Abe Lincoln is totally the man these days. Not long ago, the nation blew out the candles on Honest Abe’s 200th birthday cake. Figuratively speaking, of course. 
   Perhaps you missed the fact that 2009 also marks the 100th birthday of the Lincoln penny.
   In sharp contrast to Lincoln himself, his penny gets no respect. You might even say it gets the opposite: dismissal and disdain.
   An MIT physicist, Jeff Gore (who advocates getting rid of the cent entirely) calculated that fiddling with pennies wastes at least 72 minutes per person every year. They cost more to produce (1.4 cents apiece) than they’re worth.  And when was the last time you saw someone actually stoop over to pick up a penny on the sidewalk?
   Well, Stacey Lee Webber does. She's a Chicago artist who created the ring shown here.
   "I always pick up pennies and I have a huge bucket in front of my studio. People give me pennies all the time,” she says
  With the recession, Webber says her penny jewelry is “striking chords with people.” They seem to like the idea of flaunting their frugality. 
   To put it succinctly, cheap is chic.
   Even though the jewelry costs more than just the value of the coinage—there’s earrings, bracelets and necklaces too—it’s still mostly priced at $100 or less. This definitely-not-a-diamond ring is $100 at Elements, 741 N. Wells, St., 312-642-6574; elementschicago.com
    Pennies, and the jewelry made from them (her Website: thecoinsmith.com), have a “nostalgic feel” says Webber, 25, and remind us of bygone days when you could actually buy something for a measly cent.
   Now, you have to pile a lot of pennies together to buy just a pack of gum. Nonetheless, the U.S. mint made 5.4 billion pennies last year and there is no reason to think that they’re going to stop producing them any time soon.
   Earlier efforts to eradicate the one-cent coin have gone nowhere and its not likely that the new U.S. President from the Land of Lincoln would allow such a travesty on his watch—even if we hardly notice Abe’s profile on them any more. 
       “We use coins every day and don’t even look at them any more. They just kind of pass through your hands,” says Webber. Her goal is to change that—one puny penny at a time.
       Read senior correspondent Ellen Warren’s shopping column every Thursday in the Tribune’s Play section. Join the conversation at chicagotribune.com/ellenwarren.

Tribune photo by Bill Hogan

Those little ridges on the edge of coin are called reeds. Pennies and nickels don’t have them but dimes, quarters and half dollars do-- 118, 119 and 150 tiny lines respectively.

Is it legal? Yup, you can mess with money—weld it, cut it, whatever—as long as there’s no “fraudulent intent.”

As a nation, it seems we’re having an aquatic moment. More specifically, octopi. Or octopuses, if you   prefer.
   On YouTube, t-shirts, at craft fairs and greeting card shops. Seriously, look around. You don’t need to go to the Shedd Aquarium gift shop to see octopi all over the place.
   Artists, crafters and—especially jewelry designers—seem to be captivated by the charms of these intriguing eight-armed sea creatures. (No, they’re not tentacles. You’re thinking of squid, which are often confused with the octopus.)
   The cephalopod shown here was located far far away from any ocean. It was perched in a glass case, not an aquarium, at the Barneys New York store on Oak St.
   Unlike the real thing, this one can’t change color, poison its victims, kill a shark or—sliced thin—make an appearance as a piece of tasty sushi in a Japanese bento box.
   This is a bracelet, a big bracelet with movable arms, fashioned out of oxidized silver by designer Antonio Palladino. At $4,195 it’s not for everyone.
    But Judy Aldridge couldn’t resist. She traces her octopus obsession to growing up on the water in Alaska. When she tried the bracelet on at the Dallas Barneys—“The legs kind of wiggle, it feels a little bit alive”—she said, “I had to have it. It’s like you’re really looking at an octopus!” And when she wears it, “Everyone wants to touch it,” she says. “I’m surprised how many people love octopi.”
   One of them is the also octopus obsessed is San Francisco jewelry artist Deana Fukatsu whose online store name—OctopusMe--says it all (octopusme.etsy.com).  She takes real octopus that she buys at a Japanese market, then casts the arms, suckers and all, in silver using the “lost wax” method. There are rings, bracelets, cufflinks, and earrings priced in the hundreds, not thousands. Sales are brisk.
  “The octopus is very smart, strong, very cunning, very adaptable, very fluid,” she says.  Just the skills set we all need in this tsunami economy.
   Read senior correspondent Ellen Warren’s shopping column every Thursday in the Tribune’s Play section and read her Life Solutions column in Sunday’s Smart section. Join the conversation at chicagotribune.com/ellenwarren

Tribune photo by Bill Hogan

The octopus has a hard beak, sort of like a parrot. But that doesn’t keep it from squeezing through impossibly small spaces. A huge one can contort through an opening the size of a golf ball.

