By Ben Marks — When artist Ben Zurawski sits down at his light table to create a palm-size flip book designed to deliver about 15 seconds of animated action to one viewer at a time, he typically unwraps a fresh pack of 100-pound index cards, places 60 or so before him, picks up a mechanical pencil, and begins to draw. From start to finish, including storyboarding, penciling, rubbing out mistakes with a wadded-up ball of gum eraser, inking, and stapling, the whole process can take a week, maybe two,...

The Art of Making People Go Away

By Lisa Hix — You probably don't think much about "Do Not Disturb" signs at hotels, unless the maid rudely barges in as you sleep. Then you think, "Hey, didn't you see the door hanger? What happened to that?" But when you look through Edoardo Flores' collection of just over 8,700 Do Not Disturb signs from 190 countries around the world—which he documents on Flickr—you'll find they can be quite beautiful and revelatory. So-called "DND signs" tell you a lot about the character and mores of the places you...

Kaboom! 10 Facts About Firecrackers That Will Blow You Away

By Lisa Hix — Firecrackers are essentially un-American, even though we associate them with our most deeply patriotic celebration, the Fourth of July. The fact is that firecrackers are foreign-born novelties, and have been as long as Americans have lit them for a noisy salute to the nation's birth. As it turns out, firecracker history is as colorful and complicated as the lithographed artwork used to sell them. Warren Dotz, a pop-culture historian, collector, and author of many books, including a pair on...

A Visit To the Prelinger Library

By Ben Marks — When you walk into the Prelinger Library, the first things you notice are the three long aisles that run down the length of the space. Ten banks of shelves, each 10 shelves high, flank each aisle, creating six rows of books. There are 30,000 or so volumes here, plus another 30,000 or so pieces of ephemera, from road maps to cell-phone instruction manuals. What you won’t find are card catalogs or librarians, although the library does have a pair of action figures based on Seattle author...

The Art of Airline Ephemera

By Marty Weil — Daniel Kusrow was born in Bangkok, Thailand, but now resides and works in New York City. Daniel collects airline baggage labels, particularly those issued by airlines during the inter-War period, 1919-1939. We spoke recently about his remarkable collection, how he got started, his favorites, and what it takes to find good labels these days. : When did you become interested in airline baggage labels? : I have always been interested in airlines and their history since I was a little boy....