Hasta La Ideas

Retro-styled skateboards inspired by sidewalk surfing

As always, what’s old is new again. Conjuring up memories of butt-bombing hills and weaving cones like in the days of Dog Town, many companies are remaking retro-styled banana boards that combine the concept of yesteryear with the superior materials of today. The low-tech, high-performance cruisers are quick, stout and a hell of a lot more fun than that monstrous longboard you don’t ride anyway. Plus they come in a bevy of bright colors and who doesn’t love that?

Globe

Best known for making skateboard shoes, Globe has recently ventured into the hardgoods market with the highlight being the Bantam Cruiser. This wicked little board grips and rips due to a shortened wheel base and big, soft 62mm wheels. Plus the slolam-inspired shape tapers toward the tail for a zippy feel bound to make you ride like you’re surfing. Like its 1970s forefathers, the Bantam Cruiser is available in multiple color combinations. Find it directly from Globe for $100.

Penny Skateboards

Dedicated solely to reproducing traditional plastic banana boards, Australia’s Penny Skateboards makes the ideal knock-around cruiser in heaps of different colorways. Essentially a hunk of plastic, the 22″ long 6″ wide deck doesn’t differ much from that which Penny founder Ben Mackay learned to skate on at age five. The wheels, trucks and hardware, on the other hand, are all made with high-performance materials up to date with modern tech. If you’re in Oz, pick one up directly from Penny, otherwise Tactics has an assortment of colors available from around $100.

Girl + Crailtap

While this cruiser may not officially be a banana board, it firmly adheres to the less-is-more mantra, and has one painted on the bottom. Made by Girl skateboards for Crailtap, one of the industry’s most entertaining blogs, this pared-down skateboard features slight concave, real grip tape and a more elongated shape, meaning it can be shredded like a real skateboard or kept for a cruiser like a traditional banana. Available only in limited numbers in one colorway, the Crailboard can be found on Skate Warehouse online for $100.

Mike Birbiglia’s new film makes a powerful commentary on modern romance

In his cinematic debut, comedian Mike Birbiglia takes the audience on a journey that explores his transformation as an individual and comedic artist. Birbligia, who has made a run on Broadway in a one man show and appeared on NPR’s This American Life and The Moth Podcast, brings his story to the big screen in Sleepwalk With Me. The film tells the tale of Birbiglia’s cumbersome entrance into comedy that runs parallel to a failing relationship and the comedian’s coping with an extreme sleeping disorder. If you are familiar with Birbiglia from the radio or his shows you will recognize many of the stories told here but the interpretation in film adds a fresh layer to his epic on comedy and elusive topic of contemporary romance.

To begin we see Birbiglia the bartender, struggling as a comedian both professionally and creatively. Desperate to succeed in the shadow of an overbearing father, Birbiglia gets his break at the hands of a talent agent who sets him up with very low paying gigs scattered across the Eastern Seaboard. His hunger drives him on, forcing him to neglect his longtime girlfriend and himself through his denial of his sleep disorder, but success is still evasive because his material is stale. The turning point arrives when he begins to speak frankly about his life, his woman and his sleeping disorder.

Once he ditches the jokes and starts being honest the audience can begin to respond. Birbiglia is naturally awkward but relatable, his written comedy isn’t that funny but his stories are fantastic and his honest, depreciating delivery is enchanting. In the process of his comedic transformation Birbiglia becomes alienated from the love of his life, and in his denial of their parting ways proposes marriage to patch things up. This predictably fails, leaving Birbiglia alone to finally face the roots of his destructive sleeping habits and the realities of his relationship.

In the film Birbiglia uses several devices to construct his narrative. At times he addresses the camera directly, frankly attempting to explain himself to the audience and setting up the following scenes. The majority of the film comprises these set-ups acted out by Birbiglia, playing himself, and a dynamic cast of characters. Finally, we are allowed to enter the hectic and dangerous territory of his sleep disorder—cinematically the most compelling element of the film—and see how his bizarre imagination creates situations that are treacherous when lived out in reality.

