u got junk mail

In the last few weeks, I've realised that I've turned into a digital rag picker. My cursor has been wading through page after page of hits on junk - I must be the only person in history to go beyond page 5 on google search.

But it's been worth it, here are two of the latest gems I unearthed.

One is the term upcycling - which is the practice of taking something that is disposable, and transforming it into something of greater use of value. Besides describing a useful concept, the word has the additional advantage of adding tact and intellectual quotient to everyday conversations. For example, if you don't want to tell a colleague that his presentation sucks, you could say "Your presentation is a perfect candidate for upcycling!"

The second gem is the picture above - by artist Sandy Schimmel. She puts upcycling into practice by creating art out of junk mail and flyers. Enjoy.

straight from the trash can

Dirty White Trash (with gulls) by Tim Noble and Sue Webster.

These artists from England create sculptures out of heaps of garbage collected from the streets of London. When light is projected on the heap, meaningful shadows appear on the wall behind the trash.

the god of big things

These days, I dress in brown when I leave home for work. My clothes, shoes, hair, car... It's a deep, dusty shade of brown that has nothing to do with spring-summer fashion shows on FTV or Vogue.

All the credit goes to a 1 k stretch of dug up road that starts outside my apartment and proceeds to drive me crazy.

The moment I step out, I’m engulfed in thick dust clouds. The asphalt on the road (I call it a road only because profanities are not encouraged on blogs) is a distant memory obscured by the grime on my windscreen and the grit in my eyes.

But as they say, every cloud has a silver lining, and this applies even to dust clouds. Mine appeared this week in the form of a road roller, parked on the side of what used to be a street. It wasn't rolling or doing anything productive, but it was painted with the most amazing graphics. A great match for the much publicized riksha art of Bangladesh!

Hats off to the guy who drives/owns this road roller. I love the spirit of this person who has managed to think of art while encountering dusty unroads for a living. I took a couple of pictures and smiled all the way home.

And now, my teeth and cell phone match the rest of my ensemble.