Art history in under three minutes --cool!

Check this out. Someone posted this on Twitter this week and I've been watching it ever since. For the life of me I'm not exactly sure who posted it though. I think it was @leonagaita or @verdigrisvie though. If it were someone else I apologize and ladies, if either of you were the original poster, thank you.

I haven't gone off on an Art History tear in a couple of weeks and this video will do it for me. This thing's a brilliant, animated survey of the last 500 years of western portraiture. I love, love, love how this video's producer got to the 19th century and kept going up to the present. Far too often, people gloss over the last 100 years because they don't quite know what to do with it. That's unfortunate because even though it may not be immediately obvious, all art rests on the shoulders of the art that came before. This video drives home that point brilliantly and it does it in less than three minutes. Bravo!

If you're having trouble with this, follow this link. This video came from the great website GUBA, and it was posted by someone who goes by the name jun129. Thank you jun129.

Stay cool, don't be a fool

Back in February, I wrote about a farcical, "Amish" space heater. Well, the hucksters behind the Amish Space Heater have a companion product for summer.

I saw an ad for this thing in the New York Post (what? I think the Post's headlines are amusing) and the ad copy looked familiar. Just as is claimed about the Amish space heater, the summer product is purported to be "a work of engineering genius from the China coast." Considering the long list of products coming down the tracks on the China poison train, how on earth is such a claim a selling point? Engineering genius? Hardly. It looks to me like a work of marketing genius from some one's garage in Nutley, NJ. I haven't run an image of it or identified it by name because I just read their trademark statement on their website. Let's say it's had a chilling effect on my ability to mock it properly.

Never fear though, our pals at Consumer Reports tested it, found it completely ineffective, and then made a video about it.

Needless to say, it earned a Consumer Reports' Do Not Buy assignation.

This thing isn't being marketed in Florida from what I can tell. But I'm unsure about other parts of the country. The website makes a big mention of the fact that this product is only available in the US. So I have to ask my Canadian pals, is this thing showing up north of the 49th parallel?

Three more days...

Here's what Michael Graves can do to a school.

Thanks to the generosity of All Modern, here's what he can do for your home.

Go back to my Monday column and leave a comment. On Sunday I'll pick a random commenter who will then get this Michael Graves for Alessi kettle from the great folks at All Modern.

Jewel glass mosaics from New Ravenna

New Ravenna Mosaics, whom you may remember from a post a couple of weeks ago, launched a new line of glass mosaics at Coverings in Chicago this year.

Under the guidance of the Mosaic Muse herself, Sara Baldwin, New Ravenna is taking glass tile into places and expressions where its never been before.

I get it that I have a tendency to gush and I've never met a mosaic I didn't love. Well, almost. But these patterns are really something else.

Nobody is pushing the envelope with glass mosaics like this, and I mean nobody.

These designs are thoroughly, classically inspired but at the same time, they are unapologetically new. If you took the decorative mastery of Rome and Byzantium, then ran it through the studios of Louis Comfort Tiffany, and then finally passed it though the box grater of the 21st century you might come up with something close to this. It's gorgeous, all of it.

You can read more about these materials and patterns on Sara Baldwin's blog, and you can see the entire New Ravenna collection on the New Ravenna website.

If indeed there's a heaven, I think its streets would be paved with the likes of this.

Hurry up and register! There's only four days left!

Glorious, Michael Graves for Alessi kettle:

The joys and wonders of All Modern.

You.

Go back to my Monday column and register for my drawing to make all your Postmodern dreams come true. Already registered? Leave another comment and double your chances!