Jim also has a book out via PowerHouse books in January called Winter’s Children:  Snowboarding / Action Sports / Nudity.

Image courtesy Jim Mangan

Image courtesy Jim Mangan

“Bossa Nova music arrived in Brazil at the end of the 1950s with an optimism and modernism that parralleled the arrival of the new Brazilian president,” writes Stuart. “Juscelino Kubitschek, who promised ‘fifty years of progress in five’ in his election campaign and announced the building of a new capital city, Brasilia, deep in the heartland of Brazil. The city was designed by Oscar Niemeyer, a man who had just designed a new musical theatre production in Rio of a play written by Vinicius de Moraes and with music written by Antonio Carlos Jobim. These two, along with the singer João Gilberto were about to make Bossa Nova, the first modernist Brazilian art form, the most succesful Brazilian export since coffee.”

It goes without saying, the book also features some excellent record cover art. It should have graphic designers licking their lips with anticipation.

Confused? Well, Hoxton Street Monster Supplies is the latest initiative from a project begun by Dave Eggers at 826 Valencia in San Francisco and was designed to encourage writing skills amongst children. In an attempt to entice children into the scheme, yhat building became San Francisco’s only pirate supply store, replete with eye-patches and sailor’s rope. In New York, never a city to be outdone, they launched the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company, and now London has its very own a Monster Supplies. But walk through the secret door at the back of the store and you enter the Ministry of Stories where top British novelists such as Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About A Boy and Fever Pitch), Eggers’ McSweeney’s cohort Zadie Smith (White Teeth, On Beauty) and Irish writer Roddy Doyle alongside a host of volunteers will be giving lessons to young writers between the ages of 8 and 18.

Here’s a video from 2008 of Eggers talking about the project at the TEDTalks conference (it’s maybe the US equivalent of our Jamie Oliver’s School Dinners). Inspirational stuff IMHO.

Previous issues of Manzine have included articles on Biltong, the classic Model A hand-dryer, the facial hair of current world leaders (represented with some pretty high-tech infographics) and on why the owners of small dogs can still claim to be macho. The new issue, you’ll be delighted to learn, has a travel special on nuclear bunkers and a piece simply titled Notes Towards A Unified Economic Theory Of The New Politeness In Driving. It’s very British. It’s very funny. And if you’ve never bought a men’s magazine in your life, you’ll be relieved to know that on this day, of all fine days, with a copy of Manzine tucked away in you man-bag, you can finally claim your rightful place alongside the other men of this world.

Does street photography have to be taken on the street? What if you’re standing on the pavement, does that count? And what if you’re in a park where, technically, there are no streets, but you spot a guy dressed up in a canary-yellow bear suit taking pity on a distraught stranger on a bench. What if you take a photo of that? And what about on the subway / underground / metro / chikatetsu?  Not a street in the strictest sense of the word, but aren’t the tunnels where the tracks run along effectively street-like? You’ll be relived to know that the rules of street photography aren’t hard and fast, like, say, traffic codes. The art form has an illustrious history – from Henri Cartier Bresson’s seminal images of the French capital through to Martha Cooper’s photos of the Bronx – and it shows no signs of slowing down. Au contraire. for most of the month of November, the Canal St Martin area in Paris will be turned into an open-air gallery as the shop-windows of a local boulangerie, hairdresser, bistro (the famous Chez Prune), pharmacy and a handful of boutiques (agnès b) show the work of 18 street photographers from around the world. The photos are culled from the comprehensive Street Photography Now anthology by Thames & Hudson. Meanwhile, over in London, the Street Photography Now blog  is calling for photographic responses to weekly assignments, so if you’re a budding photographer, put on your sneakers on and snap to it.

It’s this and a lot more that is up for discussion in What Was the Hipster?, a special one-off publication from n+1, a hip and brainy journal based in DUMBO, New York. A mixture of sociology, social observation, humour and some pretty incisive writing, maybe it’s a sign that the hipster is already truly dead when the phenomenon is getting the academic treatment. Here’s a little extract, so see what you think…

Definition 1. This is the originating hipster as “the white hipster.” This is by far the most limited definition, and it really applies to what captured me as different in the Lower East Side of 1999. Let me enunciate a string of keywords: trucker hats; undershirts called “wifebeaters,” worn as outwear; the aesthetic of basement rec-room pornography, flash-lit Polaroids, fake wood paneling; Pabst Blue Ribbon; “porno” or “pedophile” mustaches; aviator glasses; Americana T-shirts for church socials, et cetera; tube socks; the late albums of Johnny Cash, produced by Rick Rubin; and tattoos. Vice magazine, which moved to New York from Montreal in 1999; the hipster branding-consultancy-cum-sneaker store called Alife, which started in 1999; American Apparel, the socially conscious, jersey-knit-pajamas-as-clothing, basement-pornographic boutique chain that also started in 1999. These were the most visible emblems of a small and surprising subculture, where the source of a priori knowledge seemed to be an only partly nostalgic suburban whiteness, the 1970s culture of white flight from the cities to the suburbs, of the so-called “unmeltable ethnics,” Irish, Italian, Polish, and so forth, but now with the ethnicities scrubbed off — recolonizing urban neighborhoods with a new aesthetic. As the “White Negro” had once fetishized blackness, the “white hipster” fetishized the violence, instinctiveness, and rebelliousness of lower-middle-class suburban or country whites.

