illustri.

The Illustri doesn't look like a light so much as a bizarre deepsea creature that heaved its bulk out of the ocean before collapsing on your living room floor. To go along with the collapsed-on-the-floor version, there is a dripping-from-a-lamp-pole one and a hanging-off-the-ceiling variety. No idea what it's made out of (ocean junk maybe?) but it seems to cost 655 euros. The designer is Hans Heisz.

poaa. dumbbell.

If you're looking for a 6-pound designer dumbbell with a bizarre name and a price tag north of $400, have I got something to show you. These bad boys of muscular fitness were designed by -- who else? -- Philippe Starck out of bronze with a brushed nickel finish. When you're not using them as dumbbells, they also double as doorstops, paperweights or just random pieces of sculpture. (That's not in the literature, by the way, that's just me being clever.)

advantage. starck.
Yes, $467.60 is a totally inane price to pay for dumbbells, but it can have advantages. First of all, it may give you more incentive to actually use them. More realistically, if you're like me and you buy fitness equipment only to leave it lying around unused, chances are your friends will never realize these things are dumbbells, so you won't feel so guilty when you don't use them. And hey, these beat a $467.60 gym membership that you never use...

capitello. chair.

If you have a house where a Greek column would look at home, then it's an artistic imperative for you to get the Capitello Chair! According to Nova68, this is "a factory brand new authorized production" of a 1971 design that looks hard but is supposedly quite comfy.

utterly. untruthful.
Further Googling turned up this strange description on Design Matcher: "Easy chair in flexible polyurethane foam with differentiated load bearing capacity; coating in elastic washable paint. Predicting the work of Post-Modern classicists, such as Robert Venturi and Hans Hollein, the 'Capitello' is utterly untruthful to the materials it employs. While the design appears extremely hard, in reality the self-skinning moulded polyurethane foam is surprisingly soft. The original prototype was made up by Piero Gilardi, the designer of other out-of-context designs manufactured by Gufram." (The blogger spellchecker almost choked to death on that paragraph, by the way.)

indoor. outdoor.
Supposedly this thing can go indoors or out, and if it's truly that rugged, then I think $825 is not a bad price to pay for it (and shipping is free...w00t!).

black. hole. table.

There's two things I think about the Black Hole Table that I'm not sure of: 1) It's not actually for sale anywhere. 2) The design somehow combines surfing and black holes. The two things I know about are: 1) It's pretty friggin' cool. 2) It's extra handy if you're not too delicate to scrape your crumbs into the hollow legs. (Somewhere I think I just hear Marc screaming in agaony...sorry guy). Anyway, neat, no?

himiko. waterbus.

The Himiko Waterbus is 114 tons of pure style that makes me wish I lived in Tokyo. This Nemo-esque beauty was "produced by" Japanese cartoonist Leiji Matsumoto and currently plies the waters off the capital of Japan. It's got everything you'd want in a design that's "appealing to children," including 3D windows and floor panels that light up (you know, so it looks even more awesome at night!). It's named after Queen Himiko, "the first recognized independent lady in Japanese history."

torso. armchair.

Paolo Deganello's Torso Chair is one of those things where you really don't care if it's too comfortable or not. It looks good, and that's all that matters. It's got everything I like in a piece of furniture: asymmetrical, colorful, doesn't actually look like furniture at first glance. Not to mention "elastic webbing," which I'm all about. And if that's not enough, you can get a matching Torso Sofa too.