Octopi are said to be as smart as a housecat—and can be trained to twist the top off a soda bottle. Short lifespans make them iffy pets, though.

  Why do we do it? What is it that makes us want to collect things?  
  The emergency room doctor with hundreds of toy ambulances crowding her desk and bookcases. The Cubs fanatic with a room full of autographed baseballs. The Collie lover whose home overflows with Lassie memorabilia (and dog hair).
    Those obsessions make sense. Sort of. Let’s just say there’s a thread of logic there.
  But what are we to make of someone who is captivated by toasters?    The owner of the vintage model shown here said her passion burst upon her without warning decades ago at an antiques show in San Mateo, Cal. Spotting a Toast-O-Lator like the one in the photo, “It was love at first sight,” she said.
  For many years, it was unrequited love. Finally, relatives surprised the toaster lover with this one: her own, working model J, believed to have been built in 1947 in Long Island City, New York, where they were produced between 1938 and 1952
   What makes the Toast-O-Lator unique is the way it “walks” the bread through the heating element on an escalator-like device and drops it out the other side onto a waiting plate.  Incidentally, the “teeth” of the escalator are called “toast dogs.”
   Advertised as “The Aristocrat of Toasters” you can buy them on eBay and at antique stores for a few hundred dollars.
   Toast-O-Lator lore, intriguing as it might be, fails to answer why people collect toasters. So, I put this question to Eric Norcross, president of the Toaster Museum Foundation (and creator of the frighteningly complete website toaster.org).
  “Toasters produce a comforting food,” explained Norcross, who has turned his own 500 plus toaster collection over to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan where they one day will be on public view.
  “Bread,” says Norcross, “is a simple, delicious food that nearly everyone can relate to.” On that note, let’s all raise a glass of orange juice and make a toast…to toast.

Tribune photo by Bill Hogan

The ancient Egyptians are believed to be the first to make what we think of as “modern” bread (leavened with natural yeast) and they probably made the first toast by putting it near a fire.


“Toast sweat” is the droplets of water that condense back on the bread when the warm toast is placed on a cooler surfac

   Everyone wants a piece of architect Frank Gehry these days.
   Lucky for Chicagoans, we’ve already got ours. The explosively exuberant Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park is hard to miss. And if you haven’t walked the stainless steel slither of Gehry’s BP bridge, also at Millennium Park, well, get going!
    Gehry, who turns 80 next month, is the genius behind spectacular structures not just here but from coast to coast and around the world.
   Obviously, owning a building by this “starchitect” is the province only of those with vast fiscal endowments. For the rest of us, the sculptural delights of his swoops and curves can be be cherished, free of charge, for the cost of a CTA trip to the Loop.
   Less known than his multi-million dollar constructions is that Gehry long has been interested in frugality, a virtue not usually associated with his chosen profession.  (Ask anyone who has ever remodeled a kitchen about design cost overruns!)
     Gehry has created “junk architecture,” using cheap materials like corrugated sheet metal and chain-link fencing to art-worthy effect.
   There’s also his creative use of cardboard to build the “ideal chair” His curvy Edges furniture took this base material out of the landfill and into the living room.      
     Today, you can, put a drink on a cardboard Gehry end table and wear Gehry jewelry on a wrist or finger from his collections—named Morph and Torque—for Tiffany.
   The jewelry and furniture (for Vitra International) is affordable, but still costs in the hundreds—or more.
   So if your Gehry passion is not slated by just looking, consider investing in “Frank Gehry On Line” by Esther da Costa Meyer (Princeton University Art Museum/Yale University Press), the little volume pictured here. The book cover looks and feels like his signature stainless steel. The cardboard slipcase references the cardboard furniture.
   And the cost, under $20 at amazon.com, means even the most impoverished Gehry fan can have a piece of him too.       

Tribune photo by Bill Hogan

The first commercial cardboard box was produced in England in 1817 although the Chinese invented cardboard more than two centuries earlier.

Can’t get enough cardboard info? The Museum of Cardboard and Printing opened in 1991 in Valreas, France.

