sundance

Pokemon world record

In addition to the distinction of having two first names in her full name, Lisa Courtney also holds the Guiness World Record for the largest Pokemon collection in the world with 12,113 items of Pokemon merchandise that she has accumulated over the past 13 years. She is 21 years young. I wonder if she lists [...]

FULL FRONTAL FASHION highlights: CATWALK COUNTDOWN with Vena Cava

Getting ready for New York Fashion Week? Even if you are just a casual fan of the latest threads out there, take a look at our new series, CATWALK COUNTDOWN. It brings you inside the studios of 10 leading fashion designers as they gear up for their shows and presentations at New York Fashion Week. [...]

Famous New York valentines

The New York Times collected some valentines written by or to famous New Yorkers. They are quite touching and eloquent, especially the poem that E.B. White wrote to his wife, Katharine Sergeant White. A former New Yorker editor, “in a penciled notation, Katharine recognized it as a rondeau, a French lyrical poem with an unusual [...]

Competitive pen spinning

Back in high school, my classmates and I noticed that our biology teacher was doing this neat pen-spinning hand trick while she was lecturing. Afterwards, we bugged her to teach us and for the next couple of weeks, we drove everyone nuts as we tried to learn this trick. We finally succeeded and we thought [...]

Recyclebank & eBay collaborate to promote reuse

Ever found it odd that, generally, you have to pay for recycling service? After all, the materials you place in those blue bins are commodities that your recycling service will sell. You might argue that paying people a cut of the revenues generated from the sale of such materials could work better to increase recycling rates (though, in fairness, the prices for such materials are relatively low… though they have been rising).

Philadelphia-based Recyclebank was founded on this concept. While the company doesn’t actually pay people for recycling, it offers a rewards program similar to airline miles or credit card points.

The Super Bowl Ad Superlatives (in the love & sex category)

BEST OVERALL: Dove Men+Care’s “The Journey to Comfort”
At last, a commercial that celebrates manhood without being sexist, stupid or beer-related! It’s basically a mini-movie crammed into 45-seconds (seriously, try counting the number of scenes they had to shoot) that follows one Everyman’s life from birth to adulthood by highlighting the big moments as well as the mundane ones: puberty, love, marriage, jar-opening, parenthood. The message is “You’re mature and comfortable enough in your own skin that you don’t have to worry about seeming like a pussy if you want to moisturize your skin.” And it avoids all the divisive or offensive gender stereotypes often found in Super Bowl ads. BUT — and it’s a big “but” — the title of “best ad” only applies to the 45-second version that aired during the Super Bowl last night. If you search online for it (and on the Dove site), the version that will probably come up first is the ONE minute version, which sadly DOES include a bunch of tired gender stereotypes, like fighting at parties, never showing your sensitive side and never showing fear — ugh! Like with good film making, good commercial making is all about editing, editing, editing.

45-Second Version (Yay!):

One-Minute Version (Boo!):

See the winners for “Most Romantic,” “Most Sexist” and “Funniest” after the jump:

American Pika Denied Endangered Species Protection

The American pika does not meet the criteria for protection under the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Friday after completing a review of the species’ status and evaluating current and future threats to the small, mountain-dwelling mammal.

USDA Scraps Bush-era Animal Disease Traceability System

In an effort to win support from ranchers and farmers, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will develop a new framework for animal disease traceability, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced Friday.

The Debate Society’s You’re Welcome

Before the play begins the director walks on stage and explains a few things about the production to the audience. But because you’ve been prepped to expect that “You’re Welcome: A cycle of bad plays,” the latest from the inimitable foursome at The Debate Society, will, no doubt, involve a few bad play gags, you go along with it. But then, after the director leaves the stage and comes back again and again to tell you just a few more specifics, like the fact that the play we’re about to see involves an imaginary door, a retractable knife and is bound to be very funny but the actors are professionals and our laughter won’t disturb them, you realize that this, the director’s back and forth, is the play. Which of course we already know since in the opening titles we were told that Play #1 is “The Director Ruins the Play.”

