Cool Hunting
| 20 April 2006view entries from: this week | this month | view previous day | view next day |
Scion Dashboard Gallery
by Ami Kealoha
Opening this Saturday, 22 April 2006, the Scion Dashboard Gallery showcases art by a different curator each week. Bigfoot kicks things off with a show called "Tortured Souls" that runs through 28 April 2006, with Shawn Barber, Norm (AWR/MSK), and Ricardo Richey covering subsequent weeks. A flyer with info is after the jump.
Director's Bureau 60-Second Film Contest
by Ami Kealoha
In late January the LA-based production company, the Director's Bureau, put out an open call for submissions, tasking aspiring filmmakers with creating a 60-second film about love. After Director's Bureau execs and RES founder Jonathan Welles whittled the entries down to five finalists, they screened the shorts as part of RES' monthly events in Los Angeles this past Tuesday 18 April 2006 and put them online today. Taking home top honors (and a briefcase filled with 2,000 one-dollar bills), Eric Tu's The Ballad of Gabrielle is a charmer composed in a grainy, pastel palette about a man named Amor. Other honorees include Scott Thrift, one half of our very own m ss ng p eces (the production company behind Cool Hunting Videos), whose gorgeously-shot piece, called Lv (pictured), might be the ultimate metaphor for fleeting love. Also be sure to check out Sole Mates, which stars a classic hi-top sneaker, the beauty pageant-themed Simple Passion, and Radical Friend's rock opera, titled Mating Call.
Versionfest
by Ami Kealoha
Chicago's 4th annual Versionfest is 18 days of experimental art, guerrilla graphics, indie music, political activism, and technology, opening today, 20 April 2006, and running through 7 May 2006. For the Urban Gardening and Exterior Decorating Show, artists painted and appropriated neglected spaces around the city into "charged public spaces." Opening night features a ‘kunsthalle’ and on Thursday 27 April, 2006, the festival hosts an exhibition of music and sound art called the International Noise Awards. Ed Marszewski, or Edmar as he's known, is the founder and present curator of Version and the alt-culture mayor of Chicago. Edmar has been facilitating culture-changing collaborations since the early 1990’s. He gave first exposure to Bobby Conn and the Aluminum Group was formed to play at parties for his short-lived magazine Easylistener.
Contributed by Kristopher Irizarry
Hitachino Nest Beer
by Evan Orensten
Kiuchi Brewery has made sake in Japan since 1823. With a change in brewing laws they were able to launch their first microbrew beer in 1996, the highly lauded JCA, or Japanese Classic Ale. In the last ten years they have developed many new brews, including an incredible Red Rice Ale. The rice is milled and polished, the same as it is for sake, and fermentation requires both sake and ale yeasts, and yields a beer unique in taste and craft.
Hitachino Nest beers feature a few other qualities that impress: The bottles are well designed and feature a South Park style red and white owl and retro green lettering; and with annual production limited to around 2,000 cases a year, it makes enjoying one all the more satisfying.
Most of the distribution in the States is in restaurants, like Fatty Crab in Manhattan and Little Dishes in Brooklyn, as Grace over at Design Sponge wrote about yesterday.
Hitachino Nest is distributed in the U.S. by B. United International. In Manhattan, you can find their full product range at New Beer Distributors. Some of the brews are also available at some Whole Foods.
L'Appartement 217
by Ami Kealoha
Treatments at the first organic spa in Paris, L’Appartement 217, are so intricate they seem like they might be answers to eternal youth. Proprietor Stéphane Jaulin studied the biology of epidermal rejuvenation, arriving at the perfect menu of revivifying regimens. He offers them in a Parisian apartment space designed under the watchful eye of a Feng Shui master.
Revered Dr. Hauschka’s treatments by Wala are only one of the spa’s many offerings. All reinvigorate the skin without applying aggressive exfoliating or deep epidermal therapies. Deep tissue massages use cold-pressed organic oils from Madagascar. Others use cryogenically compressed vegetable emulsions that encourage cellular regeneration and improved elasticity. The Iyashi Dome uses organic heat in a ceramic dome to encourage a detoxifying perspiration that burns 532 calories on average. L’appartament also offers a Fung Shui approved Aramis laser treatment which does not so much erase furrows but stimulates cells whose regeneration slows with human aging; the treatment is also effective for teenage and adult acne. A full with a spa day includes a spectrum of treatments, diet advice, and consultation physical therapist.
More info and another picture after the jump.