   We’re spending a lot more time looking back—not ahead—these days.
   Today’s bad economic news has made the “good” in “the good old days” look better than ever.
    The new year is almost upon us—a traditional time for savoring the promise of what lies ahead.
   Instead, “Remember when…” is the conversation starter we’re embracing as 2009 looms scary and dark.
     Let’s see. Remember when...
   *Companies gave you a job for as long as you wanted to work there, with paid vacation and a pension when you retired?
   *We didn’t worry about global warming, disintegrating safety nets, killer cribs and tainted baby bottles?
    *New Year’s Eve was a big party night with all the trimmings, including lots of bubbly and a cute new outfit?
    Nothing you read on this page is going to find you a great new job, eliminate reliance on fossil fuels or slash the grocery bill.
   But take a gander at the photo and recall what the ladies in the ‘50s sitcoms did to perk up their day.
   When she was feeling blue, it wasn’t Xanax or a Bombay Sapphire martini that Lucy Ricardo reached for. She went out and bought a new hat! (An entire 1954 “I Love Lucy” episode was built around Lucy’s hat fetish.) 
   The feathered tiny topper shown here, perched at a saucy angle, won’t make the recession recede but for only $34 it’s pretty sure you’ll get a better return on your investment than putting the cash into the market, your 401k or, for that matter, under your mattress. And it sure can make an entrance at a New Year’s Eve party
   Incidentally, the price of this cocktail hat from Urban Outfitters is 1/3rd  less than the cost of Lucy’s hat on the TV show more than a half century ago.
   There’s economic good news after all. Let it go to your head.   

Read senior correspondent Ellen Warren’s shopping column every Thursday in the Tribune’s Play section and see her Life Solutions column in Sunday’s Smart section.

Tribune photo by Bill Hogan

The word “milliner”—a women’s hat maker—first appeared in 1529 and is a reference to Milan, Italy, which was renowned for the straw from which hats were made.



The hat Lucy Ricardo bought for $49.50 in 1954 would cost a whopping $402.59 in 2008. Then-and-now cost calculations are simple by plugging into bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
 

    What’s the highest compliment?  How about, “You light up a room?”
    We all know someone like that. The woman in the group who makes you happy to be there. The guy who walks in and everyone looks up from their computers. A dynamo personality whose arrival always gets the party started.
     Wouldn’t it be great to be that person? Now you can—for only $5.95.
     The object shown here is a genuine sparkler. It’s battery operated and looks a little like a strobe moon rock—or what a frantically blinking moon rock  should look like. 
   Although it appears to be a ring, the thing is stretchy enough to be a bracelet, or an anklet.
   Use them as napkin rings for your dinner party and who needs candlelight?
   In recessionary times, plunk one of these on the neck of a bottle of Two Buck Chuck and you’ve cranked up the hostess gift from cheap to chic.
    Adorn the stem of a glass of champagne this New Year’s Eve and the lowly domestic stuff tastes like Dom Perignon.
     A boring pony tail is elevated to genuine hairdo status when this mini disco ball is added to the mix.  And it’s the perfect gizmo to for a frugal holiday gift.
     One fashionable woman wore hers out to a restaurant and used it to tip the server, who clearly coveted the low-end gem.
   And how many jewelry items come with an on/off switch.  This mass produced blinker comes from Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art store (mcachicagostore.org) where one in the “on” position (it lasts at least 24 hours) instantly draws the eye to a binful of the sparklers.
   The store has sold hundreds and many shoppers (me included) bought one and then  returned to the store to buy another—after giving away the first one to a friend who begged nicely.      

Tribune photo by Bonnie Trafelet

Six Apollo space missions between 1969 and 1972 yielded an 842-pound haul of moon rocks. They range in size from a speck to “Big Muley,” a whopping 25.8 pounder. You can see a tiny on in the window of Tribune Tower, 435 N. Michigan Ave.