Weir Roundup: Johnny does Jordin Sparks and Carrie Underwood

Johnny Weir poses for a portrait during the NBC/USOC Promotional Photo Shoot on May 12, 2009 at Smashbox Studios

With the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver just a week away, SUNfiltered will bring you a “Weir Roundup” whenever possible that will not only feature the latest news on Johnny, but also interesting video clips. In this edition, we’ll be showcasing Johnny’s vocal talents and a recently made-available video of Johnny’s routine to Jordin Sparks’ live performance of “Battlefield.” In the upcoming days, we’ll be highlighting other notable exhibition routines, as well career-making performances like “The Swan.”

– Johnny and acclaimed photographer and music video director Matthew Rolston come together in a promo shoot for BE GOOD JOHNNY WEIR. Check out the final product and behind-the-scenes footage on Full Frontal Fashion.

– “Skater Johnny Weir’s New Resolve” by the Philadelphia Inquirer.

– Ryan McGinely showcases a photo portfolio entitled “The Highfliers” featuring Shaun White, Johnny Weir, Emily Cook, and more in the latest edition of NY Times Magazine. All the athletes featured are wearing custom Rodarte knitwear which can bee seen here.

Don’t miss Johnny singing, after the jump.

Floppy disc art

Those floppy discs which were so instructive in the formative years of my education in elementary school are given a second chance instead of wasting away in a landfill. Artist Nick Gentry creates these really fantastic portraits using floppy discs as a canvas. [Via]

My city’s musical preferences versus yours

Using data from Last.fm, “creative coder” Michael Schieben built this neat online app My City vs. Your City, which lets you compare the music tastes between two cities. [Via]

FULL FRONTAL FASHION highlights: Christian Cota

Is it true that Christian Cota wears slippers in the office? Learn more next week when we launch our new series, CATWALK COUNTDOWN, on February 8 on FULL FRONTAL FASHION. CATWALK COUNTDOWN takes a fun, inside and intimate look into 10 different designer studios. Find out how they get their inspiration for each new collection. [...]

Places that time will never forget

You could say that Ori Gersht lives in the past, but unlike other artists who may make reference to their heritage in some small, personal way, Gersht is more like an art detective/historian. Take Evaders, his latest series of photographs, currently on view at Mummery + Schnelle in London. At first glance you see an amazing landscape, shrouded in mist, the colors bright and sharp, reminiscent, perhaps, of the allegorical paintings of the 19th century German Romantics. But when you learn that this isn’t just any old mountain, that it’s the Pyrenes, and that it’s not just any old passage within the Pyrenes, that it’s the Lister Route, the photographs can’t help but carry deeper significance.

Caught in the act.

The 70s were some good times. Disco! Gay liberation! My birth! And the 1970s also gave us the gem of a movie above. It’s an educational video showing a mother walking in on her son masturbating. We’ve all been there. Right? Right? It is just as awkward and weird as bell bottoms and my mother’s [...]

ALIENS rap

Like Arnold in their previous effort, The Anomolies (previously) are back.This time, they apply their considerable skills to the science fiction classic thriller ALIENS where these lyricists engage in a 10 minute rapping tour de force which explains the movie’s plot.

Pro-choice responses to the Tim Tebow Super Bowl ad

To kick off your Superbowl weekend, check out these 3 bits that you won’t (but should!) see during the game this Sunday — all are in response to the anti-choice, anti-equality, anti-gay Christian group Focus on the Family’s 2.5-million-dollar spot (that we mentioned the other day) featuring football star Tim Tebow and his mom talking about how she refused to have an abortion after doctors advised her to. Hey, good for Mrs. Tebow, who had the right to make her own decisions about her reproductive health! Guess we can now hold our breath until CBS runs an equally “appropriate” ad about preserving that right to choose:

Two more after the break.

Green tech finds (2/4/10)

Hummer horse carts, cheap(er) wind power, and make-you-own toilet paper machines… this week’s green tech finds.

