50 Graus — the heads we told you about last year who put ice penguins under the hot sun in a Sao Paulo park to make a point about global warming — is on our radar again (thanks to the same Marco Monteiro who tipped us on the original post) with another intelligently conceived campaign. This time they’re targeting, cough, smokers. In “Smoking Kills More,” they juxtapose the death rates of well-known historical happenings with the fatalities caused by smoking-related diseases, using cancer sticks as their medium to create both non-moving and moving images. Watch their incredibly well-done stop-motion animation vid spot of a war scene created from cigs here. The controversial art piece you see pictured was made with 13,000 cigarettes and was built and displayed in front of curious passersby in the city’s center for full effect. Imagine trying to wash the smell of all of those out from your clothes. Nasty.

I was browsing around the site reflecting on how far we’ve come and couldn’t help but notice the wealth of inspiration and content we’ve got in the SpearTalks archives. So, I figured I’d round them all up for easy consumption. Whether you like fashion, technology, art, or just about anything else– with nearly 40 incredible interviews, there’s something for everyone thanks to our very own Carmel Hagen. Go, dive in, it’s just a click away.

Once upon a time, Barry and Levon had $240, and that bought…a lot of puddin’. But, what if they had $600? That would just be too ridiculous to comprehend. How I Spent My Stimulus takes a look at what Americans are blowing Bush’s $152 billion economic stimulus package on (note to our international readers: click here to learn more). From carabiners to train tickets, an extra few hundred dollars in the average taxpayer’s pocket opens up a whole new world of conspicuous consumption. So send in your pic or video of 600 lbs of dog food, three nights at a Westin Hotel, or, gasp, 150 gallons of gasoline. When the money is free, there’s no wrong answer.

Psychologist Carl Jung once talked about the “collective unconscious”, what he described as “a reservoir of the experiences of our species.” It’s kind of like how all children of the ’80s intuitively know an Autobot from a Decepticon. What Amy Hoy and Thomas Fuchs are trying to do with Twistori — their online social experiment — is find a sort of collective unconscious on Twitter. Inspired by our friend Jonathan Harris and his We Feel Fine project, Twistori uses Summize to tag conversations with key words like love, hate, think, believe, feel and wish. These convos are then grouped together on a scrolling Web page of innermost feelings. Now you can never say, “I never knew you felt that way.”

Very few people across the globe would confuse George W. Bush and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair with saints. Most can’t wait to see George W’s reign expire come January and are glad that Tony has been out of office for quite some time now. Filmmaker Mato Atom happens to be one of those folks who won’t fondly remember the Bush-Blair era as “the good ol’ days.” His online animated film Champions (Remembering the New World Order) is a look back at the dark climate these two world leaders created, using soccer as a metaphor to exhibit lack of respect for international convention and their propensity for not playing fair. While the film may be a little heavy handed in its political message, there’s disturbing beauty (and more than a little irony) in the instrumental version of “We Are The Champions” by Henning Lohner. No matter your politics, this film is definitely worth a look.

When I started this blog, I never imagined in only a few short years I would be able to surround myself with an incredible, talented, and diverse team. Today, I’m extremely proud to introduce a new Editor to the site, Jonathan Stern.

So, who is he? Jonathan is a native Bostonian, but around the age of five his parents thought it would be funny to transplant him to Florida, where he’d spend his formative years rooting for the Red Sox, drinking Miller High Life, and dreaming of that day he’d get back to the Northeast and write for Rolling Stone. Only one of those things happened, and for the past six years he’s written for no less than a dozen high-profile publications including: the Phoenix, Stuff, Penthouse, People.com, House and Garden, Golf for Women, Lucky, and ACCESS (DirecTV’s subscriber magazine). As the new Editorial Director of JoshSpear.com, he thinks that he can settle down and become a one blog kinda guy. We’re pumped to have him on board. Welcome Jonathan!

I've had the pleasure of editing this site for the past year. In that time I've seen our team expand, watched others leave (while wishing they weren't) and, most importantly, tried to bring fresh, exciting and high quality content here to the best of my ability. I've enjoyed it all thoroughly but as of Monday, I'll no longer be editing this site, and will hand the reins over to the very capable Jonathan Stern (more on him soon), who I've had the privilege of working with the past few months. I'm sure he'll continue in the same vein as I have, as well as adding his own flavor along the way.

This change in roles will hopefully afford me the time to contribute here more frequently. For the next few months, I'll be traveling — first to California for the majority of May, then back to Australia to spend some much overdue quality time with my family and friends. I couldn't be more excited about this and I hope to share some of my finds and experiences with you. (If the more mundane details of such interest you, you can find me at Tumblr or on Twitter.) I've loved hearing from everyone– what you think of the site, always appreciated your tips, submissions and feedback when you thought something was off. I hope you'll continue this dialogue with the new guard here. In my opinion, you couldn't be in safer hands than Josh, Jonathan and the rest of the editorial team.

Thanks for reading. You guys have been great.

–Heather

Our DJ skills are far from scratchtastic, but that doesn’t really matter to UNIQLO. In an inspired marketing move, they’ve created the UT Loop, a site where you can create your own dub loop by manipulating some models / actors / concert promoters wearing UNIQLO gear and making random noises. After you lay down your perfect, Timbaland-approved track, you can get other site visitors to judge your sample. Don’t be surprised if this ends up on a Jamster commercial.

