Mr. P: If Phil Garner were writing blogs here, I would gladly step aside. My work appeared alongside his work on the People & Places page in Road & Track magazine in the early 1980s. I was honored to be on the same page with a truly strange man like Phil.
Well, a few like Ben Terry and Johnny Cat say they like my posts and that I should continue with them, but a cluster of like-minded folks agree that my work is a big waste of "Neato-space". The discussion here among the Neato-space Time Waster Club has even delved into shades of difference in meaning between something that is "amusing" vs. something that is "funny.' I have rather enjoyed that discussion.
Hmm... Iewen and El Tonto accuse me of being too late with the ShoeHat concept or stealing it. These drawings, as I carefully noted, were done in 1982-3 while the movie Brazil, which I have not seen, came out in 1985! Precognition, perhaps?
It is instructive to take advice from a Guru. Thank you Guru Maguaffi! Certainly I agree that some sort of sipping apparatus for use while driving would be handy, especially on long trips. The container and the straws or tubes would need to be removable and either washable or replaceable. I notice that serious bike riders have worked out a system for sipping while peddling. We need to work on this.
ted: Indeed, they are. Oscardagrouch is worried that my work reflects poorly on "where civilization is heading." And, gosh, sometimes I worry that civilization is heading toward humorlessness.
Sandyra: You are correct. In presenting these ideas, I need to remind everyone now and then that my first impulse in creating them is to amuse myself and others! I am AMUSED by watching complicated raising and lowering procedures for small Mercedes convertibles, for example. In some models, parts magically relocate themselves in the car trunk. So I was amused by the idea of a table, moving up and over like a convertible top and locating itself in the front seating area. I began this kind of "inventing" in WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW creating intentionally-flawed inventions. I still approach inventing that way! But Sandyra, your idea is welcome and obviously better than mine.
Well... I have scheduled a future post for The Museum of Possibilities that includes some of my ideas for a dish-washing dining table. But this one is great!
Jasmine: I understand your concern. My work is first and foremost intended as humor and satire, and some of my products and inventions are funny because of their implied flaws, or things-left-out. I think, for example, that living in a compact cocoon at home would be a ridiculous, unhealthy form of escapism. But the cartoonist in me loves to create these things anyway.
Marishka; The woman is inside a potato couch room accessory that is a cross between a snuggie and an oversized sheepskin-lined slipper. I imagine she finds it too warm, much of the time.
Aiche: Yes, if it were truly safe and we could trust humanity I might prefer to sleep outdoors at night curled up in a vacant lot (during summer). But a safer situation, if one were homeless, would be to happen upon a tossed-out piece of Furniture to Hide Inside and climb inside. I am working on designs for vehicles that one can hide inside at night while parked in a supermarket or university campus parking lot. An underpaid night security patrolman, shining his flashlight into your car, would not know you are inside.
Splint: What I appreciate about comments like yours is how they suggest uses for my useless product ideas that I hadn't thought of. Of course, you are right! Furniture one hides inside would be perfect for spouses wishing to avoid "Honey Do" chore requests. They would be ideal for anyone who wishes to avoid bill collectors, police, the landlord, or annoying friends who have a habit of dropping by unannounced.
Girl: I usually design stuff – most of it silly – that I myself might like. The Yogamobile you refer to in WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW is a car that I imagined I might like to ride in myself, even if I had not quite figured out what happens when you are sitting on a cushy rug in meditation posture and the driver brakes or accelerates suddenly!
Lulu: If there is any "propaganda" in this blog, it is definitely not an argument in favor of small cars. It should have been obvious – and if it wasn't it's my fault for not stating it more clearly – that there are problems when tall, heavy vehicles occupy the same road system as small econocars. The disparities are too great! In a future blog I plan to offer ideas for separate thoroughfares that isolate vehicles based on their size and mass.
Over the years I have tried to mine a relatively untapped area, where I try to tap into ideas that are either ingenious and ludicrous or a bit of both. Now, it is increasingly common for me to learn that my idea that seemed unique 27 years ago -- for example, most of these toilet designs -- may have been been thought up by folks at different times, in different places, and in different contexts. The Internet now makes all of this collective human creativity available to all of us!
The discussion here among the Neato-space Time Waster Club has even delved into shades of difference in meaning between something that is "amusing" vs. something that is "funny.' I have rather enjoyed that discussion.
But Sandyra, your idea is welcome and obviously better than mine.
I think, for example, that living in a compact cocoon at home would be a ridiculous, unhealthy form of escapism. But the cartoonist in me loves to create these things anyway.