British novelist John le Carré passed away this past weekend at the age of 89. As the Guardian newspaper reported he died of pneumonia Saturday night at a hospital in Cornwall, England. A master of the espionage novel and literary storytelling, le Carré made a life for himself as aContinue Reading
Here’s a bit of Swedish you can bust out at cocktail parties (remember those?) when the global COVID-19 pandemic ends and social gatherings become a thing again: The word is ” överväldigad!”* Roughly translated it means “mind blown!” And that’s what we uttered, dare we say “exclaimed,” when we heardContinue Reading
The cover of Vanity Fair magazine’s September 2020 issue is a triumph. It’s a beautiful, bittersweet portrait of Breonna Taylor by the artist Amy Sherald. The issue is guest-edited by Ta-Nehisi Coates and includes a feature article edited by him in conversation with Taylor’s mother. Taylor was in the newsContinue Reading
Rest in peace, Milton Glaser. You did many things. Your creative achievements were many and influential. You created an enduring, brilliant, and beloved logo for New York that is a graphic design classic and timeless. “I Love NY.” You co-founded the great New York Magazine. You created that iconic posterContinue Reading
Mural artist Jules Muck’s (a.k.a., Muckrock) painting on the exterior of The Gym Venice (which is technically in the Venice-adjacent Los Angeles neighborhood of Mar Vista) is an homage to an iconic American black-and-white photo know as “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper.” The photo was taken by Charles C. Ebbets inContinue Reading
Coffee is so central to contemporary daily life for millions — if not billions — of people all over the world. More people than ever before in human history drink it. Some form of coffee, be it the regular drip-type served black or a fussy almond-milk cappuccino with an extraContinue Reading
God bless the New York Post. Love it or hate or both, as many New Yorkers do, amusing, pun-filled headlines like the one pictured above are almost a tradition at the Post. Journalists and editors dream of news stories that might warrant such a funny yet legitimate headline. In thisContinue Reading
We — and possibly you, too — are a big fan of large coffee-table art books by the likes of publishers Taschen, Phaidon and Rizzoli, to name but a few. Among our favorite stack of these large tomes is a book by a lesser-known German publisher. It’s a book ofContinue Reading
“Can’t Steal Our Vibe” is a lo-fi, black-and-white ‘zine published by Lone Wolfs (sic) Objets de Surf, a surf brand and shop in Venice, Los Angeles, as well as a music production company and studio. CSOV is more of an art zine than a surf mag and has virtually nothingContinue Reading
In case you missed it, one of the best — if not the best — TV commercial from the broadcast of last weekend’s 2018 Super Bowl was this ad for Tide laundry detergent. It’s already being talked about as one of the best ever and an “instant classic.” There areContinue Reading
Have you binge watched season two of Stranger Things? If you have then you know how good it is. Some are saying it’s better than season one. Go figure. We admit we’ve already seen all of season two of the Netflix original series. It lives up to the hype. Yes, that’sContinue Reading
There are few things in life that make us positively giddy with excitement. These few things are … Good waves and the promise of good surfing; A quad-shot espresso in a cup filled to the top with ice first thing on a hot, humid morning, preferably near a beach withContinue Reading
Smack in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, far, far away from any significantly large land mass or continent sit the Hawaiian Islands. This archipelago is a well-known paradise full of lush flora, beautiful beaches, dramatic mountain ranges, gorgeous waterfalls, volcanic landscapes and a warm, balmy climate where the water andContinue Reading
We love Apartamento magazine. And so should you. The new issue of this mag devoted to “everyday interiors” and design/designers just arrived at our local purveyor of printed matter and it looks gooooooooood!
Last week, we stumbled upon this vintage copy of Yoko Ono’s influential 1964 conceptual-art book “Grapefruit.” It was in a display case arranged with various jewelry, accessories and other small objet at General Store in Venice, Los Angeles. The cool-as-fuck book cover has a black-and-white photo of Ono and titlesContinue Reading
On a recent visit to the Arcana bookstore in Culver City, in Los Angeles, we checked out some beautiful coffee-table books on surfing and surf photography. Among these was a book titled “Surfing San Onofre to Point Dume: 1936-1942.” It’s a collection of sepia-toned photos by Don James documenting his surfingContinue Reading
This beautiful old-school graffiti art is on a corrugated metal fence next to the Venice Beach offices of an advertising agency called Cold Open. Check out this short time-lapse video documenting the painting of this graffiti artwork.
Auteur film director Wes Anderson has produced an amusing short Christmas film (see below) as long-form commercial for the global Swedish clothing retailer H&M. It’s called “Come Together” and stars Adrien Brody as the conductor of a train carrying passengers through a winter holiday storm. The four-minute film is anContinue Reading
AdWeek is reporting on a series of funny anti-Trump outdoor ads have been popping up on bus-stop billboards around New York City the past week. These cheeky, hilarious ads riff on well-known films and popular fiction such as Dr. Strangelove, Thelma and Louise, The Shining, Humpty Dumpy, and Dumb and Dumber. TheContinue Reading