Despite the title of the film, sleepwalking plays a minor role compared to Birbiglia’s struggle with comedy and his relationship, with one flourishing as the other falls apart. The resulting story ends up providing surprising insight on the necessary sacrifices required to achieve one’s goals and the finely blurred lines between love and romantic maintenance.

The film speaks strongly to the state of modern love and offers a very fresh look at relationships. There is no real conclusion, just a description of experience that points out the absurdities of romance and let’s the audience make their own resolutions. Produced in partnership with Ira Glass, the film itself feels like an extreme labor of love with clear passion and energy applied in every element. While very entertaining it is clear that this, like all of Birbiglia’s projects, is a therapeutic exercise for the comedian, another step in processing his rise to notoriety and his personal life experience.

Premiering 24 August 2012, this film is definitely worth checking out and is an exceptional example of how a compelling story, great cinematography and dedication can make independent cinema shine.

NYC’s favorite DJ trio curates a special playlist for your 4th of July festivities

Perpetually on the hunt for “overlooked, hauntingly beautiful music”, DJ trio Chances With Wolves has been serving NYC and beyond with a dose of carefully considered sounds since 2008. Their weekly East Village Radio program fills the airwaves with a thematic mix of obscure tracks that are sure to fire up any party or ignite a newfound interest in an old name.

To celebrate America’s independence this year, we asked Chances to create a sequence of songs that speak to that classic Fourth of July activity—firing up the grill. To kickstart your holiday brouhaha, check out their “35 Summers Mixtape“, which includes tracks like “Tokyo Boogaloo” by The Happening Four, Billy Stewart’s “Summertime”, “Yeah Yeah Baby” by Stranger & Patsy, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble’s “Spottie” and more. Catch them in the act tonight at ISA in Williamsburg where they will be playing with Cosmo Baker (The Rub) & Queen Majesty (Deadly Dragon Sounds) from 9pm on.

Creative digs in a city where East meets West

Over the past decade Istanbul has made aggressive headway in the contemporary culture arena. With the opening of the
Istanbul Modern and innovative galleries like
Arter and Galerist, the city offers a rich spectrum of art and exploration. A new generation of filmmakers, fashion designers, musicians and artists are proudly claiming the city home, and now, the newly opened Le Méridien hotel in the chic Etiler neighborhood offers creative-minded visitors a place in the center of it all for a first-class Istanbul experience.

The 34-story building takes on the shape of stacked cubes, towering over the nearby Bosphorus building. Designed by Turkish architect Emre Arolat, the hotel features 259 comfortable guest rooms and 21 long-stay suites with floor-to-ceiling windows. Set at the point where east meets west, the building gets gradually transparent as it rises, providing mesmerizing views of both Europe and Asia.

Le Méridien’s cultural curator, Jerome Sans (of Palais de Tokyo fame) helped lay the groundwork for building a hotel for the creative class in Istanbul. In addition to the city housing a new wave of artistic creation, Istanbul also has a nightlife to rival any major center. “It’s a city that almost invented the rooftop bar,” says Sans.

In keeping with the Le Méridien ethos, the Istanbul Etiler aims to provide guests with new experiences to enrich their minds if they so choose. The Unlock Art program features an artist-designed key card that opens not only your room, but also provides complimentary entry into cultural monuments in the city, including the Istanbul Modern. Sans chose :mentalKLINIK, an Istanbul duo who focus their art on modern habits and consumption, to design the first set of key cards for the hotel. The duo also designed an Illy set specifically for the hotel, a gold-adorned espresso cup and saucer that can be twisted and turned to form a variety of design combinations.

The interior design draws upon themes of cartography and Turkish heritage—the custom-made lobby rug weaves an interpretation of the Bosphorus, while the concierge desk reflects the lines of the Gallatin bridge. Another floor carpet maps out a grid of Istanbul, and lines running throughout the Latitude Bar bring to mind longitude and latitude. The coffee parlor features basket chairs, situated to encourage conversation among strangers and tables modeled after the shape of Turkish tea cups. The furniture throughout the hotel features mid-century modern pieces done in simple textiles.