None of us around here really need an excuse for happy hour, but it’s always a good thing when there’s a cause involved. All Day Buffet’s third Cause For Drinks happens tonight in six cities nationwide — NYC, New Orleans, Minneapolis, Austin, Seattle and Annapolis — each raising funds for select charities. Your city not on the bill for the night? Drop the kids at ADB a note and they’ll get you in the next lineup. More info here or on their Facebook page. Bottoms up.

Despite the seriously crappy weather we’ve been experiencing here in Sao Paulo that’s wetting down all moods, the buildup is nevertheless mounting as the best athletes in skate, BMX and motocross are landing in Brazil’s concrete jungle this week for the world staging of the X Games at Anhembi to compete in various heats: street, vertical and best trick. It’s actually the very same spot where the city’s Carnaval is held and because of this very fact, I like to think (unscientifically, of course) that the dried-up sweat molecules from February will be reabsorbed into the air and carry the event to the same wicked adrenaline heights. Expectations are on for Brazilians Sandro Dias and Bob Burnquist, who will be adding notches to their legendary status on the skate ramps. To close out the games on Saturday and Sunday, Brazilian pop-punk band CPM 22 and rock group Charlie Brown Jr will entertain. If you don’t have cable, tune into the website to watch more than 40 hours of the Games as they’re going down in real-time.

Many horror movies are extremely laughable due to the fact that the situations presented within them are completely unbelievable, allowing audiences to suspend their disbelief for the entire course of the film. However, Errol Morris’s latest film, Standard Operating Procedure is no laughing matter. The events it covers actually did happen. Opening April 25th, this feature length documentary from the director of The Fog of War and The Thin Blue Line, which is being billed as a non-fiction horror movie, takes an unflinching, in-depth look at the atrocities carried out at Abu Ghraib and the people behind them. With exclusive interviews with almost all of the principles in the now infamous photographs including Lynndie England, Morris probes for the context surrounding the photographs and explores the surrounding influences in terms of Post 9/11 Culture and the U.S. military and intelligence chains of command. In other words, it’s a must see.

As technology continues to advance at a feverish rate, we as humans seem to be doing all we can to make those advances more compatible with the natural environment around us. Unfortunately, this is often more easily talked about than practiced. Reboot Now is a gathering that seeks to explore the marriage between the ways in which we continue to grow as a society and the ways we are effecting the earth around us. The gathering, set for breathtaking shores of Idanha-a-Nova, Portugal from August 2nd to August 9th is a gathering to “celebrate the emergence of new paradigms.” The event featuring a multitude of speakers, workshops, and a flea market, aims to promote ecologically-sustainable and socially just ways of organizing both people and nature and will serve to connect the world’s experts on a number of topics such as permaculture, earth architecture, biomimicry, and metaphysics…so that people around the world might have a better understanding of the way other communities around the globe work in order to affect a change for the better and create a more truly global community. To find out more info on attending or just helping out the cause…check out their website.

When it comes to having a career art, I guess you could say James White always had stars in his eyes. The Halifax, Nova Scotia based mixed media artist and graphic designer has been playing around with pencils since the age of four. Since then he's forged his own path, studying graphic design at the community college level and Interactive technology afterwards. Despite taking jobs in the website/ graphic design field, White has never stopped working on his unique brand of ‘retro-cosmic’ art. His stunning otherworldly creations, inspired by everything from Atari to Daft Punk certainly display a unique knack for expanding the viewer visual universe. If you'd like to set your sights further into White's outer space, we recommend heading over to his website, Signalnoise and checking out some of his creations for yourself.

Are you constantly afraid that a tree is going to come crashing through your bedroom window on a windy night and ruin everything you own and possibly crush sweet sleeping you. No? Well I am. However, since I visited Let Your Worries Go, I’ve learned to let my anxieties dissolve into the ether. The site, run by the charitable folks at Northwestern Mutual asks users to cast their individual concerns into the sea, sky, or space via a pretty sweet animation. Each click on certain icons denoting specific societal worries allows the financial network to donate to charitable organizations dealing with the specific social woes, such as Habitat for Humanity, America’s Second Harvest, and The YMCA. While my specific tree trials aren’t exactly covered such pressing issues as health & fitness, natural disaster, illness, hunger, and education are covered, amongst others. So go ahead, tell Northwestern Mutual your worries and they’ll and they’ll do their part to make them a thing of the past.

It's no secret that the stars at night are big and bright deep in the heart of Texas. Heck, everything's bigger in Texas, and better for that matter according to most Texans. Since most inhabitants of the Lone Star State enjoy bragging about as much, if not more than they enjoy high school football, it makes sense that the boastful nature of residents of the second largest state would shine through in their artwork. When Austin-based graphic designer DJ Stout was asked to create a map of the Southwest as part of a promotion for Sappi Fine paper that asked six designers from six different regions of the U.S to create maps of their respective regions, you can bet Stout let everyone know where he was coming from. Utilizing the familiar concept of the Texas Brag Map, Stout created a Texas Designer’s Map Of The World. His creation visually trumpets the importance of all things Texas, while jokingly denigrating all other regional also-rans and showcasing that brand of humor unique to Texas inhabitants.