What happens when you make a hoodie out of Merino wool? New York based clothing company Outlier knows the answer in one word: Awesome.  They’re durable, warm, wicking. Originally built for cycling, these look fantastic. Check them out.

This year’s 99% Conference was a huge success. So, why not register for next year way ahead of time? For a limited time they’re offering $300 off the regular ticket price of $699. A steal. Go, do it, now!

On Friday October 16th Cut & Paste will take over the Hammerstein Ballroom with 48 competitors from around the world (16 different cities) duking it out for design championship and victory. Onsite and webcast viewers can tweet during the show with #cutandpaste, and all the comments on the work as it’s happening will be shown on screens between each round. Interactive awesomeness.

Want in to the event with a pair of free tickets? Tweet “I want to go to #cutandpaste NYC @joshspear” and I’ll choose two lucky winners randomly by the end of the week.

Dustin Cantrell’s handmade Plasma Dunnys (as seen here on JS last February) sent a ripple through the art toy community–and beyond. First appearing on custoMONDAYs (a series of 20 emerging toy artists curated by yours truly), Dustin’s Dunny quickly attracted attention from Gizmodo to Kanye. Everybody wanted one, but only 4 existed, and they sold out fast. Enter Kidrobot, makers of the Dunny toy. They tapped Dustin to create 3 more Plasma Dunnys in metallic gold with wood bases. The Dunnys are currently on display in Kidrobot’s New York store and for sale at $600 each in the custom art section of Kidrobot’s website. This puts Dustin in the same category previously occupied by Tara McPherson’s sculptures. Congratulations to Dustin, and let this be an inspirational story for those who tweak their toys worldwide!

Update: They sold out in less than 24 hours. At $600 each. By an unknown/emerging artist. What recession?

While there’s nothing tastier than a meal at Soba Koh, All Day Buffet has come close with The Feast for those starving for change, and looking to make the world a better place. On October 1st at The Times Center, they’re gathering 375 of the world’s greatest innovators from across industries to empower, inspire and engage each other in creating world-shaking change. And to add the icing on the cake, they’ve lined up an amazing group of speakers including musician Kenna (who’s climbing Mt. Kilminajaro with Justin Timberlake and Lupe Fiasco to raise awareness for the worldwide water crisis), professional poker player Annie Duke, William Drenttel from Winterhouse, and the team behind charity: water. If you’re looking to get full on good, get your tickets before they sell out. See you there!

The Blackout Film Festival is New York City’s only event-inspired film festival and it returns on Sept. 19, 2009 with a 90 minute program of short films centering on the theme: The Great Recession.

Filmmakers around the globe have submitted a surprisingly light-hearted group of films about the current economic recession that we are extremely excited to share. I saw your coverage of one of my favorite New York film festivals, the Bicycle Film Festival, and I think the nature of this year’s event and the films we are screening will be of interest to your readers.

Check it out Saturday, September 19th with screenings at 3pm, 5pm and 7pm at SVA’s new Visual Arts Theatre. Tickets can be bought online here.

The lines are massive down the block from my office on Lafayette Street in NYC– the limited time only A Bathing Ape Pirate Store opens today. It’s full of all kinds of archived and factory second items for sale.  Should be a zoo for a long time.

Store Hours are as follows:

9/3, 9/4, 9/5 12:00pm to 7:00pm

9/6, 9/7 from 11:00pm to 6:00pm

Exactly ten years ago, summertime in every city was lit up for those listening by a warm weather anthem that wasn’t a hip hop song or a club banger. The distinct bossa nova kick and the breezy female vocal of Nicola Conte’s ‘Bossa Per Due’ is ever familiar, even if his name isn’t. The producer, DJ, snappy dresser, and purveyor of all sounds Italian doesn’t play out a ton, but he’s coming to the Highline Ballroom. He’ll be on guitar, accompanied by a hand picked jazz ensemble for this one-off show. I’m in Rome right now, so I don’t know how the weather is back in New York, but I promise it’ll be warm and clear while he’s there!

