PW Wants to Know What ‘Home’ Means to You!
My husband's massage stick in all its Instagram glory.
Home. We hear rumor that the heart may be located there. That there’s no place like it. And it means something different to each and every one of us.
Let me tell you what home means to me. When I think of home, I think of my First Piece of Furniture. A few years ago, my then-fiance and I realized we needed a real couch. We had dressed up his old futon, and it served its purpose: watching TV, doing homework, eating. But—no arm rests? Come on. We were growns-up! So we went to Ikea, the growns-up place, and purchased our First Piece of Furniture. It came with an ottoman and a chaise. We lived on that couch, and still do. Every once in a while, we’d flip the cushions and pillows to avoid sitting on the lumpy, misshapen bits. Some items that have found a permanent home on our couch: my husband’s massage stick (tagline: “It’s a toothbrush! For your muscles!”); our cat’s food, including the brand she absolutely will not eat (we keep it there in the hopes she’ll change her mind even though we know cats don’t change their minds about anything, ever); and a trigger-point cane (guess whose?). The other day, my 4-month-old, battling her first ear infection and cold, was lounging on the chaise with me. When I picked her up, I noticed that her diaper had failed to contain its contents. The couch had been severely soiled. Ah, well, I thought. Guess it’s time to flip the cushion.
We want to know what home means to you. Do you have a favorite room or a spot you habitually seek out at the breakfast bar/couch/table? Are you finally remodeling the kitchen after giving your faded sunflower wallpaper angry glares for the last 25 years? Send your photos to nhoffmann@philadelphiaweekly.com or tweet ‘em to @PhillyWeekly, along with a few lines about what you like best about being at home. We’ll pick our favorites and spotlight a few in PW!
Black Moth Super Rainbow Gives Pennsylvanian Weirdos A Little Jolt Of Pride
As a culture vulture based in Philadelphia, sometimes you have those moments of “I should’ve been in on this two months ago.” It’s a spirit-crusher. “I SHOULD’VE BEEN AT THAT SHOW!” or “WE SHOUDL’VE COVERED THAT!” happens around the clock, daily. But the plus side, naturally, is that there’s so much cool stuff happening that it’s a first-world problem to be making sure people know about it and attend. What was missed here was a hand-painted Ugly Orange Full-Head latex mask from Tom Fec. Thomas Fec is the Pittsburgh-born and Allegheny County-raised body-vessel of Tobacco, or Maniac Meat, or front-man for the totally psychedelic Black Moth Super Rainbow
BMSR self-released their fifth proper LP through a Kickstarter campaign. They, well mostly Tom it seems, created Rad Cult, a label they’ll use as the vehicle for disseminating Cobra Juicy with the help of 2,032 backers. Their $45k goal was met, and exceeded – by $80,634. Yup, they raised over $125k for this baby. And the tiers are fantastic and it’s a beautiful testament to the fact that people, fans, WILL spend money on having things in their hands (or on their heads). Especially if it’s really cool.
Furthermore, these masks! They glow in the dark. And when you get to a mask tier you get the digital stuff in the form of a USB tooth that you jam into the masks mouth. You could be a BMSR drug-taker for Halloween and fascinate people with your Kickstarter story and build excitement for their upcoming Philadelphia date. LOOK AT THEM.
