Graf artist ESPO (Steve Powers) has been throwing heart and soul into a large-scale mural project for his hometown of Philly. Dubbed “Love Letter,” ESPO is curating this project which will include 50 murals by its completion around Labor Day.

Check out a long interview with ESPO over at Art Observed wherein the artist explains why this project both does and doesn’t have anything to do with graffiti and offers a little insight into how and why this sort of project can exist in Philly, a city as notorious for its Anti-Graffiti Program as it is for its Mural Arts Program.

I was cruising a new favorite mp3 blog (NEVVER.com – a perfect one-track-for-one-image concept) when this one caught me by total surprise.

It’s a little LCD Soundsystem, a little garage-rock, catchy in an off-kilter way, danceable, paranoid and weird. This track, “My Car Is Haunted,” sounds like they’re barreling down the road with Hunter S. Thompson, completely loaded, riding the track till the wheels come off.

If you’re into it, check their Myspace for more. Out of the tracks you can stream there, my personal pick goes to ‘Waking Up Weird.’ But best description of a track? That’s ‘War Bells’, hands down:

I wrote this song after I had a badass dream about winning a war against androids. I think it will really pull people together when it happens, although the years of crushing servitude preceding it will be really shitty for our grandchildren. Anyhow, this song is about the weird, optimistic morning after, smelling like burning plastic, drinking in the street, etc. I imagined it would be a nice time to be alive.

Born in New York and raised in Florence. Could you end up anything less than an artist? If you’re not familiar with the name (I wasn’t, really), Girard is a designer. Not just any designer, clearly — not if you’re working with the-font-house-that’s-not-just-any-font-house to produce a range of whimsical puzzles, blocks, memory games and dolls. This is Alexander Girard, by way of House Industries.

Browse the full collection here (and marvel at the great-looking pieces that neither you nor I can afford). I think the idea of getting some custom 3-dimensional lettering for my apartment is at the top of my want-but-can’t-have list.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b-Nh7AYjtE&fmt=18 540]

I can’t believe this slipped past me. A new, longer and even that much more super-F’ing-exciting trailer for the upcoming Spike Jonze masterwork uber-stroke of genius (ok, ok, I’ll calm down) was released a couple weeks ago. Thanks to All Plaid Out for spreading the good word. October 16th can’t come soon enough.

To commemorate the end of a very cool project dubbed Record Club (details below), Beck and Co. are offering these limited-edition tank tops and tees featuring a Beck sketch of the classic Velvet Underground & Nico cover art by Andy Warhol. Get ‘em while they last!

The project in question is a collaborative effort to cover the classic VU record, start to finish. Presented in installments, you can follow Beck and Co.’s artistic experiment here. Notable participants in this first round include actor Giovanni Ribisi, famed producer Nigel Godrich (probably best known for his sixth-member status with Radiohead) and, of course, Beck. In a word: awesome.

Here’s an easy way to lose half an hour: the meticulously-organized collection of movie title screens at the website of designer Christian Annyas.

I’ve seen a lot of movies over the years, and to prove I’ve sat through at least the first ten minutes of them I started making screenshots of the titles. Then my computer crashed and I almost lost them all. To save them for future generations I created this little website.

The screens are grouped by era, which is great as you get to see at a glance how title screen design has undergone large-scale cultural shifts over time. My favorites come from the 1960s, particularly the early half of the decade. How about yours?

I couldn’t be happier about living in the age of the food truck. It’s a simple truth of the universe that you can’t get a better taco than the one you purchase street-side, preferably from something on wheels, but it doesn’t stop there. From burgers to dumplings, it seems the food truck is here to stay (with one recent notable exception – R.I.P. Dessert Truck!).

In line with the times, Kitsune Noir just announced a contest for the aesthetically-endowed among us: download a template and let your imagination run wild with these papercraft taco trucks.  The only prize currently on-offer is a little shine on the much-trafficked blog (Bobby will post the 10 best submissions) but I wouldn’t be surprised if a few sponsors roll in last-minute with some extra-special swag. Click through to Kitsune Noir for instructions on how to download the template and submit completed entries.