Our best selling toy is back in full effect, plus they’ve brought ten new characters with them! I’m having a tough time deciding between guys like KosmicKen and AstroNeil (complete with space-helmet) or JettyBetty and StringBlade, who rocks classic four-wheel rollerskates (and also wears a helmet, ’cause girlfriend means business). Grab these guys up, or complete your collection of classic characters like Sid and Bella or Judo Sensei and Samurai.

This brand was introduced to us a few months ago and I instantly fell in love with the design and colors of the “LOVE” emblem tee for women. SWNDL is a new Brooklyn-based artist collective specializing in women’s tees, but they ran a few for men this season too: our favorite is the Miles Davis “Music & Life are all about style”. Deep.

September issues of smart, Zipper, and JJ are in. This month’s focus for smart is hair and grooming! The magazine comes with a mini grooming kit, and a special insert that more or less shows you how to use them to trim your face up. Sweet! Also good for the ladies for do their own eyebrows.

Meanwhile, Zipper comes with a sheet of decent Spongebob Squarepants stickers, and has a fun spread on cute fake nail styles. JJ is all about Gossip Girl this month. People are obsessed with this show and I know nothing about it!

Jessica
21, London, Ohio, Michigan, Virginia, and here.

Backpack: I got it on modcloth.com, but it’s Burger and Friends who makes it.

Shirt: I think it’s actually from Urban Outfitters.

Skirt: My turquoise thingy is from Buffalo Exchange.

Shoes: A little store on Market street.

Favorite item on: My backpack. Look, in the inside it has french fries.

Current obsession: Ooh, little Japanese gangster boys. They’re just adorably cute. And a chocolate milkshake! We just got one at Little Pete’s. The waitress was mean to us. Wawa’s are pretty good … If they would put Wawa back in Center City! Oh, and the color orange.

Point of fashion today: Camouflage in space?

Where are you headed? Um, well we just ate chocolate milkshakes and that was really the plan for the day. But maybe to the bank.

What Omoi ♥s: Orange orange orange!

Jessica
22. I don’t really know where I’m from. There’s a very long list of places. North Carolina, Los Angeles, Utah, Deleware, Philadelphia, Upstate New York … Am I missing any?

Backpack: I got it on modcloth.com, but it’s Burger and Friends who makes it.

Top: Somewhere in downtown L.A. Santi Alley.

Skirt: Ross. Like five years ago.

Leggings: Santi Alley.

Shoes and socks: The socks are from Jess’s dirty laundry. The shoes are, I think they’re … no, I got these online. They have paisley with little skulls in the paisley, but you have to get really close.

Favorite item on: Shoes, definitely. Actually I really like the bra except it’s like ugly and stained and white and totally functional, but it’s the best bra ever.

Current obsession: Skirt hangers. Really bright towels. We went on a skirt hanger mission. We had to get like 50 skirt hangers to hang everything.

Point of fashion today: Today is a hangover face. (other Jessica: “I think ballerina pre-school.”)

Where are you headed? I go where she goes. We just sort of wander.

What Omoi ♥s: Mismatched socks, same cut.

This book is awesome. Written by Raina Lee, a gamer/pop culture enthusiast, and author of the 1-Up MegaZine, a video game culture zine. Raina is also behind the karaoke domination blog, a companion to her book!

My childhood dentist, Dr. Sun, had a karaoke machine in his waiting room. His makeshift office in Monterey Park (a.k.a. Little Taipei of L.A.) was a hodgepodge assembly of sticky, plastic-covered couches, old magazines, a dusty TV from 1985, and a dream-worthy karaoke machine reserved for “special patients.” Because I was a good customer (read: had bad teeth) and Dr. Sun had a crush on my mom, I was an A-lister. In the minutes I had on the machine, cavity-mouthed kids and elderly Chinese waiting for root canals faded into the background. It was showtime and I was the star.

Dr. Sun’s collection of laser discs was not what my friends listened to. He had Old Style Love songs showcasing the brilliance of Elvis, the Isley Brothers, Paul Anka, and Dusty Springfield, among others. Though my parents grew up in Taiwan, they loved early-’60s American pop songs. After repeated playings of the Oldies But Goodies tapes my dad ordered from TV, they became the songs of my childhood too.