• Sony adds to its green cred: The VAIO W Series laptop and Aspen phone both feature power saving and recycled materials. (via Stuff.tv)
  
  
• Trash to energy in Milwaukee: Developer Alliance Federated Energy announced Project Apollo, a trash-to-syngas project planned for the city’s North Side.
  
  

The other Michael Lucas

When you’re gay you cherish sex equally as pop. And we idolize our porn stars as much as our pop stars. Madonna shows as much skin as any adult entertainer.  Why wouldn’t we? We also don’t care about the taboos attached to porn. But, then again, we’ve never shared a name with a porn star. Michael [...]

Covers of J.D. Salinger

One blogger collected over 20 different covers to recently deceased author J.D. Salinger’s influential book “Catcher in the Rye.” It’s interesting to see the wide ranging approach designer took in coming up with covers in re-issues of this seminal book. In addition, The New Yorker opened their archives, typically available only to paying subscribers, so [...]

Fifteen years old, and full of raging hormones.

This one’s a little complicated, so bear with us. Jump is a Brazilian ad agency–one that’s been around for fifteen years. And like any fifteen year old, they’re just bursting with boiling hormones… So to celebrate their fifteenth anniversary, they created this ad spread of a lingerie-clad woman. The two pages come glued together, so [...]

What lessons can we take away from Sundance?

WINTER’S BONE, Grand Jury Prize Winner at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival

Now that Sundance is over, it’s time for a little perspective. And critics and industry watchers are only too happy to provide it.

Sure, since the awards were handed out on Saturday night and the festival wrapped on Sunday, there have been the requisite stories about which movies to watch out for and the reports on last-minute acquisitions. (Ten movies were acquired at the festival; in the past few days, Weinstein Co. snagged Derek Cianfrance’s BLUE VALENTINE, starring Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling; IFC Films scored the rights to Michael Winterbottom’s THE KILLER INSIDE ME; and Roadside scooped up Debra Granik’s WINTER’S BONE, which won the festival’s grand jury prize.)

But what lessons can we take away from Sundance 2010?

Glitch Generation

Take the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Every year over a million people make the trip to see it. I can guarantee you not even half that number would bother if the tower was instead the Well Constructed and Very Vertical Tower of Pisa. It’s because the architect and his builders messed up the foundation that it’s now so famous. The same idea is at the heart of “Glitch Generation,” the new exhibition at the Brooklyn Arts Council.

We always knew modern design was bad for your love life

The things that once so defined him — shag carpeting, Room & Board sofas, monogamy — now suffocated him. — via UnhappyHipsters.com

If you’ve ever browsed the pages of, say, Dwell magazine and wondered how the hell anyone could even fart in such an antiseptic environment, let alone have an orgasm, then you’ll love UnhappyHipsters.com as much as we do. The site is genius in its simplicity: photos from the pages of Dwell magazine and, okay, mostly just Dwell, with one-liner captions guessing at the inner life of the dwellers in question. Sure, we’ve always been proponents of clearing clutter — especially in your bedroom — in order to focus on the task at hand, whether that task is dinner, email, romance, or an orgasm. But there’s lack of clutter and then there’s austere design and architecture that seems to scream, “I DARE you to have fun in here!” A sampling from a world in which “wet spot” is a dirty word after the jump.

City museums make Super Bowl bet

1644 painting “Ideal View of Tivoli” by Claude Lorrain

It’s a long standing tradition that the mayors of the two teams fighting it out in a sports championship, such as the World Series or Super Bowl, will wager on the outcome and bet their city’s local offerings, typically food. In this year’s Super Bowl, the respective museums of the two cities, the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Indianapolis Museum of Art are beating their proverbial (artsy) chests and betting a major art piece from their collection. There’s been a lot of trash talk between the two museum directors as words such as “insignificant” and “gaudy tchotchke” to describe some of the paitings has been tossed and tweeted back and forth.