Ugh! Running late again! Plus, my cell phone battery is almost dead… and I know I’m going to need my iPod at work today! Good thing Noon Solar had me in mind when they designed their cool Cortland purse. 

All of Noon’s collections continue to be inspired by the need to reduce our culture’s use of non-renewable resources, such as oil and coal. By integrating solar power into a bag — something you already carry — Noon Solar offers a transformative way to introduce renewable energy into your daily life. The more we can integrate solar power into our daily lives, the faster we can move away from our dependence on non-renewable sources. Noon Solar helps you take the first step. [Their fall] line is also an expression of the simplicity and elegance of classic forms. Each bag is designed to allow you to place the solar panel facing the sun, or facing your body. The natural colors, textures, and feel embody sophistication –with an edge.    

Ok I’m really late. More later!

These days, everything is so technical. When I was a kid, we still had things like wishing on the first star you saw at night, “star light star bright…” and making wishes at 11:11 (am or pm, it didn’t matter). Nowadays when I mention that I’ve seen the first star in the sky, I’m usually met with, “that’s probably just an airplane, look its moving.” 11:11? “That clocks not set to satellite time, its actually 11:13.”Not to be super pessimistic, but city living and a healthy(debatable, I know) dose of cynicism have turned some of my favorite childhood past times into exercises in silliness.That’s why I’m so thrilled with Dogeared, a small Cali-based jewelery company. “Dogeared loves to spread positive energy into the world with personal and positive gifts, with the hip, handmade look and feel of the California lifestyle.” I love their Karma necklace and the Make a Wish necklace above. In a world full of iPods, PSPs and those horrible blue tooth ear pieces, its nice to know that there are still creative gifts out there. Those that create a little bit of that much needed daily magic.Random note:HTML, CGI and all of that stuff are like a foreign language to me me. However, it was suggested over dinner the other night that I add email subscriptions to this site. I hooked up with feedburner to do just that. They never send SPAM and you only get e-mails when I post something new!Subscribe to The Adventures of an Urban Socialite by Email

Every now and then I just need a hug. Especially after a long day of work. With this in mind I’m reminded of one of my best friends. He works at a law firm, you know, like “the firm” type law firm. Every time I talk to him I make some comment like, “if only I could jump across the phone lines and give you a hug, I would…” Its heartbreaking to call him at 1am only to hear that he’s still at the office, sleeping under his desk.

Well, all I have to say is, welcome to the 21st century! CuteCircuit is a company to watch– they take cutting edge techonology and fuse it with great fashion design. The result are awesome concepts like the KineticDress, which changes color and pattern depending on the activity of the wearer, the Mystique Dress, which changes shape and color depending on the time of the day increasing in length from morning to night… and my personal favorite, the Hug Shirt:

The Hug Shirt is a Bluetooth accessory for Java enabled mobile phones. Hug shirts don’t have any assigned phone number, all the data goes from the sensors Bluetooth to your mobile phone and your mobile phone delivers the hug data to your friend’s phone and it is seamlessly transmitted Bluetooth to his or her shirt!
Sending hugs is as easy as sending an SMS and you will be able to send hugs while you are on the move, in the same way and to the same places you are able to make phone calls (Rome to Tokyo, New York to Paris).
The system is very simple: a Hug Shirt (Bluetooth with sensors and actuators), a Bluetooth java enabled mobile phone with the Hug Me java software running (it understands what the sensors are communicating), and on the other side another phone and another shirt. If you do not have a Hug Shirt but know that your friend has one you can still send them a hug creating it with the HugMe software and it will be delivered to your friend’s Hug Shirt!
The Hug Shirt can be washed. The smart technology pads (containing sensors and actuators), placed under each red area that you see in the picture, can be removed for washing and placed back in afterwards. The Hug pads are plug and play, so that you don’t need to be an expert to place them and make it work! The Hug Shirts are available in many colors, so that you can move the smart pads from shirt to shirt and remain fashionable.
When touching the red areas on your Hug Shirt your mobile phone receives the sensors data via Bluetooth (hug pressure, skin temperature, heartbeat rate, time you are hugging for, etc) and then delivers it to the other person.

