Eric – The Goods

Uncommon Knowledge: Why Aren’t There More Mid-November Babies?

January 30, 2017

First comes love…then comes marriage…then comes a below-average birth rate. With all the candlelight dinners, slow jams, and suggestive gifts, you’d reasonably assume that Valentine’s Days might lead to Valentine’s nights full of procreation, resulting in a surge of births nine months later (mid-November). Turns out that that time of year is a low point in birthday popularity. Several factors may counter Cupid’s arrows on February 14th, including the fertility-reducing factor of romantic holiday anxiety and natural cycles that discourage births right before the coldest months of the year. But of course, highly effective modern birth control methods also mean that celebrations of love don’t necessarily bring baby showers. So what’s the month that welcomes the most babies into the world? September, with the majority of statistical top-ten birthdays. Nine months before that? Mid to late December, meaning that mistletoe might be a more effective aphrodisiac than chocolate roses.

Zodiac Babysuit | $24

Uncommon Knowledge

Uncommon Knowledge: What’s the Biggest Animal in the Big Apple?

December 27, 2016

A supersized pigeon in Bryant Park? Nope. A giant rat terrorizing Hell’s Kitchen? Not even close. New York’s biggest resident by far is a humpback whale seen recently roaming the Hudson River and New York harbor. Nicknamed “Gotham” by whale watchers, the solitary cetacean has been spotted north of the George Washington Bridge down to the waters around Liberty Island. His friends have been spotted in increasing numbers south of the Verrazano Bridge, but Gotham seems to be the only adventurous visitor to the Upper New York Bay and the Hudson.

Gotham’s New York residency seems to be thanks to thriving populations of one of his favorite foods: menhaden (“bunker” to fishermen), a small foraging fish that humpbacks down in gulps of hundreds of pounds. Cleanup and conservation efforts in the Hudson have helped menhaden populations thrive, making New York waters an all-you-can-eat humpback buffet once again. And the good news for these majestic ocean mammals goes well beyond the Big Apple: long endangered, humpbacks in nine of fourteen population segments have recovered to the point that they can be removed from the U.S. endangered species list.

No word on how long Gotham will continue to enjoy New York’s seafood, but one thing is for sure—if he can make it there, he can make it anywhere.

Wherever We Go | $30 – 46

The Uncommon Life, Uncommon Knowledge

Uncommon Knowledge: How do Flip Books, Films, and Kinegrams Move?

December 12, 2016

Our beating heart clock combines elements of art and science in a kinegram, a manipulation of still images to convey a sense of repetitive motion.

Remember the simple flip books you made as a kid? A few drawings stacked in sequence, bound, and when flipped, a cartoon hero seemed to run across the page. What was this wizardry that brought crude line drawings to life? It was thanks to an optical phenomenon called the persistence of vision, where the breaks between ‘frames’ go unnoticed because of the inherent lag in how fast our eyes update visual information. On a more grown-up level, the same principle makes the magic of television and movies possible. In fact, films are sometimes called flicks because of the flickering nature of how they work: at least 24 frames per second race before our eyes to make the illusion of continuous motion.

Design

Bringing Home the Baseball Beanie

November 14, 2016

Editor’s Note: Our first Kickstarter project was a major league success! Tokens & Icons, a long valued partner of UncommonGoods, brought it all home with their amazing MLB Game Used Baseball Beanies. Baseball fans couldn’t wait to get their mitts on the beanies, and our goal was reached in just one day! Though the campaign has ended, you can still rep your favorite team and get a beanie of your own. Read on and watch our video to learn more.

About the Project

Back in 1969 when the New York Mets won the World Series, UncommonGoods founder Dave Bolotsky, then six years old, got a cherished jacket from the underdog team. He’s loved his home team and the sport itself ever since. There’s nothing else quite like the nostalgic feeling sports memorabilia creates—a feeling that goes way beyond their materials.

A baseball story of a different stripe, this handcrafted beanie from Tokens & Icons and UncommonGoods is knit from three continuous wool yarn strands found inside MLB authenticated, game-used baseballs.

Uncommon Knowledge

Uncommon Knowledge: Is the Unicorn Ready to Rumble?

