The Brilliance!

HTTP://WWW.THEBRILLIANCE.COM

We’re really internet and we’re really back. A website about things Benjamin , Chuck , Virgil , and various friends & guests think are interesting. Little-to-no specific focus, a bit odd, speling errors, and incredibly culturally relevant.

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The Reefs…Bermuda!

This place is so incredible looking. I have been doing some planning to find my next big vacation destination…and I’m thinking it’s going to land me in Southampton, Bermuda at The Reefs. Whoa… I never read too deep into what travel magazines say about a given place…kind of one of those things I judge by myself. But with The Reefs, its hard to ignore the fact that they are constantly on the top something of something list…constantly voted as the best in something. But yo, check the attached picture! They have their own little hidden-cove type beach thing in an out-cropping of rocks! Plus check the pink sand and perfect water. So fresh. So yeah…I haven’t been here yet, but check for me…flip-flops and all that. Their website is kind of sub par, so check the TabletHotels.com write-up.

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The Brazilian Bank Heist!

These guys didn’t rob a bank… They ‘pulled off a heist’… Now, THE BRILLIANCE doesn’t really condone or support crime, but this one is definitely note-worthy. These guys tunneled 2 blocks under a central bank, perforated the thick protective vault walls without setting off any sensors or having any of the internal cameras catch them (!!), and made off with roughly $65 million in cash. You know when the police say something like ‘It looked like something out of a movie’ that you did something wild. All I can do I wonder where they are right now. They say about 6-10 people were involved in the heist so you know they had everything planned out…very Ocean’s Eleven. I believe this is the biggest bank heist in Brazil’s history. But without a doubt, the craziest thing about all this… They broke into the vault at around 6 pm on a Friday and no one discovered it until the following Monday! Somebody is sipping champagne somewhere! THE BRILLIANCE doesn’t suggest you rob banks or perform any heists…unless they make a fresh movie about it after the fact.

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Y-3 Fall/Winter Line!

Yessir. Sometimes I forget how incredible Y-3 can be both with their actual pieces as well as their delivery and execution. This season’s actual pieces and website display this well, for real. I’ll be honest, I miss the ‘walking in-place’ thing they have had one their site for a while…but this new concrete cube based setup is real fresh. So clean. And that wild combination of what sounds like a racket-ball game and muted conversations is nice and eerie. I like it quite a bit. I also like the line…I would call it a little bit more grown up this time around. Wool sweaters, more subdued and classic colors, great simple sneakers, some real fresh military-style inspired stuff for the ladies, and as always, some great classics like hoodies and warm-up pants. Y-3 stays doing their thing with little to no over-saturation in the market and just enough haters to keep it popular. I need to re-up my Y-3 stash.

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Skype…$$$$kype!

Man, man, man! So it didn’t actually happen, but the talks did…Rupert Murdoch was in talks last month to buy the famed free internet phone service provider ‘Skype’ for, check this…Three Billion Dollars… Not one billion, not two billion, Three Billion. I almost feel like saying, ‘I told you so’ to people who don’t pay enough attention to all this stuff. These guys are doing it so big. I mean, its got to be bad enough for all the big land-line companies that everyone in my generation just gets a cell phone or Vonage, but now this?! A simple yet frighteningly powerful company like Skype has now stepped across the line of ‘indie brand’ to…well, whatever you call companies valued at $3 billion. So crazy. It’s all about the wifi Skype phones. That’s my Skype phone number, hit me on the low…gea!

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Deep thoughts, round 3!

I haven’t even done one of these yet, so here we go. And real quick, its my birthday tomorrow so I’ll be throwing it down tonight and tomorrow…most likely won’t be making any posts. I’d like to dedicate this post to myself.

