Contraband

Kanye cartoons, touch-screen watches, licorice-nectarine bitters, black market goods and more in our weekly look at the web

An excerpt from her upcoming book “Contraband” (due out Fall 2010), T Magazine displayed artist Taryn Simon’s disturbing photos of items confiscated at New York’s JFK airport. The assortment spans dead animals to cow dung toothpaste, for a book that aims to reveal what is considered “threatening to economies, to personal safety and to a nation.”

The V8 Hotel

Kanye cartoons, touch-screen watches, licorice-nectarine bitters, black market goods and more in our weekly look at the web

For those who love nothing more than a good engine, the Stuttgart, Germany V8 Hotel offers rooms that Plastolux points out are “geared” for the driving enthusiast but are also well-appointed.

Jonas Damon iPad Case

Kanye cartoons, touch-screen watches, licorice-nectarine bitters, black market goods and more in our weekly look at the web

Motivated to create things from materials lying around his house, industrial designer Jonas Damon created an iPad case that’s like no other. Encased in a retro arcade console and another in a gutted Mac, the iPad mimics an old-school cathode-ray television complete with a grainy-snow screensaver for a full ’80s effect.