If through the 80s, people talked about ‘subcultures’ thanks to Dick Hebdige, in the 90s the people increasingly spoke of ‘style tribes’, courtesy of Ted Polhemus. The concept was that youth bought into a look, a sound, or an attitude which, in many ways, was pre-packaged, squarely demarcated and didn’t leave too much room for maneuver. The tribalism part probably referred to the fact that once you become affiliated with one tribe, you declare war on all others, or something to that effect.

Polhemus, an anthropolgist by training, was born in New Jersey but has spent much of his life in the UK observing and photographing the herding instincts of these curious young beasts. Now, 16 years after the publication of Streetstyle, the book which accompanied his V&A exhibition, Polhemus has felt the need to update this vital work, not only because the old cover looks kinda nasty, not only because of the need to append more recent style tribes (the 1st edition finishes with raggamuffins and travellers) but especially because the old argument doesn’t really hold water these days. Forget style tribes, now it’s a ‘supermarket of styles’ on display – you don’t need to buy into one, you can pick and mix, mix and match, give and take, borrow and steal…

From 30 September, Polhemus will be displaying his photography at The Book Club in London, and there’s a special preview which you can RSVP to here. Just don’t go buying your party outfit from Tesco or Asda – the ‘supermarket of style’ is a metaphor. Unless, that is, you’re with the Super Super crew, in which case it’s probably a mission statement.

Until now…

Meet “the official 3DD aviator.” Yes, that’s right—3-D glasses styled in the uber-classic aviator-style frame. As in, yes, when everyone else around you is wearing conventional 3-D glasses, you, in fact, are sporting specs you might actually wear in public. In fact, that’s not a bad idea! These particular 3D aviators were actually developed in conjunction with a book called 3DD: A 3-D Celebration of Breasts, a compilation of iconic cleavage images in three dimensions from New York photographer Henry Hargreaves. However he came up with the concept, it’s a relief that finally one can find a pair of 3-D glasses that look good even outside a darkened movie theater…

The history of Gaz’s club, which began at Gossip’s on Meard Street in 1980 in the heart of seedy Soho before moving round the corner to St. Moritz where it still happens every Thursday, comes to life in this beautiful publication by Trolley Books. There’s too many great anecdotes to mention them all here, but whether it’s how Gaz introduced Jamaican deejay Prince Buster to the Clash’s Joe Strummer (Joe in turn introduced Gaz to Robert De Niro), or how Tracey Emin used to work in the cloakroom, it’s a adrenaline-fuelled story from start to finish. The insight it gives into 80s London, the music, the fashion, the markets like Ken Market and Portobello Road, brings back to life a semi-forgotten era for those who were there, and even for those who weren’t.

The First Thirty Years isn’t just the story of the club, it’s especially a compilation of the flyers – there are literally hundreds of them, all hand-drawn, often in a comic book style reminiscent of Lucky Luke, Zorro or Judge Dredd, but with a punk cut n’ paste aesthetic – and also extensive archive photography. It’s all a fitting tribute to a true originator.

Is that tradition Jack Spade and K-Swiss have announced a similar, but more straightforward – likely less aggravating – collaboration surrounding the first reprinting of Take Ivy, a book of photography featuring shots of sharply-dressed bourgeoisie during the 1960s. K-Swiss and Jack Spade’s contribution to the relaunch is a heavy-grade sweatshirt with silkscreened elbow patches, and a pretty sharp belt, both meant to update the styles featured in the book.

The package will be available August 31st only at Jack Spade retail.

Come rain, come shine, on waterlogged or frozen pitches, amateur football players across the county – in Liverpool, in Nottingham and Scunthorpe too – assemble every Sunday morning, bleary-eyed from the night before, but unbowed. Their wives hopefully haven’t dyed their socks pink, and the dog hopefully won’t have eaten their boots. They can take out all their unbridled aggression on the opposition, or the referee, or both; and for 90 minutes they can relive their childhood fantasies, of being John Barnes or Paul Gascoigne, or Vinny Jones if they think they’re hard enough.

It’s this romance of Sunday league football that’s the subject of Reality Football by photographer Alan Powdrill. A real labor of love, it has taken him three years to complete. He’s travelled up and down the country taking photos, starting off in Hackney Marshes, East London, with its 85 pitches that make it the biggest football field in Europe. The images are a reminder that the Beautiful Game isn’t about 7-figure salaries, it’s about grit and determination and that unexplainable buzz you get from kicking a football about, and getting covered in mud.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Right? He co-founded Vice but went rogue/was forcibly removed after the hydra-headed magazine went corporate as fuck or something. Since leaving Vice he founded Street Carnage, a website where he’s just as affably offensive and stupid as he was at Vice, but with kittens. He also wrote a dumb book called Street Boners: 1764 Hipster Fashion Jokes wherein he makes fun of people who dress like him with less gold and babies but a little more pomade.

