To all you green market going, micro-roasted organic latte sipping conscious consumers out there, mark your calendars, the adorable more affordable Prius c has arrived at a friendly, neighborhood car dealership near you. To celebrate the best hybrid-related news story we’ve heard since The Daily Mail reported that Leo was buying Prii for his girlfriends, we thought we’d poke around our favorite design studios to see if hybrid fever is making waves in their world.

Sure enough, the design pioneers that we know and love are as obsessed with unexpected playful combinations as we are. From Héctor Serrano’s dinner napkin that doubles as a stylish skinny tie to coat hooks made from paintbrushes to dual-purpose furniture that will change the way you think about home decor, click through to check out our roundup of smile-inducing hybrid designs that are as useful as they are fun. Be sure to tell us about your favorite dual-purpose design finds in the comments!

Read More »

For nearly two decades, France’s Cognac Blues Passions festival has been celebrating all things blues and roots in the world of music. With its “Chase the Music. Own the Stage.” talent quest, Hennessy is taking part in the celebration as well, giving two international acts their chance to join the bill at this year’s fest, alongside Sting, the Cranberries, rising star Selah Sue, and a soon-to-be House-less Hugh Laurie. Following an initial round of submissions, the judges have narrowed this year’s hopefuls down to the top 10 finalists. Two of them will be heading to France from July 3-8 for the 19th annual Blues Passions event, and you can help them out now by voting and commenting on their entries. Click through for a few of our favorite contenders, then head to the Talent Quest page on Facebook to hear them all and get behind your personal pick.

Read More »

Last week, cinephiles invaded NYC for one of the film world’s biggest annual events, the Tribeca Film Festival. Amid all the screenings, discussions, and celebrity sightings, Flavorpill teamed up with Heineken to host two exclusive Drink and Discuss events, during which the folks behind some of our favorite festival picks sat down to discuss their films and take questions from the audience. Hosted by Flavorwire film editor Jason Bailey, the first event featured The Russian Winter director Petter Ringbom and star John Forté — who also performed a stunning acoustic set for the crowd — while the second one put the spotlight on Side by Side, Chris Kenneally’s star-studded investigative look at the future of film. Click through to check out our photo gallery from the events, then discover our other picks from the festival.

Read More »

The time is almost upon us — it’s only a few weeks until the always extravagant Manhattan Cocktail Classic descends on the city, with hundreds of events, parties, and of course, high-class booze. We’ve been keeping our excitement at bay by focusing our energies on the fabulous designs sent in by our readers for the temporary tattoo contest running on our Facebook page. Finally, we can announce the winners of this contest — the designs that were awesome enough to be made into 1,000 real temporary tattoos each. Our grand prize winner also won tickets to the Manhattan Cocktail Classic’s yearly Gala. Click through to see the designs and learn about the designers.

Read More »

It has been eight years since the controversial conclusion of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, which he began way back in 1974. But now King has returned to Mid-World, gunslinger Roland Deschain, and his ragged band with The Wind Through the Keyhole, a book that, King tells us, “should be shelved between Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla… which makes it, I suppose, Dark Tower 4.5.”

But it also works as a stand-alone novel, and a novel about the nature of storytelling at that. “These tales nest inside each other,” Roland says, as we’re led into a story within a story within a story. Roland begins to tell his companions a tale of his early days as a teenage gunslinger, wherein he saves a young boy from a vicious marauding shapeshifter, and then comforts him with another story, a fairy tale from his own childhood. This innermost tale, the story a teenage Roland tells about a boy named Tim, is the most compelling of the three, entirely of Mid-World and also a fable of our collective consciousness, the kind of story, Roland says, that “start[s] ‘before your grandfather’s grandfather was born.’” We think this novel is sure to win a slew of new Dark Tower converts, while managing to please the faithful — no easy feat.

Click through for a sneak peek at the first few pages of the book — or if you’d rather listen to King’s dulcet tones, let him read them to you himself.

Read More »

Sure, right now everyone is caught up in the Coachella craze, but we see it more as the start of the festival season than the end-all-be-all. And out of all the other festivals on the way in the coming months, we’re most looking forward to the return of Lollapalooza. After last year’s epic 20th-anniversary fest, Lolla is returning once again to Chicago’s Grant Park from August 3-5, and we’ve teamed up with our friends at Tablet to celebrate in a big way. Enter now and you can win round-trip airfare and VIP festival tickets for two to this year’s event, plus a five-night stay at PUBLIC Chicago.

To help get you even more excited, Tablet has put together a Lollapalooza 2012 mixtape featuring everyone from Jack White and Florence & The Machine to Die Antwoord and Of Monsters and Men. Stream it for free after the jump, then enter to win our VIP Lollapalooza getaway.

Read More »

If you’ve been with us for a while, you know that we’re no small fans of Tiny Furniture filmmaker Lena Dunham. We’ve had our eye on her ever since her much-praised movie started building buzz, so our excitement at the prospect of her teaming up with comic mastermind Judd Apatow for an original HBO series was well-grounded in longstanding fandom. More recently, a SXSW sneak peek at the show, Girls, had us declaring it to be both “richly inventive and endlessly quotable” and “the most exciting and promising new comedy series since Community.” And since we’ve been salivating at the thought of this show finally hitting the air for months now, we couldn’t be happier to realize the premiere is now just a little over a week away. Click through to watch the latest trailer for the series, along with a clip of Apatow interviewing Dunham on set, then tune in to catch the first episode on Sunday, April 15 at 10:30pm on HBO.

Read More »

Comedian. Musician. One-man experimental theater troupe. And the man with the best afro around. Yes, it’s Reggie Watts, our favorite 21st century polymath — there are few artists more multi-talented and consistently intriguing than Watts, which is why we’re super excited to have him taking the reins of Flavorpill NY for the week. He’s stepping in as guest editor as part of our cultural curatorship program, wherein we team up with our friends at PF Flyers ask some of our favorite American cultural icons to act as guest editors on Flavorpill for a day and give us their picks of the best events on around town. Reggie’s choices are up on Flavorpill NYC right now, so head on over and see what he’s come up with!

Earlier in the week we hosted the book-launch party for Jeff, One Lonely Guy at NYC hotspot CultureFix, bringing together fans of narrative exploration and postmodern experimentation for a night of readings, drinks, and music. The book’s co-authors Jeff Ragsdale and David Shields were in the house, eager to share stories and reveal more about what happens when you give everyone in the world the chance to anonymously vent. Check out our gallery of photos from the event, then check out an excerpt from the book and grab a copy of your own.

Read More »

We’ve long been enamored of Quite Continental blog queen and generally fascinating person Mariah Kunkel. Few people pull off a synthesis of the timeless and the contemporary quite as effortlessly as Kunkel, and her blog always makes for fascinating reading, covering everything from travel and books to design and, of course, fashion. All of this means that we’re delighted to have her as our guest editor on Flavorpill LA for the week as part of our cultural curatorship program — a partnership with our friends at PF Flyers that finds us asking some of our favorite American cultural icons to give us the lowdown on what’s happening around their cities. Mariah’s choices for the week are up on Flavorpill LA right now, so if you’re on the West Coast — or you just want to see what you’d be doing if you were — head over to Flavorpill LA to check them out!