Hasta La Ideas

The illustrated short story explores sexuality, companionship and memory through a unique lens

“Happy Bunny, Honey”, the debut fiction piece by Cool Hunting friend and contributor, Davey Barrett, is an illustrated storybook for adults. Recognizing that sex is often broached with both childlike emotion and animalistic intent, the story follows an aging female rabbit as she prowls her local bar for a lover. The story applies human eyes and morality to the hyper-sexual world of Dahl-like rabbits, asking “Why, tonight, would this creature go home alone?” and creating an absurdly alluring universe in the imagined hollows of any backyard.

Featuring the art of Chris Tucci, who curates the Ace Hotel’s Sunday Night Live Music Series and whose work adorns the hotel’s walls, the vignette sets an eerie bar scene that’s equal parts dark and humorous. The illustrations carry a numb black and white electricity, chaotic lines amass to shade a lonely sub-terrain. The artwork and the words merge seamlessly, bringing to life a world filled with short memories, fast affairs and empty fixes toward fulfillment.

In the end, Barrett leaves the reader feeling unsettled and desirous of more, hinting at the continued uncertainty of his protagonist’s existence. “Happy Bunny, Honey” is available digitally on Amazon.

Alphabetize your vice with this sinful set of dictionaries

Naughty Deadly Dictionaries, based on the Seven Deadly Sins. Jennifer Wood has compiled the collection to elucidate gluttony, wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, and envy—each given its own cloth-bound reference tome with the look and feel of an antique. Consider it a portable, curated distillation of the Oxford English Dictionary that you don’t need a magnifying glass to read. These books may not make you good, but they will teach you the proper lexicon for being bad.

We got to sample Gluttony: A Dictionary for the Indulgent here at Cool Hunting, and after a coincidental deep-fried office lunch, picked our favorite entries. Interspersed throughout the definitions are quotations from famous rhetoricians, weighing in on the sin at hand. Benjamin Franklin reflects on the vice of gluttony (and, unwittingly, the obesity epidemic) when he writes, “In general, mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eats twice as much as nature requires.” Best of all, this handy guide arms us with a host of ways to call out our portly pals—or chow hounds, gourmands, sybarites, trenchermen and wastrels, as we now call them.

The Deadly Dictionaries are gift-ready this holiday season, so go ahead and indulge the eloquent sinner in your life on Amazon.

Humorous messages on classic Picard wafers

Gaufrettes Amusantes are traditional waffle wafers with a humorous twist. Written in either standard French or in our preferred Northern France’s Picard dialect—also called Ch’ti by locals—the funny phrases stamped on each cookie reflect the witty, working class community. Idiomatic messages like “Allo Cherie” (hello darling) and “Cha n’vaut pas un pet d’lapin” (it’s not worth a rabbit fart) add a touch of charm to morning tea or dessert.

Comptoir des Flandres uses a recipe dating back to 1894 to make the tasty wafers in vanilla, chocolate, chicory, hazelnut and raspberry varieties. The cookies sell individually (€3) or in boxed assortments (€10) at Comptoir des Flandres, and are available at many French grocery stores. Also available in the U.S. by the case at The Frenchy Bee for $49.

Children’s toys transformed into creepy robots

For the last few years artist Cathy McClure has been applying her background in metal design to her obsession with mechanical toys in a variety of shows around the country. McClure’s process, centralized around taking different motorized children’s toys and stripping them of their fur and stuffing, tears them down to their absolute basics. From there, the pieces either remain in their naked plastic state or McClure casts them in a variety of metals from silver to bronze. The resulting pieces, eerie and at times haunting, expose the high level of engineering those goes into what most would write off as simple children’s toys.

Her work from the “Curiosities” series sells online from the Moss shop.

Artful portraits capturing the personality of man’s best friend and other animals

National Geographic-style exotic animals poised in their natural habitat these are not. Carli Davidson aims her lens at domesticated pets and zoo animals, capturing personalities rather than wild, untamed animal behavior. Based in Portland, Oregon, she’s internationally recognized for her work as a fine art pet photographer with her often humorous and consistently honest portraits.

Davidson’s portfolio is every animal-lover’s dream with both editorial and studio series ranging from the colorful “Dogs and Cats” collection to charming photos from the “Oregon Zoo.” These include a triumphant pic of Conrad the polar bear licking a cream cheese cake off a window on his 25th birthday and a recently-hatched tiny turtle posed on top of a hundred dollar bill for scale.

Another “aw”-inducing series, the “Handicapped Pet project” proves with levity that “your pet is beautiful no matter how many limbs it has”—like Ramen Noodle, an adorable pup who lost both his arms in two separate accidents. In his case, Davidson demonstrates Ramen Noodle’s resilience with images of him standing tall on his remaining hind legs, as well as carefree action shots of him running around in his wheelchair. (Also on Cool Hunting: I Heart Tripods)

Apart from capturing humorous quirks in the off-moments when pets’ eyes go cross or tongues flop lazily from snouts, Davidson depicts their owners in “People & Pets.” Through artful posing, Davidson’s photographs—like a yawning puppy cupped in gentle, tattooed hands and a white-feathered parrot perched so it’s profile blends with its owner’s bright blue eyes —reflect the character of both individuals, as well as the bond between them.

While Davidson’s work is generally lighthearted, she shows the dark side of animal life too. Her graphic series, “Bison Butchering,” follows the process of meat trading from pasture to slaughterhouse. She also sheds light on veterinary work with her visual photos of “Animal Surgery.” This includes the philanthropic work performed by the Oregon Zoo veterinarians who invite blind students for a hands-on experience of their operating rooms.

Visit Davidson’s website to peruse her various photographic studies—including the irresistible series “Shake,” which features stills of various wide-eyed pooches shaking it out with flappy cheeks, windblown tufts of fur and airborne wads of drool. Contact her directly to snag exclusive prints.

via Zeutch.

All photography by Carli Davidson