The Weekly Thingdown

9 Objects That Mattered This Week

Rob Walker
1 min readFeb 19, 2021

Thingdown is a weekly roundup of things — objects, products, stuff — that are lately in the news or otherwise of interest right now.

  1. Grape-Nuts are an industrial object, with a very devoted following. (My Object of the Week for Marker.)
  2. Paul Lukas on #saltboxart in Baltimore. Fascinating.
  3. Reports: There is a bullet shortage.
  4. A Candle That Smells Like Fresh Sneakers.
  5. Ancient Toys. Amazing. Somebody should make contemporary versions.
  6. Alleged: Vibram FiveFingers “toe shoes” are the latest heinous footwear to make a Pandemic comeback. (Bonus: my column on these shoes the first time around, in 2010.)
  7. IKEA furniture specifically for gamers.
  8. Sinks specifically for vomiting into.
  9. The surprisingly interesting history of the bathroom scale.

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Leave your object-related tips in the comments — and have a nice weekend!

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