sundance

Wall of beer

Studio On Fire, a “hybrid design and letterpress workspace in Minneapolis,” posted on their blog “Beast Pieces” the completed installation of “The Wall.” It proudly displays over 500 vintage beer cans, which provide an interesting snapshot of design from a bygone (drinking) era. [Via]

5 houses of worship using solar energy

Turns out that Madison, Wisconsin’s Benedictine sisters aren’t the only ones greening their house of worship: churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples around the US are implementing a range of green building and energy saving features. In most cases, they’re driven by religious imperatives; cost-savings likely play a role, too. The federal government’s even trying to encourage this behavior: Environmental Leader noted today that congregation buildings are now eligible for ENERGY STAR status.

Solar power is one of the first things most of us consider when trying to cut our energy costs and lighten our carbon footprints. Religious congregations are no different… here are a handful that have added solar features to their houses of worship.

• The First Presbyterian Church of Washingtonville, NY, has been heating the building with DIY solar systems for over 30 years!
  
  
• Bridgeview, Illinois’ Mosque Foundation added solar water heating in 2008, making it the first mosque in the US to adopt solar technology.
  
  

Just got implants? Have we got the bra for you.

There are bras for women with small boobs, bras for women with big boobs, bras for women who don’t want to cover their boobs–and now, finally, someone’s come up with a bra that’s specifically designed for fake boobs.

HEADLESS WOMAN: Inside-out horrors

The title of Argentine director Lucrecia Martel’s film HEADLESS WOMAN brings to mind a kind of over the top creepy B movie. Completing its run at the Film Forum this week, it turns out to exist far far… on the other end of the spectrum. The care taken with every frame, the subtle, almost maddeningly opaqueness to its characters, and the simplicity of its plot all add up to something else. But still there is horror and blood lurking in this film’s unconscious, though it never is shown explicitly on screen. It grows in the imagination of the main character and it seeps out of every frame through suggestion and detail… like a horror film turned inside-out.

California’s wildfires in time lapse

As wildfires lick the hills of California, a couple different photographers have captured time lapse footage of the fires spread. The New York Times linked to the first video below which recorded the fires at sunset from LA’s Mulhulland Drive this past Saturday. Set to music by Brian Eno, the second video is a more [...]

Hubba hubba, Hubby Hubby

Yesterday gay couples began to legally wed in the great state of Vermont. Vermont, now known for its stance on marriage equality, has always been a state for lovers. Lovers of ice cream that is.

Toy Soldiers

Alta Media Productions casts the tilt-shift effect (previously) on Paris in this video. The title makes sense around the 1 minute mark as the tilt-shift trick gives the neat impression of marching toy soldiers coming alive. Toy Soldiers from Alta Media Productions on Vimeo. [Via]

These shoes are made for dancing

Available at a niche Finnish design shop focusing on local manufacturers, these adorable shoes are perfect for parent-child dance lessons.

Betsey Johnson gets some respect

Betsey Johnson is a fashion designer who’s never quite gotten the credit she deserves. Designing clothes and turning a profit since the 60s, she’s always been a bit too extreme to have become a household name like more mainstream American designers such as Donna Karan and Calvin Klein. As her dreadlocked hair and cartwheels down [...]

World’s first barge-based wetlands classroom launches in September

Apparently, “floating environmentalism” isn’t limited to Huck Finn wannabees: on September 14, the Learning Barge, a joint project of the University of Virginia School of Architecture and the Elizabeth River Project, will be christened and opened to the public. Designed as an environmental education center for teaching elementary and middle school students about water and [...]

New band from a New Order

Bernard Sumner has been a prolific musician the last few decades. He was a member of the iconic Joy Division which became the even more iconic New Order after the suicide of JD’s Ian Curtis. Word of New Order’s demise left a foul taste in the mouth of techno-pop fans across the world. Now, there [...]

Naked News (09-01-09)

STD toys from Giant Microbes

• A horrifying Swedish study finds that contracting STDs can make some young idiots men feel more manly.
• The NY Times weighs in on the health care debate…over penis pumps. They seem to endorse them. We’re not so sure.

Bransilav Kropilak, Landings

Bookending the previous entry of Charlie McCarthy’s wondrous time-lapse photographs of the flight paths of insects around a light, Branislav Kropilak’s long-exposure photography series “Landings” captures the linear paths of planes on descent. And the lights look so purrrty.

Little Horn, big sound

Standing three feet tall, the Little Horn actually isn’t so little. Boasting a 3-D audio experience, the inverted design enables low frequencies to emerge at the top of the enclosure and the octagonal shape of the horn allows sound waves to expand freely, the way nature intended. Larger versions have graced stages at Carnegie Hall, Radio City [...]