November 7, 2016

With Scotland getting prickly as a thistle about staying in the UK post-Brexit, you might think such strife is a recent phenomenon. Nae, laddy—the roots of unrest between England and Scotland run deep and are reflected in the British royal coat-of-arms itself. The lion and the unicorn therein might look like they’re happily cooperating to support the heraldic shield in the center, but folklore has it that the two beasts aren’t exactly besties. The unicorn hails from the 14^th century Scottish coat-of-arms, while the lion traditionally stands for England. And when James VI of Scotland became James I of England in 1603, the two iconic animals were forced into coat-of-arms cooperation. But the beef between the two goes back over 5,000 years to ancient Babylonian mythology, where the unicorn represented spring and the lion stood for summer. Each year, the two fought for supremacy—and each year the lion eventually won. A popular English nursery rhyme reflects this ongoing animosity, as well as historic wars between England and Scotland:

The lion and the unicorn
Were fighting for the crown;
The lion beat the unicorn
All round about the town.

For the time being at least, these age-old rivals continue to coexist, though the Scottish unicorn may be asking himself “should I stay or should I go?”

LED Unicorn Lamp | $78

Gift Guides

Hygge: a Hug’s Danish Cousin

October 13, 2016

A hot bowl of homemade porridge for breakfast; a leisurely bike ride past warm, welcoming shops; a fresh pot of tea shared with an old friend; the comforting glow of candles—lots of candles. All of these things are hallmarks of hygge, an essential ingredient of life in Denmark. Though it has no tidy translation in English, some etymologists think it’s a distant Danish cousin of the word hug, an association encouraged by the cozy, comforting essence of both words. It may be hard for English speakers to pronounce (try “hyoo-gah”), but it’s not so hard to attain. The new Little Book of Hygge offers pointers on the Danish way to live well, while Morley College in London has started teaching hygge along with their Danish language instruction. But hygge isn’t just about warm, fuzzy feelings—it’s central to Denmark’s status as the happiest country in the world. That’s right, Denmark is consistently crowned the #1 country for happiness, according to the UN’s official World Happiness Report. And if it’s not too much of an oxymoron, the Danes are serious about their happiness. Just ask the staff of the Happiness Research Institute of Copenhagen. With chestnuts-roasting-on-an-open-fire season just around the corner, we offer this cozy collection of uncommon goods that can help you mix more hygge into your home and lifestyle, whether you live in Copenhagen or Corpus Christi.

You might say that hygge is part of the Scandinavian landscape: serene stands of fir and birch, mossy forest floors dotted with red-capped mushrooms that might just be gnomes out of the corner of your eye…Our Nordic Tea Light Trough lends a soothing alpine glow to your decor.

Uncommon Knowledge

Uncommon Knowledge: Who Put the Cod in Codswallop?

October 3, 2016

A favorite PG-13 epithet of Harry’s Potter’s Hagrid, you might assume that “codswallop” is as much of a modern literary invention as “muggle.” But the term pre-dates J. K. Rowling’s lexicon and there’s an interesting debate over its etymology. One camp claims that it’s related to the history of glass bottles. In the 1870s, Hiram Codd invented the marble-stoppered, “Codd-neck” bottle for soft drinks. “Wallop” was the nickname for the cheap beer of the day, so beer drinkers dubbed the contents of Codd’s bottles “a load of coddswallop.” If you can excuse the dropping of one d over time, this colorful tale has a plausible taste. Not so fast, say those in the opposing camp, who claim a similar but somewhat more literal origin: a cod’s wallop, as in the thumping sound a captured cod makes as it flaps around on the deck of a boat. Imagine someone flapping their lips aimlessly like the hapless cod, and again you have a load of codswallop or nonsense. Fishy? Could be that both theories are complete codswallop.

BottleLoft | $38

Maker Stories

Crushing It: Vawn & Mike Gray’s Recycled Glass Nightlights

September 30, 2016

Vawn & Mike

From lazy pandas to wide-eyed unicorns, Vawn and Mike Gray make recycled glass nightlights with endearing details and handcrafted charm. In their Cape Coral, Florida studio, they use recycled glass and an energy-efficient kiln to create colorful pieces they characterize as “a little light for the darkness.” Here, Vawn talks with us about smashing glass, finding inspiration in viral videos, and the eloquent life lessons of John Lennon. Continue Reading…

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