The way things are going, we'll all be spending more time on our couches in the near future. Which is why it makes sense for Logitech to introduce a budget-minded universal remote, the Harmony 510. It has many of the same attributes as the 550 (an LCD display, dozens of buttons), but costs about 50 bucks less. The biggest drawback? It can only control 5 devices, not 12. But then again, who can afford a dozen gadgets these days, anyway?
$100, logitech.com

[Crave]

Sonace's new speakers are, needless to say, designed for the backyard. The latest in the company's line of rugged audio equipment, the RK63 and RK83 will be available this December in granite- or sandstone-colored veneers. They're certainly powerful enough for outdoor use: The camouflage casing of the RK83 pictured here, for instance, disguises an eight-inch, 150-watt speaker. And yes, in case you're wondering, they're weather-resistant (a good thing, considering their price).
$700, available in December; for more information, visit sonace.com

Hitchcock never falls far out of fashion, as the bounty of special-edition DVDs released this week and next attest. The director's heroes were paragons of 20th-century taste, wearing ties to work and tails to dinner, and relaxing into casualwear only when out on the Riviera (see Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief) or out of their minds (Anthony Perkins in Psycho). New versions of Vertigo, Rear Window, and Psycho are out today, chockablock with extras—contemporary newsreel footage on Psycho's release and the original shower scene storyboards among them. Any and all are excuse enough to revisit a world where men looked like men—and, occasionally, killed one another.
Vertigo, Rear Window, and Psycho $19.99 each, available at amazon.com

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Now feeling a twinge of remorse, perhaps: early adopters of the Ferrari California and Alfa Romeo 8C (pictured). Both cars have, incredibly, sold out of their U.S. production versions, even though the Ferrari just had its official unveiling in Paris and the Alfa Romeo only arrived stateside today. Given the cars were purchased in advance, we can only hope they weren't bought on credit—but on the plus side, maybe one or the other will pop up on eBay sometime soon.

[via Autoblog and Eurocar]

In the four years since Chuck Guarino and Ryan Turner founded Manhattan clothing label TheCast, they've expanded from hand-printed T-shirts into a full range of menswear, much of it the sort of slim-cut stuff that appeals to their Lower East Side clientele. Where they really excel, though, is in leather, demonstrated by this motorcycle jacket—a shearling-lined piece with vintage detailing, like D-shaped pockets and brass trimmings. It's available now at their storefront, located—where else?—on the Lower East Side.
$1,295, available at TheCast, 119 Ludlow St., NYC, (212) 228-2020, thecast.com

Few chroniclers of street style have been as lucky as Ricky Powell. The photographer, public-access television host, and ubiquitous downtown New York presence got his start shooting on the Beastie Boys' License to Ill tour in 1987. With the band's entrée, he spent the intervening years documenting hip-hop's rise from the days of gold chains to the days of gold bars (so to speak). Tonight, Powell opens Apt. A, a retrospective of previously unseen work that he'd stockpiled in his apartment. It's compelling viewing, not to mention further evidence that New York ain't what it used to be.
Through Dec. 7 at Sugarhead Quarters, 174 Rivington St., NYC, (212) 228-3248, sugarheadquarters.com

The British clothier's online shop has been accepting greenbacks for about a month now, but its redesigned site only launched last night. Among the new frills are videos styled around current trends; up now is Shambles, which allows anyone who's interested to be able to dress like a British rocker. (Of course, it also courts those who favor a more conservative style, evidenced by the slim-cut jacket pictured here.) The site marks us closer to the brand's brick-and-mortar launch in NYC next spring, and also, doubtless, to Manhattan youth wearing the sort of stuff you'd normally see in the NME. And by that, we mean more than usual.
$220, available at topman.com

It's been a tough couple weeks for world markets—and, apparently, for the world's photo editors, whose craft seems to have been reduced to little more than collecting pictures of hapless traders mid-grimace. You've got to feel for the guys tapped to represent all the depressing news. After all, losing your shirt is bad enough without having the moment plastered across the front page of the Times.

10 reasons to look the other way when you see a photographer approach >

Gareth Moody's Chronicles of Never collection tends toward the angular and the architectural, and while we applaud the imagination behind it, the items aren't always the most wearable. But the line's cap-toe Skeleton Key boots show that Moody's as capable of terrestrial design as otherworldly fantasy. The pebbled-leather body, leather laces, and slightly elongated toe give fresh spark to the Chaplinesque style, resulting in a boot the Little Tramp might wear, were he kicking around today. Fitting, really: Our modern times are looking a little tough at the moment, too.
$368, available at Assembly New York, 174 Ludlow St., NYC, (212) 253-5393, assemblynewyork.com

The eighth installment in Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series, called Tell-Tale Signs (and out today), compiles outtakes and live versions from the singer's past two decades, during which he went from faded star to winner of several Grammys, an Oscar, and even a Pulitzer. Unfortunately, this collection doesn't tell that story very well. It comes in one-, two-, and three-disc versions, with the most interesting tunes frontloaded on the first disc. And unlike other series installments, the tracks are not in chronological order, which means you don't get a sense of how, say, the excellent Robert Johnson cover ("32-20 Blues") might have influenced Dylan's bluesy "Mississippi," recorded four years later. (Listen below.)

That said, you can't fault the songs: An acoustic version of Oh, Mercy's "Most of the Time" connects Dylan's late period to his Village folkie days, and the live "High Water" is a true barn-burner. (A live album, in fact, is long overdue.) But the showpiece is "Red River Shore," a rewrite of a folk standard (made famous by the Kingston Trio). It's an outtake from Time Out of Mind, and shares that album's preoccupation with heartbreak and loss. But without Daniel Lanois' swampy production, the song becomes an immediate, touching meditation on love and mortality. ("Sometimes I think nobody ever saw me here at all," he sings, "'cept the girl from the Red River shore.") You'll find it, of course, on disc one.

As you might expect, George Rose snapped a colorful assortment of Hollywood's pop-culture luminaries during his years as a staff photographer for the L.A. Times. Collected in his new book, Hollywood, Beverly Hills & Other Perversities, the candid pics from the seventies and eighties feature everyone from Elizabeth Taylor to Exene Cervenka, and many of them have never been seen before. The reason? The newspaper apparently didn't realize the value of the stuff Rose was bringing in. "It was oriented to the stories, not the art," he says. "A lot of the best stuff just went into the files." Consider the L.A. Times' loss our gain.
$19.80, available at amazon.com

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Five things worth knowing today

- Barack Obama and John McCain meet at the Belmont University for the second presidential debate.
- It's Bathtub Day, commemorating the introduction of the tub to Britain in 1828. Luckily, cards and gifts seem to be optional.
- The Dave Eggers-helmed literacy nonprofit 826NYC hosts its Revenge of the Bookeaters benefit at Town Hall, New York, this year featuring readings by Eggers and Jonathan Franzen, and songs by Department of Eagles and Paul Simon. Such gifts from the liberal-arts gods come but once a year.
- Today in 1931, Archbishop and Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu was born.
- And today in 1955, Allen Ginsberg gave the first public reading of "Howl" in San Francisco. Below, Ginsberg and Norman Mailer discuss the poem and its effect, alongside a dramatic reading by John Turturro: