Liquid Treat

Do you know what the handwriting of your closest friends looks like? Probably not. "We are at a moment when handwriting seems to be about to vanish from our lives altogether," writes Phillip Hensher in his new book The Missing Ink (Faber & Faber). "It has stopped being a necessary and inevitable intermediary between people—a means by which individuals communicate with each other, putting a little bit of their personality into the form of their message as they press the ink-bearing point on to the paper." The holiday season is the perfect time to move away from your keyboard and return to the analog pleasures Hensher champions. Thank you notes, anyone?

Stereographs, all the rage in the 19th and early 20th centuries, consist of two nearly identical photographs—one for the left eye, one for the right. Viewing the side-by-side images though a stereoscope (think proto-ViewMaster) helps our brains combine the two flat images and "see" the illusion of objects in spatial depth. Inspired by an art project of Joshua Heineman, the New York Public Library has created Stereogranimator, a web-based app that allows users to transform its historical stereographs into animated GIFs. 3D afficionados can also create red-blue anaglyphs, which, with the right glasses, recreate the incredible depth effect of these images. Heineman likens the NYPL's stereograph archive to "a gold mine of some 40,000 ViewMaster slides, nearly all more than 100 years old."

This week, as we prepare for a brief holiday break, we come bearing an extra-special gift for you, dear Liquid Treat readers: The Special Special Special, a new comedy special from Maria Bamford. The comedian recorded the hour-long set in her own Los Angeles home. The audience? Her parents, Marilyn and Joel. "With some paid audiences, the feigned enthusiasm can be a little uncomfortable to watch, but I genuinely rock the house," notes Bamford, who pauses her routine to hand out freshly baked cookies and administer eyedrops to her pet pug. "My parents only wish they could be there with you when you watch this with your parents." Treat yourself to something special (special special) at Chill.com, where the show is $4.99 to download and stream.

Give 2013 a retro twist with Poladarium, a tear-off calendar that offers a new Polaroid-snapped image every day. Flip over each page for the backstory: how the photo came about, what inspired it, and who the photographer is. The 365 Polaroids, printed with a glossy finish on special paper, were lovingly selected by the Karlsruhe, Germany-based Poladarium team from images submitted by photographers and friends of instant photography from around their world. Got Polaroids? They'll begin accepting entries for the 2014 calendar in February.

Still scouring stores for stocking stuffers that won't be returned for store credit? You can't go wrong with a copy of Marion Bataille's ABC3D (Roaring Brook Press). The Paris-based graphic designer's first U.S. publication has been rapidly embraced by the kiddie lit set, but design lovers of all ages will be entranced by this pop-up tour through the alphabet, which begins with a lenticular cover and moves through shape-shifting letterforms that involve spinning discs, collapsing lattices, mirrors, scrim-like pages, and other feats of paper engineering. Photos don't begin to convey the typographical magic Bataille has wrought. Digital media to the rescue! Experience ABC3D in 2D with this video.

When Sebastian Errazuriz’s studio was paralyzed in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the Chilean born, New York-based artist and designer was determined to help raise relief funds. A visit to flooded galleries in the city's Chelsea neighborhood, where the water line was still visible on soggy walls, prompted Errazuriz to riff on Milton Glaser's famous I ♥ NY campaign with this t-shirt, dip-dyed blue to appear waterlogged. The shirts are now available from Grey Area, with 100 percent of the profit going to Hurricane Sandy relief programs.