Speaking of arty jewelry, check out this compass ring by LeeAnn Herreid.

She's a RISD grad, naturally. Wonder if she was inspired whilst hiding underwater, per the instructions on this sign I spotted in the RISD museum a few months ago.

We interrupt your usually scheduled long, new-job-induced blog silence to bring you this breaking news: Betty Pepper's gorgeous jewelry made from books [via Craftzine] is hella cool! More like art than jewelry, really, but what a great idea.

Especially when the book is used for material (as above in her Where necklace) rather than just for inspiration.

That is all.

Banksy's denial of his alleged unmasking by the Daily Mail is pretty clever.

But if I was Banksy (and, PS, I'm totally not!) I would definitely be claiming the unmasking as a planted piece of performance art making a Barthian commentary on the keen interest in my "true" identity. The plaque next to the gallery exhibition would say: "Planted Unmasking, irony and photograph on news media."

This explanation would work even better if the Mail really nailed him than if it didn't, as I twittered today to my friend @metaeuphoria. Dontcha think?

A few months ago I came across a copy of Sins of New York on the outdoor bargain table of Argosy Books. Sins of New York is an amazing compilation of stories and illustrations from The National Police Gazette, a 19th-century tabloid which, according to wikipedia, "was well known for its engravings and photographs of scantily clad strippers, burlesque dancers, and prostitutes, often skirting on the edge of what was legally considered obscenity."

Edward Van Every compiled stories from the Police Gazette for Sins of New York in 1930, by which time its popularity had substantially waned, intending to select, according to his foreword, "the Gazette's worst features" and to "confin[e himself] to the sins that went on in New York." Van Every did follow up with a collection of non-New York Gazette stories called, appropriately, Sins of America, images from which have been dutifully scanned by The Nonist.

So, here are a few of the choice engraving reproductions from Sins of New York. Pretty hard to believe this passed for salacious in New York City not so long ago, eh?

How She Cured Him
A young wife astonishes her erratic husband by emulating his example, and causes him to promptly abandon the vagabond habits of his bachelor days.

Check out the expression on the husband's face! Also worth noting is that the wife is reading the Police Gazette!

The Female Rights' Musketeers
What may be expected if the schemes of certain strong-minded women in America are realized.

This dystopian image pretty much speaks for itself.

Beauty and the Beer
An incident of the beer-maker's strike in New York—How the dashing daughter of a brewer supplied the place of one of her father's striking employees—A pretty girl's practical protest against teetotalism.

I'm not sure this was so much a protest against teetotalism as a rich chick ensuring her wealthy family would have enough dough to keep up their lifestyle despite labor movements, but at any rate "Pretty Girl's Practical Protest" is definitely a phrase I'm going to be keeping on hand for later use.

Would-Be Voters
A bevy of strong-minded Amazons make a sensation at a New York uptown polling place.

Fantastic!

Cupid in Tompkins Square Park
A place which cupid has made his favorite stamping ground, and where the stern paterfamilias is wont to appear.

Gotta love the detail of the upper right corner:

Sign: "Keep Off the Grass" Editorial: But they don't!

She Grabbed the Reins
The sensation produced on a Broadway car by an impatient young lady passenger.

And who hasn't wanted to do that during their morning commute??

If you can't get enough, policegazette.us attempts to recreate the effect of the original Gazette with today's news—although, to tell you the truth, I think we all know Drudge comes a lot closer to the intended effect.

[where: 116 E 59th St, New York, NY 10022]

Wow, there are way more barcode fans out there than previously imagined!

As a follow-up to barcode arts & crafts, here are some of the interesting links I received in response:

Roger from the QR code-obsessed London-based site 2d code sent me this hilarious video from The Voice of the Street explaining how their project, which gives street artists QR codes, is supposed to work. Get a load of the voiceover.

And Jerry of Bar Code Nerds (tagline: "Yep. Not only do we admit it, we're damn proud of it.") sent me a link to his massive online collection of old-school barcode graffiti and art, including this awesome picture of a print (I think?) called spaceball by someone named AlmaZ.

spaceball by AlmaZ

Closet barcode lovers, take heart. Kindred spirits abound on the WWWs.

So two weeks ago when we were all having a chuckle at Google ad sales people's surprising faith in the future of scannable barcodes for tracking print ads, I wanted to post a few notable barcode arts & craft projects. As I commented on Sean's post, geeky artists and are way more likely to increase the virtually nonexistant adoption of barcode cameraphone scanning in the U.S. than…uh…advertising—and it's still a long shot.

But then I got extremely distracted by the primaries, so I never posted it. Well, now that Super Tuesday is over and our hopemonger (best new word ever) is finally ahead in the delegate count of everyone except The NYT (which seems to be refusing to count even one more delegate until Hillary starts wining), voilà!

QR code needlepoint

This awesome needlepoint QR code by tikaro apparently uses semapedia to point to the wikipedia article on pillows [via craft].

QR code cake

Flickr user Magitisa must have an incredible amount of patience, because she stenciled a QR code onto a cake [also via craft].

every barcode

In case you forgot what barcodes used to look like, there's the non-cameraphone-compatible Every Barcode animation by the barcode-obsessed Scott Blake of Barcode Art. He's got plenty of other barcode goodness, but Every Barcode is definitely the best—how can you beat a flash animation that cycles through all 10,000,000,000,000 possible barcodes (if you let it run for ten years, that is)?

space invaders scarf

This extremely geeky scarf, made by a strange collaboration between British knitwear designers Office Lendorff and "mobile enthusiasts" (although it's not really clear what they do when not encouraging knitwear enthusiasts to knit QR codes onto scarves) Kaywa features a secret QR code knitted below a pixelated Space Invaders pattern. According to one purchaser, the code reads "insert coin for new life."

eRuv: A Street History in Semacode

And, of course you all remember the previously kenspeckle eRuv project, in which Elliott Malkin bravely plastered the Lower East Side with semacode posters that pointed to old photographs of the former Third Avenue El.

"memory box"

I'm not totally convinced by the idea of universal serial bus as a metaphor for non-computer-related connectivity, but I really wish someone would make working flash drives based on these conceptual pieces [via ffffound] by dialog05.

"eternal love" ("it's all about give and take — synchronize!")

Except I'm not sure what the "female" piece of the ring set above would be. Obviously it should be a reader, but where does it output the data?

"data injection" ("not only for data junkies, also in the event of a virus. or simply for your daily data rations!")

From the statement on dialog05's site:

USB, an abbreviation for a technical user interface, is nowadays often used as a synonym for a universal connection. originally only used by computer experts and nerds, this so-called former high-tech standard has developed into an every-day item and low-tech symbol for such universal connections.

this is an example of technology being clearly understood and accepted by the general public. something democratic evolves and develops and therefore often even receives a totally different usage than was originally intended. given the current, often exotic use of USB, it would even be argued that there is a 'USB subculture'!

"french connection" ("unplug and play!")

Tellingly, the metaphor works best in reverse, with "french connection," the bra with USB closure pictured above. But they definitely should've thrown in some sort of joke about hot swapping.