Frogsmoke

French design firm FxBalléry turns drain pipes and fittings into home decorations. The vases shown below don't come cheap. Each costs around 130 euros; if you buy all five you pay 530 euros. If you like the idea I'm sure you can make them yourself for a lot less money. HT Boing Boing

Frogsmoke takes a few days off. Enjoy Noël and welcome back here by Saturday Sunday! Sexy Santa, based on William Bouguereau's Woman with Seashell While Frogsmoke takes a break why not take a look at my other blog: Bouguereau Remastered. It's the world's largest online museum of photoshopped versions of the art by French 19th [...]

Fredrika Stalh is Swedish and came to Paris to brush up her French. Now she speaks the language like she was born here. But best of all: she sings like not many do. Here she is in a (French) interview. Listen… [quicktime width="400" height="20"]http://frogsmoke.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/fredrika-stahl-pourquoi-pas-moi.mp3[/quicktime] Fredrika Stahl – Pourquoi Pas Moi HT J-Walk

On BibliOdysee: Victorian Infographics. Among them: Tableau De L'Histoire Universelle depuis la Creation jusqu'a ce jour (Table of universal history, from creation to today). Click for large (3000 x 4128) scan on Flickr This is a fold-out print depicting all of human history from the time of creation (4693 BC = Adam & Eve; the [...]

Prepare for a backlash: Fréderic Mitterand's "La Mauvaise Vie" gets an American release. French culture minster Fréderic Mitterand can't do anything wrong in France. In his 2005 autobiography he admitted to paying for sex with young boys but was allowed to keep his job (“I got into the habit of paying for boys…All these rituals [...]

The parade continues: here is the 14th calendar of French who strip for a cause. Today it's the girls from the volleyball club in the northern city of Lille. For the sixth edition of their calendar they chose to undress in the middle of the night to highlight local monuments. The calendar sells at 15 [...]

Agence eureka is a wonderful blog with daily scans of vintage prints. Each image links to blow-ups on Flickr. This one from the late 1990s is a bit gruesome: Click for a 2279 x 3355 pixel close-up.

Time for an update from the naked calendars front. Today's edition (the thirteenth) features the gambling boys and girls of the Tripot Hold'em Club in Villeurbanne. The proceeds of their Les Dieux du Stack calendar go the club coffers. The pictures above are the only ones that show some flesh; the rest must be so [...]

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Graphics artist Stéphane Massa-Bidal created a wonderful series of retro book covers of today's popular web services. They can be ordered as small or large posters here.

I learned a new French word today: effeuilage. As far as I understand it, effeuillage is a form of striptease whereby clothes get thrown away, but not all. In other words: SFW all the way to the end. Here is a certain Nathalie performing the act. She did it on the popular La France a [...]

In February 1948, Dmitri Kessel shot some pretty pictures of a wintry Paris. Here is one of them. Notice the light traffic — try that these days! Find more on Life (via Google).

Orangina is back, and this time ad agency Fred & Farid in Paris are appealing to… what exactly? In this ad a pudgy, middle-aged guy is forced to strip down to the Full Monty by a bikini-clad panther-dominatrix with a whip. Orangina Sanguine was never this bloody before. Perhaps a bit too bloody? Via

I've been driving four-wheel drive vehicles for as long as I remember, but I never drove the Citroën DS, the most beautiful car ever built. This hybrid looks like a dream come true! (Picture source unknown)

It can't be easy to be historically accurate and politically correct: Call the smoke censors — Coco has a cigarette! Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky is an upcoming French film directed by Jan Kounen. It was the closing film of the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. The film traces the affair between Coco Chanel and Igor [...]