Hey Scott,

Re. Connecting
Do you think you'll be in NYC wk of June 21st?

Re. Oil
We're pretty heads down on three things, in this order
1) Pushing Obama to restore the FULL moratorium that was in place for decades and expired under Bush II. He's now (today) putting what I'd call a mini-moratorium in place, we want a moratorium on all net new drilling leases (we want the same thing that offered protection to the our coasts for decades).
2) Connecting volunteers/activists in FL/Gulf. We have very strong chapters in FL (who have been fighting offshore drilling for two years, when the moratorium expired)... the wiki we built is here http://oilspill.skytruth.org/main
3) Nationwide event, www.handsacrossthesand.com might be a way for you guys to promote this event...


Re. Ts
I simply love your Ts (I'm wearing one now). Let's talk about ideas re. working together, Surfrider and Loomstate on your organic blanks.

Looking fwd to connecting.
J


jim moriarty ceo surfrider foundation.
blog: oceanswavesbeaches.com twitter: jimmoriarty


Another option for your weekend in NYC is the Bushwick Rooftop Festival! One of the best things about NYC is its famous skyline, and the best way to enjoy the view is from a rooftop in Brooklyn. This Saturday and Sunday, 22 live bands and 5 DJ's will be providing music and entertainment from 3PM to 4AM. Burgers and the expected party beverages will be available, but the best part is that entry to the event is free!

Check out event details here, the event's blog and links to all the performers here.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Got a bunch of great clothing that doesn't fit you or cool stuff that you don't have room for? Bring them to the Score! Pop-Up Swap at the BKLYN YARD this Saturday! When you get there, volunteers will take your stuff and put them around the swap according to category. You pay a small fee ($3 with RSVP) before entering, then you can take whatever you want inside the swap. Really, anything you want. Aside from the entry fee, everything inside the pop-up is first come, first grab at no extra cost. You might find that obscure world music album you've been looking for, a funny coffee table book, and even a bike. 

At the end of the day, all leftover donations will be delivered to charity, all textiles will be recycled by Wearable Collections, and all proceeds are going to Global Inheritance. So even if you leave empty-handed, you would feel good knowing that old shirt you don't wear anymore now has a new purpose.

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Yosemite Park. Image from I Go You Go.

We cannot wait for the long weekend to begin. If you're looking to do something active outdoors for Memorial Day Weekend, you might want to try these beautiful locations for a mini getaway.

Overnight Trips:

Yosemite Park - Needless to say, Yosemite is an enormous and stunning park, and it's only a 4-hour drive from San Francisco! There are several campgrounds and numerous planned activities offered like guided hikes, horseback riding, rafting, climbing, and biking. There are also hotels, guided bus tours, and golf for those looking for a less active stay. Make your reservations here.

Catskills Waterfall. Image taken from Catskills Trailkeeper.

The Catskills - This area spans four counties - Delaware, Greene, Ulster, and Sullivan. Whichever region you choose, there are a variety of campground choices, and outdoor activities like fishing, boating, biking, and even paintball!

Day Trips:


Storm King Art Center - Only a few hours from NYC, this is an easy day trip by car, bus or train. A vast area of grass, trees and hills, Storm King also houses a permanent collection of modern steel sculptures acquired since the 1960's. After a guided tour of the area, pick a nice spot and have a picnic.

Napa Valley - Great for a day or a full weekend, this popular wine country destination has great restaurants (especially in Yountville) to go with the wine. Wine tastings typically end at around 4pm, so if you plan on biking around, we recommend starting early.

Ditch Plains Surfers. Image by photographer Gordon M. Grant.

Montauk - Surf all day at Ditch Plains Beach, then relax and hang out at our favorite boutique hotel Surf Lodge.

For your adventures, you'll need:


A Hemp Tent (it fits 6 adults!) if you choose to camp. This one has an easy setup, has multiple vents, bug nets, and can withstand heat from cooking right next to it. From Green Outdoors via Treehugger.

