Watches, Stories, and Gear: Some Big Podcast News, David Bowie’s Favorite Sandwich, and an Insane Skateboarding Trick

“Watches, Stories, and Gear” is a roundup of some of our favorite watch content on Worn & Wound, great stories from around the web, and cool gear that we’ve got our eye on.

This installment of “Watches, Stories, and Gear” is brought to you by the Windup Watch Shop.

Worn & Wound
The Whimsical Watches of Itay Noy

This week, our trip to the Worn & Wound archives brings us back to Baselworld 2017, and Ilya’s look at the watches of Itay Noy. Based in Israel, Itay Noy is an independent watchmaker with a focus on creating a bespoke and unique experience for his customer at a cost far less than an artisanal Swiss watch will set you back. He specializes in poetic and whimsical complications that often use heavily modified versions of off the shelf movements, with dial layouts that are unlike anything else on the market. If you’re convinced that originality is lacking in today’s watchmaking climate, be sure to check out Itay Noy to have your faith in original design restored. 

Read it here

The Verge
Joe Rogan’s Podcast is Becoming a Spotify Exclusive

In news that is sure to shake up the world of podcasts and digital media more broadly, it was announced this week that Joe Rogan’s popular podcast is set to become a Spotify exclusive later this year. While listeners won’t have to subscribe to Spotify’s premium service to listen to the show, they’ll have to download the app and enter the Spotify ecosystem, and with a podcast that has over 190 million downloads per month, that’s a big win for Spotify. As this article in The Verge notes, snapping up Rogan’s podcast seems to be part of a larger strategy on the part of Spotify, which snapped up podcast producers Gimlet Media, Anchor, and Parcast last year.

Read it here

Art Institute of Chicago
Virtual Backgrounds

Stuck on Zoom calls all day? Is your home maybe a little past needing to be tidied up? Art fan? If you answered in the affirmative to those questions, the Art Institute of Chicago would like you to use images from one of many masterworks as your next Zoom background. Why expose your co-workers to a sink full of dirty dishes or a messy makeshift office that used to be a living room when you can take your meeting in Monet’s poppy field, or outside a Mondrian farmhouse?

Read it here

Bamford x Badgerworks 
TAG Heuer Carrera Tropical Coffee Dial

Perhaps the biggest watch news this week was the announcement of the latest Bamford project. Bamford, of course, is the official watch modification partner of TAG Heuer and other LVMH brands, and their latest project is a collaboration with Badgerworks that puts a new spin on the tropical dial. At first glance, this Carrera looks deeply sunbaked, either artificially or through years of UV exposure. But that tropical browning effect that’s so sought after by vintage collectors is actually a product of the dial material itself: ground coffee. The coffee used has been roasted and ground specifically for use in this limited series of watches, and then formed into dial blanks, cast to a resin, and hand finished for just the right visual effect. Not exactly old fashioned watchmaking, but an extremely interesting way to make a dial with a striking aesthetic impact.

Shop Bamford here

Eater
David Bowie’s Favorite Sandwiches 

From Eater this week, we have this recollection of the late David Bowie’s favorite NYC sandwiches. Like Bowie himself, his taste in sandwiches evolved over the decades from the rich and decadent Croque Monsieur at the now defunct French Roast, to a much lighter grilled chicken sandwich he enjoyed in his later years. There’s something uniquely satisfying and elemental about a great sandwich, and it’s a fun bonus when you discover that your rock music heroes have the same simple taste in sandwiches as you.

Read it here

The New York Times
Tony Hawk’s 900 Spin Was Amazing. An 11-Year-Old Skateboarder Stuck a 1080.

Last week in this column we told you about remastered versions of the classic Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games, and it seems that the veteran skateboarder can’t stay out of WSG, because he’s back again, but this time in a different context. Here, the New York Times has a story (and an absolutely amazing video to accompany it) about an 11 year old who was able to stick a remarkable 1080. It speaks to how this sport has advanced over the years – when Tony Hawk landed his 900 at the X-Games in 1999 (after dramatically attempting it and failing several times) it was a remarkable event, something forever burned into the brains of X-Games viewers. But he was already a veteran pro skateboarder at that point, universally considered the best ever. And now, an 11 year old has gone a half turn further.

Read it here