For years, the pre-novocaine karaoke made my weekly visits less painful. I’d sing “All I Have to Do Is Dream” over drilling sounds from the next room. Singing made me feel at home… because that’s what we did at home. While other families played board games, we karaoked. We sang after dinner, at dinner, in the afternoon, and in our pajamas. We even took our karaoke machine on vacation, like it was another member of the family. Singing was not a frivolous pastime, but a fundamental part of living. It shouldn’t have surprised me that Dr. Sun had a karaoke machine in his waiting room. For many Asian Americans, karaoke is life.

Our friend Remi met up with Banana Boss, whose actual name is Banao, this past winter. Since then, Banao and Remi have been taking trips all over the country. From time to time, Banao checks in with travel pictures on our myspace, but here’s a few of our favorites.

(images courtesy of i am ian and graceablemoment.)

Toni Turner
25, originally from upstate New York

Dress: Wet Seal. It was only ten dollars.

Boots: They’re Na Na. I can only get them online, cause I don’t know where to buy them from a store.

Bangles: Wherever they’re on sale. I’ve gotten them from CVS, but I’ve gotten them from Chinatown, and they’ve been presents.

Backpack: Chinatown! The Hello Kitty store.

Favorite item on: Probably my boots. I own all boots except for one pair of sneakers. It’s really rare that I don’t wear boots.

Current obsession: Sailor Moon. It’s the same thing, always. Ever since middle school - Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon is my favorite sailor. She’s so doofy, she loves everybody… I connect with her.

Point of fashion today: Everyday is cute. Always cute. Ruffles, poof, anything cute.

Where are you headed? Oh, I’m actually at work, and I got a half-hour break, so I was like I’m gonna scoot over here and get some of the magazines…

What Omoi ♥s: Cute backpack really taking things up a notch in the kawaii factor.

More goodies. We’ve yet to put them out in the store yet (gearing up for tons of fall displays!), but if you’re interested, just ask us about them and we’ll pull them out for you. These babies are peppered with sans-serif French writing, too. Extra chic.

What a book! What a beautiful, beautiful book! Play Pen is a compilation of “new children’s book illustration.” The book showcases over 30 illustrators from around the world, categorized by “genre,” if you will: Picturebooks, board books; Alphabets, wordplay, and novelty; Older Children; and Non-fiction. Each illustrator has four or five pages with choice illustrations from children’s books they’ve done, along with a brief biography about their background and career. Below are excerpts from the well-crafted and keen introduction.

… The aim of this book has been to represent a broad range of stylistic and conceptual trends and a range of cultural characteristics from around the world, across what is increasingly a global market.

Some of these issues and questions are explored in depth in academic literature, where the verbal and visual texts of children’s books are examined with specific regard to their role in the educational development of the child. This book is more concerned with the art itself, and with the thoughts and motivations of the artists themselves.

There is much debate about what constitutes an ‘appropriate’ visual diet for children. It seems that different cultures still have widely divergent views and traditions here. A tour of the annual Bologna Children’s Book Fair, for instance, reveals that, at present, UK publishers are deeply conservative in their use of illustration as compared to, for example, their French, Italian, Norwegian, German and Scandinavian counterparts. When asked about this, most UK publishers will claim that, much as they love the ’sophisticated stuff’, they can’t sell it. It is never easy to know who is leading whom where, but it is hard to believe that some countries produce innately more sophisticated and visually discerning children. A more plausible explanation perhaps lies in a tendency towards the self-fulfilling prophecy approach to marketing.

The rich diversity of artwork from across the globe is increasingly threatened by the growing necessity for publishers to sell co-editions of their books to other countries, most importantly the USA. This has initiated a worrying tendency for artists to be given long lists of ‘dos and don’ts’ and being encouraged to avoid overtly ‘local’ visual references. This would seem to be a misguided idea, and as the influential writer on children’s literature, Joseph H. Schwarcz pointed out: ‘It is fortunately true, though, that as in all good art the universal significance found in the most excellent examples arises from a background with a strong local flavor.’

Pictures in picturebooks will mean many things to children. Often the pictures themselves are the meaning now, rather than a mere subservient clue to the meaning of words. And besides, I would argue that pictures in picturebooks have a far more important role to play in the development of the child than a mere aid to reading.