Cute Circuit is clearly on the cutting edge of both science and style.

For more commentary: This Next Blog

A Girl Like Me
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjy9q8VekmE]

I’m not one to post videos on my site… but this was particularly moving/ disturbing and I thought you should see it. We sit here and talk about fashion and style and what we like and don’t like… but at the end of the day, its evident that even our most innate and personal perceptions have been conditioned to some extent. And by “our” I mean our society.

Even my conditioning and has been conditioned… to quote Black Star.

For more from this talented young filmmaker go here.

(Thanks for sending this to Smitty, even though you forgot my birthday!)

Do you ever feel unappreciated? Like you work yourself crazy all day only to turn something in to your boss that she either (a) doesn’t need anymore or (b) doesn’t even remember asking you to do? And then of course there’s the old story of doing something nice for someone, only to have them take it for granted… “Thanks for X, but while you were there why didn’t you pick up Y?” (sorry, since I started studying X and Y have become my new best friends).
Lets face it: we work hard and deserve some appreciation. That being said, you can imagine how graffiti artists must feel. Sneaking around at all hours, hiding their process, and often seeing the destruction of their work shortly after its created. Truly, some of the their work is just breathtaking. For confirmation head on over to the Wooster Collective, a great site that collects inspiring graffiti art from all over the world. The graffiti movement has been percolating underground since as long as I can remember. Now, with the advent of modern media, its been able to expand … for instance, a recent picture
painted on the outside of a Bristol (UK) sexual health clinic has actually sparked debate among the town’s citizens as to whether or not it should be removed. Mark Jenkins has added a three dimensional element to this work (seen above)… his sculptures, created with tape, have become a D.C. phenomenon!

Textual Healing (gotta love it) “uses a cell phone, a computer, and a projector to create a mobile public performance by posting a person’s text messages into speech bubbles that are strategically placed on the facades of buildings.” Confused? Check it out here and wait for this cool art/technology comes state-side.
The BBC has even gotten in on the act with Taggerz- an online cartoonumentary of the lives of real graffiti artists.

What’s great about this kind of art is there is little room to question why people do it. They’re (usually) not paid, risk possible arrest and generally don’t get that much positive publicity. They do it for the love and for the art, and really, shouldn’t those things be the motivating forces behind everything? Anyway, you don’t take my word for it (inadvertent Reading Rainbow reference… now I’m gonna have that song stuck in my head all day!) check out the Wooster Collective and see for yourself!
(thanks “G” for recommending this like 6 months ago!)

A funny thing happens when you spend all day studying. Your “normal” becomes this sedentary state which consists of sitting in silence and reading. All day. At first I thought I’d become overly inspired once I was done. Like any piece of art or design would excite me and I’d be overflowing with creative energy. Unfortunately its had an opposite effect. I find myself almost content with white pages full of black words. It takes a lot to shake me from my focused, studied, state. I realized yesterday that I needed a cure- Lowercase Industry came just in time. This underground shop is located in the UK and I’m loving the t-shirt graphics and featured paintings. Best of all, the site and its contents are built with a true love for art and design. Just the kind of thing to shake me from the doldrums of studying.

So another reason I’ve been less vocal lately is because many of the issues that have been bothering me have been political. Because this is a fashion-based site, I’ve refrained from introducing those questions and thoughts here, because really this is a place to escape (for both of us, yes?)

