Cornelius had an invitation-only live show last night at SuperDeluxe. Digiki was there, and shares the above pic.

I just posted a Flickr photoset of shots from the “Test [N]” sound/video performance we had last month at the cafe, involving Kei Suzuki. They’re having another performance, this time with Tupelo Drive, a full accoustic band (which will be accompanied by Suzuki on visuals), tonight (September 30) from 20:00. Drop by if you’re in the area!

Last night I dropped by the opening reception for the new United Bamboo shop in Aoyama (behind Omotesando Hills), along with the new Masamichi Katayama-designed Pinceau store, located in the same building. The United Bamboo store has a sort of gallery concept, which gives it a livelier feel than the Daikanyama store. I don’t know much about Pinceau Omotesando, but Katayama was in attendance, and it was nice getting to meet him. This was followed by a party at Montoak, where drinks and hors d’oeuvres were aplenty, which meant for good — if crowded — fun. Apologies for the lack of photos, as I didn’t have my camera with me.

The Design Tide website has been updated with info on this year’s edition of the event, with lots more promised from October 10. I quite like the fact that this year they’ll have a main exhibition area, in an old building in Harajuku.

Tokyo Art Beat will be celebrating their 2nd anniversary with a party at SuperDeluxe on October 9. More info here.

Who says robots in Japan are dead?

Patrick finds some street art in Itabashi, and shares plenty of pics.

Kyoto-based designer Karl Escritt has designed a t-shirt for record store Japonica.

I’ll admit it, I have a soft spot for Halcali, and Patrick’s Agenda has word of a new single, that will also act as the theme song for the new anime version of the Powerpuff Girls (to be called POWERPUFF GIRLS Z), starting October 7. The single itself is only out in December.

If you’re in Paris, you might want to catch this:

I’m watching this week’s series of ATTACK OF THE SHOW episodes that were taped in Tokyo, and they mention that the Starbucks that overlooks Shibuya crossing is the biggest one in the world. Is this true?

Oh, and while on the topic of western shows covering Japan, I watched the first episode of HEROES, which I liked, but the Japan/Tokyo-related stuff just killed me. It’s good that the main Japanese character is really Japanese, but you’re telling me that in all of Hollywood they couldn’t find even one more native Japanese speaker to play his buddy? And the sets… Oh my, probably some of the worst I’ve seen. The street scene was just laughable. What I can’t understand is that they must realize that the show will probably get a big DVD release in Japan — like the huge hit that LOST is on DVD here — and you’d think they’d keep that in mind while making the show, especially since one of the main characters is Japanese.

• Sabouru
• Forbidden Fruit

You can read all of my Gridskipper posts here (or even subscribe to a feed).

Softbank will be launching 13 new mobile phone models in October (as they officially make the change from the Vodafone brand name), but they already have info on all of them on their website. Some of them are looking quite nice!

Oh, and let me go on record as saying that I’m one of the few who thinks that the Softank logo looks fine — everyone I know seems to hate it.

Let me start off by saying that I went through all of these issues a couple of weeks ago, and just never got around to writing this post. Better late than never, I says!

• PEN (184) devotes an issue to “Sensationeel! Nederland,” which, you know, means they offer up a beautiful guide to all things Holland in the way that only PEN can do — exhaustive and catalogue-like. They also include an insert on Dutch graphics.
• BRUTUS (602) has its annual Autumn/Winter stylebook, with the theme “Fashion, Evergreen, My Classic.” Yeah, right. As with all their fashion-heavy issues, it’s oversized and low on text.
• I don’t think I really need to add anything to the recent re-launch of TOKION JAPAN (53 — it’s interesting that they’ve kept the old numbering). “The First Glocal Magazine” is bigger, with a nice cover stock, and personally, I really like what they’ve done with it. It includes 2 inserts, one with content (in English and Japanese) from the US edition of TOKION, and the other for the latest projects from ROCKET.
• KING (1) is a new men’s magazine that presents itself in a thick cheap format (think Japanese tabloids or weekly comics magazine), and I must say that I found it interesting to the sort of traditional men’s magazine format get re-mixed in this way, with lots of content that feels slapped together and a bit messy.
• This month’s issue of REAL DESIGN (5) includes a large round-up of new mobile phones, including a 2-page look at Nendo’s DoCoMo N702iS (which I also included in this week’s edition of my “On Design” column).
• I said I liked recent issues of EYESCREAM, and then with their October issue they go and do a Fuji Rock issue, even trying to sell it as “Fuji Rock as Lifestyle.” Boring.
• STUDIO VOICE (370) knows where to find the “Ultimate Motion Graphics,” and it would have been so nice for them to have been able to include a DVD with samples of the works they mention. They also include a guide to YouTube, and a “DVD Must See List.”
• This month’s CASA BRUTUS (79) is pretty much devoted to Tadao Ando, and so fans of the man will want to take a look (too bad it’s not a bilingual issue).

Industrial Facility is behind the new Muji cylindrical coffee maker (go to the news section for images). Link via Dezain.net.

Update
Here is the product page from the Muji online store.