In support of his new “book” McInnes was invited to make fun of more people, taking a trip with them to Coney Island and getting “street boners” like, like crazy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And here’s a video with some intimate close-ups:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And I mean, dude wrote the soundtracks to Scarface AND Midnight Express! What?!?!!

You wouldn’t think Giorgio Moroder could get any cooler. Well… Think again! The maestro recently released a book, Extraordinary Records: Any Color Except Black—The High Baroque Of Vinyl Recordings, that does for album visuals what Moroder’s synthesizers did for sound. Most album design books concentrate on record cover art, but Extraordinary Records goes one cooler than that and focuses on the visual possibilities of the actual vinyl disc itself. Spanning Mastodon to Pink Floyd, the images captured here are truly freaky deaky and surreal, reminding us how wildly creative the music biz could be in days of yore. Moroder captures vinyl graphic oddities transformed into Medusa’s heads, biomorphic shapes, and psychedelic eyeballs and stuff—really, these pictures make CDs and, gosh, especially MP3s seem totally lame. Rock on, Giorgio!

The videos below shows Queen Simone in France – railing, ranting, and singing in such confident not-give-a-fuckery we’re all left to wish for one with half her presence in our time of rubbery figures all posture and no compunction. A dozen and one places and memories cross her face: her royalty and happiness and sadness and anger and laser-sharp intelligence…her terribly useful schizophrenia in full demonstration.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The winning entries:

Zombieland

The Lord of the Rings

Seven

Fall Out Boy are making more moves in their quest for cultural dominance, and have started a comic book line. Designed in conjunction wtih designer Dr. Romanelli and Jeff Krelitz, Fall Out Toy Works follows Wentz’ lyrics from “Tiffany Blews” and pictures a toymaker and his female droid. It seems like a good fit considering their audience, however the Fall Out guys are probably seeing this as a diversification of their portfolio. While Wentz isn’t a huge comic fan, there is obviously a great market potential — besides you never know how logn its gonna last. The animation is serious, though the plotline might seem familiar if not entirely engaging.

via Wired

Former Talking heads frontman/musical savant David Byrne has been a long-time environmentalist, utilizing a trusty folding bike as his main means of getting around New York City. But when Byrne started taking that bike with him around the world, it became his way of truly exploring the countless cities he would visit.

He meticulously documented his travels, and those first-hand accounts of touring around everywhere from the post-urban desolation of Detroit to the streets of Istanbul are the basis of Byrne’s forthcoming new book, “Bicycle Diaries.”

Advance previews find it to be a wide ranging tome that covers such heady topics as gauging local economics from street-level to how to best navigate treacherous city streets without getting hurt.

“To some extent,” Byrne explained of the book to the UK Guardian, “it’s about the surface that presents itself to us in cities, and I dig a little bit deeper than the surface.”

Par for the course for Byrne, who’s dug underneath the surface of everything from suburban American culture (“True Stories”) to the inner-workings of African poly-rhythms with Brian Eno on “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.”

The actual folding bike went on to assume somewhat mythological status when Byrne auctioned it off on Ebay for charity (the proceeds benefited the London Cycling Campaign).  When the dust cleared, the bike generated an impressive 1, 370 pounds UK.

David Byrne’s “Bicycle Diaries” is released on September 17, 2009 on Viking. Buy it here.

What I call the ‘urban prepsters’ have descended on indie rock and film, which have been mixing gently with 60s rebellion and attitude (beardos), 50s intellectual (on the road), as well as nod to the modern era of music. The Ivy league has been downright co-opted by those that celebrate the melding of the influences — African, Nantucket, California casual with a splash of Ohio for good measure. This time, Ralph Lauren isn’t the one in the driver seat, but his people have had the presence to know what T. Hayashida saw when he compiled Take Ivy, in 1968, that they should try and track down a copy of this book. The Japanese photographer was obsessed with Northeast culture, and documented campuses all over the US.

In 1968, Japanese photographer T. Hayashida scanned the campuses of America’s top universities and cataloged the prep persona — real live students wearing boat shoes, blazers and strong, wide plaids — in a volume that was published by Hachette’s Japanese publishing arm, Hachette Fujingaho.

Not surprising, the book has reached a sort of “cult” status amongst collectors, almost as much as some of the original gear. Fear not though, the classics never die and somehow with this level of interest, I think we may see the leading document to the era get revisited.

“Take Ivy” has always been extremely rare in the United States, a treasure of fashion insiders that can fetch more than $1,000 on eBay and in vintage-book stores. But scanned images from the book have been turning up online in recent months. Ricocheting around the network of sartorially obsessed Web sites and blogs (like acontinuouslean.com and thetrad .blogspot.com), it has aroused renewed interest for its apparent prescience of preppy style.

Cliver knows his stuff – he was formerly a staffer at the legendary Big Brother mag and a designer for World Industries and Powell-Peralta, where he started to amass his extensive skateboard collection, as he notes in this awesome interview: there he explains that, with the book, he’s tried to use his “obsessional lust to recreate my very own fantasy skate shop wall, board by board.”  As a result, these images are chosen with an expert’s eye and a true fan’s loving care. So, disposable? Maybe. But Timeless? Definitely.