A comfortable, easy sweater for the chilly nights. 
We like the Clint Hoodie for its snug hood, multiple pockets, and soft touch.


A roomy tote bag to carry everything from the picnic sandwiches and condiments to your wetsuit and coverups. 
This new organic cotton tote is durable, expandable, and has inside pockets for keys and things.


And sunblock, of course. UV Natural Sunscreen has much fewer chemicals than conventional sunscreens have but remain true to its SPF claims.


Here's to a great weekend!


---vs



The Surf Lodge has officially opened up for the summer! With a new kind of hotel gift stores popping up all over NYC, The Surf Lodge is no exception.

Designed by Loomstate co-founder Rogan and curated by longtime boutique owner Bethany Mayer, The Store at Surf Lodge will represent all the best of designer collections aesthetically inspired by the ocean, beach, and nature. There'll also be a collection called Surf Bazaar, designed and sold exclusively at the store. Mayer has curated the store with an unexpected twist on typical beach gear, carrying lines like Suno, Jill Platner, Tracy Feith, Alexandra Cassaniti, and, of course, Loomstate for Surf Lodge.



To top it all off, The Surf Lodge has a summer long lineup of musical performances from G. Love and Daniel Merriweather to Mishka and Rogue Wave. We can feel it - it's going to be a great summer!

Images courtesy of The Surf Lodge.

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Dream Band, a local New York group, just released a few tracks that make us want to lay out in a park and feel the sun on our skin. Check out their first single "Mr. Shaking and Pills to Judge" synched to an animation from a 1978 Yugoslavian film Satiemania. Visit their myspace to hear more and look out for their album to be released soon. Our dream (pun intended) would be to see them play outdoors, but, until then, they'll be performing at Cake Shop on June 4th!




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If you're crazy about bikes and cycling, you wouldn't want to miss a screening of A Sunday In Hell, which many fanatics claim to be the best cycling film ever made. But then again, if you're crazy about bikes and cycling, you may already know that. The Maysles Cinema will follow that up with a pre-Bicycle Film Festival showcase, screening a series of short films - including one about boom boxes strapped onto bikes that start impromptu dance parties in Queens!

More info on the events here. The Bicycle Film Festival in NY will be from June 16th to 20th.

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The Grand Street Fire back in April was possibly the largest blaze in the city for the past two years. It left a huge scar in the Chinatown area and hundreds of residents were left with little of their belongings. Downtown eateries An Choi, Barrio Chino, Cafe El Portal, La Esquina, and Lovely Day will be donating partial profits from the week's sales to the Grand Street Fire Benefit.
 
The event began with a Spring Clean drop-off, where organizations (including Loomstate!) donated new or gently used items to be sold this Sunday, May 23rd, from 10am to 6pm. If you're in NYC, stop by the Hester Street Fair and shop the Spring Clean Sale Event, with proceeds going to the benefit for the victims of the fire. You just might score some soft organic cotton Loomstate tees!

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Actor Mark Salling from musical-cum-tv comedy "GLEE" sports our Outta My Wave tee (below) in the June issue of GQ. Pick up a copy at newsstands now. This spread's making us want to cut out early and catch a wave or two.



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toogood traders use local eggs and produce for their fluffy omelets.

This past weekend saw a sunny comeback in NYC, so we strolled out to the neighborhood street fairs. Among all of the markets popping up everywhere in the city, we were especially impressed with the Hester Street Fair. Not only were many of the vendors selling affordable vintage goods, the Hester Street Fair offered much more than the typical corn on the cob, smoothies and gyro fare.  Read about why some of the fair's food vendors will have us going back all summer and why you should go this weekend.

P&H Soda and Syrup Inc. uses local ingredients for their artisan sodas.

P&H Soda and Syrup Inc. - They hand make syrups with all-natural and as many locally-sourced ingredients as possible. Their artisan sodas are just sweet enough and have fresh flavors like organic ginger and hibiscus.

Sigmund Pretzels - Organic, hand-rolled, freshly baked pretzels that are moist and chewy just like they should be. They have original salted, cheese, and special flavors like chorizo with a choice of mustard. We love that they warm them up in a portable oven on the spot!


