It’s a little thing, I know. But it’s near to perfect. This soy sauce dispenser was designed by Masahiro Mori back in 1958. It’s won untold numbers of awards, is still in production and nearly ubiquitous. If you’ve ever used one of these pieces you would have noticed that there is nary a drip from the spout. The lines are elegant and the piece itself fits the hand with no distraction. To me, it’s a kind of benchmark for the design world. I’d like it if the realm of mass production accorded the same amount of respect commanded by this little soy sauce bottle (shoyusashi) to the rest of its mighty output. Imagine. To purchase one for yourself, click here.

So, we can probably agree on the fact that Kim Jong Il was bad news for North Korea and pretty much the rest of the world. And I doubt that I need to go into a litany of reasons why. All that aside, I still keep this water bottle under protective custody. In a moment of inspiration, Elizabeth Beer and Brian Janusiak (of Project No. 8 / Various Projects) made these years ago and gave me one as a gift. Don’t even ask if you can have it.

I love this little image. It’s a cigarette card (1.375″ x 2.675″) which I bought a couple of years ago while in San Francisco. Almost nightly when I was little, my mother used to read us The Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. One of my favorites was about how the Armadillo came to be. According to Kipling, these odd little creatures were formed out of an alliance between a turtle and a hedgehog. Click here if you would like to see the entire NYPL collection of Animalloy cigarette cards.

This is a repost from the earlier days of this blog. These fantastic Japanese clips are from one of the first curated shows/shops at Kiosk…one of my favorite all-time shops in NYC. I have a set to look at and a set to use. And use them I do!

Something about this cup inspires simplicity and austerity, of the best sort. Imagine living in a one room house in the middle of the woods, with this as your one drinking vessel.