  • Day trading is cool to read about, but the paperwork involved with it sucks.
  • The new remix of ‘Go Crazy’ by Young Jeezy featuring Jay-Z is so fresh. Fat Joe’s was just terrible on it.
  • I found Stan Smith’s for $29.99 at my local spot. They have the burgundy back, who cares?
  • It’s in the low 70’s right now…yesterday was 90+. So refreshing.
  • It takes forever for me to get an SMS from a T-Mobile phone.
  • M is one of the nicest people I have ever met.
  • We get free gear occasionally; some of it is incredible while other stuff is sub par at best.
  • I will be on a beach this weekend and wearing a suit tonight.
  • I JUST got my first iPod…and it’s a shuffle…and I love it.

That’s all for right now. Shout out to everyone, including myself.

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Nati Streets…Super Good!

This is hip-hop music right here… Makes that last post I did with Ghostface and all them look really thin. This track is bananas, really, it is. Hi-Tek (and he did that beat!), Talib, Slim Thug, and Snoop all on the same track, and it’s not just them each doing a one-off thing. They are all on this track specifically. Ridiculous. I love it when hip-hop artist do this, you know? Slim and Talib on the same track, so nice. The beat is incredible, Hi-Tek knows whats good of course, and the verses from each are perfect, especially Hi-Tek… Didn’t he say something on Reflection Eternal like, ‘I bet you didn’t know I had flow though!’… Something like this. Slim Thug shines of course, ‘…where you ain’t gotta sign a major deal to be a super star…’ Yessir. Huge shout to allhiphop.com as always. Sorry for all the ‘rap posts.’ We’ll get some art student stuff in a minute.

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Christopher Glancy Exhibit in NYC!

Christopher is a talented-ass fashion photographer out of NYC who is doing good things. Please get familiar. Check his latest exhibit that jumps off on the 12th of August @ 10pm at Crobar (who commissioned the whole thing)… With a super thick client list with some of our favorite including Neverstop, Levis, Alife, Cone Denim, some fresh stuff for Adidas, Stussy, Nylon Japan, and Chuck’s favorite: Teen People…and a grip of other companies as well. Good stuff. Check the link below for the flyer and RSVP now. I wish I could make this one… Shout to Christopher and the whole its1977 thing he does. Check it!

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Ghostface, Raekwon, AZ – New York!

Something new… From Kay Slay’s NYC Drama Part 4 and it’s pretty fresh. I’d have to say I’m not really feeling AZ’s lines, they are just good, not great. Ghost and Rae do their thing of course. I’m loving Raekwon’s verse actually… And Ghost’s flow is so fresh as always, I love the dudes voice. Good story-telling type vibe on this track, it’s definitely worth checking out. Check the link below for a free download, legal!! Bank holders stay in the lab, you could get murked up in the cab. This is aNYthing, shout out to the downtown don.

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Adidas buys Reebok!

Wow, this one came out of left-field… Maybe not though. The deal went down yesterday I believe with Adidas making a stock purchase of Reebok for roughly $3.1 billion… The deal will effectively double Adidas’ sales here in the US by having Reebok’s revenue. Now what I’m interested to see is if they can turn around Reebok’s string of ‘almost hot’ products. It seems like they get so close some time with creating a well branded, desirable lifestyle product. This could be a very good look. I’m still waiting for the NoPattern x Reebok stuff to drop! Reedidas… Adidaboks…

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Needled!!

Needled is a new online news site with a focus on tattoos, their history, the culture, specific artists, and more. This is not for those of you with barbed wire around your arms, or some blotchy thorns swirling around your lower back…This is for people interested in real tattoos, the politics and laws surrounding them, and more. Brought to you by Josh Rubin from the always-intriguing Coolhunting and Melissa DiMattia, this site is definitely one for you to check out on a daily basis. So, Needled, The Superficial, and The Brilliance. And maybe Drudge Report. The only sites you need to check every day. Ok, that’s it for me for about 10 days. I leave in half an hour for vacation to upstate New York. While you’re busy organizing those TPS reports, I’ll be floating on a raft in a very quiet area of Lake Ontario. Awesome.