Sarivole Organic Bakery - Using organic and fair trade ingredients (and biodegradable packaging), this bakery takes all the unnecessary ingredients out of the classic cookie and brownie without sacrificing flavor and texture. The chocolate chip cookie is the best we've had in a long while.

McClure's Pickles - Boy is it hard to find pickles that don't have a scary bright green tint to them. McClure's uses local produce when in season, and when not, they call up the original source to get the freshest stuff directly. They hand pack each jar with hand-sliced cucumbers, and even the labels are chemical-free.

toogood traders - The guys behind Silkstone, which focuses on innovative, sustainable food, created this market stand just for the fair. Using local eggs and ingredients, they offer big, fluffy omelets with the week's freshest proteins and vegetables. We loved their Green Omelet last week with farmer's goat cheese, asparagus, spinach, and snow peas, paired with their fresh squeezed sugar-free lemonade.

Here's a fun video of the fair coming together!


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The photographer diving with whales. Image taken from Studio Cosmos.

Many have seen a whale or two, but how many have swam with whales in their natural habitat? Photographer Bryan Austin may be the only lucky and brave one to swim and float within no more than six feet of these amazing enormous creatures. Austin takes hundreds of photographs of these mammals up close, then puts them together to form a life-size image, one of which is 6 feet tall by 20 feet wide (pictured below).

Austin's debut exhibition in Oslo, Norway. Image from Planet Green.

Working so intimately with these mammal weighing fifty to one hundred tons is extremely dangerous and delicate, so Austin always let the whales dictate the terms of his visits. Taking up to three months to capture these images, Austin would float above a whale pod and wait for a whale to approach him. 

The inspiration for the project, an amazing story in itself, came to Austin while diving in the Kingdom Of Tonga:
"Austin was six feet in front of a humpback whale calf when he felt a gentle tap on his shoulder -- he turned to face the eye of the mother. She extended her 15-foot, one-ton pectoral fin to gently let him know that she was watching him. It was at this moment, when Austin locked eyes with the mother whale, that he realized what had been missing in the field of whale photography and conservation, an emotional connection…mammal-to-mammal, species to species."

The photographer now tours heavy whaling nations like Norway and Japan in hopes that these life-sized images would help the audience relate to these endangered animals - to see that they are living beings just like us, and possibly slow or stop whaling.

See more amazing images at Bryan Austin's site, Studio Cosmos, and a more detailed slideshow narrative of the project at Planet Green.


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adiCup2010 New York - Oh yea, they're for real.

It's time to count down to the 2010 World Cup, which will occupy tv screens everywhere from June 11th to July 11th. What better way to celebrate a tournament than having a mini one?

The adiCup tournament started out in 2002 where a bunch of NY "creative types" got together to compete in an annual soccer/ football tournament. Now it's spawned tournaments in Berlin, London, and Tokyo. The winner of the regional tournaments will get to battle it out in the finals in Herzogenaurach, Germany, the historic adidas Originals headquarters. What does the utlimate winning team get? A trip to the World Cup Final™ in South Africa on July 11th and, we'd imagine, serious bragging rights. They're not pros, but these people practice and play everyday.

The New York tournament will be going down this Saturday, May 22nd, from 1 to 8pm, at Pier 40 way west in TriBeCa. See the list of participating teams here and below are a few of our favorite team names and logos.










It's not Nom de Guerre, it's Nom de Hooligans.



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This 100% hand-sewn 7 foot long stuffed shark is also a sleeping bag. We love sharks at Loomstate, and as the description  for this cuddly version says, they're often misunderstood. Shark Week isn't until August, but in the meantime, all you fellow shark lovers can get a Shark Chumbuddy here!


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The following images and videos speak for themselves, so the only comment we'll make is that we discourage looking at any of them while eating. The NY Times has published an article investigating the estimates of the amount of spill released by BP and the government. 5,000 barrels a day may be a grand understatement. Please also see this post for ways we can help.


