¶ A startling example of ébénisterie érotique, said to have been made for Catherine the Great. (via MetaFilter)

¶ Shelving books spines in. (Apartment Therapy)

¶ 1602 Chinese map of the Gulf Coast. Our Gulf Coast. (Guardian)

¶ Cheap at $12,000,000 — even Choire Sicha thinks so! Take the tour. (Business Insider)

¶ Sculptor Cal Lane. Love those shovels! (The Best Part)

¶ Bon weekend à tous!

¶ Build Bill Gates’s house. (via Things Magazine)

¶ Resolving an ancient turf battle: books or art on the walls? (This Blog Rules)

¶ Postcards from NCR. (A Continuous Lean)

¶ Fetching red satin slip de sport. (Ivy Style)

¶ Write my ebook for flat rate! (You Suck at Craigslist)

¶ At least the kid says “Please.” (via reddit)

¶ A bizarre, up-tempo advertisement for Cormac McCarthy’s Outer Dark. (Maud Newton)

¶ Daniel Menaker interviews himself — a conversation? (The Second Pass)

¶ Jonathan Harris, co-editor of We Feel Fine. A picture a day, and often an interesting text entry as well. (via Mnémoglyphes)

¶ Jiří Å alamoun’s Basic Phrenology.

¶ It never hurts to ask. (And whatever happened to Carolyn Weatherhogg later on?)

¶ Stonehenge-under-High.

¶ How long before Bill Cunningham snaps this in titanium on a fashionista at his favorite corner of town?

¶ George Washington gets the Maira Kalman treatment. Happy!

¶ The Gainsborough girls, and other painted sisters.

¶ Trading places: what if the Fed and the TSA switched places? (via Felix Salmon)

¶ Nowhere Boy trailer. (Scroll down)

¶ All That Remains.

¶ A letter from Billy the Kid.

¶ RIP David Levine. (Merci, Jean)

¶ Cartographic Christmas.

¶ Kim McCown’s Found Landscapes, which led, irresistibly, to Utilikilts.

¶ Jackson West loses a lot of jobs, not entirely without cooperation.

We need something more seasonal for this space — but then isn’t that what the holidays are all about? You can always do better! But what we are trying to do better at the moment is vacation.

¶ Frank Rich’s column about bamboozlers is great, but it might be greater, by stressing the complete failure of media to exert critical authority. The Times itself thinks that this is largely a matter of keeping naughty words off the record. No wonder readership is down.

¶ Handwriting: a new frontier for sentimentalists. Ann Trubek argues persuasively that it has no place in schools. (via  The Morning News)

¶ Oy! Why did I wait to make a reservation for my birthday until the day on which Sam Sifton’s three-star review of La Grenouille appeared? Not to worry: the restaurant re-opens after its holiday break on the next day, and we’re down for 7:30. — The Editor.

¶ Sand Castles deplode (MetaFilter)

¶ Tyne Tobacco (Amassblog)

¶ Dig We Must (New York; via Joe.My.God)

¶ Piet Zwart (Design Observer)

¶ Scout revealed (Scouting New York)

¶ What English sounds like to foreigners: nonsense!

¶ The Color of Gender, at Brain Pickings.

¶ Our old friend Yvonne sent us a YouTube link, to a clip called “Western Spaghetti,” and that, in turn, took us to “Food Fight.” Do not expose children to these videos!

¶ Say, we finally caught up with Lady Gaga, sort of. But we like this parody better: “Neutra Face.” You can find the original on your own.

¶ Dream Library (Marginal Revolution)

¶ It’s like playing with an the peel of a clementine. (New Scientist)

¶ We must have this chair! If only to look at. (ArtCat)

¶ Oops! An anachronism on Mad Men! (Thanks, Mike!)

¶ What the Internet looks like. (Andrew Blum; via cityofsound)

¶ Words fail us. In this clip from an entertainment hosted by Drew Carey, Richard Simmons plays the props in a skit about a couple (played by two men) on a romantic tropical cruise. (Thanks, Quatorze!)

¶ An Silhouettes of Jazz — moving shadows generated by computer-generated mini-sculptures, and very nearly as cool as the music. (Brain Pickings)

¶ The good old days of sharp collegians. (Ivy Style)

¶ How China is perceived by the residents of Beijing, Shaghai, and Hong Kong — respectively but not respectfully. (The Atlantic)

¶ Self-Righteous Sinatra. (Letters of Note)

¶ Best-Looking Books. (Amazon; via The Millions)

¶ Evolution of Storage (via Good)

¶ Shady (Handmade Gone Wrong; via  MetaFilter)

¶ Yantra (ArtCat)

¶ Viking Range @ $775 (You Suck at Craigslist)