Anyone who is a fashion lover, and really, what good gay isn’t, has been watching Style.com religiously the last month as major fashion weeks have come and gone. The New York Times’ amazing blog The Moment recently spotlighted the men’s fashion week shows in Milan and Paris.

But don’t expect to see the clothes.  Those of us on the outside of the fashion world (which is a much safer place to be btw) rarely, if ever, get to see the elaborate invitations to the runway shows. Not anymore. Blogger Jun Li shows us the best of the invites including an orange hat for DSquared and a message in a bottle from Kenzo.

American Joey Chestnut won the annual Fourth of July Coney Island hot dot eating contest by beating his rival Japanese Takeru Kobayashi for the third year in a row in record setting fashion. Chestnut gut-bustingly consumed 68 hot dogs to Kobayashi’s 64 1/2. Congrats to Chestnut, however if you care more about quality over quantity, New York Magazine presents five gourmet hot dogs, including this dog served at Willies Dawgs in Park Slope that jumps on the Vietnamese bánh mì bandwagon. It does sound perfect for the summer.

A Dilettante’s Dispatch is a series of posts from a jet-setting friend of ours, Arturo. Watch for more in the coming days.

Just got in to Paris for my first couture, eating a croque monsieur on Charlot, admiring the cute scrawny French boys (though really wanting the fresh, curly haired and slightly brawny youth covering the street in tar).

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If you love letterforms and especially love to find them in unexpected places then you already love Lawrence Weiner. One of the first to introduce typography to the world of fine art, Weiner became a major figure in the conceptual scene in the late 60s when he released his “Declaration of Intent” in response to Sol LeWitt’s “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art.” Weiner stated simply that as far as his art goes, he may construct them or someone else must be able to construct them or they need not be constructed at all, existing as text-only recipes for artworks that live in the mind’s eye.

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On his excellent blog, the user-experience expert Nick Finck shares a TED video demonstration of Sixth Sense, a wearable gestural interface that grabs data from the Internet and allows you to interact with it in countless real-world ways. You can draw a watch onto your arm to check the time; pull up Amazon ratings for a book you’re about to buy, and then project everything onto the book itself; take photographs by forming a rectangle with your fingers; and so forth. Developed by Pranav Mistry of the MIT Media Lab, Sixth Sense is just a prototype right now, but the implications are amazing.

In this TED video, Pattie Maes gives a demonstration of Sixth Sense.

Similar to the previously mentioned trend of creatives designing imaginative typefaces, artist Tom Gauld illustrated this whimsical onomatopoeic alphabet. I highly recommend reading his version of the alphabet out loud in public. Go! You can see more of the artist’s works here.

[Thanks Mariya!]

Techies rejoice! Here’s your weekly run-down of some of the cooler green tech stories out there…

• Free energy? There’s a ton of it out there — 7 quadrillion BTUs — in the form of wasted heat. The Department of Energy has announced funding opportunities for R&D on how to tap this massive source of energy. (via Cleantechnica)
  
  
• NYC — the wind energy capital? It seems counterintuitive, but the Carnegie Institution and California State University have found that high-altitude winds, which are concentrated over the Big Apple (among other places), “contain enough energy to meet world demand 100 times over.” (via Green Living Ideas)
  
  

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This week’s top five music videos circulating around the Internet tubes. They all share a certain upbeat sound which is perfect for sunny summer weekends. Enjoy and let me know what you think!

1. The theatrical music video for Australian duo Empire of the Sun’s (Luke Steel from The Sleepy Jackson and Nick Littlemore from Pnau) catchy electro-pop tune “Walking on a Dream” was shot in Shanghai and directed by Josh Logue.

Empire Of Sun - Walking On A Dream from Music on Vimeo.

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My pal, the talented illustrator Steven Guarnaccia, has a new book out. The Three Little Pigs is an illustrated fable about, you guessed it, three little pigs. But, being Steven, these aren’t just any pigs. They’re Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright and Frank Gehry, the three most famous modern architects.

The architects, um, I mean, pigs, do everything they can to keep their houses of glass and steal from being blown away. It is a charming tale, with fantastic illustrations, obviously, as Steven is the chair Parsons’ Illustration department. The book is a perfect way to teach kids about design and it’s also perfect for all those mid-century modern obsessed adults out there too.

This is an addendum to a luxury bag round up from back in April which included a Chanel bag designed to look like their shopping bag. Well here’s a do-it-yourself version that’s even more downtown and definitely more affordable that was spotted in the wild:

As photographer Jerome succinctly summarized, “fake it till you make it.” Just be ready to run from the copyright and trademark lawyers!

We were once fond of telling people who’ve been dumped to buy a box of red wine and watch some good mindless action movies. But we’ve now got a better idea: buy a box of rose (it is summer, after all) and spend a few hours scrolling through the archives of FAIL Blog. (If you have yet to visit this site, we’re jealous, because there’s nothing like the magic of one’s first time.) It’s a photo and video archive of shit gone wrong in the world. We don’t care if your now-ex cheated on you with your best friend since grade school and then told you that those pants actually do make you look fat — you’ll still laugh at the Chocolate Chip Muffin Fail. Here are a few recent sex-related gems:

Kid’s Slide Fail: “Mommy, what does ‘vagina dentata’ mean?”

Aisle Information Fail: Clean up in aisle 5!

Curiosity Fail: Why it’s not nice to stick your tongue out, kids.

Parenting Fail: “Daddy, I’m scared.”

Massage Chair Fail: We’re really hoping this chair doesn’t fulfill the promise of its name.

Name Win: She just beat out Ben Dover and Craven Morehead.

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