The introduction makes a lot of good points, I feel. The only sad thing about Play Pen is that the illustrations inside are all so beautiful, and yet the books that contain them are not so readily available! Hopefully, as the world becomes a smaller place (take that how you will), we’ll all be able to realize the importance of celebrating our “local flavor” rather than subduing it in the name of some asinine concept that it would be inappropriate or too confusing. How else is the imagination sparked than by experiencing the new and exciting - the familiar unknown? I think I can safely speak for thousands of people when I say that I wouldn’t be learning Japanese and traveling abroad to study in Japan if it weren’t for randomly discovering Japanese animation and music, so different from what I knew at the time that I was instantly infatuated!

So maybe you saw the post about our super cute Shinzi Katoh bento boxes (it’s a few posts down if you didn’t). Along with the bento boxes, we also got in some extremely cute water bottles, made out of aluminum, in the style of the popular, durable, eco-friendly Sigg bottles. Save the planet and be cute at the same time? It IS possible!

We also got in vinyl tote bags. I thought the totes were made out of oilcloth at first, which so many older women of my mother’s generation prized as no-fuss material - think of all the slightly greasy-feeling table cloths and reusable shopping bags of your youth! Mendel’s Far Out Fabrics says:

Today’s oilcloth is a vinyl that is bonded and supported with a coven cotton mesh. The surface can be wiped clean. The fabric has been tested and passes the National Fire Protection Agency 701 classification for commercial and residential use.
Oilcloth is waterproof and stain resistant. Fading may occur under direct sunlight for extended periods of time since the oilcloth does not contain a UV inhibitor.

So the Shinzi bags are just vinyl, not oilcloth, additionally so because they have a fabric lining, which most oilcloth bags (I can recall) never had. But they can still be wiped clean and carry all your stuff!

I’m gonna call it “back to school” stuff because it’s mostly stationery and pens. We got MORE of it in! We’ll keep getting more in all through August and September! Do you need a cute pencil?? Or mushroom-capped kitty cat? Please, stop by!

Yo we just got Fafi paper goods in. Fafi, the French female graffiti artist, taking collaborative retail efforts to another level! Are you a Fafinette? Get over here!

Stationery sets?!!

Blank notebooks?!

Post-its?!

Oh my goodness! Customers have been coming in over the whole summer asking us when we were going to get our 2008-2009 planners in. Well they just arrived! These planners are beautiful. They cover September 2008 to January 2010 (wowwie!). All the planners in the post below have the same pages/inserts. Some have slightly different inside-sleeve pockets.

All of the “international agendas” pictured include:

- varying plastic slip pockets on inside sleeves, including one for pen or pencil
- two bookmark ribbons
- calendar by month
- calendar by week
- small note-taking section
- dictionary in six languages (Japanese, English, French, Spanish, Italian, and German), covering five areas (numbers, dining, shopping, daily life items, and common phrases
- general information on major countries
- international telephone calling codes
- 2009 holidays in major countries
- world currencies, sizes, and weights and measures
- monthly average temperatures and international airport information
- world time chart
- subway maps for major Japanese cities (Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Kyoto, Kobe, Sapporo, Sendai, Yokohama, and Fukuoka), New York (Manhattan), Paris, London, Milan, Hong Kong, and Taipei.
- personal data page with emergency contact information

Whoaaa oh man buy one now!

These French-language planners are so solid. They come in several sizes, in a navy blue or lime(ish) green color. The long lime green notepad has grid paper and an elastic on the front to secure a pencil or two. The matching pen and pencil are the cutest mechanical writing instruments I’ve seen in a while. And the pencil cases themselves are unbearably chic.

Color-dotted planners come black and white with two different color calendar inserts.

Six languages daily life!

See, there are six double-sided inserts that come in the planner. Switch them out when each new month comes. Too sweet!

These subdued planners come with five small patterned post-it stacks.

Holiday, monthly, and weekly views.

The planners that enable your international savoir faire!

These come with an awesome zip-close front cover. Digest sized.

A peek at the pockets that are on each inside cover.

Stay tuned. I’ve got a write-up on our pocket monthly calendars and other fresh fall stationery.