Low-poly sculpturist Pellegrino Cucciniello of Italy has rethought the ordinary. He's taken an icon of outdoor kitsch, the garden gnome, and stripped it of its details and paint job. His angular, concrete creation is named Nino.

Nino is produced by Rome-based studio Plato Design who sells the 14-inch indoor/outdoor figures in three monochromatic colors for $108.46 each.

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Heads up! The reigning Queen of Kitsch, Allee Willis, is hosting three live Christmas/Hanukkah mashup "party performance" shows in Studio City later this week.

She writes:

It is with great pleasure that I announce my craziest in-the-best-sense-of-the-word nuts live show yet! For 3 big nights - Nov. 30-Dec. 2 - the party rages on at Allee Willis’ Love ’N Latkes Chanukah Christmas Shopping (and Singing and Comedy) Extravaganza Show! An ALL NEW "one-woman + Andrae” party performance featuring hit songs (I was just nominated for the Songwriters Hall of Fame so you know they’re great hits!), sing-alongs, the least appropriate stories a songwriter could tell, and, oh yeah, not just an auction of supreme flea finds but the greatest early holiday gift shopping in the whole wide Kitsch world!!

That’s right! For the first time ever, I’ll be opening the vaults and auctioning off treasures from my own world-renowned personal Kitsch, Pop, and Soul collection!

Tickets to all three shows (Thursday 11/30, Friday 12/1, and Saturday 12/2) are available now. Her shows always sell out so, if you're thinking of going, grab tickets now. Read the rest

Creator of the Cherpumple (and other retro-fabulous foods) Charles Phoenix has a new book that celebrates "classic & kitschy American life & style." It's titled Addicted to Americana and it looks amazing!

Here's a look inside the book (click on image to embiggen):

The book is available for $22.32 on Amazon.

Charles is also on a book signing and comedy slide show tour (mostly in California). If you've never seen him perform, please do yourself a favor and get thee to one of his shows. They are a hoot. Read the rest

I know a kindred spirit when I see one and New Orleans-based bon vivant Sam Malvaney is definitely "one of us," a true kitsch lovin' collector. Take a walk with Sam --who's dressed in a leopard-print tuxedo jacket, no less-- as he gives a virtual tour of his enviable French Quarter home, aka the "Museum of Bad Taste."

(David M. Jones via Skip Baker) Read the rest

Spotted in the dregs of YouTube, this spectacular opening sequence from a classic schlock-fu film. I love the opening credits. Stay with it through the vry srs bizness American-English VO around 1:30. I know this stuff is all over YouTube, and has been for some time, but I thought this one was a particularly fun specimen.

Video: The Invincible Kung Fu Legs, part 1.

The uploader has shared a number of other goodies from this same genre, including 8 other clips from that same film. Read the rest

Will from the Journey Round My Skull blog has been scanning vintage, Soviet-era robot illustrations from Eastern European science fictional kids books -- the pictures are just lovely.

A Journey Round My Skull: Mummy Was A Robot, Daddy Was A Small Non-Stick Kitchen Utensil

(Thanks, Dr. Monkey!)

Featured in The Nation's charity auction, this Garden Noam Chomsky sculpture, of a run "probably limited to less than 100".

Gnome Chomsky the Garden Noam

(Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Ted sez, "This website allows you to create posters of WoW characters. The company allows you to use a variety of backgrounds and designs, as well as inserting a character (in their currently loaded) armor into the poster, with pets and all (this is a big deal to hunters). Paper is high quality stuff."

PrintWarcraft Custom Prints

(Thanks, Ted!)