojutsu, part rainbow.

All good.

 

(My husband found this—you’re right, it’s randomly perfect.)

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Something Cool: Pushpin Pointillism

Remember playing with pushpins and making little daisies and happy faces and rainbows or whatever?

Fifteen-thousand pushpins, a corkboard, a special frame to hold 40 pounds of plastic and metal, and Seurat’s blessing.

Cool.

Random Thursday: Random Surprises

From the “Rendered Sarah Speechless For More Than The Record .025 Seconds” collection:

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What’s in a Name?

This is a Bramble Boot, and I can’t think of a better name for it.

According to the Bata Shoe Museum, which I’m planning on storming if I ever get within fifty miles of Toronto, this beautiful work of art isn’t actually made of wood—Garry Greenwood of Tasmania* wet-formed and laminated and burnished leather—and quite possibly used elf magic as well—to make something that I’m longing to wear just once for five minutes, even though I wouldn’t be able to walk for  two weeks afterward.

Thanks to Cha-Cha for the squee and the new Time Suck.

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Trust Me

I’m going to ask you to follow these directions—read them all first, or you won’t be able to see the second one.

1. Without looking too closely at the screen, position your mouse on the play button, close your eyes and click.
2. Listen to one full chorus, then open your eyes.
3. Record your reaction in the comments.

Okay?

Go.

Yeah. Me, too.

This is Mr. David McIntosh, who vocally reminds me a lot of Howard Keel and visually reminds me of both Rick Astley and Puck from the second season of MTV’s Real World, but with better taste in clothes.

And he’s singing for Yale, which makes him a Whiffenpoof,** and means that this young man not only has some pipes on him, but also a brain.  I refuse to Googlestalk him, but I’m sure wherever he is, he’s doing really, really well.

While you’re listening to it again—and you know you will—don’t forget the third instruction!

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Nerdgasm

Not only was the talented, versatile, and very not bad-looking Benedict Cumberbatch, whose name is not unknown here,  given two uncredited cameos in two different clips during the Oscars*** Sunday, but in my inbox today was the new Tor.com newsletter, which features photos of him on the set of the new Star Trek movie, in which he plays a yet-unidentified villain.

There was a video, too, but it was removed before I could watch it, much less post it.  C’est la Dangit.

Click for Tor’s discussion of who Mr. Cumberbatch might be playing, if you care.  I do.

I was also sent a link (thanks, Kev!) to the new, extended trailer for the first part of The Hobbit, starring the talented, versatile, and slightly more huggable Martin Freeman and—speaking of lovely voices–a couple of pin-up dwarves:

It doesn’t get much geekier than this, my friends.  And even though these jobs are keeping Mr. Cumberbatch and Mr. Freeman from working on the third season of Sherlock—which is an almost unpardonable offense, even though Stephen Moffat isn’t quite done with the script for the first ep, yet—I’m so there for these two flicks that I’d like to camp out in front of the theaters right now.

‘Sides, I could catch the Avengers movie while I’m waiting . . .

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*Who has the perfect name for someone who creates footwear for Tatania.

**Not—I repeat, not—a Spizzwink. Good mercy.

***Brownie points will be awarded if you can tell me which movies and double for which awards the clips were shown.

Astounding Layers

I was going to do a post about how my favorite writers always seem to build their characters and plots layer by layer—sometimes over many books—so that even the most opaque person can be defined by his or her silences and the most seemingly-straightforward story turns out to be amazingly involved, and then I’d try to work out if this is easy and instinctive or painstakingly difficult or both and why . . . and then I was going to hit you with the best and most beautiful visual analogy of this process I’ve ever seen.

But I think I’ll just step aside and skip straight to the visual:

How’s that for an analogy?

Something amazing (dot dot dot)

Sorry for the extremely late post—I had a five-hour lunch with a friend, then went to my department’s annual holiday dinner which lasted well past our respective children’s bedtimes.

Sometimes, good things take time.

Kind of like this:

Hero from Miguel Endara on Vimeo.