  Less is more. Good things come in small packages. Poor is the new rich.
  All three of these aphorisms—including the last one that I just made up—apply to the item in the photo. It is a basic cotton crew-neck T-shirt and it’s a way hot gift idea for these dismal economic times.
   The shirt is from Muji, a Japanese company that glories in being mundane.  Muji’s online “message” (muji.com) proudly says, “We do not create products that lure customer into believing that ‘this is best’ or ‘I must have this.’”   Wanna bet?
    The must-have item shown here is fresh out of its packaging (hence the wrinkles). And the packaging might just might be the most intriguing part of the whole nifty deal: The shirt arrives shrink wrapped into a tiny, solid 2 1/2-inch block.
  This odd little package makes everyone who sees it clamor to release the mystery object from its tiny cellophane prison.  And if all that doesn’t scream “I must have this” then you don’t know a very neat gift when you see it ($22).
   Although Muji and its minimalist ethic have been around since 1980, the company wonderfully captures the zeitgeist of this American moment.   
   What better way to cope with collective national anxiety than to embrace a company whose (lengthy) explanation of itself asserts, “Unless we adopt values informed by moderation and self-restraint, the world will find itself at an impasse”?
  Speaking of an impasse, to acquire this shirt, you can’t just walk into a store here. The two U.S. Muji shops, both in New York, won’t take phone orders. After many false leads, I learned you can order them from New York’s Museum of Modern Art’s customer service line, 1-800-793-3167. Or if they’re so hot that New York sells out, have them shipped from England from the only non-Japanese website: http://www.muji.eu/index.asp?
   After all that, consider one more applicable aphorism: Nothing is simple.

Tribune photo by Bill Hogan

There are various accounts of the origin of the T-shirt but the first politician to see their advantage as a human billboard is said to be Thomas Dewey. His "Dew it with Dewey" shirt apeared during his 1948 campaign for Prresident. Harry Truman still beat him.

   We ask "why?"  It's a human instinct—to try and figure out the reason things happen.
   Why are we putting on weight? Hmmm, maybe it's all those Cheetos and hot fudge sundaes. 
    Why does the dog sit barking beneath the dinner table?  Could it be that because we always give her a little treat from our plate to shut her up?
   Why is everybody else getting a raise and we’re stuck at the same crummy pay? Long lunches, short work weeks and blaming co-workers when things go wrong, that’s why.
    Those are simple examples of cause and effect—the relationship of two things where the first makes the second one happen.
   Some questions, of course, have no easy answers, no obvious causes to blame for the effects. That’s what keeps lawyers, economists and a lot of doctors in business.
   Dentists, well, that’s a different deal.
   Think about the items pictured here. Seldom are cause and effect presented so neatly in just one thing.
    What you’re looking at is a glass filled with candy, shaped and colored to look like little false teeth. Eat enough of these and—well, you know what happens.
    I ran into a bin of this object lesson in New York at a branch of the candy shop chain, Sweet & Sour (1167 2nd Ave., 212-308-0618). 
   A big paper sack of the candy false choppers set me back a mere $13.95—vastly less than the cost of filling even a tiny tooth cavity brought on by sugar binging.
   It seemed like a fun idea to put out a big bowl of these gummy gums-and-teeth at a recent get together at my house. 
  I didn’t anticipate that this would prompt my party guests to launch into their personal stories of dental disaster. Braces. Wisdom teeth.  Decay. Tooth grinding. Root canals. Jaw pain. Plaque. Water Piks. Oh the horror. This is not the sparkling conversation of a successful social event. My party bombed.
   Icky candy, lousy party. Cause and effect? Maybe. Unintended consequences? Definitely. 

Tribune photo by Bill Hogan   

Can false teeth save your life? Yup. Earlier this year in Zagreb,
Croatia a fight over a debt prompted one man to shoot another at point blank range. The bullet lodged guy’s false teeth. He was shook up but uninjured.

If your interest in cause and effect goes beyond candy, Aristotle is your man. He believed that knowing causes was essential to understanding the world.

THE ANSWER ANGEL

Dear Answer Angel: Now that Barack and Michelle Obama have announced they're getting their kids a puppy, my sons (ages 5 and 7) have really turned up the volume on their long-standing request for a dog. The problem: I think Christmas would be the perfect time to give them one. My husband claims it's the worst time imaginable. Too much excitement already, he says. The kids will overlook the puppy, they'll think it's a gift and not something they have to take care of, etc. So, Answer Angel, what's the advice about giving kids puppies for Christmas? Good or bad?

—C.B.D

THE ANSWER ANGEL

Dear Answer Angel: What are some off-the-wall toy/gift ideas for little nieces age 3 to 8? Last year I gave one of them a Flip Video and wonder if there is anything new like that out there this year.

—Marsha S.

Can madly flapping wings leave skid marks? What with all the firings and layoffs, I'm toiling around the clock to keep my job—as the primo place to go for your holiday predicaments.

THE ANSWER ANGEL

Dear Answer Angel: For a movie fanatic friend, I'd like to give him DVDs of the five best Christmas movies ever. What do you recommend?