Oil gushing from the 12" riser pipe almost 5,000 ft below sea level. Image from BP via Treehugger.
An aerial view still taken from a video (watch below) by John Wathen at LiveLeak.com.
Via Treehugger.





The most recent video footage of the spill to be released by BP. Via Treehugger.

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Image from Globe Aware.

Summer's on its way and you may be planning how to best spend those vacation days. If you're looking to do good and experience a new culture at the same time, you could try voluntourism!

The complete opposite of staycations, voluntourism consists of volunteering opportunities at exotic locales around the world and Globe Aware is a non-profit that offers just that. Each destination (they have programs in multiple countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America) has different projects depending on the previous groups' progress and the community's needs, which range from building schools in the Andes and wheelchairs in Cambodia to teaching English and irrigation projects in Southeast Asia.

 Image from Globe Aware.

When not volunteering, participants can go sight-seeing and explore the local areas. The best part is no special skills or language knowledge are needed for any of the programs, so even toddlers (pictured above in Cambodia) can join! The fee for the program, which covers lodging, on-site travel and food, typically authentic local cuisine, program coordination and other Globe Aware programs, is tax-deductible and you know exactly where it's going.


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The movie "No Impact Man" came out in theaters last Fall, but its impact (ha ha) on others is ongoing. With a book and a blog dedicated to spreading the story of the Beavans, "No Impact Man" has grown into a project that asks us to take steps to improve our everyday lives, by way of wasting less and cutting out the fat so to speak, without being preachy. The group launched the No Impact Experiment this past April 18th as a way for the community to participate for a week together, but anyone can try the experiment at any time at their own pace. Even if you have no plans to live off the grid, the movie is an inspirational way to start thinking about the waste we produce everyday and if all that we consume is really that necessary. See the trailer below!



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Image from NY Times.

The beginning of this month saw an unprecedented amount of rain causing the Cumberland River to overflow, flooding Nashville and surrounding areas, destroying thousands of homes and businesses and killing at least 31 people. 3 tornadoes in Nashville and 13 around Memphis further contributed to severe damage, with private property damage alone estimated at over $1.56 billion according to Nashville's Mayor Karl Dean. This could set a record of one of the worst natural disasters in US history, yet a web search for "Nashville flooding" yields a disappointing number of articles by major news sources. With all the focus on the oil spill, this story seems to have been overlooked, but they need our help too. To help, Al Gore has posted on The Huffington Post the following relief funds available through The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee - the Metro Nashville Disaster Fund and the Tennessee Emergency Response Fund.
Image from president raygun on flickr via Business Insider.

Image from The Boston Globe.

See more incredible images of the aftermath at The Boston Globe.

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She & Him, the music collaboration between Matt Ward of band M. Ward and actress Zooey Deschanel, has spawned a second album. The band, being somewhat of a neat experiment bringing together the uber-sweet actress and a badass guitarist, aims to "make music for an eternal springtime, where the temperature is warm enough to go riding with the top (or at least windows) rolled down and the radio turned up." The second album promises the same sunny pop that makes us want to dance like they do back in the old days. Kind of like Zooey does in the video for their new single "In the Sun".


She & Him - In The Sun from Merge Records on Vimeo.

"That's a shit job" people often say to Karl Crave, who developed his first digester project on his family farm and is a project manager for the company who finances the digesters. Animal manure and other organic materials, even whey leftover from cheese making, are put into digesters to stew, which then emanate methane and carbon dioxide, creating a biogas that could be used to power homes in the surrounding areas and the farms themselves. This system helps reduce the odor of the manure and is another way of taking waste and making it useful. The Chinese government has big plans for this system to be used on its farms, but it has quite a hefty price tag and takes several years to see a return for the investment. These setbacks are preventing the digester system from gaining traction in the US. Read more on how digesters make manure into electricity here.

