Now that we’ve seen the wooden iPod, we’re sure that its creator, Joshua Driggs, has some sort of fetishistic thing going on. But whether it’s about the iPod or about wood isn’t entirely clear. The wooden iPod, as pictured here, is made out of a grain called African Padauk, along with Lexan plastic for the screen and Envirotex Lite to give it the glossy finish of a real iPod. (It seems a bit weird to make a wooden iPod shine in the synthetic manner of a real iPod, but who are we to judge the thinking behind this masterpiece?) The strangest part is that the wooden iPod actually works; Driggs took off its original casing and kept the innards. Even though, as you can probably tell, we think the wooden iPod a bit odd, there may be a market for it. Though Steve Jobs has been accused of not having much of a feel for history, the wooden iPod might fit into many Americans’ nostalgic longings, as epitomized by entertainment centers made to look like antique armoires and CD players made to look like radios from the 1930s.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor