My husband and I lived deep in the middle of NYC’s Chinatown for a little over 15 years. It was an astonishingly rich visual and cultural experience. And a long one at that. My husband (we’ll call him “C.”) used to say that not a single day would go by when he didn’t see something he had never seen before. He was right. Of course. I found these hats in various shops in our old neighborhood. Not being much of a hat wearer, I’ve long since given them away. But I couldn’t help photographing their structures and patterns. Each unique.

Odd instructional accordion brochure found a long time ago, and then forgotten for even longer.

This is one of the quirkier things I’ve seen lately. An exploded diagram view, when executed well, can’t be beat. This comes via the always fabulous ThingsOrganizedNeatly via Mike Mitchell’s Tumblr of Amazing Things.

In their search to figure out who the hell we are and what we want out of life, neuroscientists Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam trawled through 15,000 Harlequin Romance novels. The resulting list of top ten professions, for the heroes who get star billing, certainly says a lot about us. Prince? Really? Their new book is called A Billion Wicked Thoughts. They write about this and other topics in their blog. Thanks Sue, best librarian in the world, for the original link to Galleycat!

Neville Trickett is a breed apart. He seemingly does everything. And he does it with extraordinary ability. He’s a painter, collector, gardener, retail genius and all-around master of the visual world. Trickett says these paintings are his attempt to see again. He finds the images on the internet and then gives himself 15 minutes to paint each one. The gesture of these small studies manages to capture everything and more about the things themselves. See more of his paintings here. And do take a look at his photostream if you want to peer into his vast cabinet of curiosities.