When we realized we hadn’t yet gotten around to hosting an event at our office in Newport Beach, California, we seized the opportunity to host a party/fundraiser to spread the word. Tuesday evening, staff, clients, and friends both old and new joined us for our “160overNine-Nine-Ninety Whiplash Bash.” The punch was flowing, and so were the $$$s. Thanks for the contributions, and for helping us open up our new digs in style. And thanks to the locals for welcoming us and not busting up our boards. Next stop, White House!

Check out some of these hot pics:

Upstairs view of the office, located in the amazing Cannery Village of Newport Beach:

These garage doors really let in a lot of bugs. Who comes up with this stuff?

The piles of magazines prove that we’re for real:

Despite some of the world’s freshest seafood being literally steps from our door, we imported these oysters all the way from Nova Scotia! Take that, carbon footprint! And the flowers are edible (I had five, but they didn’t really taste like anything). Decadent!

Doubly decadent!:

Meanwhile, just down the street, Wednesday morning. If this beach was at the Jersey Shore, there’d be like a billion people on it:

Our lives are marked by a series of milestones. Pivotal points where the way we live our life changes from that moment forward. Here’s a quick rundown of some of mine: Marriage. Job. House. Kid. Move. Job. Kid. Hawthornes. What is a Hawthornes? It’s a beautiful new invention known as a beer café and about five months ago it opened around the corner from me. Now a beer café is exactly what it sounds like. Awesome. A lovely little bistro with over 1,000 beers from around the globe that you can either enjoy there or take with you. Most of these 1,000 beers come in bottles that you can peruse through the glass doors of the seven large beer fridges, conveniently categorized by geography. But then there is the growler altar, sitting humbly by the fireplace, hissing sporadically as one of the beer wizards turns mysterious dials and knobs before emerging with a glowing amber jug filled with some new unusual beer. A chalkboard lists the 10-12 daily offerings from true craft breweries that obsess over the quality of their hops and grains. Often these beers are seasonal, small-batch brews with ABV’s ranging from 6.5% to 13%. A growler, which is 64 fluid ounces to us non-metrics, can cost anywhere from $12 to $34 to fill depending on the beer.

Now here is the important part: Normally your first growler requires an initial $15 investment for the vessel, which you then keep and bring back for refills. However this Tuesday, April 20^th your growler is free. Hawthornes is hosting one of its many beer-tastings events, this time with Boulder Beer. Just fill your growler with your favorite Boulder brew and you gain free membership to the growler club. There really is a club—your 20^th growler is free. This is your moment to jump. It seems like a no-brainer. Otherwise you’ll just have to listen to me and Dan Shepelavy wax on about our growlers with way too much emotion and enthusiasm than is appropriate.

Hawthornes Beer Cafe

11th and Fitzwater Sts.

Boulder Keep the Growler Night

Tuesday, 4.20, 7-9 PM

Hooray! The weather has turned, spring sprung, etc… which means, once again, Weber’s is on the menu! Not just an orange Doo Wop-style car hop with a mechanized retro asterisk sign serving simple burgers and home made root beer, but a roadside oasis and an enduring monument to warm weather good times. Route 38 in Cherry Hill, in lovely southern New Jersey. (also @ shepelavy.com)

(These photos were shot a couple of years ago with the Savoy, below, a corker of a fixed focus medium format plastic toy camera.)

Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists 1958 – 1968, on exhibit now at three gallery spaces at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts, is the first major exhibition of female Pop artists of the era. Its quite a reclamation project – planned over the course of four years, a majority of the work has not been shown in over forty. (Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof’s Artblog has a nice write up about the show here.)

The usual pop concerns are in play, with a heavy emphasis on the complexities of female iconography in mass culture. The art is on the whole great, if a little roughly hewn. Gems abound – Idelle Weber’s stark geometries and silhouettes, the provocative (if a little strident) photo-montages of Martha Rosler, and Dorothy Grebenak’s hooked wool rugs of Tide boxes, and Bugatti logos. Marjorie Strider’s Green Triptych balances genuine sexiness and wry commentary in equal measure, not an easy dynamic to pull off. The show runs until March 15. A catalog is forthcoming. Check it. (via shepelavy.com)

Martha Rosler, Family Portrait with Car, 1966-72,
Chryssa, Ampersand IV, 1965
Rosalyn Drexler, Home Movies, 1963
Marjorie Strider, Green Triptych, 1963
Joyce Wieland, Young Woman’s Blues, 1964

Check out that toaster! These are prime example of the work of a fab outfit called Plan Toys. Based in Thailand, they are the worlds largest manufacturer of recycled toys. Totally green, committed to sustainable wages, the outfit is a model of vision, conscience and aesthetics. Everything they make is made from rubber-wood trees to old to produce latex. The textured flat pop colors? – water based stains. And the stuff is built – practically carpentered, like in the olden days. But it’s more that quality materials, progressive ideals, and great design. We are talking a totally inspired aesthetic that borders on art. The world of Plan Toys is like magic dimension where everything is designed by Eero Saarinen, Alvar Aalto, Walter Gropius and overseen by the watchful eye of Chris Ware. Seriously – again – check out that toaster. (via shepelavy.com)

Bauhaus craft book, Aero Saarinen: TWA Terminal,
Alvar Aalto: Paimio Chair, Chris Ware: excerpt

http://tinyurl.com/ydt84q9 Fantastic interpretation of Avatar. Navigates beyond facile left, right, and art-movie snob snarks and jabs (hippie! anti-capitalist! noble savage! simplistic story! cats!) etc… and makes a case for it as a superlative fable – a new and worthwhile addition to the tradition of stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the universe and the human condition. Plus, dooood – floating mountain rainbow dragon awesomeness!

