Peer Review: Fantastic Man x Interview

-Did anyone else read the interview with Gert Jonkers and Jop Van Bennekom of Fantastic Man magazine by Glenn O'Brien in the August issue of Interview? If you did not, I would encourage you to do so. Normally I wouldn't really post just inform people about an article I liked, but I thought that the pair had some really great insight into the nature of magazines and consequently, why blogs offer competition to magazines.

-From the article: "It doesn't talk to you as a consumer, but as a reader" "I don't think you should speak to the reader. I mean, you're a magazine because you speak to the reader, but you don't have to literally speak to the reader. If I say "You'll want a Dolce & Gabbana bag this season," maybe you say, "Well, actually the only thing I'm not looking for right now is a bag, so why do you say that to me?"

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Field Trip: Supreme

-On Tuesday, I returned home from New York City, the site of the first ever Class Act Field Trip. One of the first stops was Supreme in SoHo, which is one of the nation's best skate shops and the former stomping grounds of the late Class Act All Star Harold Hunter, the legendary skateboarder/Kids star who passed away back in 2006.
-Supreme's limited-edition merchandise, exclusive kicks, and notoriously smug staff make it seem more like a clubhouse than a skate shop, with the number of customers rarely equaling the pack of regulars skating outside. Of course, this only adds to the store's reputation. Supreme has been a skate mecca for years, and the hype surrounding it is as prevalent as ever. In this month's GQ, Style Guy Glenn O'Brien claims that, when the weather gets nasty, "you'll find me in my chocolate brown Supreme hoodie six times out of ten." The shop also has porn star Tera Patrick hyping their goods, and has released some exclusive shit bearing her likeness.

-Supreme's reputation alone makes it worth a look, so stop by if you have some money to blow or you want to pay your respects to one of New York's illest. Still, I'd take Laced over Supreme any day.

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Art School: Writing on the Wall

We at CA have seen our fair share of street art this week. With the new addition of a campus graffiti wall (see previous post) came a flurry of related activity: we witnessed the possible unmasking of a superstar and remembered a classic graffiti film.












-According to Gawker and Animal NY, the identity of British street artist/provocateur Banksy may have been revealed in New York earlier this week. Several passersby claimed to have seen Banksy stenciling outside of a West Village nightclub. While the artist in question turned out to be Nick Walker, Banksy's Bristol contemporary, some have come out and said that they are one and the same. Others claim that Banksy is not actually one person, but instead a counterculture conglomerate. Either way, the mystique surrounding one of the art world's most enigmatic celebrities grows with each new rumor, and we are sure that is exactly what he/they want.
-We also happened upon Downtown 81, which showcases a day in the life of the late Jean-Michel Basquiat. The film, which was made by Glenn O'Brien (GQ's Style Guy), follows Basquiat's semi-fictional misadventures over the course of one day in 1981. It makes for a vivid urban fairytale, and we think pretty highly of it.

"I saw the writing on the wall; and it was mine."- Jean-Michel Basquiat more