As a culture vulture based in Philadelphia, sometimes you have those moments of “I should’ve been in on this two months ago.” It’s a spirit-crusher. “I SHOULD’VE BEEN AT THAT SHOW!” or “WE SHOUDL’VE COVERED THAT!” happens around the clock, daily. But the plus side, naturally, is that there’s so much cool stuff happening that it’s a first-world problem to be making sure people know about it and attend. What was missed here was a hand-painted Ugly Orange Full-Head latex mask from Tom Fec. Thomas Fec is the Pittsburgh-born and Allegheny County-raised body-vessel of Tobacco, or Maniac Meat, or front-man for the totally psychedelic Black Moth Super Rainbow.About the music, well, that’s pretty amazing, too. You may know about Tobacco already. His Maniac Meat (2010) had a couple Beck spots on it and blew mad people’s minds. He may have wowed you as Tobacco AND as BMSR in your lifetime. He plays a vocoder, sings, write songs, uses weird analog technology, draws, paints, and is just a brilliantly talented freaky frontman of this extremely mysterious and secrecy-shrouded collective of musicians that typically call PA their epicenter. And as if all this wasn’t cool enough, they seem to be friends with Eric Wareheim and Eric (of Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! fame) made a pretty hilarious Kickstarter campaign video to get them off the ground in laughtastic fashion. Did you know Wareheim is an Owl and was in a bunch of Philly bands? One of them was a vampire-themed punk band named Ink & Dagger. Oh, did you know Wareheim made sick music videos, too? Including “Pon De Floor” and Health’s “We Are Water“? This was a fun Pennsylvania wormhole to fall down, wasn’t it.
They’ll be in Pittsburgh at Mr. Smalls on November 10th and make a stop at Union Transfer December 7th
So Philly I Can’t Handle It
I’ve lived in Philadelphia for over five years now, and there’s a few things I’ve come to love from living in New York’s funnier and generally more mustachioed little brother – namely pretzels, facial hair, and cats.
Here’s a few things I’ve rounded up for you to wear on your way to becoming a local in the City of Brotherly Love. The next step is grabbing a lawn chair and sitting on the sidewalk in basketball shorts all day.
Heads of State Liberty Bell Tee $25 // MCMC Dude No.1 Beard Oil $65 from Art in the Age
Gold Double Cubani Link Ring $150 // Gold Diamond Studs $55 from Concrete Polish
Phillies/Ramones Tee $24 // Party Til You Puke Shirt $16 from Awesome Dudes Printing
Pretzel Pool Float $18 from Urban Outfitters
Peace of Shit Tank $34 // Fuzzy Nugz Tee $32 from Radlands Clothing
- Christina Brown
From Haight Ashbury, With Love
Nestled in mid-San Francisco is the neighborhood of Haight Ashbury: playground for psychedelia-seekers and stage for some the the best bands who ever lived. The cafe and boutique-lined streets still evoke the feelings of the 1970’s today. But real artifacts from decades past can’t be found in the heady shops or with the guitar-pluckers crowning every street corner, but from vintage shops.
Behold Wasteland: perhaps the best secondhand store in all of antiquity. Their warehouse is filled to the brim with vintage offerings, but their website features new items from Motel, Finders Keepers, Insight, BB Dakota, and Jeffrey Campbell as well as top-stitch designers such as Christian Lacroix and Vivienne Westwood. Among my favorite in-store findings were a vintage Morrissey t-shirt, a Billy Joel t-shirt with concert dates in Hebrew, and a faded sunflower cropped denim vest.
Fortunately, Philadelphians don’t have to go as far as the West Coast to create the Haight Ashbury look. Named after the unique neighborhood, local brand Haight Ashbury offers vintage-inspired t-shirts and ready-to-wear items for anyone who desires to express their love of music, nature and originality. Browse their bold selections here, and gain some Haight Ashbury inspiration from their dreamy tumblr.
Or, become inspired by the neighborhood itself looking at some photos below…
By Marissa Oswald
Old City’s Eccentric Lost + Found
Having grown accustomed to shopping at the same places due to convenience and a busy schedule, I felt instantly refreshed and ready to make impulsive yet excellent purchases upon entering Old City’s Lost + Found.
Located on 3rd and Cherry Sts., I entered the shop to find a multi-hued rack of flannel shirts to my left, cases of jewelry in front of me, and a plethora of scarves and bags to my right. In any other store I might’ve found this overwhelming, but part of what made shopping at Lost + Found so enjoyable and relaxing was the clean and well organized interior.
