coarse toys pain and chopper

i love what is now called urban vinyl. i remember how excited i got when i scored a full set of the tom kids by michael lau in the late 90s from my connections with medicom in tokyo. since then, my collection has swelled to the point where i can not actively collect anymore because i've simply run out of space. of course, i accept the limited edition and signed stuff from my friends at devil robots and mad barbarians!

nooka has certainly opened up the doors for me to meet a lot more of the people whose work i admire one of which is the people at coarse toys. they designed a campaign for vans which includes super limited edition oversized urban vinyl action figures. i tracked one down in NYC before i was contacted by them to do a trade for some of our product, so now i have two – pain and chopper.

at first they didn't like each other, but look what i caught them doing in the office. take it outside boys! they seemed upset i took the fotos...worried their girlfriends would find out, but apparently the girls don't have internet where they live, so no worries.

coarse toys website is here.

art show in brooklyn postponed til the 18th

i know it's not much notice, but i will have a small art exhibition at the halcyon store in dumbo brooklyn, thursday september 18th, 2008. nooka, nookanooka, and some fairies will be there along with a new set of acrylic on canvas paintings by me – all in the theme "life on mars". the show will feature some new small sculptures as well.

the halcyon store site is here.

september month o'press continues

how magazine! check it out.

you know what you do best

why wait another 4 years when you know what you do best. give yourself a gold, a silver or bronze zub. i decided to stay away from new fall colors and do new fall finishes. these will be available soon at fine stores as well as out website sometime in september. i'll update exact dates when the drop.

whoah month o'press

nooka is in september's in-style as well. gosh i have the best PR team in nyc!

glow in the dark nooka zub update

dear readers. thanks for all the interest in this design! i originally blogged that we would be shipping late august for the glow in the dark nooka zubs, but they will now ship around september 10th – just a slight delay. but it is worth the wait, we reformulated the glow mix, so it glows brighter now, and these zubs will be the first to have recessed buttons on the sides! fotos to come soon. preorder here

reykjavik

my dear friend ilisa needed to get away and she asked if i would go somewhere with her. i said "sure, where?" to which she replied: "how about iceland?"

i've always wanted to go to iceland, the urine and lye cured shark meat, glaciers etc...i mean, they did produce björk and artist olafur eliasson [one of my favorite artists. check out his waterfalls in NYC if you have a chance]. and they certainly are obsessed with björk here, you hear her music everywhere and she is still on their women's magazine covers.

we're staying at home, a cute well designed apartment style hotel right in the city center designed by parsons graduate agnar agnarsson. he's working on a new hotel which we talked about my participation as a collaborating artist or designer. it may be a perfect place to showcase our soon to be released desk clock!

we visited the geysirs [and they pronounce it just like that – Gay Sirs – the icelandic language has 3 genders, i guess 'gay' is one of them and since geysers are revered here, they get a lot of respect. i asked, and there are no "straightsirs" in terms of geological features, i was told just the gey ones. (geyser in english)

we had many an overpriced meal. iceland is not for anyone on a budget, especially if you start with us dollars. there is no meal with even one cocktail or beer under $70us/person at night. The best restaurant for value we found was orange which offers the ever so trendy molecular cuisine made popular in barcelona a few years back. still 100 bucks a person, but it tasted like it. the more popular fish market was a disappointment in their sad attempts of traditional japanese cooking techniques – they definitely tried too hard. otherwise, it is a lovely place if you've never been to a good japanese restaurant and have the money to burn.

some highlights include the public pools [only $10us with a rental towel. great hot tubs], hotdogs which they are proud to tell you are a mix of lamb, pork, and beef [aren't they all?], chocolate covered licorice, and the smell of sulfur everywhere, especially out of the water faucet [wait,that's a bad thing right? unless you consider that you can fart anywhere without anyone noticing:)]. also, there seems to be a lot of vintage art deco and bauhaus-style architecture though you rarely hear reykjavik mentioned as a place to visit to see that kind of stuff. oh, and they have a dessert called "krap".

anyway, i can write a longer guide or email me if you want particulars, but i'm off to eat puffin before my flight back to nyc this afternoon!

nooka+XLR8R

make sure to pick up the september issue of XLR8R magazine [out august 21st]. XLR8R was an early adopter of nooka and i've been reading it for as long as it's been out as well – a great music and style mag. nooka supplied some watches for a give-away on page 10: "Did it All for the Nooka" contest, so check it out. thanks for the years of support XLR8R!

big in japan

i am happy to announce that i am now a contributor to the japanese online fashion and culture magazine, openers as of august 8th, 2008 [888]. my debut there is a 10 question interview conducted in japanese, so i apologize for my awkward grammar, but they're using a photo that makes me look great [i guess it's time to shave off the bushy mustache i've been sporting these past few months]. on openers i'm in the company of people like ryuichi sakamoto, so it's kinda cool. direct link to my interview here.

random thought

this has been stuck in my head since i've had an apartment full of nieces and nephews the whole summer and taking them out to restaurants etc. always brings up this issue: why do people freak out when a man uses a women's [and vice versa] toilet in public when everyone is fine with men and women using the same toilet at home? the more i think about this, the more i realize it is a strange situation. there was even a news story i read about a school having to build a 3rd toilet for transgender students! i say we need to do away with men's and women's toilets all together. this would even out waits for women and might make people cleaner overall [an end to women who hover-pee and men who don't lift the seats – you all know who you are].

while i'm at it and since this is a design blog – architects: please design public bathrooms with ambient music speakers built in the walls so no-one has to hear anyone elses colon work other than their own; for all bathrooms, insist on adequate ventilation; design a drain in the floor for ease of efficient cleaning; and specify japanese style washlette toilets:)

nooka + v-man = vashion

v-man has the exclusive to break the nooz of top secret noo product, the zaz. this model will be available fall 2009. thanks again joe at raw information.

mad love to my PR team

just out this week! elle magazine is back on the map! antenna is one of my monthly must-reads [not to give too many of my secrets away], and nylon is always gorgeous. women's health took the best still life photo of the green zub i've ever seen in a mag. i'm also happy to see them embraced as fashion and not as timepieces...a trend i take full credit for starting and articulating with digital! all-in-all an amazing array of coverage for one month. look for these mags at your friendly neighborhood newstand.

thanks to all the editors and stylists who embrace nooka as well as joe and matt at raw information group for their untiring enthusiasm.

creativity advise

i though this link really sums up some simple common sense points for keeping one's creative edge. courtesy of coroflot.

orange nookanooka now available

available now on us.nooka.com/buy
it's pretty amazing how many things are the same color as this nookanooka when you're walking around the city. this would be even more true in mexico city. how about your city?