Opening today in Los Angeles: Crown Bar, the latest from the gentlemen behind Winston's and The Dime. The menu features American bistro fare, and the design is subdued Hollywood glam—think dark woods, amber lighting, and, uh, Samantha Ronson already booked to DJ. It won't be long before you'll need a SAG card to get a seat.
Crown Bar, 7321 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA

[Eater L.A.]

"After Sputnik" is the theme of N.Hoolywood's spring/summer collection, which takes cheeky pride in sending up Cold War politics (the T-shirt, pictured, sums up a certain relationship between America and the Soviets). The line comes from Daisuke Obana, whose Tokyo-based store is decorated eerily like an L.A. estate from the forties—at least it was the last time we checked. The spelling of Hollywood, of course, is entirely his own.

[Hype Beast]

Perhaps the worst wine pairing this side of arsenic: Ducati and Desmorosso, the motorcycle brand's first official vino. Either a testament to Italians' notedly cavalier stance on roadside beverages or a call for the creation of designated riders—either way, we're staying off the road.

Entermodal has a funny way of doing business—its portfolios and wallets (pictured) are made from recycling the company's bags, which have a life expectancy of 50 years. Seems like that might discourage sales of the smaller items, but the Portland, Oregon, company is acting in the name of sustainability and, of course, quality. Its handmade lines are made with the fewest seams possible, boosting the products' durability (and good looks). Sure, a weekender bag will run you roughly $1,300, but look on the bright side: When you're ready, send it back to them and they'll make you a couple of wallets out of it. Try getting a deal like that from Vuitton.
Wallet, $250, available exclusively at Odin, 199 Lafayette, New York, NY, (212) 966-0026,entermodal.com

If you want to match your lighting equipment to your Modenese sedan (and, hey, who doesn't?), Italian lighting designers Lumina have created a lamp (pictured) inspired by the grille of the Maserati Quattroporte. It even includes the brand's trident badge, but fear not: It's officially licensed.

Something tells us the same can't be said for this new pair of Nike Dunk-inspired sneaks that (finally!) detect if a live Wi-Fi signal is nearby.

Sony's new Bravia 2.1 home theater system (helpfully dubbed the DAV-F200) does a lot of things right, but ultimately has a fatal flaw: no Blu-ray support. Too bad, because it looks freaking cool. (It's U.K.-only for now, so maybe it'll be Blu-ray-ready when and if it crosses the pond.)

[Engadget]

Virtually, at least. True to form, the obsessive-compulsive food bloggers at Ed Levine Eats have compiled "The Real-Life Restaurants in New York City from Grand Theft Auto IV"—including "Bean Machine," a dead ringer for the Rock Center Dean & DeLuca.

Swiss automaker Weber Sportscars unveiled the "Faster One," a street-legal vehicle that can hit speeds over 248 mph (similar to another make we took for a spin). What else do you get for $1.5 million? All-wheel drive, for starters—not to mention 900 horses under the hood, an ultralight carbon chassis, and an aesthetic that appears to have been lifted directly out of Akira. The jury's out on whether you have to be a cartoon to drive it.

[Baller Ride]

Keith Haring's Bowery Mural was up for only a few months in 1982, but now you have a second chance to see it in person: The artist's foundation is re-creating the work in time for what would have been his 50th birthday. It doesn't officially open until the 4th, but we spotted it last night—suddenly that corner is very orange. The piece is one of the only Haring murals in the city: To view another, go to Harlem River Park, where the artist adorned the wall of a handball court during the peak of the city's eighties drug crisis. It's called, of course, Crack Is Wack.

Pictures of the company's first-ever clamshell phone have just leaked online. (And we know: They look like they were taken in the men's room at RIM's HQ.) Nicknamed the Kickstart, the RAZR-like shell includes an external touchscreen, a trackball, and a Pearl-style keyboard. Early reactions are mixed—for the record, we like the execution but question the concept—but you probably have some time to think on it: The release date remains TBD.

