Friday Fives, Vol.33

Every week The Working Assembly shares inspiration that intersects art, music, fashion, and culture — five stories that we have on our radar and think should be on yours, too.

Here’s this week’s Friday Fives!

Don’t overlook Overlook
In the back of Overlook, a sports bar on East 44th Street in New York City, is a dingy, beer-stained wall dubbed the “Sistine Chapel of American Comic-Strip Art” that is valued at $50,000. The wall is covered with roughly 30 original drawings by cartooning legends that include a cast of famous characters guaranteed to inspire some serious nostalgia — Spider Man, Fred Flintstone, Bullwinkle, and Beetle Bailey. With a history of famous patrons including Marilyn Monroe and Ernest Hemingway, the bar is a priceless piece of NYC history that’s often overlooked. — MM

Instagram wants you to spend less time on Instagram (and also buy things)
Instagram is finally trying to solve the problem it created — Instagram addiction. The company has confirmed that a new time-management tool is in the works to help users monitor and regulate the amount of time spent on the app. This announcement has coincided with the confirmation of another major Instagram rollout — a feature that will allow artists and designers to sell their products directly through the app. Although the timeline for these features is still unclear, it looks like we’ll all soon have a lot less money and a lot more time on our hands. — MM

Solar powered iPhone inspired by Tesla
For the bargain price of $4,500, you can now get your hands on a solar-powered case for your iPhone — the iPhone X Tesla. Russian accessory maker Caviar — who produces neither Teslas nor iPhones — has borrowed the moniker for their limited edition run of 999 phone cases. Each case is engraved with “Made on Earth by Humans” in honor of Elon Musk launching a Tesla Roadster into space aboard a rocket back in February. Despite its misleading name, the case is by no means Caviar’s strangest product — they’ve also designed a custom Nokia phone commemorating the meeting between Vladmir Putin and Donald Trump. — LO

Swipe Right for Spooks
As if technology wasn’t already scary enough, “Breathe” is a brand new digital ghost story designed for use on mobile phones. The collaboration between experimental publishing house Visual Editions and Google Creative Lab is haunted by several different types of “ghosts” that infiltrate the reader’s phone and disrupt the reading experience. The story changes depending on each reader, using data gathered from your phone’s GPS and camera to create an infinite amount of outcomes. Feeling brave? Check out the experience here. — CS

#MakeLevisCoolAgain
Levi’s — an American denim icon — is currently in the midst of a massive overhaul of its public image. The mission? Make Levi’s cool again. The campaign is an attempt to recapture the “Lost Generation” of early 2000s teens who favored new, designer brands over the 1980s denim still lurking in their parents’ closets. Capitalizing on the recent resurgence of the classic, wedgie-inducing mom-jean, Levi’s is winning plenty of extra cool-points through collaborations with hypebeast staples like Off-White and celebrity appearances on the heavily-instagrammed butts of the Kardashian-Jenner clan. #MLCA — KJ

Originally published at eepurl.com.