Justin and Christine of Wants For Sale (etc) fame are at it again. Scissors blindfolded? Oh god. I can’t wait to see the results.

If you’re in New York this Saturday come by and we will wrap your holiday gifts, blindfolded. Bring a gift or buy one there and we’ll wrap it. All money raised will be donated to New York Cares.

Blindfolded Holiday Gift Wrapping
Saturday December 12th
Partners & Spade
40 Great Jones St NYC
12 – 7PM

Grand Opening pulls it off again. Now I can have a holiday office party and not deal with the clean up!

Invite your network, invest in quirky gifts, decorate the tree with office supplies, snuggle up by a wastebasket fire. PLUS, EggNog presents the world’s first virtual push button Santa wish list confessional. And, don’t forget egg nog—brimming with goodness, awaiting your parties’ arrival and the soul-warming-fire-water stashed in purses and pockets. By day or by night—Party like its 1920 or 60, or 90. Photography of your party included with photos of your tree decorating efforts featured on our website. For a limited time only and space is limited. December 14-23.
Related: Get Married in the Lower East Side

Felissimo – the design house on 56th street in New York – is opening a JAPAN BRAND holiday pop up shop from Nov 23rd to Dec 24th.  Awesome stuff!

One of the items is a limited edition series of extraordinary, exceptionally expensive chess sets (up to $55K) made of lacquer, silver plating and gold leaf. The sets were designed by world renowned media artist Alexander Gelman and crafted by traditional Japanese artisans.

The other is the bicycle above which looks absolutely amazing: As part of his foray into lacquerware, Gelman also created a custom, one-of-a-kind lacquer bicycle. To build it, he hand-picked the highest grade components from Shimano, the worlds’ leading bicycle manufacturer.

The shop is here in New York city at The Felissimo Design House, 10 West 56th Street.  Swing by for a visit if you’re in the area.

My friend Justin Gignac of Wants For Sale and NYC Garbage fame (among other things) will be speaking at the Apple Store SoHo this Monday, November 23rd. That’s tomorrow!

Monday, November 23, 2009

6:30 – 8 PM
Apple Store SoHo
103 Prince Street, NYC

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