Also: AT&T announced today it will follow Verizon and offer live video for your phone via the aptly named Mobile TV. The service launches May 4 and will be available on two phones: The Samsung Access and LG's new Vu.

[Boy Genius Report via Gizmodo]

Stock of Japanese curios running low? You're in luck: Tonight, Kidrobot opens its new (and larger) NYC store, now featuring two levels of inscrutable tchotchkes and Day-Glo apparel. The move seems to be a part of some sort of international hipster exchange program: Tokyo just got a branch (pictured) of NYC-founded sneaker haven Alife. Listen closely, and you may just hear a thousand New Edition-crowned heads exploding.
Kidrobot, 118 Prince St., NYC, kidrobot.com; Alife Tokyo, 3-15-10 Jingumae, Shibuya-Ku, Tokyo, (03) 5775 0200

Missing from Brea, California: Several of the city's public sculptures, reports the WSJ. But the massive installations weren't stolen for their beauty, or even for gallery cache: The pieces were nicked for scrap. With the price of copper climbing to $4 a pound, the sculptures (some weighing hundreds of pounds), have become a metallurgical cash cow for would-be Thomas Crowns. The proposed solution? A phalanx of deterrent cacti. What's next, a leash for the balloon dog?

The Whitney just unveiled sketches for its first satellite museum, which has been in the works for more than 20 years. Designed by Renzo Piano, the new Gansevoort Street space will actually have far more square-footage than the Madison Avenue location—50,000 to the older building's 32,000. The plans are still preliminary (expect more natural light, for instance), but here's hoping it doesn't take another two decades to get the thing built.

[NYT]

The New York Times has a solid investigative piece today on the cars congressional representatives lease on Uncle Sam's dime. (True to character, Charlie Rangel has a 17-foot Caddy DeVille he says is "like an airplane.") But what really, er, drives the point home is this chart, which compares the rides by make, fuel efficiency, and monthly cost. It also has us wondering: What's with the America-hater who leases a Nissan and a BMW?

Australian agitators Ksubi—whom you might remember from that time they released a live-rat surprise on the runway during fashion week—just won a Down Under design award for "The Bombed Maché" (pictured), their "homeless chic" concept store located in a tony neighborhood in Melbourne. We know what you're thinking, and the answer is yes: As a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, so Australia is becoming Derelicte.

Italian designer and Memphis Group cofounder Ettore Sottsass died in Milan last year on New Year's Eve, but the 90-year-old was working right up until the end—a 2007 London Design Museum retrospective was even called A Work in Progress. Today some of his best stuff goes on display in NYC. Sadly the show doesn't include Sottsass' most famous piece—1969's portable plastic Valentine typewriter—but it does have a sizable sample of his playful, po-mo creations. Witness his laminated wood Nefertiti desk (which bears some resemblance to Rem Koolhaas' CCTV headquarters) or his early seventies line of rarely seen Flying Carpet furniture. The latter falls on the right side of shagadelic, so you might need some really good stuff before achieving liftoff.
Friedman Benda, 515 West 26th St., NYC, (212) 239-8700, friedmanbenda.com

The title of A.E. Hotchner's new book, The Good Life According to Hemingway, is somewhat misleading—it could just as well have been called Hemingway Was a Big Ol' Bitch. But we're glad this isn't the usual collection of tepid aphorisms designed to encourage young writers to "hone their craft." That has much to do with the fact that "Hotch" not only knew the man personally but traveled around the globe with him for 14 years, scribbling down his bon mots and bitcheries on cocktail napkins, matchbooks, and menus. From his opinion of even kindly critics—"[they] make me sick; camp-following eunuchs of literature"—to his instruction to movie producer David O. Selznick to take a proffered $50,000 bonus and "have it all changed into nickels at your local bank and shove them up your ass until they come out your ears," this is a Hemingway we can relate to. In addition, there's a killer collection of 150 photos from Hotchner's personal archives, many of which we'd never seen before.

Have a look here >