The store sells every piece you’d need for an outfit besides unmentionables. From flowing tops with bold prints to casual pieces in solids or basic stripes, there is something to fit everyone’s style aesthetic. In addition, they carry dresses for both day and night as well as a modest vintage section filled with a variety of playful and classic sweaters, as well as great coats. Most new styles start at $40 while there were two lofty sales racks with great finds.
Make Your Own Metal Jewelry…No, Really
Make these Free People look-a-likes with Roll Printing!
Ever peep a cute piece of fashion jewelry and wonder how that gold-painted piece of nickel could possibly cost 2 benjamins? Ever send a curse upon the woman who always has the most unique pieces, leaving you wondering where she could possibly be finding them?
We’ve certainly all have moments when we declare, “I could make that!” But did you actually end up making it? Of course not. Fortunately, there’s an outlet for all your wildest metal-bending dreams: jewelry making class at Main Line Art Center.
Don’t get it twisted; this isn’t your average pre-school bead-stringing party. I figured this out upon stepping into the studio filled with drills, guillotines, and other rotating things that looked like they were meant for human torture. These are the tools that could turn any of your jewelry fantasies into real, wearable pieces in a mere 5 evenings of once-a-week classes.
Dawn Bergmaier, Main Line Art Jewelry Extraordinaire
Professional Jeweler and Tyler Art School grad Dawn Bergmaier teaches the basics of working with metal. You will defeat everything from sawing, polishing, saudering and shaping to “roll-printing,” the process of printing texture on metal by placing lace, dried leaves or fabric through a manual mill with the metal. Another all-too-easy technique she demonstrates is “etching,” where patterns or words are drawn onto metal with a sharpie, then it’s tossed into a solution that eats the exposed metal away, resulting in etched metal designs sans scary fire torch.
I was fortunate to sit in on the first session, in which we were instructed to cut Abraham Lincoln out of a penny. “Someone in my class always asks ‘Isn’t that illegal?’ Well yes, it totally is,” chuckled Dawn. But when she got her first job at a jewelry store on the Main Line, her boss ordered her to do the tricky maneuver flawlessly, leaving a perfectly polished, smooth Lincoln pretty enough to be a charm. Trust me- the real challenge is not escaping the law, but cutting out Abe’s nose with a needle-thin hand saw without making him look like Pinocchio.
A Dawn Bergmaier design
Dawn will prepare you for not only your own creations, but the handcrafted jewelry industry itself. And for those who want to make more projects- that gold set of earrings you could replicate for cheap- that knuckle ring with your name on it- whatever your style, you can use all the machinery and tools in-studio in supervised sessions through March 22nd. You can go to the Mainline Art Center website or call 610.525.0272 to register. The next two batches of classes start Friday mornings from 9:30-12:30, February 24-March 23 or for those who sleep in late, Thursday nights 6:30- 9:30 February 23-March 22. So get on it, future jewelers.
Versace for H&M is Coming…
The H&M store on Walnut Street will be blessed by the Versace for H&M collection starting at 8AM Saturday, November 19th, 2011. Mark your calendars because this event is going to be HUGE!
According to the site, each group of 20 people in line will get a colored wristband (up to 280 people). Shoppers will be allowed a 15 minute shopping window, and the order in which people are allowed to shop goes according to the color of their wristband. Wristband holders are only allowed to shop the Versace for H&M women’s collection. Anyone else who wants to shop the Versace for H&M men’s line, Versace for H&M home collection or regular H&M apparel can do so at their leisure.
Once you’re in H&M and drooling over Donatella’s designs, don’t get ahead of yourself. Customers are allowed to purchase only two items, so plan wisely. H&M’s posted the entire selection to its website so shoppers can pick out their favorite pieces for the budget.
I can’t wait to see everyone there, and stay tuned for a detailed review of the line. Is it going to actually look like Versace, or just a cheap Chinatown knockoff?
Don’t forget:
- Doors open at 8AM.
- You’re only allowed two pieces.
- The Walnut Street H&M is the one with the gold.
- You only need a wristband if you’re shopping the women’s collection.
- PW Style will be attending and documenting the chaos that will ensue.