Weeds like all living things constantly evolve to adapt to their surroundings. Roundup, a weedkiller glyphosphate that has worked efficiently for many years is now encountering resistance from ever-evolving weeds. NY Times invited several personalities with varying viewpoints to start a discussion on the use of glyphosphate, the weeds' growing resistance to the chemical, and potential solutions. It's an interesting debate - certainly worth a read!

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Don't have outdoor space? Make like Batali and try an indoor Wall Garden! As the New York Times article discusses, plants don't need to grow in outdoor gardens or pots and can actually live vertically indoors, even in New York apartments. Build your own indoor garden and bring the rain forest to you!

Check out link below to find out more info.

Images Via: Vertical Gardens

Velo, a new book of people who are making an impact. Artists, urban planners, builders... who are all interested in their bicycles. Promoting cycling as the main form of transport along with representing the aesthetic of the current bike culture, this book makes for some socially conscious eye candy.

---leah

This trailer has been out for a few months now, but the movie Babies is finally out in theaters this weekend! The French documentary follows four babies in different parts of the world, exploring different cultures and experiences. If it's getting a little too heavy with all this oil spill news, this trailer will make you smile!



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 Photo by the U.S. Coast Guard, taken from Planet Green.

Oil is still leaking at an alarming rate. We can all do our part to help alleviate the dire consequences facing the wildlife in the surrounding areas, and all the people whose livelihoods are dependent on that ecosystem. Read more on the spill and its implications - Planet Green, NRDC's blog, and The Nature Conservancy blog give frequent and organized updates on different aspects of the situation. The NY Times has a "Track the Spill" map, showing, from the start to now, where the oil has spilled, and a graphic summary, which puts into perspective the gravity of the spill.

Taking action is easy. Compiling information from Planet Green, MSNBC, and Oceana, here are just a few ways to help:

- Tell your senators through Oceana or NRDC your stance against offshore drilling.
- Visit OilSpillVolunteers.com or Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana to join the cleanup organization.
- Mobile Baykeeper doesn't need volunteers yet, but sign up so they can contact you when they do. They also encourage picking up debris and garbage along the shore to make the potential shore cleanup more efficient.
- Audubon has a comprehensive Take Action page.
- BP has released additional numbers for volunteering and reporting oiled wildlife.
- The Oiled Wildlife Care Network is asking for volunteers and donations.
- Follow Deepwater Horizon Response on Facebook and @Oil_Spill_2010 on Twitter to get updates and ask questions.
- Make a donation to National Wildlife Federation on the web, text "WILDLIFE" to 20222 to donate $10, or join their on-the-ground volunteer effort.
- Help vulnerable communities by donating to Oxfam America.
- Get a haircut! [Update: BP will not being using hair to help the oil cleanup.]

Comment below if you know of other ways to take action!


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Artist, Donna Marder recycles anything from tea bags to baseball cards to make her one of a kind masterpieces. Amazing stuff!

You can find more about her art here.

--- leah

It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's a new way of exercising! A group of triathletes and avid cyclists came together to create the ElliptiGo, a new type of transportation or outdoors exercise equipment depending on how you use it.


It's like taking the elliptical machine on the road so there won't be any sitting on uncomfortable bike seats or hunching over to reach the handles. According to the site, the standing upright position could give you a better view of your surroundings, like oncoming traffic and other obstacles. We would like to test ride one, but in the meantime, they have a video of the ElliptiGo in action. This could be another green way of getting from A to B!

All photos were taken from ElliptiGo.

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Loomstate Co-founder Rogan on the Green Carpet. Photo from Style.com

Everyone from models and designers to artists and philanthropists came together this past Earth Day to raise $1.3 million for Oceana, Conservation International, The Central Park Conservancy, and Natural Resources Defense Council. Treehugger have a few candid interviews with notable guests on the Green Carpet on what green issues they are most passionate about and want to bring more attention to.

Though the big event was on April 22nd, it was only the beginning. The auction officially ends tomorrow, and there are still amazing silent auction items up for bid at ABidToSaveTheEarth.org. Help them raise funds for the above non-profits, or go directly to their sites to see how to donate.

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