Garden sculpture - kinetic and komfortable

Oooo!  TPP has got to get himself one of these Kate Brown garden sculptures/seats. They look really cool, and at first glance it did not occur to TPP that these were anything but art. But they are seats too, so you don't have to be gauche and sit on some d'objet d'art. And they spin! A complete 360 degree 3-fer. Hmm, the only thing that may be missing is the holder for your margarita cup.  HT to Treehugger. 

Strangest thing you can see in Ulm

Many things you expect to see in small southern German cities: cathedrals (check), the rathaus (check), city squares (check), clocks and sundials on the sides of buildings (check), quaint old architecture (check), cobblestones (check), but then you come around a corner and into a small courtyard and there is the weirdest thing you ever could imagine seeing.  Yes, TPP will let you guess all day, and bet that you won't guess even if you knew it was about a famous person who was born in Ulm.  As it turns out

Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, and Ulm is quite proud of that even though it is not certain if Albert ever visited his birth place as an adult or felt much attachment to the city.  Now there are lots of ways to honor people, and Ulm does have a street named after Einstein, but this sculpture does make you wonder a bit about what kind of honor this represents?  Einstein made one famous rude gesture, sticking his tongue out at a photographer, and that moment was captured in this sculpture showing his head emerging from a snail shell.  The meaning of this piece of art is perplexing and obscure (any interpretations out there?), and while interesting, it's not all that likable or attractive, yet vaguely compelling.  But definitely not what you were expecting to find! 

Very very funky books

Here's some sculpture that may give the bibliophiles among you a strange feeling.  On one hand, a book, rather than being destroyed, is utterly transformed into a fascinating object that is strangely compelling.  Here's an example, constructed from 3 books, and a link to see more.  The artist, Brian Dettmer, literally carves out the pages leaving text and images to form these very sculptural constructions that basically transform a 2-dimensional medium into something 3-dimensional.  This fellow must have some pretty sharp and pretty fine cutting tools.  Wonder if he's done any botanicals?  HT to Blue Collar Atheist.