At night the Latitude Bar turns into a boozy haven, welcoming in guests after a day of city exploration. The Boaz Bar, located on the 34th floor offers a 360° view of the Bosphorus. It has quickly become a sought-out destination on Istanbul’s nightlife circuit.

Thankfully the expansive Explore Spa helps guest regenerate the next day. With a mix of classic European treatments and a Hamman, the Explore Spa offers signature treatments like a hot grape seed oil massage and a traditional Turkish bath on a heated marble bed. An open relaxation room encourages guests to meet and mingle after a dip in one of the indoor or outdoor pools.

Rooms at Le Méridien Istanbul Etiler start at 250€ per night.

Le Méridien Istanbul Etiler
Cengiz Topel Caddesi No. 39, 34337
Etiler, Istanbul, Turkey

An unlikely exhibition pits the New York School rebel against Renaissance Masters

It’s hard to imagine that Cy Twombly, with his canvases composed of angry scratch marks and messy swathes of paint, would have been influenced by 16th-century French painting. But the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin’s leading modern art museum, proposes just that in its exhibition “Cy Twombly & The School of Fontainebleau“. The School of Fontainebleau was a Mannerist decorative style led, oddly enough, by two Italian artists Rosso Fiorentino (1494-1540) and Francesco Primaticcio (1504-1570), who were commissioned to decorate the Palace of Fontainebleau, built on the edge of a forest 45 miles from Paris for the king’s hunting retreats.

Fiorentino and Primaticcio oversaw everything from the paintings and frescos to tapestries and sculptures, and even used “graphic media to disseminate their programmatic style,” making them not only some of the most renowned artists of the period, but the most media-savvy as well.

Flash forward two and half centuries to Twombly and the New York School of painters. After Twombly left New York and the studio he shared with Robert Rauschenberg (whose works are shown in the same gallery at the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, along with other prominent figures from the New York School), Twombly moved to Italy where he engaged with European art history in a way he never had before. He was especially moved by Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), whose style was heavily influenced by Fiorentino and Primaticcio’s graphics. Even though his admiration for the Classical Baroque style seems unlikely, in 2008 Twombly admitted, “I would have liked to have been Poussin, if I’d had a choice, in another time.”

Like Poussin, Twombly often explored myths in his work. “Leda and the Swan” is, of course, about how Zeus transformed himself into a swan in order to come down to earth and rape the mortal Leda, and his “Apollo and The Artist” series is comprised of eight drawings of inscriptions of the word “Virgil”. More specifically, Twombly’s “Empire of Flora” is a direct reference to Poussin’s painting of the same name and explores similar themes of metamorphosis “set in a heroic landscape as an amorous allegory of desire.”

When viewed side by side, you can see elements of Twombly’s pencil work in Poussin’s sketches and studies for larger oil paintings like “The Conversion of St. Paul”. Though it’s not uncommon for modern art museums like the Hamburger Bahnhof to have amassed a collection of modern painters like Twombly, Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, it is uncommon to see their work curated in direct relation to centuries-old painting, and by making unique connections curators Eugen Blume and Matilda Felix manage to keep works in heavy rotation as fresh and exciting as they were when Twombly’s controversial scratch marks first shook up the art world.

“Cy Twombly & The School of Fontainebleau” runs through October 2012. Find image credits after the jump.

Hamburger Bahnhof

Invalidenstraße 50-51

10557 Berlin, Germany

Image credits:

Empire of Flora: “Empire of Flora” (1961), by Twombly

School of Fontainebleau: “School of Fontainebleau” (1960), by Twombly

Poussin: a study for “The Conversion of St. Paul” (1657) by Nicolas Poussin

Thyrsis: “Thyrsis” (1977), by Twombly