WILD '90s Italian sport sunglasses that nobody's checking for...
+ FIRE Japanese socks, SPICY rare gloves & more "custom recon"
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FYI: You can now cop a paid CLA$$IFIED RECON-tier subscription to BLACKBIRD SPYPLANE: Support the newsletter & enjoy EXCLU$IVE $PYPLANE INTEL behind the paywall…
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Yesterday — while wearing a 1-of-1 hand-drawn Small Talk jacket and listening to nothing but “Hard Feelings” by confirmed Blackbird Spyplane-enjoyer Lorde back-to-back with “Shook Ones Pt. II” on repeat — we hopped in a car that we actually own and didn’t just sit in for 5 minutes for Photoshop purposes… and drove to a remote seaside cliff to do profound contemplation beside a DOPE ancient temple …
Before long, the din of the waves arranged itself into 3 whispered questions: “What do you do?” the ocean asked us, “and who do you do it for? Also, a quick follow-up: How do you come up with this s**t up in the studio??”
Damn, this was too easy: “We put our HEARTS & SOULS into creating the No. 1 source across all media for ‘unbeatable recon,’” we told the ocean, “and we do it for the greatest & most-beautiful newsletter readership in the game!!” (As for question 3, chill, that’s a trade secret.)
When we returned to BLACKBIRD SPYPLANE HQ we felt spiritually renewed: We whipped up today’s accessories-heavy installment of “Personal Spyplane” — the BBSP series where we answer custom-recon requests with rare top-shelf intel — AND we made a solemn vow to GO EXTRA HARD NOW AND 4EVER, with the damn ocean itself as our witness!!
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“Need the spiciest work glove intel ASAP” — @Day0lds
If u know anything about the SPYPLANE u know that — much like Antwerpian BBSP icon Dries Van Noten, not to mention BBSP homey Molly Young — we r proponents of GARDENING YOUR WAY 2 BEAUTY, HAPPINESS & JAWNS-RELATED GLORY. When we did our “Rare Botanicals” roundup of sick horticulturally themed joints, we shouted out Womanswork, a NY-based maker of $19 gardening gloves (above left) that come in colors so dope u r tempted to rock them in non-botanical contexts, such as checking the firmness of high-quality produce at the grocery and/or placing your thumb and forefinger on yr chin in a fit pic and ‘scheming on these millions.’
So we were stoked 2 see that Womanswork has put a “Manswork” “synthetic leather gardening / trail-hiking glove” (above right) in its webstore … AND THIS S**T GOES HARD on some unselfconscious Heron Preston s**t??
The glove is cruelty free, which we appreciate because animals are divine beings with many lessons to teach us AND it has an “Appalachian Trail Conservancy” tag, i.e. official GARDENING-GORP-CROSSOVER CERTIFICATION.
A platonic-ideal SPYPLANE accessory — only $25, here.
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“sport sunglasses not oakleys” — @petesmiley
Firstly, we want to let the record show that this thoughtful reader swiftly followed up these 4 words with a heartfelt apology for hurling a sentence fragment at us like we are a search engine AND NOT 2 HUMAN ANGELS BLESSED W/ EXTRAORDINARY RECONNAISSANCE-BASED GIFTS who deserve the courtesy of at least a question mark!! 😤 😉
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If yr on the lookout for sublimely weird non-Oakley sport shades, we have 2 magic words for u: “VINTAGE BRIKO.” The other day we threw a tight pair of Brikos into the Blackbird SpyMall — which will go behind the CLA$$IFIED-TIER paywall as of September 8 — and an eagle-eyed BBSP reader snapped them up instantaneously …
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Briko is an Italian brand that makes sunglasses ostensibly for cycling, among other sports — and their ‘90s and early-‘00s joints have aged extraordinarily well / are entrancingly bizarre / feel extremely on-point right now … some models are further out-there than others, but there’s a fairly wide range to pick from…
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We’ve added a few more Briko shades to the Blackbird SpyMall — which, again, goes behind the CLA$$IFIED-TIER paywall as of September 8 — so u can channel the ghost of Italian legend Marco Pantani, aka “Il Pirata,” a tortured grand-tour champ with MAJOR short-man swag & a MAJOR Briko sponsorship … his demons chased him up European mountains before chasing him into an early grave, RIP.
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“best everyday sock?” — @conrad.grimmer
“any hot sock recon?” — @mralexreece
Conrad & Alex were 2 of approx ~300 ppl who asked sock-intel questions in our last open call — maybe before long we will do a MAJOR STOCKINGFOOT DEEP DIVE …?? Till then, we can tell u that personally we rock four socks and four socks only — LL Bean raggs, graphic Henrik Vibskov joints, Anonymous Ism tie-dyes, and our No. 1 daily favorite: RoToTo Waffle Socks.
These r made in Japan, durable, comfortable and a little slouchy without being “sloshy” … They have put in work for us both on neighborhood strolls pounding the frog-carved concrete (below left) and GORPING OUT in the rocky, rattlesnake-heavy hills outside Ojai (below right)…
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We shouted out these socks when we went on the only podcast that matters, Throwing Fits, and at that point most stockists were sold out — BUT RoToTo just dropped a restock on a few stores in the US, Canada and UK, with some new colors… Find different ones at Old North here; Reliquary here; Trading Post LA here; Sunnysiders here; Foxhole here; and probably some other places in the next coming weeks if u keep yr eye open.
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The bar and deluxe-Garrarded-out turntable setup at In Sheep’s Clothing, currently reborn as a streaming platform. Photo by Nathaniel Wood
“how do i listen to music the right way?” — @bigfoot1459
The greatest way to listen to music is obviously in Tokyo, at hi-fi bars like Bar Martha, Grandfather’s or, if it’s not too crowded, JBS… i.e., drinking a nice drink in a vibey room with a beautiful sound system while rare-vinyl frequencies wash over u. The second-greatest way is in Los Angeles at In Sheep’s Clothing. ISC’s a downtown hi-fi bar that opened a couple years back, heavily inspired by the Japanese originators, where yr expected to keep yr talking low-volume, aka “say less,” and where we’ve discovered tons of super-dope under-the-radar ambient, electronic, new wave & jazz chunes… sadly ISC is currently closed because of Covid…
BUT just last week they launched a new music discovery / streaming platform called “ISCHiFi” — including room-recordings of the actual bar — and it is a truly beautiful thing. (They also published an “entry level” guide for building yr own hifi vinyl setup at the cribbo…)
We’ve been streaming ISCHiFi at Blackbird Spyplane HQ for a few days now and we r extremely grateful for it.
U will f**k with it, too, unless yr taste levels are sub-Mach 3, in which case u aren’t reading this sentence, because the taste levels of the BBSP readership are by definition Mach 3+, so what we have here is a logically airtight “You’re Gonna Love It” BBSP guarantee.
Before we go — wildfire season has hit California hard and early this year, with ash falling from smoke-filled skies throughout the state for days now. BBSP just gave a donation to a great queer + trans-led group based near us called Mask Oakland that supplies masks to the unhoused and other vulnerable populations across Northern California & which does other community work related to the wildfires and COVID. If yr looking for a way to help, please consider them.
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