The end of the year is a big time for lists, and publications, and publications that make lists.  It’s kind of like VH1, except instead of Carrot Top commenting on MC Hammer’s pants or how hot Brooke Shields was in the 1981 Calvin Klein campaign, we have a tweed-coated columnist telling us about the year’s best…everything.

Although I normally skim over these lists skeptically (did Adventureland REALLY make it onto a list for the ten best movies of the decade?), I was blown away by the New York Times Magazine’s’ “9th Annual Year in Ideas” list. It’s full of discoveries that are cool (face-detecting digital advertisements that move and respond to passers-by), relevant (a beer bottle is more effective at cracking the human skull if it’s empty, rather than full), and futuristic (the development of an ethical robot; a Google algorithm applied to the analysis of animal extinction). From start to finish, the list offers a broad and refreshing look at the innovations that will likely shape the kinds of technological, cultural, social and artistic strides that will be made in 2010.

Oh, and for whoever got my name in the Secret Santa pool, I wouldn’t say no to Ruppy the flourescent dog. (It sure beats my invisible one.)

Illustration from Bruno Munari’s Le Macchine di Munari, which also includes diagrams and helpful descriptions of a lizard-driven engine for tired tortoises, a mechanism for sniffing artificial flowers, a humiliator for mosquitoes, a machine for playing the pipe even when you are not home, a machine for seeing the dawn before anyone else, and a tail wagger for dogs.

Bruno Munari’s work was described by one critic as as “a playful revolution” – perfectly put. It is a rabbit hole to a realm where the tweaking of adult conventions and the stimulation of children’s imaginations meet, mingle, draw, type, play, and get wonderfully, absurdly, heartwarmingly weird. (A collection of his work can be viewed here, click on the “+” to reveal images.) Munari himself summed up his approach perfectly: lucidity, leanness, exactitude and humor. Compass points worth following, surely. (via shepelavy.com)

Communications Industry Ping Pong Tournament held at Spin in NYC on September 24, 2009

Bing sponsored a table tennis tournament last week at New York’s brand spankin’ new “table tennis social club,” SPiN. The event was open to professionals in the communications industry and appropriately titled “The Egos.” We participated (and brought along the riff raff).

Photos Courtesy of Kelly Samardak

Like many of the 70-ish firms participating, we held an internal tournament to determine who would rep the agency. The victor was Christopher Van Auken. He would be heading to New York and I’d tag along for the ride. We call Chris’s backhand “John Henry” because its sheer speed and force rivals that of the folk tale hero.

Yeah, that guy over there. That's Chris.

Experience The Egos after the jump..

Something you may not know about the character John Henry is this: He was allegedly born with a hammer in his hand. That had to be an interesting childbirth. I suppose it’s nothing compared to some of those Canadians that are born with ice skates on their feet.

Chris ballin with one of the pros

The evening got rolling with an impressive demo by a couple of pros. Fortunately, they weren’t competing in the tournament — just co-hosting. Do you see how far this guy is from the table?

Distance Pong

The social club vibes helped to encourage a general sense of camaraderie. I believe my coltish disposition may have been ever-so-slightly amplified by the quenchers from the open bar (way to go, Bing!). When I wasn’t shouting Chris’s praises, I was off making friends and enemies. Mostly friends, I think.

About the only thing I could complain about was the daffy lighting in there. It made shooting with my new Holga fisheye camera quite a challenge (more like a vain pursuit). But that’s merely a personal grievance, and fortunately they invited photographers. Way to go again there, Bing!

Bend it like Auken

Photo courtesy of Kelly Samardak

With the high volume of eager, registered players, there wasn’t a whole lot of opportunities for a lowly spectator to step in and swat the shere around (that’s what we really serious players call it. Just ask anyone really serious.) So I did what any rational attendee anxious for some action would do: I assumed a British accent, hopped in the queue with my paddle, and told everyone I was Phil from Weiden+Kennedy’s London outfit. Pleased to meet you, mate.

Passersby peeking in from the subway halls. Photo courtesy of Kelly Samardak

Photo Courtesy of Kelly Samardak

The frenetic atmosphere, the big swings, the “tic-tic” of pong balls, the spectacular spectator windows for people walking by in the underground — it all made for an interesting night. Call me a Pollyanna if you must, but I thought it was a good time.

Oh yeah, and that batty sport, what’s-his-face from 30 Rock was there. Judah Friedlander. Good man; he hosted.

Open bar and DJ -- Photo courtesy of Kelly Samardak

Advertising folk love them some ping pong, and we’ll readily admit to being enthusiasts (see: the other 43 blog posts pertaining to table tennis).  In fact, we here at 160over90 are a hospitable tribe, and we have a standing, open challenge: If you’d like to engage in a competitive bout of sorts, assemble a foursome and float us some potential dates.

Something else you may not know about John Henry: He dies at the end of the tale with his hammer in his hand after being declared victorious. I’m not sure just how that relates, but Chris beat a bunch of opponents before being eliminated by a rascally competitor about 2/3 of the way through the tournament.

Dance Pong

Oh well, it’s just good to get your ‘pong on some place new. We’ll be back with a vengeance next year. And hey — you should come with.