WE'RE SUPPORTING

Not only is the scale of the things Italian street artist Blu is doing on the street, impressive — he does these huge pieces with just rollers with long extensions — even more amazing is how quickly he works. If you haven’t seen the stop motion animation he did, you should. It’s an animation on the walls of a street in which he’s painting, then buffing, then painting it again, with a succession of characters moving all around. It’s just insane how much work it takes to create these things. I don’t think anyone has ever done anything like it. Read more

WE'RE LISTENING TO

Give me a minor key song anytime. Yup, I’ll take the heartfelt purity of an introspective trawl over any warm and fuzzy major key shimmy. I once asked UK band The Editors why there aren’t more cheerful songs in the world: ‘Three words’, vocalist Tom Smith replied. ‘Shiny Happy People’. He smirked. I grimaced. Enough said.

Listen to Casiotone for the Painfully Alone’s, Don’t They Have Payphones Wherever You Were Last Night.

WE'RE THINKING

I managed to swing by the SVA Graduate Illustration show the other night and couldn’t believe how much amazing work there was. One particular illustrator I couldn’t tear myself from was Youngsun Liu. His work is pure texture and color, just the way I like it.

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

Dubbed as a ‘lifestyle project’ drawing influences from Californian street culture, the store recently opened by LA-based The Hundreds in San Francisco has, hands down, the coolest fit-out I’ve ever seen. Read more

WE'RE WATCHING

Films involving characters faced with an impossible choice never make easy viewing, an example being the Nick Cave Australian gem, The Proposition. A nightclub manager, played with understated power by Joaquin Phoenix, is the victim here, and you actually feel truly uncomfortable as his predicament unfolds. Set in the 1980s, We Own The Night shows a real nostalgia for that period — particularly in the costumes. Read more

WE'RE WEARING

In celebration of an election year, Attus Apparel is offering thirty percent off all of their rad shirts using the promo code “rexforpres” at checkout. In conjunction with the big sale, they are dabbling a little in politics by introducing their own candidate for President, Rex Vanderwoodsen, representing the Strange Party. They have kicked off the campaign with a blog, campaign posters, buttons, stickers, and have all sorts of fun stuff on the way like campaign parties, and videos. Read more

WE'RE READING

I am really into Hong Kong action flicks from the 1980s and 90s. When I first moved to New York, there were a handful of curious friends who were also interested in watching movies such as City on Fire by Ringo Lam, which Reservoir Dogs was based on. How did they find videos like thus? At the legendary Kim’s Video in New York City. These days, City on Fire can be find online, and Kim’s is history. But all the videos that entertained the film geeks of this city for more than twenty years have found a new home in, wait for it, Salemi, Sicily. Yes, the southern island of Italy. Kim has recently relocated there, as this sad but heartwarming story about him in yesterday’s New York Times reveals.