Planet B-Boy at Tribeca Film Festival

by Tim Yu

The Tribeca Film Festival's Drive-In Series will be screening Planet B-Boy, a feature-length documentary on breakdancing. Planet B-Boy depicts the global resurgence of breakdancing through the life of a dancer in Las Vegas looking for his big break, a Korean son who seeks his father’s approval and a twelve-year-old boy in France confronting his family’s racism. From the outskirts of Paris to the suburbs of Seoul, the film serves as a reminder of hip-hop's influence on different and diverse cultures. This year the outdoor screenings return to the World Financial Plaza in Lower Manhattan and are free. Gates open at 6:30 pm and Planet B Boy will begin at 8:30 pm on Saturday, 28 April 2007. View the trailer here.

To see some of the cast from Planet B-Boy live, head to Webster Hall on Friday, 27 April 2007. Some of the crews from Planet B-Boy will battle some of NYC's finest on stage. Click here for more info.

Webster Hall
125 East 11th Street
New York, NY 10003 map
tel. +1 212 353 1600

Furnish

by Ami Kealoha

Like furniture porn, the new book Furnish: Furniture and Interior Design for the 21st Century is over 200 pages of full-color photos of design objects made by the world's brightest furniture stars. With work by emerging designers such as Jason Miller, Joris Laarman, &made and Jamie Hayon, as well as by more established names like Tord Boontje, Tom Dixon and Hella Jongerius, the images will look familiar to anyone who follows contemporary design.

Chopped up, pieced together, deconstructed, ironic, patched over, mutated and irreverent, the furniture in the book gives an overall sense of ever-reigning post-modern influences and plenty of art-as-design. Rather than organize Furnish by designer (a more conventional choice), each well-curated section points out specific trends like "Transformation and Hybrids" and "Limited Edition."

Get a copy from Die Gestalten or Amazon.

RootPhi Rethinks Recycling

by Josh Rubin

Brian Witlin, cofounder or RootPhi, is interested in rethinking recyclability to retain the intrinsic beauty of the first generation object. One of his explorations in this direction is being leveraged by Timbuk2 to create a new generation of messenger bags made from plastic trash.

Witlin's patent pending machine bonds plastic trash together to make a stronger material that can be cut and sewn. It works best with plastic bags like you get from the grocery store or you find protecting your morning newspaper from the rain. The trash isn't completely melted so you can still see the original details and colors. We got the chance to make a bag and decided to use bubble wrap. The resulting texture, pictured right (click to zoom), uses layers of both large and small bubble wrap and is pretty great!

Timbuk2 is still experimenting with this new material and how to get you to bring in your trash and have a bag made, so stay tuned for details. In the mean time, we have a couple prototypes to give away—just use the contact form below to let us know what trash you think would make the best looking bag and be sure to select "Timbuk2 Giveaway" from the pull-down menu. The contest ends this Friday, 27 April 2007, at 11:59pm EST. As the bags are still prototypes, winners will be encouraged to give some feedback.

Busy Bee Chocolates

by Phuong-Cac Nguyen

I’m lucky to be living near Busy Bee Chocolates, a minuscule but substantial chocolate shop in my São Paulo neighborhood of Vila Madalena. Wood-paneled and discreet, Busy Bee opens into a candy box of surprises. The truffles are what keep customers addicted, with delicate and intense flavors such as candied orange, cognac and cashew covered in dark, white or milk chocolate.

Luciana Baptista learned her craft decades ago in France and brought back her art to the shop, which initially started as just a workshop. It explains the size of the place, where the closet-sized front functions as the place for the cash register, coffee bar (they only serve espresso and water, with hot chocolate absent from the menu) and chocolate tasting area. Behind the register, separated by a glass door, is a magical area—the kitchen, where one person makes all the sweets by hand.

Another Busy Bee popular item is the “Croc,” a crunchy bit of heaven packed with candied cashews surrounded in chocolate. And for those with more traditional but unafraid to experiment, a tablet of chocolate in caramel or dried fruit is divinity without religion.

Extra Cheeese

by Lost At E Minor

Extra Cheeese is a social upsize based in Sydney that aims to break down the distinctions between artists and designers by creating a collective melting pot through which to optimize existing relationships and practices. The project deconstructs established notions on the nature of artist/designer "social groups," examining to what extent they inform visual experience and culture. Work will be uploaded to the Extra Cheeese website, accompanied by artist and designer details. There will also be an exhibition of selected works at Gallery Fourty Four on 24 May 2007. Submissions close on 17 May 2007.

Illustration by Jirat Patradoon.