—Jan

  Wallt Disney has taken over the universe. Is there any hollow, village, bayou or river bend not yet infiltrated by Disney Nation? Don’t think so.
   Not long ago, Disney ambassadors were strolling along Michigan Ave. handing out golden envelopes that said “You’re Invited!” in two languages (“Estas invitado!”)  It was a pitch to vacation at Disney Parks.
   There were Mickey Mouse balloons for the kids (100 per cent biodegradable; “Please handle your balloon responsibly.”). And it was just a few blocks to the Disney Store for full immersion in Walt’s World.
     The store can be a little overwhelming. All that cross marketing. See the movie. Wear the jammies. Watch the DVD. Listen to the CD. Play the game.
  “Dream it. Be it,” is the slogan you see at the front door. “See it. Buy It,” is more like it.
   Now Disney has crossed the last cultural frontier. The New York City Opera has commissioned a work based on the final months of Walt Disney’s life.
   More than a few PhD theses have touched on Disney’s appropriation of classic fairy tales. Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White to name a few.
   Other classics, like Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh now are more likely to conjure up Disney versions—whose images appear on everything from key chains to diaper bags—than the more artistic originals.
   The Pooh fork shown here is part of a three-piece cutlery set (Piglet knife; Tigger spoon) found on the grocery store shelf at Village Market in little (pop. 1530) Centreville, Mich.
   Equipped with his Pooh utensils, are you asking WWWDD—What Would Walt Disney Do?
  I’m guessing he’d shop online (disneystore.com) or high tail it to his the Michigan Ave. flagship store to snag a Tigger Plate and an  Eeyore cup and be all set for the moment he felt that rumbly in his tummy.

Tribune photo by Bill Hogan


   Centreville, Michigan is the unlikely hometown of one of Hollywood’s smallest performers, Verne Troyer, two-feet eight inches tall.  The actor best known for his role as Mini-Me in the Austin Powers movies graduated from Centreville High in 1987.

     A.A. (Alan Alexander) Milne’s first book was such an embarrassment that that he bought back the copyright to prevent a reprint when he got famous. Milne’s widow sold the Winnie the Pooh rights to Walt Disney five years after his death, in 1961.

  Stumped for how to buy a present?  Hate to shop?  Want to give good gift but are totally clueless?  I can help. Click here and relax!

   If you thought Election Day would never come, you are not alone.  It seems that the presidential political race has lasted—oh, about a lifetime.
   Finally, the presidential candidates are lurching to the finish line this Tuesday. And in these final hours before the polls open, you’ll have to leave the country if you want to avoid the political ads, the news stories, the charges, counter charges and urgent phone calls and mailings from both sides.
   In these closing days, the most benign and banal conversations among friends and co-workers have been taking on political overtones.  Even a single word—hope, change, maverick, lipstick, hockey—becomes a political statement.
   It’s not just discourse that’s being infused with politics. Why not view fashion through a political lens, too?
    Both presidential contenders would tell you they’re standing tall for America against the forces of greed, terrorism, business as usual. You name it.
   Now you can stand tall with your candidate in this Burberry patent leather ruched peep toe pump  ($695, burberry.com)  that will have you towering above old-fashioned politics  in a heel that’s a scary 5.12 inches high.
   Much is made of the platforms adopted by the Democratic and Republican parties every four years. The Dems called their laundry list of positions “Renewing America’s Promise” and it pledges to end dependence on foreign oil, jumpstart the economy and create lots of new jobs. 
   The Republican platform pretty much promises to do the same thing. But the fact is that once the parties adopt their platforms the candidates feel free to ignore them.
  By contrast, you’ve got to pay attention to the platforms on these stilettos—seeing that they’re a whopping one inch high.
   Finally, there’s the color of the shoes. It’s wine, Bordeaux to be specific.
  And we can all use an ample glass of vino—or  something stronger—to toast the end of the longest presidential election ever.

Tribune photo by Bill Hogan

Burberry wasn’t always a luxe fashion brand. Far from it. In 1911 the company outfitted Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen when he became the first man to reach the South Pole.

The peep toe style pump entered high-stakes politics this summer when vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was introduced at the GOP convention in Minnesota. Hers were red, 3 ½-inch heels. The brand: Naughty Monkey.

  If you're like me you can't stand the idea of spending a ton of money on...auto parts. If you need to buy tires to get ready for winter, I've done the mind-numbing research to help you save some cash. All YOU have to do is click here!