Wanna get your Nooka on? Swing by their super-fun pop-up shop at Den in New York from July 10th through August 16th. The entire line of products is for sale– all the watches, the new wallets, belts and Nooka fragrance. It’s a great space and very well done!

330 East 11th Street
Between 1st avenue and 2nd avenue
New York, NY 10018

You can check out my Favorite Places for NYC on Google. I even got my own custom pin!

Explore the favorite places of local experts from cities around the world. Find out where they like to go, and why, from their own perspectives.

TechCrunch has the rest of the story if you’re interested…

I’m looking forward to the Surreal Minds exhibit with new works by dust next week here in NYC at myplasticheartnyc in the Lower East Side. Dust is a Swiss/German artist and designer who does murals, canvases, toys, illustrations, and more.

myplasticheartnyc
210 Forsyth St.
Lower East Side
New York
646.290.6866

There are plenty in the creative arena who scoff at the idea of sport, likening athletic competition as entertainment for uncivilized mongrels. However, when the chasm between brute force and artistic inspiration is bridged, some wonderful things can occur. The Lawn Series from Recess is a refreshing and original happening aiming to eliminate the gap between endlessly inventive artisans and the arena of athletics. For three glorious days during the sweltering NYC summer on Governor’s Island, playful pastimes will overtake the creatively inclined as they attempt to best one another in exhilarating events such as badminton, table tennis, and bocce. In addition to the flowing of the competitive juices, each event will be met with some pretty kick ass sponsors as the likes of Tretorn and Puma will be putting their stamp on the festivities while Biomega and Kronan will be on hand to offer bike test rides. Count us in and bring it on. The first day of competition is June 20th. We’ll see you there…unless you’re afraid of defeat.

Weddings can be extremely expensive, time consuming affairs. Couples sometimes spend over a year planning every last detail of their nuptials. Often times the worry associated with such painstaking detail from whether the DJ has the right version of “It Had To Be You” to the dairy-free icing on the seven-layer cake, zaps the romance right out of the big day. In the interest of preserving your special moment and not going through all that fuss, NYC’s Grand Opening storefront (Same place that had Pong in the LES) on the Lower East Side has a simple solution., just tie the knot at their space. This July, their “Wedding Chapel” will be the ideal spot for couples looking to save some loot, but not skimp on that whole love thing. They offer the services of an ordained minister, room for up to 20 guests, not to mention live web streaming of your “I dos.” If that’s not enough, a staff photographer will handle your official pics set up against any number of backdrops of places where you dreamed of tying the knot. They’ve already started raising funds and taking bookings for this summer’s lineup of wedded bliss. If you want to be included, you best get a move on, because true love doesn’t always wait.

Hundreds of unregistered billboards flood the NYC urban landscape, creating a glut of unregulated eyesores on nearly every formerly barren surface. While the city allows this unregulated illegal ugliness to stand unchecked, Jordan Seiler and PublicAdCampaign.com decided it was high time to do something about this piracy of the common landscape. In an effort to turn those blights on buildings into works of art, they launched the New York Street Advertising Takeover; whitewashing 126 billboards across the Big Apple and then asking eighty artists to do their best to remove our memories of some of that awful imagery. One of our favorite creations of the project sprung from the mind of our good friend Ji Lee, whose Delete billboard showed just how much the previous occupier of this particular swath of concrete was appreciated. Great stuff…

New York City vendors are one of the many things we love/hate about the city. Everyone has a story of some amazing/crazy street vendor experience. The Street Vendor Project has put together a visual guide for vendor regulations, rights and history and it looks amazing. Working with the Center for Urban Pedagogy designer Candy Chang put together all the information that goes into vending life (there's a lot). I now know enough to open up my own stand and battle off the cops when they try to slap a fine for on my ass for the distance between the cart and the curb. Seriously, the street has rules! You can check out a PDF sample here. If you read anything on the graph, make sure to read the sample stories at the bottom. Really interesting and heart breaking tales of what life as a vendor holds.

via infosthetics.com