Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

May the luck of the Irish be with you today…

And may your leprechaun trap trap a leprechaun!

Plane crazy

American artist Harry Everett Smith is mostly known for his experimental film making in the 1940s. But he also composed music and painted. From 1961 to 1983, he picked up every paper airplane he found on the streets of Manhattan. The survivors of his dedicated collection have been photographed by Jason Fulford and published in Paper Airplanes: The Collections of Harry Smith, Catalogue Raisonné, Volume I.

Harry found this colorful plane on October 29, 1980 at Broadway and East 23rd Street.

He found this slim flyer March 17, 1979 at West 28th Street, between Fifth Avenue and Broadway.

This newspaper plane was picked up on January 20, 1968 at Fifth Avenue between West 34th Street and West 35th Street.

And where did Harry find this polka-dotted beauty? You’ll have to buy the book to find out!

I think I’ll make an eye-catching paper plane and leave it on the street for some present-day soulmate of Harry to find and pick up. Maybe you should, too!

For more on Harry Everett Smith and his paper planes, visit hyperallergic.com and junk-culture.com.

(All photos © Jason Fulford)

Gingerbready for action, Captain!

Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise could only dream of a command this sweet, this spicy, this crunchy and delicious.

Blackmarket Bakery in Costa Mesa, CA not only dreamed of a gingerbread Enterprise, they made it a reality for a shop display, complete with icing lights and a candy-cane tractor beam.

Ever since the U.S.S. Enterprise crash-landed in an especially gripping Star Trek: Generations episode, fans have realized it’s not easy keeping such a vast vessel space-borne. Reddit user ejustice has used the creative power of gingerbread to picture a similar calamity in baked-good 3D. I like to think this is just the Enterprise heading into the clouds to evade cookie-craving Klingons!

Outsider art

Scottish sculptor Andy Goldsworthy heads into nature to create works of art by arranging leaves, sticks, rocks, and ice into dazzling patterns.

His art is transient. Wind can blow it away. Movement can scatter it. Heat can melt it. But for a short, precious time it brings beauty, order, and innovation to the wilderness.

“When I make something, it may vanish, but it’s part of the history of those places,” he says.

See more of Andy Goldsworthy’s amazing art here. And check out his books. They would make wonderful holiday presents!

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkins, this is not your year. You’ve had a good run, but Halloween 2016 belongs to PINEAPPLE JACK-O’-LANTERNS.

Here’s how to make your own pineapple porch fright. It’s easy!

What—? DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT THIS YEAR, BELL PEPPERS. Try again next October.

Howl O’ween

It’s not so easy to come up with the perfect Halloween costume. These dogs have put a lot of thought into it and come up with something to bark about.

Here’s a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Donatello, to be exact, the team inventor. This crafty canine definitely exhibits Donatello’s special genius for cobbling together something special from stuff he’s scrounged from the trash heap.

The Dynamic Duo lives again in doggy form! Batman and Robin are ready to save the day. And fetch.

This greyhound doesn’t need to chase the bus. He IS the bus. MIND BLOWN.

And, in the not-so-subtle-hints department, these fast-food impersonators are practically shouting “Fill the dog bowl, silly human!”

Taking it to the next level

Artist Telmo Pieper takes flat, tw0-dimensional drawings by kids and renders them into visual marvels you would swear were three-dimensional.

Artist Wendy Tsao takes two-dimensional drawings by kids and turns them into actual three-dimensional toys. In fact, you can commission her to make a soft, huggable version of any drawing you send her!

Obviously Telmo and Wendy have discovered the secret of what it takes to turn imagination into reality. It’s just a little extra imagination!

Crop critters

Fruit and veggies play an important part in everyone’s diet. But they’re usually simply sliced up and stuck on a plate. How boring! This is where food artists get creative. How much funner is it to eat a banana that looks like an octopus? So much funner!

A kiwi koala—too cute to crunch?

Here’s how a cucumber orca breaks the surface of a dinner plate.

A melon owl keeps watch with grapes  eyes peeled for anyone looking for fruit for dessert.

And “snow peas, please” is all you need to say about this fresh garden dragonfly!

Perspective!

Nests to crow about

Photo by Bronwyn Berman

There aren’t a whole lot of trees in Tokyo, Japan. And so the local crows are hard-pressed to find enough twigs to build their spacious nests. Fortunately, crows are notoriously clever. They are known to craft tools to snatch hard-to-obtain food, for example, and memorize the schedules of trash collectors to scavenge from.

In Tokyo, they’ve found a sturdy twig replacement. Cast-off clothes hangers!

Photo by Brian G. Kennedy

Photo by Goetz Kluge

Who knew Tokyo residents discarded so many hangers? Let’s hope they keep it up, for the sake of their local crow families!