Peopled by sailors and pirate women and mutant flapper girls with Louise Brooks eyes, the old skool world conjured up by Angelique Houtkamp is simply wonderful.

Last time I featured Phillip Toledano's work it was deeply personal - this time it is conceptually political: get your souvenirs from America the gift shop.

Wired browses the artifacts of geek history in Jay Walker's library:

"What gets him excited are things that changed the way people think, like Robert Hooke's Micrographia. Published in 1665, it was the first book to contain illustrations made possible by the microscope. He's also drawn to objects that embody a revelatory (or just plain weird) train of thought. "I get offered things that collectors don't," he says. "Nobody else would want a book on dwarfs, with pages beautifully hand-painted in silver and gold, but for me that makes perfect sense." What excites him even more is using his treasures to make mind-expanding connections. He loves juxtapositions, like placing a 16th-century map that combines experience and guesswork—"the first one showing North and South America," he says—next to a modern map carried by astronauts to the moon. "If this is what can happen in 500 years, nothing is impossible."