At the same time, there is a lot of . . . “stuff” going on right now that needs to be addressed. The frustrating part about the whole thing is that politicians seem to side step the big issues in lieu of addressing their own absurd self-interests. Anyway, one interesting site trying to create a solution to this is “dropping knowledge.” Basically the site seeks to turn apathy to activity:

[D]ropping knowledge is an intercultural platform for social change, open to every citizen of the world. Sustained by a global network of individuals, institutions,

corporations and NGOs, dropping knowledge is committed to heightening social awareness, encouraging multiple perspectives, fostering a global dialogue and inspiring real-world initiatives. With offices in Berlin, New York and San Francisco, dropping knowledge operates as an international non-governmental organization with 100 percent stakeholder perspective. A public resource, it cannot be owned and is freely accessible to all, for all time.

Asking questions is fundamental to the practice of dropping knowledge. There is no better way to initiate a dialogue than with a question, no better way to challenge conventional thinking, discover new viewpoints and stimulate fresh ideas. To promote the practice of questioning, dropping knowledge has launched an international Internet, print and TV-based “What’s Your Question?” outreach campaign, encouraging individuals, communities and organizations around the globe to submit the questions that matter to them to our website. Every day one question is visualized on the front page of our site as a ‘daily question ad’ to be downloaded, linked to other sites and emailed across the globe.

The creators of dropping knowledge urge you to get involved. In fact they want you to donate. Not time, not money, but your question. Visit the site, click around, get inspired and join the global community trying ot make a difference!

Nikki Brzescinski from Tucson, Arizona creates a “flyer of her day” for Assignment #10

Every so often I take a break from showing you things you can buy, and instead focus on you as a person. You are, after all, equal to so much more than the sum of your purchases (fabulous as they may be). Besides, no matter how big of a “you” fan you are… there are always ways you can focus on Learning To Love You More. (Ok… Awkward transition, but I tried.)
This site is like instant inspiration. Its like being back in 4th grade at those long metal tables full of sticky paint bubbles and peeling crayon. Like running your hands under the cork and metal stools to find a wads of chewed gum, taken out to nibble on the yummy mint paste (I’ll never understand why they made the paste taste like mint… not that I ate it or anything….). Learning To Love You More is both a web site and series of non-web presentations comprised of work made by the general public in response to assignments given by artists Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher. For instance:

• Assignment #45: Reread your favorite book from fifth grade;
• Assignment #10 (my favorite) Make a flier of your day (see above);
• Assignment #53, Give advice to yourself in the past ( mental note: it helps to push send after you’ve dialed the number the for the 20th time… thank goodness for facebook!);
• Assignment #6, Make a poster of shadows …..etc.

Participants accept an assignment, complete it by following the simple but specific instructions, send in the required report (photograph, text, video, etc), and see their work posted on-line. Like a recipe, meditation practice, or familiar song, the prescriptive nature of these assignments is intended to guide people towards their own experience. Since Learning To Love You More is also an ever-changing series of exhibitions, screenings and radio broadcasts presented all over the world, participant’s documentation is also their submission for possible inclusion in one of these presentations. Past presentations have taken place at venues that include The Whitney Museum in NYC, Rhodes College in Memphis, TN, Aurora Picture Show in Houston, TX, The Seattle Art Museum in Seattle, WA, the Wattis Institute in San Francisco CA, among others.

The best art and writing is almost like an assignment; it is so vibrant that you feel compelled to make something in response. Suddenly it is clear what you have to do. For a brief moment it seems wonderfully easy to live and love and create breathtaking things….

Take some time to browse around the assignments (you can do them in any order)… and the fantastic work submitted in response. In the end if you find yourself asking, “why would I do something like this?”… Focus on the more important question is… “why not?”

Speaking of inspiration and art, I came across this great DIY site, SuperNaturale (25th hour anyone?), SuperNaturale is an independent site dedicated to the Do It Yourself culture in all its glorious forms. From simple afternoon home improvement projects to radical lifestyle choices- they’ve got them all. My favorite project? T-Shirt Underwear (complete with free PDF pattern)… I don’t know who in their right mind bought the t-shirt on the left (not a fan of the scary cat…in any form) but now all those odd fitting Track and Filed t-shirts will have a new home… (glancing at cat on butt to the left) or not… anyway, you get the idea! Until next week!