It turns out that books bound in human skin, though uncommon, aren’t exactly rare:

A number of prestigious libraries — including Harvard University’s — have such books in their collections. While the idea of making leather from human skin seems bizarre and cruel today, it was not uncommon in centuries past, said Laura Hartman, a rare book cataloger at the National Library of Medicine in Maryland and author of a paper on the subject.

An article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from the late 1800s "suggests that it was common, but it also indicates it wasn’t talked about in polite society," Hartman said.

Link to story | Boston Anthenaeum’s book | Not to be outdone, Harvard has several of ‘em.

The Global Education Project puts global data and statistics into One Big Picture, a humongous wall chart with 15 maps and 99 charts and graphs, presenting "essential data and commentaries on the condition of the world’s environment – both natural and human"

This one map shows the percentage of population aged 15 to 49 living with HIV. In some parts of Africa, 29 to 38.8% of the population are infected with this virus – scary, isn’t it?

Link

Jon Barnes drives The Ultimate Taxi around Aspen, Colorado. Checkout his awesome taxi (complete with recording studio, theater, nightclub, planetarium, toystore, and Internet connection!): Link

OK, guess what this is… Answer in a couple of days

Update 1/9/06: answer: ancient phallus

Photographer Jeff Wall depicts this scene from Ralph Ellisson’s 1952 novel "Invisible Man":

Ralph Ellison’s 1952 novel Invisible Man centres on a black man who, during a street riot, falls into a forgotten room in the cellar of a large apartment building in New York and decides to stay there, living hidden away. The novel begins with a description of the protagonist’s subterranean home, emphasising the ceiling covered with 1,369 illegally connected light bulbs.

Link (via The Huge Entity)

From WFMU’s excellent "Beware of the Blog":

If you like dreadful choreography, that is. It’s the video for Finnish duo Armi & Danny’s I Wanna Love You Tender … Armi & Danny’s choreographer for this peppy little number was none other than former Serbian president Slobodon Milosevic. After watching this, it’s not hard to understand why he ditched the show business job for a career as a genocidal maniac.

Link

For more comic book cover propaganda (and other unusual covers), see Superdickery’s awesome collections: Link

Avant garde artist ni9e created this:

This is Andy Warhol’s diary entries posted exactly 29 years to the day after they were first recorded. All text is taken directly from the publication the Andy Warhol Diaries, edited by Pat Hackett. All notes and comments made by the editor have been removed. The Diary spans just over 10 years, bringing this project to completion in Febuary, 2016.

Link to I Blogged Andy Warhol